Long Week...Miraculous Events

This week has been quite the week. It has been an incredibly long week of seeking to find people to teach. Meanwhile both Elder Esplin and I, have been battling various physical infirmities. But the Lord has blessed us, and we have a new investigator, as well as a number of potentials with whom we will meet over the next few weeks. I will share with you a few miraculous events throughout this past week. Monday "Eismann contacting". In short, there is an icecream parlour in Dornbirn that the missionaries like to go to, and we have been talking with the owner about the church ( he asked who we were and what we are doing in Austria). He is Italian, so we promised to bring him a Book of Mormon in Italian. Well we did, but Lucky for us, Trevor ( The american who I translated for last week) served his mission in Italy, and despite it being over 10 years ago, still speaks fluent Italian. So he came with us and spoke to this man. He ended up talking with him for 2 hours ( we ran out of time, and had to leave). Trevor called us later and told us that he as well as his whole family sat around and listed to him, and they are fairly interested! They said that they would read a portion of the book ( they said they couldn't promise to read the whole book, but would begin reading it). Trevor told them that we will come by during the week to ask them how the reading has gone ( Trevor is in Salzburg with Christian Vuissa for the next month :-( ) but they can speak German, so we will see how things went. It was awesome of Trevor to spend 2 hours with them. Addressing their concerns, answering questions etc. We owe him a lot for that. 

Tuesday was really neat for me. We were completely booked, with District meeting ( a 80 minute train ride away). Traveling there, having the meeting, and traveling back took about 4 hours of our day. We got back to Dornbirn, where we were supposed to have an appointment with a former investigator, Jörg. But he didn't show up, and we weren't able to get a hold of him for a few days. We stayed at the church, making some other phone calls and things that needed to get done, until Peter Netzer arrived. He gave us a ride home to install a whiteboard in our apartment, then drove us to Feldkirch, where we were to catch a bus to a dinner appointment. After that we caught a train back to Dornbirn, and arrived back at 8:15. But here's the thing, Elder Esplin and I, have made a goal to give out at least one Book of Mormon per day. We needed to be in at 9, and we still hadn't given one out. So we said a prayer asking for help in finding somebody, and started to walk around an talk to people. We talked to quite a few people and they all said no, it was now 8:50, we needed to start heading back. I started to pray, asking Heavenly Father to help us, we were trying to do our best to find people, to please allow us to find someone before we got back to the apartment. Time was running out, but I knew that anything was possible with God. At which point in time I felt a reassurance that we were going to find somebody. We came across two more people, who both said no. With every step toward home the reassurance got stronger and stronger, at 8:57 only a block away from our apartment, I saw somebody down the street in a green jacket walking toward us. And I could feel that he was the one who would accept a Book of Mormon. So we approached him, and talked to him for a minute or two, bore testimony about the Book of Mormon, after which he not only accepted the book, but gave us his number and address, as well as made an appointment to meet with us! Wow! Right before we reached the apartment, when it looked like all hope was lost, was when my prayer was answered. That has been a huge testimony builder to me. God does answer our prayers, he will help us, but sometimes not until it looks like all hope is lost. That is how this entire week has been, working incredibly hard, being told no, hundreds of times, and right before we need to return home, something happens. It has been marvelous. Another day this week, was incredibly incredibly long. We had done service for a sister in the ward, in which I had, completely alone, cleared out about 40 square feet of weeds and grass from a garden platz ( Elder Esplin mowed the lawn and did "Mädchen Arbeit" (girls work) as Sister Vuissa ( different Vuissa, not Christian Vuissa's wife) called it. That night it was late I was absolutely exhausted, but yet again we found ourselves at 8:45 still needing to give a Book of Mormon out. That was hard, walking past the apartment, feeling like I wouldn't have the strength to make it back, to go find a child of God, who had been prepared to accept the Gospel. We were really short on time so we couldn't walk very far, but we didn't have to. Someone called out us, having seen us frequently, asking us who we were. We talked with him, and his mom, who he was visiting, and they accepted a Book of Mormon, and he was already reading in it before we left for home. the Lord has blessed us this passed week, but not until we had given all that we could. Amazing things have happened this week, and many more amazing things are to come. This is definitely going to be a hard transfer, but it will also probably be one of the most rewarding.  

Its been a fairly good week though, we had an appointment with Frau Feuerstein, who we met back when I first got here. She is a very lively 84 year-old lady. We taught her the first discussion, she understood it all and she said that she would pray about Joseph Smith being a prophet. She would read the Book of Mormon, but her eyes aren't the best. So we are going to try to find a Book of Mormon in Large Print. She is our new investigator :-) We will see how far we can go... 

Its been weird adjusting to here, everything is different, the culture, the food, the stores, everything. The things that were Cheap in Germany, are expensive here, which means I have to completely switch up my meal plan. The apartment is amazing though! It is larger than Esslingen's and we have a Dishwasher and a Dryer! ( Most apartments in don't have dryers, they have drying racks instead, so the fact that we have a dryer, automatically makes it one of the nicest apartments in the mission :-) ) Someone moved out of our building, and they gave us their ridiculously large sofa. It comes in pieces, but when but together in a line it's about 13 or 14 feet long! We were in need of a new couch, and were authorized to buy one, but we got the one for free instead. The desks we used to study at are horrible, and when our apartment was inspected by the Ehepaar (Couple Missionaries), they said that we needed to buy new desks. So the Sampsons ( the Ehepaar (the couple)) will come and pick up our two desks tomorrow and deliver them to our apartment. After we set them up I will send pictures. Austria is REALLY weird when it comes to doors. You need a key to get in and OUT of the apartment. So if you lose your keys... you are locked IN your apartment. That is something that really amazes me, is that every door has a lock, and both sides need a key... It makes no sense to me, and I think its actually a bit dangerous, it would be very easy to lock someone inside of a room and for them to be helplessly stuck there. But that's just Austria I guess. 

Speaking of Austria, President Miles has asked me to get an Austrian Drivers License!!!!! VERY few missionaries in this mission are asked to get drivers licenses, and he asked me to get one! I only barely been here for 3 months, and he has already asked for me to get one! That has been a bit of a confidence boost, The fact that he trusts me enough, that he wants me to have a license so that I can drive if I get to an area with a car ( which I think there are only 3 areas, as of now, that do.) He is trying to get a few more cars, but here in this mission it is very rough,there are only 120 cars made available between the 3 German missions.  And Cars are more expensive here, and gas prices are over twice as expensive as in america ( its1.50 per liter, meaning roughly 6 Euro per gallon, which is about probably around 8 or so dollars per gallon). But yeah, I am very excited to get a License!

As you can tell, things are going well here. Its rough, at times discouraging, but the Lord is helping us. I am excited to see what the future holds for Dornbirn. 

I hope all is well at home!

Good luck to all who are Taking AP tests!

Love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen

P.S. My Exchange in Switzerland has been moved to next Tuesday, and the district leader meeting, is going to be this Saturday, as opposed to last Saturday. So I haven't had the chance to get lost in Switzerland yet ;-)