.........Yeah, its the weekly e-mail yet again.........

This week was well, a bit of a trial. We had scheduled an appointment with Nick on Wednesday at 16.00, but when we went to his apartment, he wasn't there, the weather got really horrible, hail, and a lot of lightning. So we were stranded there for about an hour waiting for things to calm down so that we could leave. We checked back a couple times later that day, and have gone by 2 or 3 times per day this whole week trying to contact him, to no avail. We left a card in his mailbox, but as of yesterday it was still there. I have no doubt that what he told us was true, but I think that he is content to take his time. We will keep trying. All other people that we have been teaching,either dropped us, or said that they want to meet in about a month or so from now. Leaving Nick as essentially our only investigator, and we can't contact him ( go figure... ;-) ). So with that, we are essentially right back where we started... But that's just how it is. God created weeks for a reason, that way a fresh start is at most, 7 days away. We've picked ourselves up, brushed ourselves off, and are prepared to go and have a fresh new week!

The weather has been really interesting. The past two weeks straight it has been raining seemingly non stop. But Thursday, the sun came out, and it essentially turned the inhabitants of the city into steamed vegetables... ;-) Or so it seemed, and ever since then it has been incredibly hot and humid, however I am slowly adjusting to it. 

One lesson I anticipate learning this week is gratitude. Let me explain. The Ravensburg missionaries' water heater stopped working this week, their landlord is in Hungary for 2 weeks, which means no hot water for them. Which makes me feel bad for them, and I am truly grateful for the hot showers that I am able to take in the morning as is. But, we have an exchange with Ravensburg, in which case the district leader most graciously assigned me to go there. I guess a need a little empathy... either way I am not looking forward to showering on Wednesday morning. I guess I should be grateful, from my understanding, there are a lot of missionaries in a lot of other missions who don't quite have the luxury of hot water...

I am officially license-less. For 3 weeks. I finally finished all the paperwork and everything for getting my Austrian License, and took it in and got it ordered today. Well, I guess there is a law which states that one cannot have 2 drivers licenses from different countries at the same time. So they took my american one, and said that the Austrian will arrive in the mail in circa 3 weeks. But they didn't give me a temporary license, or anything of the sort. I asked about it, and the lady printed me off a piece of paper which states that I legitimately gave up my license. That's it. She signed it, handed it to me and told me that was all that she could do. Wonderful, I now am in possession of a piece of paper with a single sentence on it, proving that I legitimately gave up my American license. As if the lack of one wasn't enough ;-) Good thing that I won't be driving a car anytime soon... :-)

Even though we had a rough week, we still saw some tender mercies. Like on Thursday for instance. We were scheduled to have an appointment in Höchst at 18.00, which depending on the bus, could be either 25 minutes or an hour away. The only problem is, is that the bus which takes 20 minutes, is a small bus and the last one leaves at 18.01. But there was also a family we found while dooring ( one of the 3 back to back doors) who said that we could visit them at 19.00 if we were available. When planning for that day, the back up plan, was rather ingenious, we would catch Bus 50 ( the one that would normally take an hour) at 18:15. Take it to Lustenau, where we would catch an S-bahn to Riedenburg, then ride a REX (Regional Express) to Dornbirn, arriving at 18.49. Then sprint to catch the 18:50 Number 1 to Kehlerpark, which would leave us the perfect amount of time to make it to the family. I thought that was a gift from God in and of it self, and also an indication that we were probably going to end up with a dropped appointment and meet the family instead. Well getting to that point the next day we were dead tired. It was a long hot day. We had an appointment in Lustenau with Gunther, who gave us really weird directions to where he was ( after 20 minutes of trying to find it, we realized that we had gotten off at the wrong bus stop). Gunther had told us Schiebenkanal, but there was no Schiebenkanal. There was Schiebenstrasse (Schieben street), or Schiebenbrücke ( Schieben Bridge).We assumed that he meant Schiebenbrücke because, canal, bridge, we figured that there was a bridge... and yeah it was Schiebenstrasse. Anyway, we were beat, it was a long day, and ofcourse, our appointment fell out. So we walked to the bus stop at 18.07 or so and figured we would just go with the back up plan. Getting to the Bus stop and waiting for a few minutes, we were shocked when the 52a pulled up ( the bus that takes 25 minutes) it was 7 minutes late! We took the bus, and Got back to Dornbirn, in time to take the Number 1 up to them 15 minutes early. That allowed us to go to the church, fill up our water bottles, get a drink, and make it to the family with out running or rushing. It was a wonderful tender mercy :-) 

I am doing well. We have good days, and bad days, good weeks, bad weeks, but that is just how it is. I hope all is well for all of you at home! I appreciate all the support and the prayers. They mean a lot. Well, that is all for this week!

Love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen

P.S. I am sure Elder Esplin would appreciate it if you could keep him in your prayers, he has  depression, and is questioning his testimony and wondering if he will be able to endure to the end of his mission ( and this week didn't help at all). Thanks!