I can't believe that it is already Juli. To think in a couple of weeks I will have been gone for already six months blows me away. This week went better, it seemed to drag out a bit though.
On tuesday we went to Winterthur to have interviews with President Miles Which is always fun. President Miles is awesome. He is always incredibly happy and knows how to encourage all the missionaries so that it isn't possible for anyone to leave a meeting with him feeling overwhelmed, sad or anything but happy.
The only thing I really dislike about Switzerland is the different Currency. In order to pay for bus tickets you need Francs, so it makes going there a hassle, needing to switch currencies. But that is just how it is. Dealing with dialects, different currencies, and navigating by trains, just typical life here in the Alpinländische Mission. :-) I figured out that there is more than one dialect in our area. Vorarlbergerisch is the main one. But up in Bregenzer Wald, there is another, In Lustenau there is a COMPLETELY different Dialect, as well as having a bit of Bayerisch/Schwäbisch in Lindau, and Swiss in Sankt Margerreten/surrounding cities. Its always an adventure when you start talking to someone and they start going off in a some weird dialect that you aren't familiar with. Its getting easier to understand now, I have a pretty good hang on Vorarlbergerisch. Swiss however... I still need to work on it :-).
On Tuesday of this week we had our lesson with Ronald which went fairly well, he hasn't had a chance to read in the Book of Mormon yet, but hopefully by next week ( our next appointment is next Monday) we will have read a bit. We also went by on Frau Moohre. Funny story behind that, she is a friend of Sister Vuissa ( Christian's wife), we knocked on her door, and she originally told us that she had no interest. But feeling bad that we probably go door to door and get told no everytime, told us that we could come back and talk about America. (She told us later that she wanted to try and show that Austrians really are kind people ( not that we didn't already know that:-) ). Its true people are here are the nicest people in the world. They just have no interest in Religion.
Anyway, we ended up going back, hoping not to talk about america, but maybe to introduce ourselves and talk about what we do etc. She had made us cake and we sat in her garden and talked. She had another friend over ( also a friend of Sister Vuissa) and we were easily able to turn the conversation to a more spiritual note. We talked about why we were here, how long we come, etc. And by the time we left, she asked if she could have a Book of Mormon! That was cool. At the beginning she had really no interest in the Church, but after hearing that we come for 2 years, most of missionaries paying for themselves, to only talk to people about our Church, it essentially comes down to this: either we are insane, or there really is something to our message. And after talking with us, most people rule out the " we are insane" ( well at least rule it out enough to consider the possible truth of the gospel ;-) ).
We met with Brother Cukic twice this week and he came to Church!!!! ITS BEEN NEARLY 7 YEARS SINCE HE HAS COME TO CHURCH!!!! Missionaries have been trying to help him for that entire time, and he has made no progress, but suddenly... He has changed. I have only really met with him 4 times so far, and he has made a tremendous change. When we met with him on Thursday, he told us that he wants to quit smoking, start coming back to Church, and try make progress in the gospel again! He invited us over on Saturday, to have lunch than start a fast with him, that he will have the strength to quit smoking. He will be doing it Cold Turkey. This week. The church's stop smoking program is really amazing, and if he can stick to it, he will have no desire to smoke again after this Saturday.
I never really knew how the whole stop smoking thing works, I thought that it would be a temptation forever. But in truth, once you quit, its only by choice that you start again. It all comes from the Nicotine levels. When they are high, you feel fine, when they start to get low, is when you have the desire to smoke, the lower the level, the stronger the temptation. But once the Nicotine levels hit 0 you no longer have a desire to smoke. The hard part is enduring to that point. Which is why cold Turkey is the best, the faster the Nicotine leaves your body, the shorter the amount of time it will take to completely quit. Apparently grape fruit Juice helps get rid of the Nicotine, so part of the program is to drink a lot of it. Which from what I understand is terrible tasting stuff. But it works. Anyway, we will be calling him every night to check up on him, and we will go by on him this Thursday.
Meeting him on Saturday has a really cool background story to it. Normally the Bus that we would take is the 52a. It leaves Eisplatzgasse at every :33. And gets us there in the perfect amount of time. So we originally planned on taking the 12:33 to make it out to him in time. That morning during Companionship study, we decided to take the bus an hour earlier and go by on Herr Schneider, a refferal given to us from Bru. Cukic, before we went and had with Bru. Cukic at 1. So we get out to the bus stop at 11:24 or so. Then we realize that its Saturday, and that the 52a doesn't drive on Saturdays. That means that we need to take the number 50. Right then the Bus number 50 drove by (opposite side of the road). Drat! That was the only other option. But then I remembered that there was an IC (InterCity Express) that left Bahnhof at 11:30, which would take us to Bregenz, then we could switch trains and go to Lustenau, to catch that same Number 50 bus there. I explained this to Elder Esplin, and we started to walk quickly toward Bahnhof.
Only to see the S-bahn leave, which means that we had about 60 seconds to get to the IC before it left. At a full sprint it we could maybe get there in a minute and a half. It wasn't possible. So we stopped and discussed the other options (forgetting that once again that it was Saturday) I said that it wasn't a problem, we would take the next number 50 bus in a half an hour, and just not go to Herr Schneider. We then decided we would just street contact around for 25 or so minutes until we needed to catch our bus. So we walk toward bahnhof (train station) (to check the bus time and to street contact on the streets near Bahnhof). As we got closer and closer the IC was still there. And the conductor was still on the platform, meaning the train wasn't ready to leave yet. "Dang it, we could have easily have made it if we had ran" is what I said to Elder Esplin ( thinking the conductor was going to get back on the train any second and leave). But as we got closer, he was still waiting. So we decided to try and catch, and we start to run. Getting to the stairs leading to the platform, some man tells us that the train isn't waiting for us ( it was weird, but he was trying to tell us that there was no way we were going to get on it). We yell back as we run down the stairs "we know, but it's still here!" Get out on the platform and sprint for the train. The conductor sees us and motions inquisitively, if we wanted to catch this train (there was another train coming in on the track right next to it) we motion yes, as we were running down the platform, we run down there, we jump on, the conductor right behind us, and the train starts leaving almost instantly. The conductor told us after we got on "you guys are really lucky" I just nod and think to myself " there is no such thing as luck, especially when you are a missionary".
It worked out perfectly, we made the connection, caught our bus in Lustenau, were able to go by on Herr Schneider ( who we found out later was gone) as well as knock on some doors and find someone who may be interested. Later on I realized that, had we not caught that train, we would have 20 minutes late to Bru. Cukic. The next bus would have come an hour later. The train left 4 minutes later than scheduled. Being an IC, and leaving only a minute after the S-bahn traveling in the same direction, it has to travel on the other track, the one with trains heading the other way. So it had to wait for the S-bahn heading to Bludenz ( coming from Bregenz) to get into station before it could leave. The S-bahn delay was the perfect amount of time that we needed to figure out that we needed to catch that train, and to run out an jump on. S-bahns are HARDLY EVER late, and even if they are, not by 5 minutes. What a HUGE blessing. To say that was luck or chance, just doesn't cut it. Heavenly Father is all knowing, and he knew how long it would take us to finally realize that we needed to make the change of plans, and delayed the S-bahn just enough to get us on the train. Literally, we got on the train, and before I had take 4 steps the train was moving. Those kind of things just don't happen by chance.
I have heard that it has been really hot back in the states and that there are a lot of fires. Crazy. Any news on any of them being under Control. The one in Colorado made the news here in Austria, but I haven't heard much (We don't see the news, we just here it from people that know us). I hope everything is going well. It was incredibly hot on Saturday too. After a long day we got back to our apartment, which was 87 degrees Fahrenheit. Bleh! I don't know how hot it was out side, but the apartment felt cooler than outside, and we were still dying! No one in Europe has internally cooled apartments. It doesn't exist "Only the rich have them, but even they probably don't use them, because then they wouldn't be rich anymore". That was terrible. We called our landlord just to be certain. Yup. The way people cool their apartments here is, open the windows at night, and during the day shutting all windows, blinds etc. It works fairly well, as long as you don't have incredibly hot days ( our windows were open too, which probably didn't help).
Yesterday was probably the most interesting Fast and Testimony meeting I will ever have in my life. In the middle of the meeting a Bird flew into the chapel, and started flying around. It hit a the wall, and knocked itself unconscious for about 15 minutes up on the ledge. Then it started flying around again for a good 2 or 3 minutes before it finally found the window and flew out. At one point it landed right on the podium and was starring intently at the person bearing testimony. That was funny :-). What was interesting though, is that the meeting continued on like normal. Despite the bird, people still got up and bore testimony. Yeah, the congregation was a bit distracted, but the meeting didn't halt till the bird flew out, it just kept on going like normal.
Anyway, that will do for this week, I am out of time. :-) I hope that all is well at home, and that the no one is in any danger from the fires. Take Care!
Love,
Elder Ryan K. Christensen
1 comment:
I love how the travel always seems to work for them! Working big areas on trains, and buses would have to be so hard. It is nice to know that they are being looked over.
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