And one more week has now gone by. Crazy. Its so weird to think that Elder Robins had almost been here for a whole month. That doesn't seem right to me, it doesn't seem that it has been that long. But sure enough a week from Thursday, is TRANSFER CALLS. Again?! I swear we just those... but yeah. And I am scared. I DO NOT WANT TO GO. I know Vorarlberg like the back of my hand, and now it's my home.
Yeah, its hard to work here, there are days when nobody will even acknowledge our existence, we get yelled at, mocked, and occasionally threatened. And sometimes its really hard to keep going.But the blessings far outweigh the afflictions. We truly see miracles everyday. The Lord truly works in wonderful and mysterious ways, sometimes brutal, but none the less Wonderful.
Like on Saturday for instance. Well, back one more day, we received a referral from missionaries in Arizona who were teaching someone (his/her name is Yrie. I am kind of mad that they didn't specify at all if it is a he or she because the name sounds like it could be a girls name, but I don't want to guess...). Anyway they had taught him/her the first two lessons already and said "making good progress" (how hard would it be to add a she is or a he is... :-P) and that he/she was now living in Egg. I had to laugh, when I first saw the envelope, I joked with Elder Robins and said "watch this be somewhere clear in the heck out in the middle of Bregenzer Wald". We both laughed, and I opened it. Egg. Clear in the heck out in the middle of Bregenzer Wald. The Lord must surely have a sense of humor. It is a 30 or 40 minute Bus ride there, and the Buses only come once per hour, and only go till about 7:57 PM or so. So if you don't plan carefully, you could find your self sleeping under the stars for a night, because you missed the last bus home and there aren't any members to come pick you up...
Anyway, we had time on Saturday, and figured that if we had to pick a day and a time to contact this referral, that today would be the day. (A little more background to the story) A sister in our ward had Renal Failure, and was in the hospital for awhile, Elder Esplin and I visited her there and gave her a blessing. On Thursday she called us and asked to come to her house at 2 PM, and that her son in law would still be there. I assumed that she was inviting us to lunch, possibly as a thank you for visiting her in the hospital. So we show up at 2 and her (Schwester Wechsler) daughter was there and said "I have some good but bad news, we already finished". I was confused. It was then that I found out that she was moving down the street and that they wanted our help. They thought they wouldn't be able to start until 2, but actually started at 11 and didn't tell us.
Ok, well with that falling through we had an unexpected hour and a half. Brilliant. So we went door to door in the area, and found a Turkisch girl and her sister who could speak fluent German, and had interest in getting a book of Mormon ( in Turkisch). So we said that we would bring one by the next day. Awesome.
Then we caught a Bus to Bahnhof, and decided to go to Bregenzer Wald an hour earlier than we had planned. All went well and we get there. Now this brings me to the thing that bothers me most about Austria, House numbers are not assigned based off of where the building is, but rather, when it was built. This makes finding addresses really "fun". There is a general trend to things, because when they first built the houses they built them in order:
1_ _ _ _ _ _ _2 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _3 and so on, but as they went back and built more houses, instead of renumbering they did this:
1_ _ _ 4_ _ _ 2_ _ _ _ 5_ _ _ _ _ 3, then some time later, they built more houses:
1_ _ 6 4_ 7 _ 2 _ _8_ 5_ _ _9 _ 3 and it just kept going and going, and now its a mess.
So we were searching for number 67 and the first number I saw was 734, then I saw 1343. Yeah. WE SPENT 50 MINUTES searching for this address. It was horrible. We found 65 and thought that we had struck Gold, but the very next house was 1280, and the one across the street (from that) was 828. We walked around asking everyone that we could. We found 73, 72, 71, 69, and 68. And the problem was, is that the main road had a ton of small branches, which also share the same name and numbering system ( so its not just walking in a straight line, it could be on any number of side roads).
After walking down one of these tiny side roads we found it! We rang all the doorbells (they had 4 for some reason) and... no one was home. (Like I said, BRUTAL) Oh that was awesome. Well at least we know where it is now. We found a bus stop to a different bus (we didn't know this bus existed before) not very far from this house. This specific bus, went to Bregenz at 4 after the hour, instead of 57 (which leaves from the middle of Egg, we were no where near close to that by this point). So we go and wait and this bus stop (it was like 2 after I think). We wait, and wait, and wait, the bus is now about 5 minutes late.
Then we see a guy walking up the street with a trombone. We talk to him and he is very happy to talk to us. He was on his way to go play at some performance, but told us (HE TOLD US) to come back the next day at around 15.00. HE INVITED US! That doesn't really happen. We were stunned. Then we waited another 15 minutes or so, and decided that the bus wasn't coming (it turns out that it did, but the bus stop is on the opposite side of the street from where the bus was actually coming... so it came and we didn't think it was the right bus, so we didn't try to stop it).
Anyway, we walked clear back down to "downtown" Egg, where our bus was going to leave from. We waited 15 or so minutes and it came. Getting on to the bus I started talking to a lady with a large Golden Retriever. She was dogsitting for a few days. Anyway we talked the entire Bus ride back to Dornbirn, about Religion. She thought that Mormons were just a sect, and had a bunch of other misconceptions. I was able to clear those all up and bore my testimony. When we got to Dornbirn I gave her a Book of Mormon and she went and sat down and started reading it. That was cool.
We went back yesterday delivered the Turkish Book of Mormon, then went to Egg and taught this man we found (I feel really stupid, but I never asked him what his name was). We did a really good job of explaining everything to him and he was really excited to take a Book of Mormon, to read about it, ponder over its message and pray about it. He very happily told us to feel free and come by whenever we are back in Egg, he is usually home. ( He actually told us that we don't even need to knock, just walk in, but I don't quite feel comfortable doing so... so I will still knock :-).
But to think, if our "eating appointment" hadn't fallen out, and had we not arrived in Egg an hour early, we would have NEVER met him (well, maybe at some future date, but not then that's for sure). We actually started talking to him, right when we had initially planned to arrive in Egg, and we weren't even close to where the other buses were. Had we not have been where we were, we wouldn't have met him, been invited back, or have been able to teach him. And we may get some new investigators from the Turkisch girls we met in Bregenz.
Another Cool story that happened to us:
A week before last Friday, we were invited to an eating appointment with the Familie Stevens, who live in Hohenems. Bishop had given us a referral who lived in the area of a daughter of a Co-worker and her husband who had visited our church meeting and really liked it. So we went to Hohenems a bit early to try and contact this couple. The problem was, is that the bishop didn't know the name, but knew in which building they lived. So we doored the whole building, having only a few people answer. So, still having time we went around the corner and went door to door.
On our way we noticed someone sitting in a yard with a lot of logs and wood. We asked him if he needed help with anything, and he said that he would love help, so we told him that we would come back in a week in Work clothes and help him out. He seemed fairly surprised, and grateful. So we came back the next week and did service for him. Turns out that on this lot is where he wants to build his house, and he needs to clear it out in 2 weeks so that it can be inspected and get a permit to allow someone to come and begin constructions. He had been doing it alone up until we met him. So we went to work.
He had a chain saw, and was sawing the logs in to 18 or so inch wide rings, and then we took and pile them up in a huge pile. As well as helped clear out some discarded concrete, and I used an ax and split some smaller logs for the fire wood he was collecting. That was fun. Splitting logs was hard work, but was REALLY fun. :-) Especially when with one swing you split the log in half. :-) He was already fairly impressed with us, but more so after he tried to pay us and we said no. We aren't allowed to take any money, and that we are doing this because we like to serve others.
He was astonished. We told him that if he really wanted to pay us back that he could just read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, because it had brought us so much joy and blessings and that we wanted to share it with others. He took the book and said that he would read it without a doubt, but probably not till January when everything was taken care of (he told us before how many things he needs to get done before he moves into his house with his wife and 2 month old baby). He has a lot, but I think that we are on the right track. I had already set apart some time to come back and help him a few more times, and when he heard that he was EVEN MORE astonished.
I wish I could stay here and see him progress, but he is so busy, that he may not make progress till December of January. But I have no doubt that we have won his trust and that the missionaries in the future with be able to teach him and his wife. :-) (His name is Eugen by the way, I did manage to get his name this time (it would be hard not to, he was blown away by us).
So those are two really neat success stories from this past week. Whether they will turn out to mean anything in the near future or not, I don't know. But things are going well here. Its cool to see these small unexpected opportunities pop up, and meet these people who are being prepared, partially or fully, to receive the Gospel. The Lord truly is in charge of this work. I know that. And it will keep moving forward no matter what. :-)
That will suffice for this week. :-) I hope all is well at home!
Love,
Elder Ryan K. Christensen
P.S. The pictures that we took were up in Egg. While searching for the address and waiting for the bus.
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