Nearly November

Well Yet another week has gone by. A rather difficult week but its behind me now. It is a lot harder to do Missionary work in Wien than it was in Vorarlberg. I have tried a number of times to contact people on the street, and most walk by as though I don't even exist. They glance at the nametag, and keep walking as though I wasn't even there. Some stop, but its a lot harder than it was before. I am in a completely new area, and the things that I learned in Vorarlberg no longer apply. :-( So it will take me awhile before I can really get into it.

Since being here in Wien I have only managed to give one copy of the Book of Mormon out. And that was on Wednesday on (what was supposed to be) an all day blitz of Wien 2. But we had to go to an appointment with Jakirie so we needed to cut it short. That was cool though. We had an awesome district meeting (on Wednesday now) and we then had mini exchanges. It was incredible. I LOVE DISTRICT MEETINGS. No matter how exhausted, depressed or sad I am coming into it, I can't help but come out ready and excited to go back out and try again! :-)

The exchange was also neat. I am very grateful to Elder Stilger, he is brand new in the mission, comes from  England. "The last of the gunea pigs" as he calls himself (He is comes from Great Britain, and missionaries from there leave on there missions at age 18, which until the announcement was unique). Anyway, after mentioning that we would be doing a exchanges for the blitz, before anyone else could say anythign he said  "I call working with Elder Christensen!" I thought that was neat, and it really helped boost me even more. We only worked together for a couple of hours, but we gave out a Book of Mormon, and had a lengthy conversation with someone on a park bench about the purpose of life. Sadly they couldn't believe what we said, and turned down all offers to hear more, but it was a good effort. :-)

So I went on a mini exchange on Wednesday, with Elder Stilger finding, then on Thursday, went on one with Elder Johnson. That's an interesting story. So we have two investigators who live in our area, Dawn and Gregor. Dawn is American, Gregor is from Hamburg, but speaks fluent English. So we teach them in English and they attend the international ward here. But here is the thing, because we teach them in English, they technically belong to and should be taught by the international missionaries, who are sisters. We have been asked to give all english speaking (essentially all non- Austrians who are taught in English) to the international missionaries. So we tried passing them on to the sisters. But they didn't want to be passed off to the sisters (they liked the elders and didn't want to be taught by the sisters.)

 Ok, but its hard to teach them when they attend a different ward. So in order for them to get to know the sisters and make the switch easier, we have been doing joint lessons with them. Hoping to build a good relationship with them and the sisters, so that we could pass them off. But its really hard to teach a lesson with 4 missionaries present, because we aren't all on the same page. Long story short, Elders Johnson and Escher just came in and are working in International as well (so now there are both sisters and Elders in the international ward). Dawn and Gregor, still want to be taught by the Elders, not the sisters, so we are going to pass them off to the International Elders over time. So we do splits with them. Elder Escher and Elder Steed (with the sisters still) go and teach Dawn and Gregor, and Elder Johnson and I do something else. (It gets more complicated than that, yes there is a reason that the sister missionaries are still coming, its just to complicated to explain). In a month Dawn will be going to America and be there for 3 months (Gregor will for some reason stay behind). The idea is to do splits and bring the sisters till they leave and then have the international Elders take over completely when she gets back.

She will get to know Elder Escher, by then Elder Steed will be gone, she doesn't know me at all, it would be like a normal transfer situation. Anyway, Since Elder Steed knows Dawn and Gregor the best, he has been in charge of organizing the whole thing. Which led to a bit of a miscommunication between me and Elder Johnson. He told Elder Johnson that he would come and work with me (indicating that I will make plans and that we will work here), but he told me that I would go and work with Elder Johnson (again implying that he would make plans and that I would work with him in his "area" (There area is the whole Zone)). So we show up and do the exchange, and we no plans at all... That was fun, because they are new and white washed as a second companionship in the International Ward, they have no investigators at all and spend all day finding (kind of like what I did in Dornbirn) except, only those who speak English can they teach. So its a lot harder for them...

So to save him from doing another day full of solid finding, we came back to the apartment and made up plans to go by on some less actives and potential investigators (keeping in mind that he forgot to grab the map from Elder Escher, and Elder Steed had our map). So we used the map on the wall ( not a very good one) and then set off to try an find these places. ADVENTURE! It actually wasn't that bad. Despite only being here for 2 weeks or so (both of us) we managed to find all of the locations. ( No one was home, but we found everything, so that was a success! :-)). That was fun as well Elder Johnson, Elder Steed and I all flew out here togethter, although Elder Johnson and Elder Steed both entered the MTC in December. Its fun working with Companions that are on the same level :-).

Anyway, something really cool happened yesterday. 2 of our investigators were supposed to come to church, but last minute they both had to cancell. But we had another lady that showed up and we got to talk to her. She had seen somethings online, had looked up where are ward was, and drove AN HOUR AND 15 MINUTES to get to the Church. She had had contact with Missionaries when she was 18 but felt that there was too much pressure, so she took a break for awhile. MANY years later, for some reason she decided to come to church and investigate again! She feels like the time is right. She really liked Church, and is coming next week again! We are way excited! This week lookds to be a lot better than last week, I made a number of phone calls and set up appointments for this week and next week, and we are pretty well set! We hope to be able to set yet another baptismal date this week, so if you could pray for us that would be appreciated.

The two baptismal dates that I set in Dornbirn both fell out. But 2 more were set with Smarts Daughters! So I am excited to see that. I don't know what happened with Michael or Willi. But I am sure Elder Robins is doing an awesome Job.

Oh, and I happened to come across a map, our area DOES NOT cover all of Niederösterreich, its huge! and The trains go to the Check Republic, not to Hungary. I don't have access to a large map, and seeing the names of the destinations, I only new they aren't German and just took a guess. :-) Just goes to show how much I know. I am running out of time, so I will end this real quick.

Thanks for all your love and support!

Love,
Elder Ryan K. Christensen

Yet another week in Vienna :-)

Well, yet another week has gone by. And I really don't know what to say. Things are a lot different here than back in Dornbirn. There are 16 Missionaries in the City of Vienna, which is really weird because back in Dornbirn the closest Missionaries were 80 minutes away by train. But it so AWESOME! We see each other a lot and its really easy to gather together on P-days. I haven't really been able to get out and go sight seeing. 

We teach German to immigrants every Tuesday and Thursday at the Institute center, which is right next the Rathaus (I don't know what that is called in English anymore...) (Rathaus is the Vienna City Hall-- see notes and pictures I added below)  just outside the center of Vienna.  But its under Renovation so it doesn't look nearly as impressive as it would without a bunch of scaffolding. 

The Vienna City Hall

The City Hall is one of the most splendid amongst the numerous monumental buildings along Vienna's. Designed by Friedrich Schmidt (1825-1891), it was erected between 1872 and 1883. The architecture of the Ringstraße is dominated by historicism. In Historicism various stylistic elements of the past were combined into a style in its own right. Friedrich Schmidt however orientated himself just on one particular epoch. The City Hall was built in gothical style, with a tower similar to gothic cathedrals. The gothic era saw the growth of the cities and the emergence of an urban burgeoisie.

Today the City Hall is the head office of Vienna's municipal administration. More than 2000 people work in the building. Visitors are stunned by the magnificent appointments of the state rooms, which frequently provide an atmospheric backdrop to various events such as press conferences, concerts or balls.

 

So you will remember that last week I mentioned that one of my concerns is bus and train times. Well surprise, I am no longer a country area. There are S-bahns every 3-5 minutes, subways every 5 minutes, as well as buses and street cars that come every 3-5 minutes. In Dornbirn you were lucky to find a bus that came every 15 minutes most coming every 30 minutes. S-bahns came roughly every 30 minutes. On weekends you were lucky to get a bus once per HOUR. But here it is totally different, so we don't plan out exact travel times, we just go and it works. CRAZY.

This past week has been a pretty unique week. We had a Zone Training meeting, then the following day we had interviews, then yesterday we watched a Live Broadcast of Presdient Monson from Frankfurt. He is visiting München, Frankfurt, and I think Hamburg, either Hamburg or Berlin. Sadly living in Wien, we weren't invited to go see him live in München. Salzburg Zone was, but we are just out on the outskirts of the mission. Which brings me to a really interesting point. I could get on a Train, and within 45 or so minutes be out of Austria and in Hungary. Most trains running out of Wien through Florisdorf go to Hungary. I am on the farthest North East border of the mission. (This area covers all of Niederösterreich  (is the northeasternmost state of the nine states in Austria. Situated east of Upper Austria, Lower Austria derives its name from its downriver location on the Danube River, which flows from west to east. Lower Austria has an international border, 414 km long, with the Czech Republic (South Moravia) and Slovakia.) in addition to District 21 of Wien) We hardly, if ever go very far into Niederösterreich though, it would take to long, and we have to pay for our own tickets (which would be reimbursed, but its just a hassle). 

The broadcast of President Monson was cool! It didn't last as long as most people expected but it was really good. We have an investigator, Jakiri, who we set a baptismal date with last week. This past week we felt like we should review the baptismal question: Do you believe that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God? His response was, I don't know him, I can't answer that question. Perfect! There is a live broadcast of President Monson this upcoming Sunday, you can come and here him then pray about it to know. He really seemed to enjoy it. Said it was very uplifting, but we haven't had a chance to really talk to him about his experience yet. 

Jakiri is really cool, but has a really hard past. The date that we set for him is the 22nd of December. Yeah its far away, but it will probably take that long till he is completely ready. Depending on how he feels, we may be able to move it up, I will keep you posted on it. He has been meeting with the missionaries for a long time, around 8 years or so. He had a baptismal date at one point, but word spread quickly and the whole ward found out about it, which really made him feel bad, and he stopped meeting with the missionaries for a time. Anyway, we have been meeting with him and he really likes us, we have a good relationship of trust, especially between him and Elder Steed. Jakiri was commander in the Austrian army for a time, and Elder Steed was a Lieutenant in the Canadian special forces (he is a sniper). But having had a lot of Military background Jakiri really trusts Elder Steed. 

Yeah so Elder Steed was a Sniper for the Canadian Military. He has served in a lot of areas, one of which being Afghanistan  where he was shot a few months before coming on a Mission. He entered the MTC 6 weeks before I did, but we were on the same flight out here. He is quite the character. Talks A LOT, but I am fine with it. We have a lot of fun. We found some Nerf Guns in the apartment and had a bit of a war. He was in Special Forces, and won most of the them, but I have a good aim and won a few. :-) I attached a picture of a really awesome shot that I had that caused us both to laugh. 

Its been pretty good, we play jokes on each other every now and again. For example, we live on the 6th floor of out building, so we normally take the Elevator. But the Elevator isn't incredibly fast. So I said that I would race him. Here is the thing though, the stairs are close to the elevator, and as I ran down the stairs I was able to push all the Elevator stop buttons on the way down ;-). And it takes FOREVER for the elevator to get going after it stops. After it got to the Third floor I here him get out of the elevator and start walking down the stairs yelling"That was so CHEATING". Haha I about died laughing. 

So things are going well. The area is similar to how Dornbirn was when I first got here in that we don't have a ton of investigators or potentials. But I will keep working and see if I can fix that. By the way, when I left Dornbirn, Elder Robins and I had found (and taught) more investigators than anyother companionship in that area had, as far as we were able to tell. And we were finding 10 to 12 potentials constantly per week, which is REALLY good. So for those who worry that I didn't see much success in Dornbirn, well I consider that success. :-) 

Anyway, I need to go now, I hope all is well at home! Thanks for your support and Prayers, I will try to have pictures of Vienna for next week!

Love, 

Elder Ryan K. Christensen 

Vienna 5

Well here I am writing for the first time from Vienna. I can't believe that I am already here, yet it feels like an eternity since last week. The first part of the week was completely booked. Monday was P-day, we ended up going by on a few people. Tuesday we had a training meeting in Winterthur, then went back To Phil (Reid, the ward mission leader) and had dinner at his house. That took up the entire day on Tuesday. Wednesday we went to Bru. Cukic, then to Michael (which fell out) Went and said goodbye to Frau Vuissa and her husband (as well as have one last dinner with them (and pick up all her recipies :-) ) then we went to Isabelle and taught her one last time (she requested that I come and visit her one more time before I leave). Then we went and visited the Lumetzberger family (Elder Robins and I taught their son and helped him prepare for baptism).

I am amazed by Isabelle. The change that she has made just blows me a way. If I told you everything about her (the way she was when I first met her/just before I met her) and you saw her now, you wouldn't even recognize her. She is very strong now, despite incredible physical pain, and trials, she comes to church every week, without fail, she trusts and has faith in the Lord, and sees all the ways that the Lord has blessed her. She is happier. She is working on quitting smoking so that she can be rebaptized (She had her name taken off of the records a number of years ago).

It wouldn't surprise me if she will be baptized before the end of the year. It amazes me, when I first started meeting with her, she wouldn't even talk about baptism. She was scared and felt that she wasn't ready to take upon her the name of Christ yet. But by the time I left, she was bringing it up in every lesson. That she felt like she needed to, but then argues with herself if she is ready. She doesn't feel like she can quit smoking just yet, which is why she doesn't want to set a date yet. BUT ITS GETTING THERE! :-) I have instructed Elder Robins that he is to inform me as soon as possible if she gets a date. So we shall see what happens.

That was pretty much all that happened that week. Thursday was brutal. Sitting in a Train for 7 hours. 3 hours to Munich, a 3 hour layover, and then 4 hours to Wien, followed by a 30 minute subway ride to Florisdorf (district 21). Speaking of which, before I forget here is my new address:

Elder Ryan K. Christensen
Kirche Jesu Christi HLT
Schloßhofer straße 50/14
1210 Vienna
Austria

That was a long day. It was awesome though. I saw Elder Stokes, Elder Heinrich, and Elder Esplin all there. Elder Esplin is now training in Linz, so he rode with me out this direction (as well as a group of 6 others). While sitting at the bahnhof for 3 hours I also got to go get lunch with Elder Heinrich, which was awesome as well. Its fun to meet up with old Companions. All of them are doing very well and enjoying their areas. Which I was very happy for.

Wien (Vienna in German, I keep forgetting  to say "Vienna" so I am just going to stick with Wien (a "w" in German is pronounced with a "V" sound in German. Just so you pronounce it correctly. :-)) is HUGE. I am not simply talking population, I am meaning SIZE. We got into Wien West Bahnhof, then took a 30 min subway ride out to Florisdorf (district 21of Wien accross the Donau River).

I about died when I saw the apartment though. The apartment in Dornbirn is probably one of the nicest in the mission, the Wien 5 apartment however... very run down. It actually isn't so bad, but I panicked initially. We have a gas burning stove and oven. Which is rather interesting. Getting the oven started is an art. Light the match, let it burn for a few seconds, then toss it into a tiny slot just right, so that it doesn't extinguish the flame, but that it gets down far enough to ignite the gas. Then turn the gas on, and hold it for a few seconds and pray :-). Elder Steed was laughing at me last night, First time I did it, the match extinguished itself after I put it in, the second time I didn't hold the gas on for long enough, then the third time the match broke in my hand (at which point Elder Steed went to go look for his camera... punk) then I got it!

I have really loved the Terrace though. We are on the 6th floor of an apartment building, and we have a great view of the City from this terrace. I have found it very relaxing to go and look out into the city. Which is good because I got way stressed out and had somewhat of a panic attack when I got here. I knew everything about Dornbirn, all the people, the places, the bus times, everything. I was a trainer, I was in control because I new everything.

Here no. I didn't know the investigators, or any potentials, nor any bus times, nothing. I didn't know how Elder Steed did missionary work, what an average day was or anything. So I have taken advantage of the terrace, walking outside taking a few deep breaths and enjoying the beautiful view of the Donau and of Wien. I am doing ok now, I have realized that It will take some time before I know my way around and can have a larger input on what we should do.

I have tried taking some pictures, but they are all at night, and my camera doesn't handle night shots well. It takes forever to capture the image, and most of them end up being blurry. So I lack pictures. I will try to fix that shortly. I have posted pictures of my last morning in Dornbirn; Elder Heinrich, me, and Elder Robins; me and Elder Esplin in Munich.

Not much happened last week, Elder Steed got sick so we weren't able to accomplish much. I love the ward! Dornbirn was a small ward that averaged maybe 60 people every week at Church. Wien 5 averages 110! A real ward again. :-) I do miss the Dornbirn Gemeinde. Like I said, there is family over here from members in Dornbirn. Which is awesome. Back in Dornbirn, Schwester Stubbe-Griel and Bishof Stubbe invited us to lunch every Sunday. Well Schwester Stubbe-Griels Daughter lives here, and told us that since her mom fed me back in Dornbirn, that she guesses its her turn now. So we will now be having lunch everyweek with the Jankowich's :-). I am so incredibly grateful for that.

This will need to be continued next week. Elder Steed is waiting on me. I hope all is well at home! I will have more to report next week!

Love,
Elder Ryan K. Christensen

Transfers and Conference... Wow.

Well, I am getting transferred.  And most people wouldn't be able to guess so I will just tell you. VIENNA 5.  I AM GOING TO VIENNA!!!!!!

It may be the death of me, Vienna is huge, and I am used to being in a small city. Its like getting transferred from Pleasant Grove to Las Vegas (both distance wise and city size). And for the life of me I just can't seem to shake this whole British Commonwealth thing; an Australian Companion, a British Ward Mission leader, and now a Canadian companion :-) That should be interesting eh? ;-)

I will leave the apartment at about 8:30 that morning and arrive in Vienna Hauptbahnhof at 7:45 that night. Then we have to take a train out to district 27, where our apartment is (I guess I am on the outskirts of Vienna, I will see a lot of the city, but my main area will actually be outside of it). I don't know much more than that. A new start in a new area. I just checked and they have no current baptismal candidates, so I will get to go to work and start over again. But I am excited for it.

Yeah, it is really hard to leave Dornbirn. It has pretty much been my entire mission so far. I love this small ward here, and have seen a lot of neat things. I love the church here in Austria, no matter where you go, there are always to connections to others. For example, there were two families in the ward that have relatives in Linz, where Elder Esplin went, and there are also two families in the ward who have family in Vienna 5 as well. And Schwester Stubbe-Griel is actually coming out there in two weeks to visit them! She was thrilled when she found out that I was going there. 

Well, I was actually not able to be present for the announcement of the missionary age changing, I was in Feldkirch teaching a train wreck of a lesson. I won't go into details on it, it was bad. We tried to teach the restoration and one of the joint teaches that we had kept taking us way off topic, and at times said some things that were actually completely false. It totally destroyed the lesson. That was hard. I got back to Dornbirn just before Elder Cooks talk. But I was quickly updated on the announcement.

At SUU last year there was a rumor going around that the missionary age would be changed to 18 for the boys, so that was absolutely no surprise to me (if you come from Britain, the age has been 18 already for awhile) but the announcement about the sister shocked me. I didn't see that one coming. But its from a prophet and I think it is amazing, It will make it a lot easier for sister missionaries to serve missions. 

I actually want to talk about Missionary service for the rest of the e-mail.

First and foremost anyone out there who is considering serving a mission, DO IT.  If possible, don't wait, get your papers in and GO! It is an absolutely incredible experience. Its incredibly hard, and there are days that I wonder if I am going to make it all the way through. But as missionaries we have the chance to help people, in many ways. And it brings a lot of joy. I want to share a few stories from my experiences so far, which I may or may not have previously shared.

The first story, was from my first area. I can't explain everything, nor will I attempt to, its not a happy beginning, but here is a bit of history. The Swiss mission has been through a lot in past years. Long story short, there were a lot of very disobedient missionaries and they were all put in Stuttgart. It became a thing of pride, they made t-shirts and called it "schwarz-gart" ("schwarz" means illegal, illicit or disobedient (colloquial German)). Well The missionary work pretty well went down hill. When these two missions became one, 17 missionaries, just from Stuttgart, rebelled and were sent home. Ok. So Esslingen had had its share of not so great missionaries as it was so close to Stuttgart. When I arrived (a year and a half after the incident mentioned above) there was still some leftover residue from Schwarz-gart.

There was a sister in the ward, who did a ton of member missionary work. Bringing her friends to church etc. But DID NOT like the missionaries. Always treated them very coldly, and wouldn't let us come near any of her friends. Well, my first day in Esslingen, we had a ward dinner. I went around talking to members and went up to this lady and asked her how she was doing, her reply "why are asking me that?" not very warm. I just told her that I was trying to be friendly and said it genuinely. So she answered and I started talking to her a bit. Then Elder Heinrich walked up and started talking to her as well, and before we knew it she accepted our offer to come and teach her the lessons and work on them so that we could maybe teach her friends. Elder Heinrich was really excited.

She went on vacation for two or so weeks, and then was busy, but she invited us to come and teach a friend of hers with her. We accepted and did so. It was a great discussion and it went well. Despite the fact that I was new, and the dialect wasn't that great, I was still able to share a couple scriptures and bear testimony. Well after that she was quick to invite us to come back with her another time. After that she wasn't cold to us anymore, and when I announced that I was being transferred to the ward, she quickly came up to me and shook my hand and said that she was sad to see me go and wished me the best. That was one of my neatest experiences from Esslingen. 

I haven't shared it because I don't want to make me seem center stage, but these are the kinds of miracles that can be worked through us when we are ready and willing to serve a mission. And these experiences are waiting out there for those who want to serve missions

Another small story from recent past. We went and visited a member in our ward who asked us to come and give her husband and son blessings because they were both really sick. We did so and spent some time talking to the family  This sister who invited us expressed sorrow over the loss of her father. He died a very slow and painful death from a disease (I don't remember which) and she had been having a hard time with that for awhile. She hadn't yet felt that he was ok, that he wasn't in pain anymore. I had a scripture come to mind in D&C 42:45-46 (only the first half of 45), so I opened it up and read it, and bore testimony of it.

45 Thou shalt ^alive together in ^blove, insomuch that thou shalt ^cweep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not ^dhope of a glorious resurrection.

 46 And it shall come to pass that those that die in me shall not ^ataste of ^bdeath, for it shall be ^csweet unto them;

She thanked me then for it, and was in tears a bit, and said that it helped. Well a few days later we went back and visited them. And this time with tears in her eyes she thanked me for the scripture. After months of this pain, it finally brought peace. And that when she went to work that day, that her co-worker all told her that she looked different, happy again. Again, I claim nothing on that. The Holy Ghost brought to mind that scripture. But it was powerful and finally brought her the piece she was looking for. Those experiences are also those which wait upon you. 

Miracles happen everyday. Both big and small, if you don't think so, then you aren't looking hard enough. I could go on and on, there are so many stories, so many miracles. Both small and big, I just want to say this: I have faced some of the hardest times that I have ever encountered being out here, but my testimony has grown so much stronger. I have felt Gods love for me and for all his wonderful children.

He needs missionaries to find these children, these lost sheep. To show them that there is a father in heaven who loves them. That is why the mission age limit has been lowered. HE NEEDS YOU. OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS NEED YOU. Don't hesitate or put it off. It will bring you nothing but happiness and blessings (after pain and trials sometimes (See D&C 58:3-4)).

 3 Ye cannot behold with your natural ^aeyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the ^bglory which shall follow after much tribulation.

 4 For after much ^atribulation come the ^bblessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be ^ccrowned with much ^dglory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand.

I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the World. I know that this church is really the one and only church of God. This is the stone cut out of the mountains with no hands, which is to fill the earth. I know that there are people who are waiting for you to come and find them and bring them back. I know that there are miracles for you to bring forth. So, GO AND DO!

Thats all. I love you all and wish you the best!

Thanks,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen

P.S. One quick request:  All those who are going to take advantage of this new age, can you please leave a comment on the blog or post a message to my account on Facebook? (Then to Mom/dad, can you gather the names and send them to me, in the next e-mail? Thanks.)

Last full week of the Transfer!

Wow, Yet another week goes by and this upcoming week might be my last week here. Transfer calls are this week! Its crazy that is has already come to this again. Having been here 4 transfers already, I am not counting on staying. It wouldn't be unheard of for someone to stay in an area for 5 transfers. Nor for a missionary to stay with his trainer for 3 transfers, but it is REALLY RARE. I think my time here has come to an end sadly... but that is just how it works. A new area, a new start more people to find and more missionary work to do :-). Interesting.

This past week was all over the place. We had roughly 7 appointments fall out this week, mainly in these past few days, which has been really hard. As well as having none of our investigators in church for the first time in 4 or so weeks. But on the upside WE SET 2 BAPTISMAL DATES!!  Gerold Willi, and Michael Wuggeneg. 2 very different people. Because we set them so close to each other we set the same date for both of them; Oktober 27th. Yeah, I will more than likely not be here for it, but I am still very happy! And we are again set up for another great week with maybe a few more Baptismal dates! :-)

This area seems to out of nowhere exploded. FINALLY! We have been working like crazy to improve the way we teach, specifically re-creating lesson 0. No missionary in this mission understands what a lesson 0 is, I never was trained, but I brought it up, and we worked for weeks, changing it, perfecting it, and now it works really well! It sets us up to set a Baptismal date by the 2nd lesson (which is technically what we are supposed to do, but no one here really does it). This week is also in pretty good shape, there are already a few days this week that are completely planned, full of appointments. So I am pretty happy about that.

Anyway, I don't really know what else there is to write about. The baptismal dates were obviously a huge highlight, but that happened on Monday and Wednesday, After that our week kind of fell to pieces... I guess I can tell you about last Monday.

So, We had planned that day to actually teach two lessons. One to a Family in Lochau (10 minute bus ride north of Bregenz) and then teach a lesson to Dejan Djordjevic in Wolfurt (10 or so minutes south of Bregenz by bus). They would have both been new investigators. The family in Lochau had told us to call them on Monday, that they should be free and that then we could come by. We called 3 times throughout the day, no answer. Ok, so forget that. I had called Dejan the day before and he had said that without a doubt the appointment was still on. That was supposed to be at 18.00. Sweet! At least we still had that, then we planned to go by a less active member who we haven't visited in awhile. Right after I got done sending e-mails last week ( at just before 5) Dejan called us and cancelled the appointment :-( He had to work late (on a separate note :and I called him yesterday, and he says that the earliest he could meet would be after New Years... :-P) so that was out.

Great, now what do we do? Well we decided to go by on Willi. So we did, and he was home. We had a spectacular lesson, and he said that he felt it was true. So we recommitted him to be baptized once he KNEW it was true (hinting at actually praying to God to gain a testimony) and then were able to set a date with him. With the date set, we made out all of our appointments with him from now till Oktober, as well as told him about Church.  He said that it wouldn't be a problem and that he would come! We were quite happy, to say the least :-). We then met with him later that week (On Thursday) and Bishop came with us. We taught the first half of the plan of salvation (up to our life on earth) then brought up commandments, specifically Word of Wisdom. Which was good. He is going to work on quitting smoking. Which is good. :-) That was neat. And we were still able to meet with Bruder Schader (the less active that we meet with on occasion). That was a good day :-).

We set the Baptismal date with Michael on Wednesday. Also a really good lesson. We met with him twice as well last week, but sadly the second time, he was feeling sick, he had a headache, and couldn't focus. So we weren't able to really teach him, nor was he able to come to church that next day... :-( But we have 3 appointments with him this week, and I hope that he will come to General conference this weekend. 

We had a really neat experience on Thursday. We were able to go and visit Stefan. Stefan is 25 years old and was a referral given to me and Elder Esplin back in July. He met the missionaries at the San Diego Temple (he thought it was a church and tried to go look inside, but the sister missionaries got to him before he went inside). When we first made contact with him, his mom was really skeptical of us. On our first meeting with him, we mainly just did a question and answer session with him. Talking about what he experienced at the Temple etc. Part way through his mom walked in, looked at him and asked how it was going with the conversion. He looked a bit alarmed and said, I am not getting converted, just talking. That pretty much killed that lesson. He was only at the temple for 30 minutes or so and he didn't really know much. But that lesson was pretty much over, so we talked for a few more minutes, said a prayer and left.

He just got a Masters degree, I don't know the exact name of the degree, it's essentially a mix between Mechanical and Computer Engineering, I think it was called Robotic Engineering or something. anyway he has been applying for jobs all over the place and has been hard to contact. But we managed to find him and were able to meet with him on Thursday. The only thing was, both his mom and his sister were there. Which made me really nervous, last time it killed the lesson. So for the first 20 minutes we ended up just talking, not real specific topic, a lot about where we were from at the beginning.

Then it started to turn more toward who we are, why we are here etc. Which was a huge blessing. I took the advantage to explain a little bit that we are here to help other people come closer to God, find answer to questions and obtain blessings that God wants for them, but that it is completely independent (dependent - See "Quick Note" from Ryan below) on the person if they accept it or not. It opened it up, and his sister asked us what our message was, and then another question came of why our church was different than other Christian Churches. Perfect for the lesson 0 Elder Robins and I had. So we taught them that. The mom had to take a phone call part way through, but we taught Stefan and his sister.

His sister took a Book of Mormon and said that she would read it (she also had something she had to do, and so we shortened our explanation just a bit) but after she left Stefan sat there a bit in awe. He told us that he had never had such an explanation of the Book of Mormon before. And now it made sense why he should read it. And he was more than happy to read it, and meet with us again. And his mom is much more open to us now. VERY COOL.

Anyway. we are excited for what will yet be another full week. Our entire weekend from Friday to Monday is booked out. Tuesday is completely planned. And Wednesday and Thursday have 2 and 3 appointments already planned respectively. Not bad. Yeah, on a normal week, 1/2 of those will fall out, but it is still huge improvement from when I first got here and there were no appointments at all! SO I will not complain in the least. :-) Things are going REALLY REALLY WELL here. I am grateful for all of your prayers and support. They mean a lot to me.

Oktober 1 already! Crazy! I am looking forward to General Conference this weekend! It will assuredly be amazing! It still cracks me up that the Saturday and Sunday "morning sessions" are broadcasted  LIVE at 6pm. We will watch the Saturday Morning session live from 6-8 pm, then the Priesthood session from 11am-1pm on Sunday, the Saturday afternoon session from 2-4 then finally the Sunday Morning session at 6-8 that night (Sunday night). The Sunday afternoon session will not be broadcasted as far as I know. They will probably show that in Sunday school a few weeks from now. Or I will just have to wait for the Liahona to read the talks.

That's it for this week! I hope all is well with you!

Love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen

(Ryan sent the following email to correct a portion of the letter above. Normally I would just change the text above.  However, when reading this it was just so Ryan that I had to include the whole thing. Those that know Ryan well will understand and get a good chuckle, as well as feel like he is in the room explaining it to them.  Did I say we miss our boy?)

Quick Note:

Woops, (in the story about Stefan) The message is completely "dependent" not "independent" Sorry, a bad translation on my part. the Word in German is "abhängig" (well actually "abhängen") and for some reason I took "ab" and made it into an "in" even though "abhängig" means dependent. My thoughts are all over the place and I didn't think about that. :-) I say it so much in German its hard to say something in Englisch. Sorry :-)

I love you all!

-Elder Ryan K. Christensen

or for Josh,

- "Current" Elder Christensen ;-)