Wow.

Another huge roller coaster this past week. Mostly with Frau Zalka. She was the one who we we had set the baptismal date with this week. Which is what she recommended. However, it won't happen. And neither Elder Steed or I know why.

I called her on Thursday to go over a few things with her regarding the interview and clothing, Everything was fine. The primary president called her Saturday evening to see if her children wanted to be a part of the program. She also talked to her for a bit, and Frau Zalka had read all of the pamphlets we had given her and was really excited to come to church and get baptized! The primary president told us that three times in the conversation Frau Zalka had mentioned that she WOULD BE at church. Ok. But she wasn't there. at 10.00 Schwester Kemendics (primary president) called her and she didn't answer (unaware that she had already tried calling) I called her. No answer. A little bit later she got a text that said something to the effect of: Leave me in peace today. If you want to help just pray to God to give me strength, I will talk to you later this week.

Ok, so we were all a bit worried that something had happened. The whole Zone (upon hearing that there she may not be baptized on sunday) all prayed for her last night. This morning she sent the Ward mission leader a text saying thanks for everything, but she doesn't want to be baptized, and she will stay Evangelisch. He sent her back a text saying that he respects the decision.  He invited her to pray about it, and then asked if she would tell him perhaps what changed her mind. We still don't know, but we suspect that it was anti-mormon literature of some type. Probably on the internet. Within 36 or so hours she went from completely Golden, to unsure and possible doubting, to not wanting to be baptized at all.

And I don't know why. It all happened so fast and my head is still spinning from it. So that is that. We are going to do what we can to try and figure out what happened and to not give up. But we can only help as much as she will allow us. The best thing at this point is to stand back and let her tell us according to what she wants, lest she feel like we are trying to force her to join the church. All hope isn't lost, I hope that she will come to herself, and remember all of the good feelings that she has had. So that was the sad new of the week.

On a completely unrelated story, yesterday I found out what if feels like to be in such a huge state of shock/ stupor that you are paralysed. No body told me that the Brother and Sister Rollins (Neighbors living 2 houses down the street.  Brother Rollins served in Austria on his mission) were coming to Austria! My word. Yesterday just after 2nd hour got out I was out in the hall talking to Elder Steed and out of the corner of my eye I saw two people walk around the corner, and the thought was "that looked like Brother and Sister Rollins, but that couldn't be possi..." Dumbfounded.

I can't really describe it, as I turned to actually look and saw them walking down the hall towards me, I was... I can't describe it. Alma 31:19  19 Now it came to pass that after Alma and his brethren and his sons had heard these prayers, they were astonished beyond all measure., except the prayer, I really understand that scripture now... :-)

Wow. Astonished absolutely stunned was I. In a good way :-). They took a lot of pictures and tried recording me a number of times, but I was just too shocked to really say much. They thought that I was still in Dornbirn, so they weren't expecting to be able to see me at all. They went to Church on the Böcklinstraße (The building that he went to when he was here) and talked to Elder Davies and Cox there, who are from Sandy and American Fork, respectively. They asked if they by chance new me, and they were like "YEAH TOTALLY! He is in the fifth ward here in Wien!" Then the elders gave them the address of the church, they put it in the navigation and came. Luckily our church is offset 30 minutes from that one, so they made it just before Sacrament meeting. For the Primary program. :-) Absolutely crazy. Haha after the meeting he asked me if I by chance new a "Mutti Mittermayer". She was famous when HE was here. He was even invited and had dinner with her once. 25 or so years ago. Luckily we have Michael, because apparently she can't cook very well... ;-) That was a neat highlight yesterday. 

I can't really remember anything else from this past week. There is Martin and Miriam. So about 2 weeks ago or so we got a phone call from someone running the church website, A guy named Martin had requested himself, and wanted us to call him. So we did and made out an appointment for this past Thursday. We thought we would just be meeting with him, but he brought his girlfriend with him. We gave them a church tour and answered their questions about the church. He has been studying things about the church for 15 years or so, she was baptized Catholic, but has never gone to church and doesn't know what to believe.

We sat down and had a great lesson. Talking about Jesus Christ, the atonement (briefly, she didn't know what that was, so we gave a short explanation and set that we would discuss it in more detail next week) then got into the apostasy and then watched the Restoration DVD. It was powerful. And they both agreed to come to church, and they did! We had a great investigator class, they liked it and will be coming back next week. I am excited for them. The feeling that both I and Elder Steed got, was that Martin wants to be baptized, but he wants his girlfriend to get to that point first so that they could progress together. And that was kind of what he told us, he wanted us to focus the lesson on her.

She seemed to really like Relief society, she seemed pretty happy at the in 2nd hour, and after Church (again we had the primary program, good week to come :-)). We will meet with them again on Saturday, and talk about the plan of salvation. 

Anyway, I am out of time now, sadly. Thanks for all which you do. I love you all,

-Elder Ryan K. Christensen

P.S.

Picture 1: Wiener Sunset

Picture 2: "Diet portion" with Michael Meetloaf, Potatoes, and Red Cabbage. VERY GERMAN.

Picture 3: Wiener Night sky.