What a week

Wow, this is probably one of the most intense weeks I have had out here. So much has happened. Tuesday we had interviews with President Miles, which was awesome. :-) It's always a very uplifting. Then I had to wait for Elder Orchard to get done with his interviews so we could go out to Wolkersdorf, a member had invited us to eat with them. Well with everything that happened we got there an hour late.... but we still had a good time there with the Vodusek family.

Then we came back (we were now 4 in the apartment) and I made Bauern Cordon Bleu Schnitzel  :-) (yeah I know, I come from an eating appointment and make schnitzel, but we had 4 elders and I wanted to do something a bit special). That was pretty much all that was done, we went to bed, studied the next day, We went to Zone Training, and were back to our normal companionship.

Thursday we got a ton of snow, WAY more than is normal for Vienna we got a half a meter in a single day. Public transit was a nightmare. We had originally planned to go contact on the street for a couple of hours, but it was so cold and snowing so bad that we abandoned that plan, and went out near Großfeldsiedlung and doored. We waited 20 minutes at the bus stop for the bus, and then all at once 3 came. We took the first go a couple stops, and get out. (On a side note the bus got stuck! It took 20 minutes for the bus driver to clear the snow from the tires and get out).

Went door to door for a while not finding really anyone, which was hard because I had felt that we should come and door here. In the last building before we had to leave, I saw a cleaning lady and started talking to her, and we were able to have a good conversation and we were able to bear a lot of testimony. She recognized the name of the church, and was really interested in learning about the church. She mentioned that her mom was in contact with the church, and had passed a way a few years ago. Long story short, she is going out of town for the next couple of weeks, but she wants us to come by and visit her when she gets back. :-)

Another thing that is really cool. While waiting 20 minutes for the bus, the GML called and said he had some news about Frau Zalka. She and Simon had talked, and she had taught her children the restoration through a really cool lesson. She had drawn pictures of Churches and wrote down the names of different Churches, Evangelisch, Catholic, etc. Then cut a corner out of each of the churches and said that they all had a part missing. I don't remember exactly how she did the next part, but then explained and showed that through Joseph Smith the church was restored. Really cool.

She had talked with her son and he wants to be baptized on his birthday with her. This Friday! They came to Church, had another interview. Simon knew the answers and as of now wants to be baptized! It's not final yet, Frau Zalka wants to wait and be baptized with Simon, so that they can do it together, which means if he changes his mind she won't get baptized. So if you could pray for the both of them it would be well appreciated. :-)

Later that day I get a call from someone, saything that he was baptized a member 17 years ago but had been living in Serbia for the past while but was back in Wien and wanted to meet with the missionaries as soon as possible. He lives in the Wien 3 area, so I was going to give them to him in hopes that they could meet with him. But I couldn't get a hold of them, and our appointment fell out. We both felt, despite the fact that he wasn't in our area, that we needed to go and visit this man, so we start heading out there (we were already in the middle of Wien at Deutsch Kurs not too far away from where we needed to go to find this man).

We get on the U3, and then Wien 3 calls us. Essentially they were on there way to another appointment, and were on the U6 getting there. But here is the thing, the U3 and U6 cross at Westbahnhof, and because we were on our way, we both were able to meet at Westbahnhof, and go on splits with them so we could go to both appointments. I went to Zoran (this member from Serbia) with Elder Evans. He essentially told us his life story 3 times over. If everything which he said was true, he has had an INCREDIBLY hard life. His daughter dying at the age of 9 from Bone Marrow cancer, while he was in jail because someone had stolen some money, and had framed him for it. And a lot of other things. Essentially he had gone away from the church for a while because of all of these things but recognizes he needs Gods help. He was supposed to have gone to church yesterday, I haven't yet heard from Wien 3 what happened.

Friday was absolutely hands down the craziest day of missionary work that I have ever had. We had an appointment on Simensstraße, but it fell out, and earlier we had felt that we needed to go dooring at Simensstraße 27. Here in Wien addresses are a bit different; you have the first number which generally covers a couple of buildings made up of Stieges (sections of a building you can say) and then the door number. This place had like 11 stieges so we went door to door there for an hour or so. That was crazy, we doored into everything imaginable, 4 people smoking Marijuana, a ton of drunk people, and a ton of other things. But among all the craziness we found 2 potentials, and made out 2 specific appointments for Saturday and Sunday. (They both fell out... go figure, but still it was awesome!)

Then later we went and had dinner, went by on a few other people, and then went and visited Edith to teach Chiara. It went longer than we had wanted it to, and we were walking out the door at like 9.15 or so, but walking down the street Chiara comes outside (Chiara acts a lot more like a 4 year old, despite being 8) bare feet without a coat, in -4 degree Celsius weather (and VERY HUMID which makes it far worse than it actually feels) absolutely refusing to listen to her mom. So Jakiri (who came with us) goes and picks her up and takes her back in side. We were down the street waiting, and we could here Chiara screaming all the way from inside her house. Long story short, Jakiri called us and asked us to come back and see if we could help Chiara calm down.

We went back and waited and tried helping. This took a while. Edith was at her end and nearly in tears asking us if we could kneel down and pray. We did. Then I had an idea, make a paper airplane so I did, and showed it to Chiara. It calmed her down IMMEDIATELY. We through it back and forth across the room for a bit, then Jakiri and I sang a hymn. The atmosphere was calm, the spirit was there and it allowed Elder Chapman and I to leave. We got home at 10.35. That is the first time I have ever gotten back to the apartment after curfew my entire mission. And it just happened to happen on the 18th of January. The Year mark of Elder Chapman and I. There is more to the story, but I don't have any more time. CRAZIEST DAY EVER!

It was a neat week full of a lot of spiritual impressions that had we not followed things would have turned out a lot differently. I am so grateful for those small spiritual impressions, and that these really neat things happened.

I saw a name of a potential last night during weekly planning, and for some reason I wanted to visit her RIGHT THEN. So I tell Elder Chapman if he would mind he looks at me and says " are you kidding? I HATE weekly planning! Lets go!" So we did and found her at home. It turns out that she really likes the missionaries and wants to meet with us, but had been busy. It turns out that the only reliable free day that she has in the week is Sunday. So had we not have gone right then, and done it another day, We probably would have never been able to contakt her (did I mention that she has a husband and 4 kids, a FAMILY!) She was fairly sick and was hospitalized recently she had someone visiting at the moment, but she was happy to see us, and wants to keep in contact atleast weekly with us. :-)

The spirit really leads this work and we are seeing some amazing things. If Frau Zalka and Simon get baptized this week, that with be 4 baptisms in Wien within 2 days!!!!!! I know that this is the true church and that the work that missionaries are doing here is of God and that he leads it. 

I wish you all a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen