White wash Chaos....

The first part of this past week flew by really fast, however after arriving in Munich its been incredibly long... 

So we arrive on Thursday, and its time to go to our apartment, I ask the office Elders if they have our Monats Kartes ( monthly Train tickets) they were like, 

oh... no we forgot, you will most likely need to buy your own tickets for the next few weeks. 

Alright, well what ticket do I need to buy? 

Thats a good question, I have no idea, we have a car... Try asking Munich 1.

Ok so we go to Munich 1,

" hey, do you know what ticket we need to buy?"

"Thats a good question, I don't think its the same as ours, try asking the Zone leaders,"

So we go to the Zone leaders," hey which ticket do we need to buy?"

"I don't know, you have to ask the Office Elders to see which ticket you are supposed to have..."

AH! Finally, we get things figured out and then I ask, ok so do we get a map so we know where we are going? 

"Oh, a map, yeah that would have been a good idea to get you guys... oops, we have a GPS in our car so we didn't really think to get you a map..."

Wonderful. We are in like the 2nd largest city in the mission, we have never been here before and have no Map. Perfect. 

We are staying with Munich 1, so they take us to our apartment. Its a nice apartment. We drop off our stuff, and then they have there plans, so they leave and go to where ever they were supposed to go. Then Elder Evans looks at me and says alright, so what do we do now? 

Street Contakting for the next 3 hours.

Ok, but where? 

I have no clue. Some where in Munich. Hopefully we don't get lost...

So we call Munich 1 and ask them where the best place is to go find people to go. (Oh yeah, the phone was brand new, and luckily I added Munich 1's phone number to the list, because it was the only number I had...) Elder Helbig said "go to Rosenheimerplatz."

"Where is that?" 

"right next to Ost bahnhof"

"ach so!, ok... where's Ost bahnhof?" :-)

It reminds or the Bill Cosby thing about Noah 

"Noah"

"What?!" 

"I want you to build an ark"

"Right, whats an Ark?

"... I want you to build it 300 cubits by 50 cubits by (100?) Cubits"

"Right, whats a cubit?"

Anyway They had a map of Munich on the wall, we found out where it was and I took pictures of the map. Then we went and contacted there for 30 minutes or so, but there was hardly anyone there, so we decided to go back and contact people in the area of the apartment, and help us get a feel for where we are. So we do that for 2 hours, and then go and Get a Döner, because they Munich 1 way underestimated the amount of food that the 4 of us would need to survive the weekend... Oh man, its been a party. 

Friday Munich 1 was going to help someone in there ward move, and there wasn't very many people that could come help, so we went and joined in, the member had estimated it would only take 2 hours, but it took us, including travel there and back 5 and a half hours. Despite having and additional 2 Elders there. It was fun though. Although they spoke ridicuously thick Bayerisch, despite being similar to Austrian, its still takes a full concentration to try and decifer what is being said. :-)

Anyway, we decided after that to go and try to locate our Church, since the office Elders knew what street it was on, but didn't know the number... I had been there back when I first arrived, and when I picked up Elder Robins, so I knew that it was around the area of Solln. So we located that on the map, and figured out which S-bahn went there and took it we arrived and  were eventually able to find it. For some reason, they put us in the Munich 1, which is on the complete opposite side of Munich, it's a 30 minute  assuming no delay) S-bahn ride, and then around 15 minute walk to get there. That's beside the point. We contacted everyone that we saw on the way there, and on the way back. No one wanted to listen. 

We go back to the train station and get on the next S-bahn, it was around 8 now, and we had planned to go pick up something for dinner and go home. We get on one end of the S-bahn, but it was full of a lot of drunk people, so we walk farther up and I take a seat across a Young Chinese girl. I start talking to her in German and than she says (in really good German by the way) I actually don't know that much German... but she spoke fluent English. 

We talked for awhile and found out that she just got here 4 months ago, and is studying Medicine here in Munich. She comes from China but to my utter shock was Catholic. There is a large community of Catholics in China. Who would have thought? We talked a bit about God and the Book of Mormon. We told her we give it out for free and she really wanted one. She had to get out, and she gave us her number. Haha, she asked us for ours, and with somewhat of a blank expression on my face I said " I have no clue what so ever, I got here yesterday, and this phone is brand new..." But yeah, she was really excited to get a book! I was so overwhelmed with joy because of that. We found someone who we can teach. I was so happy, I couldn't believe it. 

We got in contact with her again yesterday, and gave her the book. She was really excited. She also wanted to practice her English, so we invited her to the English class, which she was also really excited about. I have a lot of hope for her. She will come to the English course on Tuesday, and I hope to be able to talk to her more in the future about the book of Mormon. :-) I am excited. 

The other part of the assignment that I was mentioning, essentially the office Elders are so booked that they don't have enough time to teach everyone. So we are here to be essentially the full time missionaries in the ward. :-) They gave us an old Area book on Friday, which was a disaster really, and we spent 4 hours on Saturday reading through all the records, and putting the binder into order. Now we have a list of former investigators, and some potentials that they gave us. It will help us get a good start into things. So now it begins, we start to go by and visit everyone, contact on the way, recieve potentials from the whole Zone to teach.

I am so grateful to be here. As hard as it has been, I have been so blessed. We still don't have a map, but I have been blessed that after visiting somewhere once I can remember it, after only 3 days, I have a strong bearing here in the City, I know a lot of places and could get to them without a Map. All with the Lords help. So even though I was fighting a nervous breakdown upon first arriving  not having ANYTHING to get going, I have experienced the Lord's help and I know  that I am able to fufill this assignment here.

We still have a long way to go though. But I expect as before that the Lord with bless us, even though we may not know exactly where we are or going, he puts people into our path that are prepared. I am excited for these next few transfers here in Munich. :-) 

Anyway, this is quite the e-mail so I will leave it with that. I am still adjusting but I am having fun, and things are setting up quite nicely here. I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen

......... Speechless..........

Wow. I don't what to write. I have read all the e-mails already, well most, I couldn't really focus any farther to read them all. Between my transfer call, Beth's Mission call, and other things going on here and there my head is spinning. 

My transfer call caught me completely off guard I am not training, nor staying in Austria, nor being a German speaking missionary. I have been transferred to Munich, to open up a brand new area in the International ward there. As a result of the new missionaries coming in, a lot of new areas need to be open up. It is going to be one heck of a change. 

My area is the entire Munich Stake, however I will probably not travel often outside Munich and the areas in the immediate area surrounding them. I am not even fully aware yet of my whole assignment. President Miles, when he called me told me where I was going, who I was going with and told me that there is more to my assignment which I will find out when I arrive in Munich. 

My companion will be Elder Evans, who arrived here on his mission my first day in Wien, and with whom I have already been on a few exchanges. I will be in a new 4 man apartment, that much I know.  Elder Evans and I , Elder Helbig, who is 2 transfers younger than me, and a new missionary who he is training. I will be teaching all the English speaking investigators who are convenient to travel to. Which means I need to re-learn my English gospel vocabulary. :-) 

Having studied my scriptures, preach my Gospel, and have read half way through Jesus the Christ all in German, I have a difficult time remembering words every now and again. Naturally I will still speak contact people on the street in German, but Church, and all lessons will be English again. My ward is made up mostly of Americans. It will be interesting. Starting off with 0 potentials and 0 Investigators! (Sounds strangely familiar...) There are already two Elders in the area, but they work in the Mission office untill 5 Monday through Friday. Talk about getting thrown into cold water, I will get to see and work in the entire city of Munich as well as a number of other areas in the surrounding area. I get to see Neuschwanstein, that will be cool. (Neuschwanstein is a Castle that is very familiar and often related to the castles at Disneyland and Disneyworld). But I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I will need to teach in English again.:-P

Anyway, Congrats to Beth on her mission Call! The video didn't work, so I had to read the e-mail instead, but over the past few days and especially today, I had the feeling that you would be coming here. Trotzdem stehe ich unter Schock, aber naja, es ist zu erwarten. Weil wir so ähnlich sind, ist es keine überraschung dass wir in die gleiche Mission geschickt sind. (Still, I was in shock, but well, it is to be expected. Because we are so similar, it's no surprise that we are sent in the same mission.) 

It's beautiful here. Every year they do a world wide poll of the cities with the best standards of living. 5 out of the top 10 are in this mission. Vienna it self in this last poll was number 1 but has over the past few years varied between number 1 and 2 :-). Which is awesome, but is also a huge problem. People here have everything that they need, so they don't see a need for God... But with hard work and faith you find those who are ready to hear it. :-) 

I get to go preach to the African immigrants now... :-) Good thing I like fried Chicken and purple drink :-D (for those who don't get that, once I get over there and have eating appointments with Africans  I will tell you what I ate, and after a few times, you'll get it). Even here, there are a couple of African families in our ward (they are the best, truly they are) and every time I have had dinner with them it has always been fried Chicken, with some sort of side dish, and a some sort of Juice, (a lot of times a dark red or purple juice). But I have also heard of some really weird foods that Africans make (I am sure Zack can already testify to that)... So we will see.

We had Zone Conference this past week, that was awesome, Long but awesome. Other that this week was a full on face plant. EVERYTHING FELL OUT. EVERYTHING. We manage to teach 3 lessons. Thats it. Total. And church is included in those three. Ouch...

And everything since I got my Transfer call has only gotten worse... Something must be up, because Satan is doing everything he can to pull me down harder in ways then he has tried to before on my mission... I am  fighting through it though. Things will get better. I know they will. They always do :-)

Because I am being transferred I used the excuse to write Frau Zalka a text ( I actually called her first, but she didn't answer). A few minutes later she responded:
>>Lieber Elder Christensen! Ich finde es sehr nett, dass du dich von uns Verabschiedest! ;-) auch, wenn wir noch nicht getauft sind, haben wir viel von dir gelernt. Ich habe großen respekt vor jedem, der eine Mission erfüllt, was bestimmt nicht immer leicht ist. Ich wünsche dir das beste und lasse es dich wissen, wenn wir uns taufen lassen. Christine, Simon und Miriam.<<

That was cool. Most of you probably want a translation huh? alright:
"Dear Elder Christensen, I think it is very kind of you to say goodbye to us ;-) eventhough we are still not baptized, we have learned a lot from you. I have a great respect for everyone who serves a mission, something that is definetly not easy. I wish you all the best, and will let you know if we get baptized"

Anyway, through out it all. I am very incredibly grateful to my Father in heaven that I have been able to serve here in the wonderful City. I love Wien so much. I really do. It is a wonderful place, and I am very sad to leave. But with one door closing comes another open one. Munich here I come! :-) I really appreciate The comfort that I have recently received from God, 

When I first got my call to go to an English speaking ward, I wasn't very happy. I love the German Language, I love teaching in German. I feel like I understand things better in German. But on Saturday night, we were coming back to our apartment after visiting Edith and Chiara, I was riding in the straßenbahn (tram) and I started to talk to someone sitting next to me. He was from the philippians (I have no clue how to spell that anymore) (Philippines) and after a few minutes we started speaking in English. I was able to talk to him and bear testimony, and at that moment in time the spirit bore witness to my heart that where I am going, is where I need to be. 

And that I will be supported and helped while I am there, and that even though I will be in an English speaking ward, I will still get to speak German. :-) It was absolutely wonderful. And I know that is where I need to be. I am grateful for that. That feeling of peace even though I have no idea what lies ahead. But I know that God is in charge and he will be on my right hand and on my left if I do that which I am asked to do, and am worthy of that.

That will be all for now. I love you all and wish you a wonderful week!

love,
Elder Ryan K. Christensen

New Policy!... and Lederhosen

Wow! With the new missionary age change comes a new policy from the first presidency!

Missionaries are to write to their families each week and are also authorized to communicate
by email with friends, priesthood leaders, and new converts. Mission presidents should allow
sufficient time on preparation day for missionaries to write emails and letters. While in the
mission field, missionaries should receive authorization from the mission president before
entering into communication, including via email, with converts and others of the opposite
gender within the mission boundaries (see Missionary Handbook, 36–37).

That is way cool! haha President Miles entiteled that e-mail to us as "your prayers have been answered". :-) Wow. That is way cool, I don't even know what to say to that. It will help a lot, especially keeping in contact with recent Converts.

Well that was huge. On another huge note, I got Lederhosen!! I am so excited. When I first got here missionaries were all saying that anyone who serves here needs lederhosen, which I thought (at first) was just stupid (I didn't really know what they were)  But after I had seen real Lederhosen I wanted to get some. It even got to a point where I had somewhat of a nightmare, where I returned home from my mission and forgot to buy them! I had already planned to buy some Lederhosen before I left Wien, but last week Elder Chapman and I noticed that the store around the corner was having a sale! My Lederhosen would have costed 140 Euro, but I got them for 80! I also bought a shirt, socks, shoes and the hat! :-) I will attach some pictures. I bought them last P-day. 

Well, this week was otherwise, a bit of a trial of our faith. We had 11 appointments which fell out. That was hard, but we found 12 potential investigators! which is good, and we still managed to keep 10 appointments :-). Which was cool. 

However in the meantime I have become mostly deaf out of both ears... I can hardly hear anything. Too much ear wax, way at the back of my ear. I have tried a number of things and nothing worked until I went to the Strong's apartment on Friday, and she put Hydrogen Peroxide in my ear, and that helped a ton, now I just need to find some here now, and if not, then I will probably need to go to a doctor here. But its driving me absolutely nuts. Its terrible trying to participate in lessons when I can hardly hear what is being said... I have become a lot more grateful for my ears :-) And humble, as people mock my lack of hearing "HELLO GRANDPA CHECK THE BATTERY!" And I have learned a ton of patience, as all my attempts at a quick fix have fallen through, and I having to go nearly 3 days not hearing anything... But it will get better, luckily nothing else is currently wrong :-)

Through the fallen out appointments and other things come some cool stories however. I may have mentioned that we had an exchange last Monday to Tuesday, and that we were supposed to have 4 appointments in the exchange. Well 3 of them fell out. :-) But we found 7 potentials in the time period where we would have been teaching. That was cool. And finding day was also neat. It started out rough though. 3 and a half hours of straight up NO. No one was stopping except to tell me that I was wrong (which there is a bit of a funny story about that... I will get to it in a minute).

 I was praying the whole time, please Heavenly Father, help me find those who are prepared, please help me know what to say, and feel thy love for them. I kept getting turned down, and it was weighing me, down so I prayed harder, and 30 minutes or so before the finding ended I found 3 families. That was an answer to a prayer. I felt so good after that, it was incredible. Also a test of patience. :-) 

The "funny story" is actually not much of a story, just going through the day I talked to a man who tried to tell me that I need to study the new testament and only that would bring me joy or something to that effect, at which point I started teaching him a bit, and in the process I quoted 3 or 4 passages word for word out of the New Testament. Then he was like "OK, so you do know the New testament but..." he couldn't really figure out what to say, so I said something to the effect of "listen to me, I know that this Book is true, and that this is the true church, not because someone told me it was, but because I have taken the advice of the bible to "prove all things and keep that which is good", and because I need wisdom I asked God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and recognized through the spirit the good fruits. I know it and I know it comes of God, and cannot deny it. But If you don't want to listen, I am not here to force you. Then I came him a pass along card and showed him our number. He was speechless, but took it and said thanks. Whether or not he will call or not, I don't know. But I didn't do it contentiously, or angrily, and I left with no negative feelings. But I did give him something to think about. :-)

Also due to a dropped appointment, we were finally able to contact Josua, a man out of Portuguese speaking Africa who has lived here for 13 years. I found his name going through the area book, and notice that he wanted a Portuguese Book of Mormon, but for some reason the missionaries never recorded (and later confirmed) that they had never given him one. We went buy, gave him one, made an appointment out, and met with him the next day. :-) He is REALLY cool, just really busy, and the next appointment will be after I leave. Speaking of leaving, transfer calls are this Friday, again. And now it is REALLY likely that I will get transferred. We shall see.

That will do it for this e-mail. :-) 

The Lord is still leading this work, and even though it is really hard at times, It is still very rewarding to see the things that do go well. Like a couple of days ago for example. I was on a bus back to Florisdorf, Someone started talking to me in the bus. It turns out that he used to be a member of the church, but was no longer. He had his name scratched, he did say why, but I asked him if the missionaries could meet with him, and he very quickly said yes that he did. He really wanted to come back to Church. He lives in the Wien 2 area, and the missionaries there said that he came to church on Sunday with his fiance. :-) I was on that bus due to a fallen out appointment. The Lord truly moves in mysterious ways...

Thanks, I wish you all a great week!
love,
Elder Ryan K. Christensen

Die Sonne Scheint! ENDLICH!!!!!!

(The Sun!  Finally!!!!!)

Oh man! The sun is shining again! Its the first time I have seen the sun in a month. AT LEAST. And its warm! It's so nice. Although it's giving me flashbacks of being back in Esslingen, and the beautiful summer in Vorarlberg. Man... I am really excited for it to be summer again, I must admit, I really loved summer as a missionary especially in Vorarlberg I got to stop thinking about it. Anyway, yeah I am really happy for it to be warm again. 

Anyway, this past week was pretty great. :-) We had quite the number of lessons, and not many fell out :-). Which is good. :-) We even got let in at a door! So awesome! Wednesday was cool, we had a finding day here in this area, which pretty much fell flat on its face, normally we should have all 4 companionships here. But the Zone leaders were at another district meeting, and Elder Stilger and Elder Hanson went to go find Elder Stilgers backpack which he had left on a bus somewhere in Wien... So it was just the four of us. 

But what was cool, sort of, is that we were supposed to meet with Edith and Chiara right after the finding day was over ( right around 19) but partway through I get a text from Edith saying that Chiara has the flu, which means that we shouldn't come anymore. Great... but a few minutes later we get a call from Andy, saying that he couldn't meet anymore on Saturday, nor any other time this week except that night at 19. Wow. So we met with him! And it went really well! He was supposed to come to church on Sunday with his Girlfriend, but they never came. :-( He probably had to work, he works as a nurse at AKH (the General Hospital here in Wien). But he is way cool. He is originally from Romania but can speak really good German, as well as 6 other languages. We hope to meet with him again this week.

We met with Martin and Marion as well. :-) And we had a really good discussion about the organization of the Church. It went well, and we will meet with them again this week, at the Familie Schmuck's home. That will be good. They are awesome, what more can I say? :-)

This week looks pretty promising, we are pretty well full! We are doing an exchange tonight with Wien 2 (Elder Gochnour is coming here with me) and we have 6 appointments between today and tomorrow!!!! SO COOL. Its so nice to have appointments again. We are also doing well with finding. We came across and old Potential list and I went through and called everyone on it. One of the people that I called is named Nico, and he is really excited to meet with us! He got home from working yesterday at 7:20 however, and had to cancel the appointment. :-( But he hopes to meet with us in the next couple of days. 

Friday was neat. We had a few potentials that night that we wanted to go by on. And one of them led us to Herr Stinner. He let us in and we talked about the Book of Mormon a bit. :-) He is cool. Speaks really bad Wienerisch, quietly, which makes it hard to hear him sometimes. But he took a book of Mormon and said that he would read it and was very happy to invite us back this week. :-) We invited him to church and hopefully he will come this sunday :-). 

Other than, that there isn't much new. Things are going really well. I am excited for an appointment tonight with Kevin, we found going door to door. He was at his Girlfriends house, her parents didn't have any interest, and neither did she, but before they shut the door he said wait! I am interested. :-) His mom is American, his dad Austrian, so he speaks perfect English and German (Americanische Englisch sogar) (American English even). He is way cool he lives in Klagenfurt, but is  going to move here to Wien within the next few weeks. He said, "I can't meet with you here, right now, because they aren't interested, but could I give you my number and then you can call me and we can meet?" We will hopefully meet with him tonight. Martine Hayden will come with us, and invite him to the YSA activities, and hopefully be a betreuer (coach, or friend shipper) for him. 

Anyway things are going well! I hope you are all well. I love this work. And I know that it is inspired of God. I am reading the Book of Mormon again, and I recently read Alma 26 again. I forgot how much I love that chapter. Verse 35 :" Have we not therefore reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, never, from the beginning of the Earth on has there ever been men who have had so great a reason to rejoice as do we..." Then further inverse 36: "Yea, I say unto you Blessed be the name of my God, who hath been mindful of us- wanderers in a strange land. Now we see therefore, my Bretheren, that God is mindful of every people, in whatsoever land they may live.." 

Sometimes I am near to the point of exploding with happiness BLESSED BE THE NAME OF MY GOD for all which he does here and all over the World. He loves his people, and as it says in the final verses of Romans 8 Nothing, not Engels, or powers, anything high or low, anything to come or that has come can separate us from the love God. Nothing. He loves his people and I am so happy to be here and to share that. There isn't anything more important than that. I know that there is a God, and that He our Father is. I know that this is truly his work among the Children of Men. What a Blessing to be apart of it. 

I wish you all a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen