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