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