Well, This week was... interesting. It has some highlights
and some hard times. We had in which I went to Dornbirn. That was great, I got
to go back and meet with Peter Wenzel, who is a friend I knew back when I was
in Dornbirn and we had a lot of fun with him. :-) I love going back and meeting
members. I got to see Sister Repnick again, and also Christian Vuissa and his
family again. Its a lot of fun. I was on exchange with Elder Sharp, the Australian. :-) I love this district we have a lot of fun.
We got to meet with the Zeller Family the next day which was
good. :-) We didn't really get to teach anything, but we got to know them a bit
better. They provided dinner for us and we help them practice their English. I
may or may not of also played the Piano for a few minutes ;-). They have a
really beautiful white piano that they got awhile ago when their boys were
learning how to play, then they gave up and it hadn't been played in a few
years. So I played the only thing I knew, various Church hymns. :-) They
enjoyed a lot, but that was really the only spiritual aspect of the evening
sadly.
Thursday was a both miraculous and rough at the same time.
We had no plans at all. So we first went to Baindt, went buy on our single
potential up there, who turn out to be professional body builders, who invited
us to come and work out some time with them. :-) Which we may do if we can find
time on a P-day in the next few weeks ;-)
Then we just went door to door. for
an hour and a half there, then we went to Weingarten, and went by on a polish
family who we had talked to awhile ago. That was the miraculous part, the
father was home, and so we could sit down and talk a bit. He works everyday and
only has a few hours off every now and again. We ended up having Victoria, the
8 year old daughter, translate for us. Which was surprisingly very effective.
The father is from India and could speak english, but the Daughter had better
German than the father had english, so we used her to translate to polish for
her mom and dad.
We had given the Mother a polish book of mormon a few weeks
back and we asked her what she though, and she said that she really liked it,
and indicated with her hands that she cries when she reads it, she then asked
us if we have any more books :-). That made me happy to see that she likes the
Book and notices how good it makes her feel. On Saturday we came back with the
Buchanans and showed her a talk from President Monson which also almost made
her cry. Sadly Victoria wasn't there and Dominik who is 9 is too shy to
translate. So we couldn't discuss too much more. That was really neat,
that we were able to meet with them on that day. :-)
Friday was we had weekly planning, met with Jason to go over
the questions for baptism and helped set up for the Christmas party.
The next day was great and hard at the same time. Jason
didn't come to the Christmas party, which was hard because we planned to do the
Baptismal interview right then. So we went to him and had it, long story short,
China has no sort of retirement program, which means the kids are expected to
pay all living expenses for their parents, but there is also a law which allows
them to only have 1 child. And he also has student loans. Tithing is something
that he isn't fully to terms with yet. So we will wait and help him develop a
testimony of tithing.
But Natalia came to the Christmas party as well as Vladimir
and they both really enjoyed it! Patrizia was nearly glued to her moms side for
the first bit, but then opened up a bit and went and played with the others
kids that were present. That was good to see. It was fun, even when I missed
more than half of it... :-P
No one came to church on sunday which was hard, but we were
able to go visit some people and bring some left over gift bags from the
Christmas party. :-)
This week will be nuts! Today at 5 we are helping move a
large sofa from a second story apartment building ouside via the balcony, then
we will immeidately go into an exchange, from now till tomorrow night at 9pm,
when all 4 Dornbirn Elders come to spend the night with us here in Ravensburg
in prepation for catching a train early the next morning to make it to Zone
Training in Freiburg (THROUGH THE BLACK FOREST!!!!) Then we will go caroling in
Offenburg, spend the night there, and come back to Freiburg the next day for
the Christmas Conference then go home. :-)
This week will fly by. But it will also be full of a lot of
good things as well I hope.
Martin Lauer, Christina Zalka and her son will all be
baptized this week in Wien!! :-) I am way excited for all of them, even if I
can't go back to see them all.
I wish you all a great week!
love,
Elder Ryan K. Christensen
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