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Sunday, July 21, 2013

Woche 23- Wunder Zahl, Wien Pfahl

Lieber Familie,
Grüß euch!!!
What a wundershöne week for me, and hopefully for all of you as well!
This week definitely had its ups and its downs, but as always, the missionaries come out on top, because we are on the Lords errand, and he wins everytime.
Time for a debrief of the last weeks exciting events? I think yes!
Monday evening, we set a new baptismal date with Erich!! He came to church 2 weeks in a row and told us he wants to keep coming everyweek... forever! He is such an intersting guy with LOTS of questions, but I think he has very serious intentions of joining the church. Im not sure what I told you about him before, but he used to be baptist, but he stepped out of both the catholic and baptist church and was just looking for a church to join and he decided himself to investigate. he has real intentions!
Tuesday we went to Wien in the evening to finally watch the missionary broadcast from a couple weeks ago! It takes a while for all the translations to go through, but I loved it! Ive heard it now in German and English- it really got the members pumped up!
Wednesday we had Zone Training, so we spent the night in Wien actually tuesday- 7 elders in one apartment! It was a little cramped, and INCREDIBLY hot and humid. Its been steadily getting warmer and warmer since it cooled off, so it was very uncomfortable. Zone Training was amazing. We had a exchange right after and we ran back to catch our train to St. Pölten because we had a day PACKED with appointments. One was with a less active sister named sister Dressler. We read from the scriptures and she was moved to tears- unfortunatley she works sundays so we couldnt bring her to church with us this week! Then we met with a new investigator, a guy we found last week named Norbert. He was AWESOME! He doesnt have a lot of time, but we have high hopes for him and his wife Ruth.
Thursday was a little rough. Probably one of the harder days of my mission. Many of our appointments fell through, and it seemed like EVERYONE on the street just hated us. For the first time in a long time I fell even less than 2 class, even less than human. It was a little discouraging to be treated this way the whole day. But Elder Horlacher and I talked for a long time thursday after we came home to plan and he really helped me get back into the zone.
Friday we help Bruder Seitz in his garden. He is 92 years old, and the spunkiest man ever! He has the THICKEST austrian dialect that is STILL really hard for me to understand, but everything he says is hilarious! That evening we met with Amanda and the Schildböcks- once again she threatened to be done with the church and said she didnt want to meet anymore. We found out the problem was jsut that she wanted to attend normal sunday school with the members instead of the special class for investigators! The Schildböcks were amazing for helping her.
Saturday we did a big split. Elder Horlacher went with the Hirschmanns and did an all day tour of St. Pölten branch boundaries (several hundred kilometers) and visited every less active family on the way. In the mean time, Elder Mongia and I went dooring! I was very excited for it at first, but it must have been birthday magic or something (it was Elder Mongias birthday) but we had amazing success!! We found 4 people in an hour just knocking on doors!
That evening, we had a lesson with Bruder Kerschbaum, a less active who is trying to give up smoking. He gave us his cigarettes, and the hirschmanns gave him a blessing. It was one of the most powerful blessings Ive ever had the privledge to be a part of. It was so powerful to see how happy he was with his determination to give up smoking.
Sunday we watched the broadcast again as a ward, and it was so cool to see the ward members get all excited. A few even came up to us after and started brainstorming ways they could start doing little things.

All in all, another successful, ridiculously fast week gone by! Im learning more each day, and Im loving each step I take!
We get transfer calls this friday, and Its possible that i could get transfered, because Im officially the longest standing missionary in this area. So... if anyone was planning on mailing me (which Im sure no one was) Dont do it because I could have a change of address soon! If all else fails, just use the mission home address, then it will always come to the right place.
Thanks again everyone! I sure love you and pray for you! You are the best family in the world!
Adventure is out there!
Elder Bartholomew

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