Liebe Familie (yes, I found out Ive been writing that wrong since the
beginning of my mission. I thought there was an r there... but I was wrong
haha)
Grüß euch!
This week was so great! Elder Parkinson just had to sit down and marvel at
how great everything is going. If every week could be as cool as this one,
missions would be easy! We definitely worked our tails off, but is was so
worth is and so fun! Can i start by saying I have biked more this last week
than probably ever in my life. And Elder Parkinson is a little speed demon
with legs the size of Titans, so Im always busting beans trying to keep up
with him! It keeps things interesting though!
Now to list of the other interesting adventures of the week!
Monday after emails, we went to Wien right after to do a little sight
seeing before visiting the Stratzcenys (our Branch President. He lives
technically in the Wien 2 ward, but he is our branch president because we
dont have enough priesthood holders to have our own president.) We saw some
more cool old churches and domes and stuff- all like a 1000 years old... is
it bad that im a little desensitized to these kind of things? Its all
just... old stuff to me these days. Ive seen so many old castles and stuff
haha. But turns out we were WAY lost and we got to our presidents house
like an hour late, but we had an awesome talk about their temple mission-
they have served 8!! Its so crazy- President says its his punishment,
becuase he decided not to go on a mission when he was young, he got called
to served 8 when he got old haha. That night we slept in the Zone leaders
apartment! It was an adventure getting there... we had never been there
before so we were wandering around Wien around
8:45 trying to follow the
directions we got... we ended up taking a straßenbahn, and ubahn, and
walking over the river. somehow we found the zone leaders haha.
Tuesday, we had distrikt meeting which was cool as ever, then we came home
for our appointment with sister Dressler- which fell out like 5 minutes
before it happend. so we found some stuff to do before our PFK- which was
actually a very good one this week. Afterwards we rode the bikes out to
visit Stefan Schildböck and his girlfriend Birgit (I think I told you guys
about them last week)- turns out they werent home, so we had to reschedule,
and it was getting late by that point becasue they live pretty far outside
of town with the bikes- when it was time to come home, a storm was blowing
in, so we raced home and barely avoided the rain- that was a miracle!
Wednesday morning we went and did service in Bruder Seitz garden- we
mulched up all the plants from the whole summer- it is really turning into
Autumn here! Im still in denial a little bit, but i guess i just have to
accept it. Summer has come and gone! Sheesh! We had an appointment with a
guy named Mohammed at the bahnhof that afternoon- he didnt show up, but it
turned into a total miracle because our old investigator Andreas ran into
with his bike! He looked so much happier than when he dropped us, and said
he was ready to meet again! We would have never known if we hadnt been
standing in that exact spot! Crazy how the lord works like that! That
afternoon we rode the bikes out to Erich Scharner on the opposite side of
town for a cool visit with him, then we had German Class with Bruder
Korherr- he is so funny. Its cool to see how excited he gets to teach us
german. That evening we taught Wolfgang in the church about the Word of
Wisdom- it didnt go as good as we hoped. Hes kinda big on coffee and tea
and it didnt make sense to him. We had Bruder Jelinek there (a member i
have NEVER been able to get on a joint teach before, so that was a miracle
too!) and he bore good testimony... but it was still a little tense leaving
the lesson. I guess thats just a hard principle to swallow.
Thursday we had planned to go visit the family Seliga in Klamm- that would
have taken the whole day. BUT. last minute they called and canceled on us.
So we had NOTHING to do the whole day. We called as many people as we could
all morning to try and find someone. No go. So we ended up riding the bikes
to visit a less active family in a dorf about 10 km away- luckily it was
downhill the whole way. they werent home. So riding BACK was an adventure-
we were sweating good thats for sure by the time we got back up to the top!
We couldnt get any appointments in the afternoon either, but it all turned
into a miracle becasue our back up plan was to go by a man who lives in
Krems (a town on a mountain about 30 kms away. its straight out of a
fairytale) so we went and talked to about 1000000 people- and no one was
even giving us a second to talk. It was looking really bad for us and we
were losing morale. BUT the miracle came at the end of the day. The last
lady we talked to before getting back on our train home was named Regine.
She is also in St. Pölten and when she saw the Book of Mormon she
remembered seeing it as a little girl when the missionaries came to her
house, but doesnt remember anything else about it! So we set an appointment
in St. Pölten right there on the spot- but more about that later.
Friday,We did planning, ate lunch with Schwester Sindl (classic Austrian
meal. Knödel, Kraut, and Schweinbrat. it was so great!) then we met with
Amanda again! It was such an interesting lesson- bruder Hirschmann came
with. And we just talked and talked and talked- after a lot of beating
around the bush, she admitted she had never actually prayed to know if the
church was true or not. And she committed to do it! So we'll see what comes
of that! Bruder Bauer picked us up from the church to take us to our next
appointment with Stefan Schildböck and Birgit, but we got there about 20
min too late and they didnt want to meet anymore- it was a little sad, but
Bruder Bauer bought us schnitzel to say sorry for being late. So that was
fun to go to dinner with him.
Saturday was CRAZY. We met Regine at some café in the morning- and she
CAME! We had such a cool lesson and found out shes totally prepared to hear
the gospel, becasue she isnt really content with the catholic church
anymore and she thinks its cool that she remembers the book from 50-60
years ago! That afternoon we had another German class with Bruder Korherr,
then we changed our clothes and rode the bikes as fast as possible up this
GIANT hill to get to sister Brunnsteiners house- she had some service for
us to do. We had another appointment to catch right after so we had to go
really fast- but she ended up baking us brownies! real AMERICAN brownies!
Soemthing I havent had for 6 months haha. It was awesome! We changed our
clothes one more time back to business wear, and rode really quick to catch
the appointment with Erich again- we left a quick thought with him, and
rode back to the church to meet Wolfgang! We had hoped to have the
Schildböcks there, to talk about the Tithing. they had to cancel last
minute, so we had about 30 seconds to change the lesson plan- it ended up
being just fine becasue we talked a lot about his friend that he wanted us
to go teach-
on SUNDAY. It was way cool to make out a game plan of how we
could best help his friend. Then we just read from the scriptures and bore
testimony of the truths we know. He is progressing so great! He told us he
has started praying to know if this is the truth for him!
Sunday was super cool! Amanda and Wolfgang were in the church, and right
after the church, we caught a train with Wolfgang to Wien to visit his
friend. Her name is Martina- and it was AMAZING! She has had a really hard
life, but she is just the sweetest lady in the world. As we introduced what
we do, she was so ready to recieve it all- to make her life better! Im so
excited to teach her some more
tomorrow!
Then we just went home and ate Gulasch with Wolfgang, and listened to his
crazy Afrikan Jazz Cds... man he is so cool! He is just like a cool friend
of mine! Im so grateful that I could stay here and continual to build this
relationship. MISSIONARY WORK IS AWESOME!
Well, i am out of time. But I love you all!
Adventure is out there!
Elder Bartholomew
