Busy in Austria

 

Oh I can't believe it's so close to Christmas already. It's unbelievable. And thanksgiving!! Luckily we've been invited over for it by Brother Piñol :) I'll miss you guys a lot this holiday season. Seeing Christmas decorations up here is hard, without you. But the show must go on, and it will :) this will be such a wonderful place to spend it. The best in the mission, so I've heard. 

me and Elder Kaufusi and light up bear

Well Austria is amazing. Amazing Wienerschnitzel! The food is all good... especially the stuff I make ;) haha jk. But I have been cooking a lot. It's fun. Our apartment is modest, but cozy. I like it a lot. Really comfy bed, which is so important here. We keep it nice and clean. I usually cook and Elder Kaufusi does dishes. Elder Kaufusi is so cool. He is the hardest working missionary I've met so far! We get so much hard work done. I miss spätzle... it's only a Baden-Württemberg thing... but I can make it from scratch!! The language is a little different.... but I already have a very comfortable grasp of the German language, so I've already adjusted to the way people speak here. That's a blessing :) 

 

 

This last week was a week of decision. A week of sacrifice. A week of miracles. Another week of the most difficult, amazing, heartbreaking, and glorious work this world has to offer. I never thought I could feel such a mix of joy and sorrow. Faith and fear. But that's the funny thing about missions. You can't really describe what it's like to someone who's never experienced it. Not in a way that people understand. Anyway, this week was really hard, but one of the best weeks on my mission so far. And I'll tell you why soon. 

me and Elder Bolt at District Meeting

Monday: After studies we went shopping! It was such an interesting experience not having a car for groceries... you remember that scene in "Home Alone" when he's walking down the street with grocery bags... and they just break open and everything spills everywhere? Not saying that happened... but it happened. Haha. We hadn't even left the store yet! But don't worry... we made it Home. After that we made some lunch and got ready for an appointment we planned the week before. We met a guy on the street and set up an appointment to meet him am Hauptplatz. (I don't know how to translate it, but it's like the city center sort of.) we went, and he didn't show up... so instead we just spent a couple hours speaking with people on the street. We got a couple phone numbers and felt pretty good! Then we had to go get our bikes repaired (we needed lights, and Elder Kaufusi broke his pedal... heheh.) and i needed a new pair of gloves (my fancy ones weren't working very well with the bike grips) and I gave them to a beggar. So a bought a more sporty pair. After that we did our emails at the church. Right as we arrived at the church, a man showed up and asked if he could ask us some questions. He asked some questions about what we believed and we had a really nice discussion. Got his number as well... 

Airport store near wear we live

Tuesday: We went to Wien!! We had a great district meeting and afterwards we went to a real Mexican restaurant! It was like European Costa Vida! (But definitely not as good...) sadly. After that we found an American snack store!! I don't think you could understand the joy in my heart as I feasted my eyes on American cereal, chips, and candy for the first time in 6 months... Go to Europe and you'll know. European food is delicious, but they have no clue how to do good snack food. I bought Hershies chocolate syrup.. and now I can make sundaes. After that we took the train home and studied for a lesson that night. We have a guy named Morris who's a professor at a nearby college. He always tries texting us in Englisch, but his Englisch isn't too good.... he told us he had a meeting and would try to make it. We asked him if it'd be better to reschedule and he replied: "sounds good. See you soon!" So we assumed we were still on. But we got to the university (about a 30 bike ride) and waited. Eventually we texted him and he told us he thought we decided to reschedule. We figured out he thought "see you soon" was just another way to say "goodbye" in Englisch. But we had another appointment after that with a man named Erickson. Remember him? He's the guy that came to church last Sunday. We had a recently returned missionary from Chile with us (both of their native languages were Spanisch) He told us the story of his life and how he became a Messiah Jew. We got to talking about the gospel and what it means to us and how it helps us. About this time, he started pulling out scriptures trying to tell us that what we believed was false. He tried proving it to us by using the scriptures. We tried steering the conversation back to something uplifting, but he kept trying to shoot us down. Throughout the conversation I noticed some things. Every time he brought up a complaint and shared a scripture, i knew exactly what scripture I could use to prove my point, but I felt very strongly constrained to not share. He would bring up another point. The same feeling would come again. Over and over this would happen. He complained about Temples, about prophets and apostles, about the law of Moses, and even about the painting of Jesus we had on the wall. He told us that the Ten Commandments forbid such images. In my heart I knew what that commandment really meant, but all the same I felt compelled to keep my silence. I had the strongest feeling that this man was simply not prepared to hear the message we are called to share. I do not mean this in any kind of negative sense, but I realized he had a very pharisaical view of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He took every law very literally, and didn't look beyond for even the slightest bit of deeper meaning. After he finished, I brought out a Book of Mormon and told him that until he reads it, he will never know for sure if what we say is true or not. He said he had read before, and felt nothing. Our friend from Chile then told him that he didn't do it right. He told him that the missionaries (us) had a great knowledge of the things we discussed, but we refuse to argue because contention is never the answer, and always drives the spirit away. Elder Kaufusi bore his testimony of what he knows is true, and we shared a moment of silence. The spirit was very strong. We then found some common ground and talked about how we can better live like Jesus Christ. In that way we could all agree. We had a nice prayer to close, and parted as friends, with an invitation to come over and eat with his family! I can testify that the real teacher is the Spirit. Without the spirit, we can not teach. 

 

Mexican food

Wednesday: On Wednesday I went to apply for my visa at the Rathaus. Because of a paperwork problem, I wasn't able to apply for a new police record before going to Austria, which is pretty bad. It's a complicated process to apply for a visa without one, especially if you're already there. When he asked for it I showed him my outdated one and told him I needed to get a new one. He thought about it for a minute and then asked me where I lived before. I told him I was in Germany for 6 months. He asked me for proof, so I showed him my Aufenthaltstitel and my Anmeldung and Abmeldung Bestätigungen. He reviewed the information and told me it'd be ok because I was so recently in Germany and my police record expired only recently. He then approved my visa! I told the mission office sister in charge of this sort of stuff and she said that NEVER happens. So i was pretty blessed. After that we did studies and hit the streets for a while, talking to people. After that we went to Bahnhof, met up with the sisters, and had dinner with a less active family. The wife is active, but the daughters aren't, and the Husband is not a member. But they were some of the funniest people ever. Very fun, loving family. At the end the oldest daughter promised she would read in the scriptures every day! We played uno and talked about all their adventures. Her mom figured out I could sing, so now I'm singing in the ward Christmas program XD woooo! Haha

Thursday: This was a day where we had absolutely nothing to do... so we were out on the street talking to people FOREVER. It was such a rush, but so hard... we talked to SO MANY people. We did split contacting, which means we stayed within sight of eachother and just talked to people individually. Twice as many people to talk to. We found two people who wanted to meet. Not gonna lie, that was a hard day. Hard work in the cold. But then we just decided we'd do something nice, so we just held doors open for people at a grocery store for a half an hour, and it was good to see people smile. We also found an airport store!! Very cool. No orange tips in Europe! That night we taught a German class to a couple of refugees! It was lots of fun, especially trading to translate things into Persian. After that we had ward counsel. It was AMAZING. We have a new bishopric in the ward and they are focusing the entire ward on missionary work. It's every missionary's dream! 

 

Family from Iraq

 

Friday: We had our studies and gen hit the streets again to go talk to people. After a few hours the Piñol family had us over again for lunch. The sisters weren't there because they are the sister Training leaders and had a meeting in München. But they made us amazing lasagna and we had a wonderful spiritual conversation about his mission. After that we went and visited the newly baptized Samir, and he was out of he hospital! We visited him at home and he seemed to be doing so well. We had a great time with him and shared our favorite scriptures. 

Saturday: We visited Hans again! He had made lots of progress! He had read a little bit and started his efforts to quit smoking! He seems happier, and we had a great discussion as we read in the Book of Mormon. After this appointment we hit the streets again and talked to a lot of people before boarding a bus to a little Dorf called Lichtenwörth. We were trying to find a couple less active members in the area but didn't find them at all. Instead we found an older lady from Pakistan, who said she was very interested in our message. She didn't speak very good German, but she wanted us to come back, so we exchanged information. As we got home we visited the little Christmas market in Hauptplatz. It was so pretty. People singing, pastries, Christmas trees. So cool. 

At the Christmas Market

Sunday: on Sunday we went to church, and the entire bishopric spoke! They presented their vision for the ward, and it was very powerful. I have high hopes for this area. Afterwards we had a class with the investigators that came to church and had a great discussion about keeping the sabbath day holy. After church we had an eating appointment with the Schiebel family. They are great. We shared a wonderful video about being grateful for Jesus Christ, and got to know eachother well. The fed us steak and potato patties, with Palatschinken (Austrian Crêpes) for desert. Just slightly thicker crêpes. So good. Afterwards we wanted to go by on a family from Iraq that has been taught for a little less than two years. We did and they invited us right in! We got to know eachother and talked about their family. It was such a great visit. She was so awestruck with how tall Elder Kaufusi is... it was so funny. We talked about members of the church from Iraq and how the church is all over the world. They fed us tiramisu (Iraqi cake) and it was delicious! (No alcohol) we left on very good terms and they invited us back. Glad we could make a good impression.

So around Wednesday is started feeling pretty... discouraged. I was feeling out of touch spiritually and I was very homesick. Elder Kaufusi and I work really well together, but we run on different frequencies. Sometimes we don't quite understand eachother. But that's ok. It's very new, and I'm still getting used to everything. And I made a choice that changed my week. I had actually become very unfocused lately. It's really easy to get ahold of pictures and videos in this mission from my life before the mission. Star Wars stuff, etc. I had accumulated a little bit of this stuff, assuming it would be no harm. At first they made me feel better. Relaxed, even. But soon enough i found myself so distracted that I would sometimes realize I was taking time out of studies to view it. It was making me feel discouraged and lazy. The subject of this email means in English: An eye single to the Glory of God. On Wednesday I decided enough was enough. I got rid of all of it and committed to memory this saying. Ever since, I have been feeling so much better. Maybe this could help y'all back home. Maybe you're feeling the same way. Taking some time away from that kind of stuff can help a lot. I can happily say that I am now very focused and again experiencing the joy of service with 100% of my focus and love. 

 

 

That was my adventure and spiritual trip this week. 

Thanks for all the emails everyone. They are all so appreciated. Thank you Mom for the updates. I love you very much, and am very proud to be your son. I'll send pics in a sec. With all my heart,

Elder Larson