From July 25, 2017:
Hey Momo!!
Oh man, hearing about the coast
makes me wish I could be there. I love it. But I'll see it again
sometime anyway. :) I can't remember a time we were at the coast where
it wasn't windy! I saw a picture of Braeden! He looks a lot older! Maybe
it's the scruff he's got goin on. I don't know. When is he getting
married again?
Your dream made me happy and sad. :) I love
you Mom and I miss you too. The longer I'm out here, the longer I
realize just how much I need to take advantage of the time directly in
front of me. Once it's gone, It doesn't come back. I may not ever be 3
years old again, but I'm always your son. Maybe it was a tender mercy of
the Lord, that you had that dream. Heavenly Father just keeps sending
me dreams of being home, but everything is in German, and then everyone
tells me I'm a missionary and as soon as I realize it i wake up in bed
and have to let reality sink in for a moment. Sometimes it's no problem,
but sometimes after these dreams I really feel frustrated. Either way,
It's a crazy transition. :) Most of my dreams are missionary dreams!
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| Poopy. |
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Anyway,
My week has been good, and my area is indeed wonderful. I made a list
of some little details I wanted to tell you this week, that was I don't
just have a brain blank and not remember what I wanted to write you. :)
My companion and I are doing awesome. He's a Spiritual Legend, and we have
been having a great time serving together. One of his quotes from this
week was: "Was du verstehst, aber nicht anwendest, verstehst du wirklich
nicht." That roughly translates to: "If you understand something, but
don't apply it, you don't really understand it after all." Just a cool
quote from him. This week has proven to be very busy and hectic! We kind
of have a companionship tradition. We are never out the door on time,
so we always sprint to our trains. Always. It's a talent we share. We're
pretty good at it now, but for a week straight I think we had to sprint
to catch a train. Speaking of sprinting, we've been going running
almost every day! I hate it, but I love it at the same time, and It
works alot better than any workout program to lose some fat.
The
weather has been crazy this week. It's been almost only thunderstorms
all week. Not almost. It's been only thunderstorms this week. It's been
cool, but also wet and rainy. My shoes have holes in them, so my feet
get wet, but I'm not ready to buy some new shoes yet xD I'm trying to
make sure I use them until I can't use them anymore so I don't have to
make an early purchase.
I made a new friend this week! Her
name is poopy, and she's the little black pug of one of our members
here. She's adorable, and reminds me so much of Jasper. Naturally, I
miss Jasper, and he's still my favorite, but she became my favorite Dog
away from home. In about 2 minutes.
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| Poopy. |
We made some other
friends this week too. We're teaching a guy named Benny. That's not his
real name, but that's the name he uses here, because he's from China and
I can't pronounce or remember his real name. He's so cool! He's been in
Austria for 35 years. A little more than half his life. He's the nicest
guy, and he loves learning about Jesus. He remembers a little bit from
School, but not too much. He's been trying to pray every night, and he
reads what we give him to read.
We also have Diana, a
young Austrian woman we met on the street. I stopped her on the touristy
square place while she was playing some kind of game similar to
Pokemon' Go. We had an appointment with her this week, and she actually
doesn't believe in God, and she's really persistent. And although in the
beginning, she was not listening so much and barraging us with
questions and contradictions, by the end she was listening intently and
thanked us for our message. She said she would think about it, and we'll
call her this week to see how she's doing. She's really cool, and open
to talk with us, and is studying some intense stuff at the University
here in Innsbruck.
And finally, one of our best friends is
Yaseemin. She's a 20 year old girl who was born in Austria but her
parents are from Turkey. She's hilarious. We met her getting into a Bus
one day and we just started talking to her and her friend. She figured
out that we are native Englisch speakers and told us she needs help
practicing speaking with us. We naturally accepted and set an
appointment. She's super friendly and funny, and we're now pretty good
friends. We've had some good adventures. After the first englisch
lesson, we had another appointment with a recently baptized member named
Nikolas, and she just decided to come with because she had nothing else
to do. It ended up being a lesson for her, because she asked some
questions. We ended up teaching the Plan of Salvation, and she was so
into it! She was asking questions, answering questions, saying what she
actually thought about it, and it was a really enjoyable lesson. After
that, she came to church with us the next day, and stayed all three
hours! And she also came to Family Home Evening yesterday night after
another Englisch lesson. She texted us the other day and said: I will
come to church every Sunday if you teach me Englisch. Naturally, we
accepted. :) She's legit.
One thing I learned alot about
this week was about time. Living in the moment. Not concentrating to hard on
the future or the past. President Uchtdorf once said that the regrets of
tomorrow can be avoided by the choices we make today. We've made some
pretty clear observations in the last couple weeks that too many
missionaries and people in general live in the past and the future. They
focus on the regrets of the past, and prospects of the future, without
giving any heed to the effects today will have on that future. The
choices we make now will shape the rest of our day, week, month, year,
and life. We have to live in the moment. We have to make the best
choices for this moment, and enjoy it! We'll never get it back if we
don't.
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