Okay, first sorry that I am emailing on Tuesday, Monday was a holiday here so all the businesses were closed and so we switched our p day. Second, sorry but this email is going to be short. Today was really busy. We tried to get my visa, but we had some issues, don't worry, we will work it all out, but it took along time. And we met with President Condie today, so we haven't had tons of time. So this email will be short. We did see a lot of good stuff. Rathaus, Wien's city hall, is so awesome! It is huge. We also saw the Austrian Parliament building. These buildings are crazy. They put America and the White House to shame. We also saw a huge catholic church. Not the famous one, but another really big one. It was cool. Yes I know all about Reisenrad. We live pretty close to it. It is in this way cool amusement park, and right next to it is the biggest park ever! Like it is 2 miles long or so. HUGE!! It was way cool. We played in it last p day. (Editor’s note: Two Sundays ago my mom suggested I watch “Amazing Race” because they were going to Vienna. So I did, won’t do it again, and one of the places they went to had a Ferris Wheel with enclosed dining carts. The carts looked big on tv, with a table and chairs plus room for a violinist and a server, plus they would have had a camera person. That is Reisenrad.)
Okay, yesterday was the worst day for food ever. My faith was definitely tried. One of the big rules in our mission is that you have to eat all the food that touches your plate. Literally clean your plate off. And so we went to this older member ladies house to celebrate Easter, and she invited one of her neighbors so we could teach her, and the first item on the menu was leber knödel, which is a big ball of liver, probably about the size of a tennis ball. And I had to eat two of them. They eat them in soup, and the soup wasn't bad, but I thought I was going to throw up the entire time. Then we had this weird salad with sauerkraut in it. Yeah it was just gross. But I had to eat all of it. Then we had some weird meatloaf with some nasty semmelnknödel (a ball of bread. normally it tastes great, but these weren't good). It was a lot of food, and I barely ate all of it. Then right after that appointment we ran to an appointment with some recently baptized members. And they so kindly gave us some food. A brautwurst, some smoked ham, and then....BLUTWURST!!! For those of you who don't know what blutwurst is, you might want to skip a little bit. It is nasty. So pretty much, blutwurst is a wurst or sausage made from pig blood. We actually aren't supposed to eat any because it can make you sick, but my companion didn't tell me that and we couldn't offend the members, so we ate it. It was disgusting. I was already stuffed, and then I was trying to eat a giant pig scab. Gross. It definitely tested my faith. Anyways I survived somehow, and I lived to tell the tale. The worst day of food ever. Liver and blood.
Anyways the work is going good. Last week was hard because appointments kept falling out (only 4 of our 17 planned appointments went through) because of Easter, but this week is looking a lot better.
Last Wednesday we had lunch at Pres. Husz house (he is an Area Seventy and First Counselor in mission presidency) dinner was good, and he had to leave to go do something important, but we gave him a card that the police had left on our door. We couldn't understand what it wanted. So he called the police and talked to them. In Austria and Germany you have to register with the police and tell them where you live. It’s called anmeldung. When you go somewhere else you are supposed to abmeldung, or unregister at that address. Well apparently the last couple of missionaries hadn't filled out an abmeldung, so on the police record 10-15 elders were living in this one apartment. Pres Husz straightened that all out, but unfortunately I wasn't anmeldung yet because I was waiting for paperwork from the mission home, but by law you have to register within 3 days. Normally it isn't a problem because the police don't check very often, but in this case it was bad. Luckily president Husz explained everything and I filled out my anmeldung the next day. So I didn't go to jail. Anyways that is just a cool story I wanted to share. Oh and also they don't speak German here. They speak wienerish, which is a difficult to understand dialect. Yeah it is great. hahaha it is actually really funny to hear. Anyways I love you all, keep praying for me and our investigators, and the work WILL go forth.
Love Elder Terry
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