Monday, July 25, 2011

July 25, 2011


            Well I did end up emailing today, so sorry for ruining all of your plans mom, but it just worked out that way. We are doing austausches today and I'll be working in Wien so it will be fun. Oh and I got the new credit card like 2 weeks ago. Sorry you have probably been freaking out, but I totally forgot. You can activate it today.
            So this week was pretty crazy week. We had a lot of appointments last Monday where we just met with people, gave them a first lesson and a Book of Mormon, and then when we tried to make out a second appointment they said they were going on vacation for 3 weeks. And half of our branch is going on vacation for 3 weeks as well.  Apparently all of Austria goes on like 3 week vacations at the end of July, and if the church wasn't true then that would be a big hindrance to the work, but luckily the church is true, and the work goes on even when people are on vacation.
            We were going by every day to try and help Christina quit smoking, but it wasn't really helping at all, just adding more pressure to her. But one of our investigators, Andreas, who came to church last week, is really cool. He lives like literally on top of the mountains in Austria, in some crazy little town where you can by fresh milk and eggs from the farmers every morning. He is 46ish, never married, currently has no job, and a druggie and alcoholic. But he came to church last week and we took him to a members afterwards for lunch, and to repay us he invited us to his house for lunch. We had a really good time and talked about the most random stuff ever. Like pretty much everyone in Europe, one of the first questions he asked us was if we were virgins. And then we got into a long discussion about what chastity is. At first he couldn't understand why we would wait until after marriage to have sex, but then we explained what it meant to us personally to keep ourselves sexually pure and to know that our wife has done that as well, and the level of trust and love that that allows us to establish, and by the end he said, "wow that is really amazing. I wish I would have been able to have something like that." it was awesome to see the spirit bear testimony of our words to him. As well as chastity we also talked about the Book of Mormon and how it can help him. He just ended a long relationship and really wants to change his life and get off drugs and alcohol. He has a hard time believing that Christ is more than a man, but we gave him 3 Nephi 11 to read, and on Sunday when he came to church he gave me 2 pages of his thoughts that he had wrote on the chapter. We definitely knew that he had kept his commitment. Both Elder Bagley and I feel that he is very ready for the gospel and the Lord has been preparing him for a long time.
            But that isn't the craziest story of the week. We got a referral for some guy named Volker Schiefer, and we called him but got no answer. The next morning he called us back and said that he found the church website and wants to visit the church, but he wasn't sure if he was allowed to come to priesthood meeting because he isn't a priest. We assured him that he is most definitely invited to priesthood meeting, and then he asked if he could bring his kids. Again we were like "yeah of course" so he came to church yesterday with his two sons, who are 13 and 11. At church he told us that he was evangelish, but he left the church on his own, and he was interested in our church because of our view point on the godhead. He really enjoyed church and we are looking forward to a great lesson with him this week.
            We are still working hard with Christina, please keep her in your prayers, Elder Bagley and I are looking forward to another great week, the Lord is truly blessing the area of Wiener Neustadt and he has really blessed us. I love you and have a great week

Liebe
Elder Terry

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