August 29, 2011

            First off, I got the package, so thank you! I really loved it!!!!!!
            Answers: Well first off, I honestly have no clue if I am junior companion again or what. Maybe, maybe not. Pres. Miles never told me what I was, and he never told elder Talbot if he was junior or senior companion either, so it’s all good. As District Leader I pretty much just call the other missionaries and make sure they are doing alright, I report their key indicators (more commonly known as numbers) and then I have to teach/lead district meeting. So it’s pretty much an adventure. But our first district meeting wasn`t a complete failure, so I wasn`t released. Actually our district grew, so now we have 5 companionships in our district, which is relatively large, so who knows? Oh and I get to go on a lot of exchanges with other missionaries because as district leader I am supposed to go on exchange with every elder in my district. So we will be having a lot of those in the coming weeks. And I get to do baptismal interviews for investigators in my district. So its definitely exciting. And no, we don’t go home early so that we can call everyone, I just call everyone after we are done with daily planning, which means it is hard to find time to write in the journal. But oh well, I will find/make time.

            And sadly my cooking skills are lacking, and so is time to properly cook, so not very much cooking, and we eat with members normally about twice a week. So I live off of microwave schnitzel, käse leberkäse with semmeln, and döner kepabs. Yeah, the diet of champions!  (If anyone would like to tell me what he’s eating I would appreciate it!  I know käse leberkäse is cheese loaf but I don’t know the others)
            Anyways, that is crazy to here that Josh (Warner) and Jordan (Anderson) and Kyle (Paulson) are all leaving on their missions already. Somehow in my crazy missionary parallel universe mindset I am the only one getting older and everyone back in America is the same as when I left. Guess I was wrong there.
            And tell everyone that I say hi back! Actually, since this email is most likely forwarded, I will just say hi myself. "Hi!" or as we say here in Austria "Servus!" apparently that means Hello or something in German, but not very many people in Germany say it, but everyone in Austria says it. So it’s probably an Austrian thing. And I only get letters from the mission home when the mission president comes to Wien, for example for zone conference this Friday, so I will get mail from the mission home then. And I haven’t gotten anything from Brooke recently, so most likely it is in there. And I got the letter from Jake (Berlin) telling me he was going to Chile.
            So this week was a interesting week. First off, it was HOT. Not warm, mild, rainy, nice or any other seemingly mild adjective that could possibly be used to describe the weather, I mean BLAZING HOT! It was 41 degrees Celsius Monday and 43 degrees Celsius Tuesday, which if my rough, on the spot conversion is accurate is about 105 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit. That would be manageable if I lived in a first world country that could afford air conditioning. Wait! I do live in a first world country; just no one bothers to have air conditioning! As you can obviously tell, I am a little bitter. Oh well, we survived, and as my great uncle Rafiki (he is a monkey) always says "it’s in the past!"

            Well besides the heat, we have had a pretty good week. We were able to meet with Christina on Tuesday, and we had a great appointment. The spirit was really strong; we were able to help her to set another goal to be baptized on the 25 of September. I know that if she really works hard that she will make that baptismal date! Unfortunately we had to change Andreas baptismal date because he hasn’t had time to meet with us in the past two weeks because of his work. He is still progressing, just not as fast as he was when he had nothing to do but meet with us, read in the Book of Mormon, and go to drug rehab. Now he is busy and is having a hard time finding a balance to his life. We are praying for him as well, and I am sure things will work out exactly like they should. In fact he brought his girlfriend to church yesterday, and she really liked it, and that is a big step in his progression.
            We are still trying to help Herr Schäfer realize that he already knows that the church is true. I mean, come on. This past week he fasted for a day and half and loved it. He told us about how he could feel the spirit like 10 times as strong. And he wasn’t even hungry. He wants to go for fasting for 3 days. We told him that all things need to be done in wisdom and order, but come on. He is still "waiting" for an answer that the Book of Mormon is true, but he lives the Word of Wisdom, loves the Book of Mormon and church, and wants to fast for 3 days? I’m calling shenanigans on that one. Hopefully we will be able to help him recognize that he has already received his answer. But we will see, like we told him, all things have to be done in wisdom and order, and that means the Lord’s wisdom and order, not mine.
            We also helped a member family move. Well actually the dad isn’t a member, so we are hoping that we will be able to start meeting with him soon, but it was fun to be helping people move. It made me feel like I was back in Utah!
            Well we had a great week, I will try to take some more pictures mom just for you, sorry I can`t be as diligent as Spencer taking all of his pictures, or Taylor with his talk show :) just kidding, I know you love me and you just want what is best for me, so I´ll try not to lay on the guilt too thick. Anyways, I know that the Book of Mormon is true. It’s the best book ever. It’s like a portable hug/therapy session/pep talk all rolled in to one. I know that ANYONE can read the Book of Mormon and know that it is true. And that we can know that it is true EVERY SINGLE TIME we read it. The spirit ALWAYS testifies of truth, and the Book of Mormon is full of truth. And if we listen with our hearts we will feel the truth of it, piece by piece, until it "it fills us from the crown of our head to the soles of our feet... and we shall be made to know the truth as God knows it, and to do the will of the Father as Christ does it. And NO OTHER principle shall establish men in the truth. ONLY by obedience to the eternal principles of heaven." I have felt the beginning of this process, and it has filled my soul with more joy then I have ever before experienced. The Book of Mormon is true, and it is important! In fact there is "no question of more importance to us then if the Book of Mormon is the word of God!" I leave this testimony, and my love, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Liebe
Elder Terry 

August 22, 2011

Elder Terry on TV antenna in Stuttgart

view of McDonalds from apartment in Wiener Neustadt

View from apartment in Wiener Neustadt

          Alright, first to answer all of your questions..... well first, its a super long story but pretty much our districts will be changing, but not until next week. But for this week our district is us in Wiener Neustadt, the elders in Wien 5 (where I was trained), the sisters in Wien 4, and the elders in Wien 3. It’s a great district because elder Sanderson, my MTC companion is in Wien 5, and elder Sullivan, who was in my MTC district, is in Wien 3, so it’s pretty fun. Tonight I should find out who will be in my district for reals. And yes I have gotten grandma Terry´s letters, I just haven`t had any time to write like any letters, so I haven`t be able to write anything back. But let her know that I really appreciate it. And no package yet, but there is no post in Austria on Saturdays, so who knows? it could take a really long time.
            It sounds like you have been pretty busy with cross country and with PTA, and that is always good. But like Elder Uchtdorf said, there is more to life then the length of your to do list ;) so don`t forget that even super moms need a little R&R sometimes, so go to the temple sometime for me, since I am currently unable to.
            Anyways, this past week has been an adventure. Wednesday we had to wake up at 5:30 so that we could make our train to München. And then I got on a train with Elder Talbot coming back to Wien. Elder Talbot is cool. He is from California, San Diego area, and is the youngest of 5 children. He has been on his mission for one year, and he has been in Bayern his entire mission until now. This is his third area. Anyways we got back from München but we didn’t have enough time to go home because we had an appointment with Christinne. She is doing well, but is still having a really hard time quitting smoking, and I honestly have no clue what to do to help her. Nothing we do seems to really help. But anyways, Thursday did service for the Enenkels, which is good because sis. Enenkel does a lot for us, and Bro enenkel is inactive because someone like 12 years ago offended him. But we have a really good relationship with him now. Sadly good relationships don`t reactivate people, only the spirit does that, but we are working on that as well. Friday we took elder Talbot´s bike to the shop to get it fixed, which is not fun, because we really need bikes. And we met at the Enenkels Friday night for an appointment with Christinne. Yeah, still didn`t make a lot of progress with her. She knows everything, she just doesn`t believe and act on what she knows. So we will be doing a lot of praying this week for her, and if you could also pray for her, that would be great. Oh and Andreas got a job, but it was in the steiermarkt, which is like 100 kilometers or so away, so we were unable to meet with him this week, but he came to church yesterday, and we have an appointment on Thursday, and hopefully we will be able to help him quit smoking and we can cover all of the lessons, because he is totally ready to be baptized, and if all goes well and smoothly he will be baptized on the 4 of September. So 2 weeks.
The past few days have been tiring, just because it suddenly got hot again, and after we got elder Talbot’s bike fixed my bike broke, so we have been without bikes for the last 3 days. but no worries, everything is good now, and no way a little thing like broken bikes is going to stop the work here in Wiener Neustadt.
            It has been an interesting experience to actually not be the one transferred, its really nice, I like it. And it has been really good working with Elder Talbot. He is a good elder, and I have already learned tons from him. Hahaha don`t worry mom, I`m not stressing out yet, and hopefully I won`t be stressing out anytime soon. We will see :) anyways have a great week, I love you!
Liebe
Elder Terry
 

PS, I realized I didn`t take any pictures from last transfer, so I took these two pictures from our apartment to show you what Wiener Neustadt looks like. The McDonalds is right across the street from us, but McDonalds in Austria is ridiculously expensive, so we never go there. But between the mountains and McDonalds I feel right at home!
 

PPS and the other picture is from on top of the TV tower in Stuttgart

August 16, 2011

            So here is the status update. I am not being transferred, but Elder Bagley is. He is going to München area. I'm going to be working with Elder Talbot, who has been on his mission about 1 year I believe, so he has been out 6 months longer than me. So we should have a lot of success. Also I am going to be district leader this transfer, so that will definitely make things interesting. We will see what happens. I will miss working with Elder Bagley, especially since I only got to work with him for a few weeks. Oh and quick money issue, I have no clue what Experian is, I haven't used my personal card for a while, so if you could look into that, I would appreciate it. Oh and while we are on the topic of money, don't have a panic attack, but there will probably be a really big charge to my account today or tomorrow. I have to go to München to pick up my new companion, and something got messed up and we only have tickets for getting there. So I am going to have to pay a like 150 euro to get us home, but I'll get reimbursed. I know you don't like it, and neither do I, but it will all work out, I just wanted to let you know so that you don't have a panic attack.
            This week has been pretty awesome. We were able to meet with Herr Schafer again, and we tried to give him a baptismal date, but he felt that he wants to wait until Christmas time. Which is totally fine with me, because that gives us time to work with his family as well. We are still having a difficult time finding out how to get his family more involved. We invited them to a member’s house after church, but his wife couldn't make it and none of the children wanted to come. So it was just us and him with the member family. But the family invited him and his family over for a meal on another day, so hopefully that will work out.
            We brought Christinne to a baptism in Wien, and it was great. She really felt the spirit, and it was a great experience. They had totally forgotten to ask for witnesses for the baptism, so I ended up being one of them. That was pretty cool. We are still working with Christinne, but she is really having a hard time. And not just with smoking. The more we teach the more we find out, and she just has a really hard time with almost everything we teach. She has felt the spirit a lot, and she knows the church is good, and she has felt the power of the Book of Mormon, but she doesn`t fully understand what that means for her. Elder Bagley and I realized that that is most definitely something that is more our fault, and we are really praying for help to know exactly how we can help her the best.
            Andreas is doing great. He got out of drug rehab early, so we met with him on Sunday. Apparently drug rehab in Austria is a little different then in America. They just keep them until there are no drugs in there system and then they let them go. Doesn't sound too effective to me, but I guess that is why we have missionaries! We met with him again yesterday, and he is totally excited about everything we taught him. He wants to be baptized as soon as possible, and we chose the date of Sept. 4! We are going to start the stop smoking program really soon with him, and then he will be all ready. Man I am so excited for him.
            No I’m not in contact with Eric at all, but maybe if I ever get a p day I will write him. And you are reading the wheel of time? have fun! I didn't even like the prequel, so if you liked it, that is cool. There are some weird scenes in the wheel of time, so if you come to anything that you don't really like please take a permanent marker and strike it out. I was going to do that but I never got around to it.
            Anyways, this week has been great, I'm looking forward to another long day of train rides to and back from München, but the Church is true, and I am so grateful to serve as a missionary! Oh side note, some satanic dog bit me and ripped my pants so I got to practice my sewing skills. And Elder Bagley crashed 2 times this week and wrecked his bike. Don't worry we are both fine, and I must admit, if two 19 year old boys can't ruin this work by their total lack of competence then the church must be true! But don't take my word for it, read the Book of Mormon and find out! I love you mom!
Liebe
Elder Terry

August 8, 2011

           Wow, the last 6 months have gone by super fast. I can’t believe that I am already there. Sorry we don’t have any tie burning traditions, I probably won’t do anything besides the normal preach the gospel to every person we see. Thanks for the funny conversation from Max. It’s good to know that he still remembers me, and that he still remembers Caleb as well. That is crazy that you ran into my old kindergarten teacher. I don’t remember her at all, not even her name, so I’m glad that you remember.
            This Friday is transfer calls, so it might be best if you hold on to the package until next week. I would really like to stay in Wiener Neustadt, but with my luck I will probably be transferred. Maybe to Switzerland this time. That would be acceptable.
            This week was rough. Pretty ridiculously rough. Andreas went to rehab, the Schäfer family went on vacation in Deutschland, and Christina went to work and was sick. So pretty much we had nothing for the week, and had no investigators at church yesterday. And we found out that Georg, an investigator who is waiting on an answer from the First Presidency before he can be baptized, will not be coming to church for the next month, and maybe not again for a long time. At least that is what he says. Apparently he has a crush on a member in the ward, and she doesn’t like him back, so its hard for him to go to church and see her there. Yeah, I had no clue what to say after that one. I felt like I was in high school again or something. So we are working on that with him, but he won’t even meet with us, which makes it pretty ridiculous. But pretty ridiculous just about sums up our week.
            But at the same time, this week has truly been a blessing from the Lord, definitely aimed directly at me. I have really learned just how much is really expected from me as a missionary. I used to think of a mission as like a marathon, or like cross country training, where you have to pace yourself, increase a little bit at a time. But a mission is more like a dead on sprint, all the time. There is no pacing, no tapering, and no breaks, and no saving anything for tomorrow. The Lord expects you to give 100% of yourself everyday. And if you do that then he promises that he will give you the strength you need to work tomorrow. 2 years is not a long time, in fact 6 months of my mission is already gone by. And the Lord helped me remember this week that there is always more that I could be doing.
            We did have a really cool experience this week. Well actually we had a lot of really cool experiences, but this is one of them.
            We went by on a former investigator named Martina Scheifinger. She owns a horse ranch in a town about 10 minutes away from Wiener Neustadt. Anyways we went by, but she wasn’t home. So we called her, and she said to come by the next day. So we came by the next day, and she was there working with some of the horses. She let us in, said hi, but then went back to working with the horses. We just stood there for a good 10 minutes as tons of other workers on the ranch are walking past and looking at us weird. Eventually Martina came back over and talked to us again. She asked us what we were doing here, and we explained that we just came by to get to know her and see how she was doing. She was really rude and curt with us, and I figured she wasn't interested at all, so I just wanted to leave, but Elder Bagley asked if there was anything we could do to help out on the ranch. She seemed surprised at first, and didn’t really believe us, but Elder Bagley kept asking if there was anything we come do to help. Finally she said, "you can scoop up the horse poop." At this point I was more than ready to go. I thought to myself, "I’m a missionary. I teach people. I don’t scoop poop." But Elder Bagley agreed to do it. So we scooped horse poop for a good 20 minutes, and then when we were finished we came back. Elder Bagley asked if there was anything else we could do to help, and Martina said no, but that we could come inside and talk to her and share our message with her. It turned out to be a great lesson and we got another return appointment. I was really glad that Elder Bagley followed the spirit a lot better than I did, and it reaffirmed to me the power of service to open people’s hearts.
            Well that is about it for this week.

Liebe
Elder Terry

August 8, 2011

           Wow, the last 6 months have gone by super fast. I can’t believe that I am already there. Sorry we don’t have any tie burning traditions, I probably won’t do anything besides the normal preach the gospel to every person we see. Thanks for the funny conversation from Max. It’s good to know that he still remembers me, and that he still remembers Caleb as well. That is crazy that you ran into my old kindergarten teacher. I don’t remember her at all, not even her name, so I’m glad that you remember.
            This Friday is transfer calls, so it might be best if you hold on to the package until next week. I would really like to stay in Wiener Neustadt, but with my luck I will probably be transferred. Maybe to Switzerland this time. That would be acceptable.
            This week was rough. Pretty ridiculously rough. Andreas went to rehab, the Schäfer family went on vacation in Deutschland, and Christina went to work and was sick. So pretty much we had nothing for the week, and had no investigators at church yesterday. And we found out that Georg, an investigator who is waiting on an answer from the First Presidency before he can be baptized, will not be coming to church for the next month, and maybe not again for a long time. At least that is what he says. Apparently he has a crush on a member in the ward, and she doesn’t like him back, so its hard for him to go to church and see her there. Yeah, I had no clue what to say after that one. I felt like I was in high school again or something. So we are working on that with him, but he won’t even meet with us, which makes it pretty ridiculous. But pretty ridiculous just about sums up our week.
            But at the same time, this week has truly been a blessing from the Lord, definitely aimed directly at me. I have really learned just how much is really expected from me as a missionary. I used to think of a mission as like a marathon, or like cross country training, where you have to pace yourself, increase a little bit at a time. But a mission is more like a dead on sprint, all the time. There is no pacing, no tapering, and no breaks, and no saving anything for tomorrow. The Lord expects you to give 100% of yourself everyday. And if you do that then he promises that he will give you the strength you need to work tomorrow. 2 years is not a long time, in fact 6 months of my mission is already gone by. And the Lord helped me remember this week that there is always more that I could be doing.
            We did have a really cool experience this week. Well actually we had a lot of really cool experiences, but this is one of them.
            We went by on a former investigator named Martina Scheifinger. She owns a horse ranch in a town about 10 minutes away from Wiener Neustadt. Anyways we went by, but she wasn’t home. So we called her, and she said to come by the next day. So we came by the next day, and she was there working with some of the horses. She let us in, said hi, but then went back to working with the horses. We just stood there for a good 10 minutes as tons of other workers on the ranch are walking past and looking at us weird. Eventually Martina came back over and talked to us again. She asked us what we were doing here, and we explained that we just came by to get to know her and see how she was doing. She was really rude and curt with us, and I figured she wasn't interested at all, so I just wanted to leave, but Elder Bagley asked if there was anything we could do to help out on the ranch. She seemed surprised at first, and didn’t really believe us, but Elder Bagley kept asking if there was anything we come do to help. Finally she said, "you can scoop up the horse poop." At this point I was more than ready to go. I thought to myself, "I’m a missionary. I teach people. I don’t scoop poop." But Elder Bagley agreed to do it. So we scooped horse poop for a good 20 minutes, and then when we were finished we came back. Elder Bagley asked if there was anything else we could do to help, and Martina said no, but that we could come inside and talk to her and share our message with her. It turned out to be a great lesson and we got another return appointment. I was really glad that Elder Bagley followed the spirit a lot better than I did, and it reaffirmed to me the power of service to open people’s hearts.
            Well that is about it for this week.

Liebe
Elder Terry

August 2, 2011

            Well this past week has been crazy. The Lord has truly prepared people for a long time, and it is amazing to see a lot of hard work on the part of missionaries and members finally coming to fruit. So first, the Schäfer family. I don't remember what I told you about them, but pretty much the dad, Herr Schäfer, was a self referral through the internet, we called him and he wanted to come to church, so he came 2 Sundays ago, and then we met with him for the first time on Wednesday. I don't know if there is a more prepared person in the entire world. He is super religious, he wakes up at 5 every morning so that he can study the bible, and now his study includes the Book of Mormon and the Gospel Principles book. He had already read through 1 Nephi 17, and had read like half the Gospel Principles book. He used to be Evangelish, but he left the Evangelish church because he didn't agree with their teachings. He is a web designer and LOVES the church website. He told us that he left his old church and was searching for new churches that matched his ideas better. The first website he found was the church’s website, and he watched all of the mormon messages ads, and they totally blew him away. They were better then even his ideas of what was right. He also watched the new Joseph Smith movie, which made teaching the first lesson really easy. He read tons of stuff on the website, including about the Word of Wisdom. He had quit smoking 20 years earlier, but he drank coffee every morning. He didn’t understand why the church would prohibit coffee, so he decided to try giving it up. Apparently he got a bad headache, felt achy and such, and he realized that coffee was addictive, so he stopped drinking it, all on his own, before we had even met with him. Totally crazy. I couldn't believe it. He accepted everything, loves the idea of modern revelation, and yesterday we met again and taught the plan of salvation. He was unable to come to church last Sunday because he wife had the car, so instead he printed off the kid activities from the Liahona and did them with his children. Our only concern is that his wife doesn't participate in our lessons. She says she doesn't like to sit and talk about stuff, and her husband will just tell her about it afterwards, so she does stuff in other parts of the house. We are hoping we can start meeting with the entire family soon because that would be great, so any prayers for family Schäfer would be great.

            We have also been blessed to see Andreas completely change his life around. We had a great lesson with him and the branch president last Wednesday, and Andreas really wants to change his life. It is amazing how the spirit can change people. When we first met he wasn't interested, didn’t believe in God, thought Christ was just a man, and we just live out of the Book of Mormon and that he didn't want that style of life. Now he has already started to call the church, “our church”. He refers to the ward as his brothers and sisters, and he wants to learn how to recognize the Holy Ghost better. His entire life has changed, and in only 2 weeks. He told us yesterday that he is going to a drug rehab tomorrow for 2 weeks, because he really wants to live according to God's commandments so that he can be baptized. We are driving up with him tomorrow to the rehab clinic, and we are making plans for when we will pick him up so that he won't have any chance to fall back into drugs. His is allowed to call 3 times a week in rehab and we have already made plans so that we can call and have lessons over the phone. It is truly amazing how the work is progressing.

            We are still supporting Christina, but she is still having a hard time. Both Elder Bagley and I feel that Christina has a lot of deep psychological issues that simply can’t be resolved in a few weeks. It will take time, but according to the Lord's time table she will progress as she is healed through the atonement. We are still doing everything we can to support her and to stress the importance of daily reading in the Book of Mormon and praying. If there is anything that can help Christina, it is the Holy Ghost, and we know that as long as Christina is reading, praying and coming to church then she will continue to be blessed and make progress.

            Well life in Wiener Neustadt is awesome. We are doing great. Thanks so much mom for all of the love, and for the letters. Sorry I don't write enough, but don't worry, I am doing fine, and the Lord is taking care of me. I know that the Church is true. I know that it was restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is the Lord's kingdom on the earth. The key is that it is on the earth, and like all other things here on the earth, it is not perfect. As Wilford Woodruff said, "God's church was perfect until he let man join it." hahaha that one is for you mom :)  I know that Jesus is the Christ, that He suffered for my sins, and that one day He will return in power and great glory, and in that day every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ. I know that that day will soon come, and I am grateful that I have the opportunity to prepare the world for that occasion. I love you and have a superb week.
Liebe,
Elder Terry