August 31, 2015

Dear family:

Hallo schönen guten Morgen!
Yep it is my birthday today. Now I can say "back when I was a
teenager..." Haha. I should get my package at interviews tomorrow.
Yeah Stefan had a good email last week. We had a slower week number
wise. But got some good work done.

I don't have much time, but I will tell you just a little cool
experience. So elder Hale and I were trying to find a less active. He
is an African and he loved in an area where a bunch refugees and
Africans and people from the Middle East live. We go into this area
and could not seem to find his apartment building at all but some kids
came up and talked to us. They asked us who we were and what we do and
where we were from. I then asked them if they could tell me where
building number 5 was. They then went on the search running in front
of us looking for the building and we eventually found it but our less
actives have since moved. After we thanked the kids one asked me " ihr
seid Christ oder?" ( you guys are Christian Right?) I told him "ja" he
than said "ich bin Muslim". But he didn't say it in a you are wrong
kind of way it was more like a "cool! I'm Muslim" it was just way
innocent and nice. He was about 6 or 7. When this happened I thought
about what Jesus taught:

"3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become
as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the
same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

It didn't matter to these kids that we were missionaries from a
complete other faith they helped us. The showed pure charity and
humility and we're living pure religion. Even though these kids don't
believe on Jesus Christ as their savior the still exemplified his
teachings and help two servants of the Lord. This week I want to
become more like a little child. ( not throw fits and tantrums) but in
the way that Jesus meant it. Be humble. Love quickly. Quick to
forgive. Be willing to do what my Father wants me to do.

On Friday we will be meeting with a guy named M. He is
from Brazil. I am pretty nervous for
this appointment so if you could pray about that specifically this
week that would be great.
 Love Elder Carr

August 23, 2015

Dear family-


Sounds-looks like y'all had some fun! So the ward isn't voting on baptism or anything. Its complicated but we have already gotten a green light from president for when baptism comes so. 

We had some fun this week. On Wednesday, we went and shoveled horse poop at the Schmidl's house. brought back some good ol' memories and it wasn't near as bad as doing it back home so that was good. It was kind of scary though because Monday through Wednesday we really didn't do anything. I mean we were doing stuff but it was more like eating appointments service projects Zone Training and stuff like that. So by the time Thursday came we still didn't have anything but it was all good in the end. 

Thursday we met with J. and J.  J. fed us and it wasn't anything gnarly like I thought it was going to be. After that, we taught about Prophets and it did not go like I thought it would. Jessica doesn't really think a prophet is necessary and neither does J.. What I have learned about working with Africans is that the are very faithful people but the also think that the can receive revelation for everyone around them. We invited them to general konferenz and also explained personal revelation versus the job of a prophet and I still don't think the completely understood. I wish that I just knew pigeon English and it would work so much better when teaching Africans haha. They have already expressed that it is hard for them to understand our English so I have found that when I talk like an African they understand a lot more. I feel kinda ridiculous when i do it but at the same time I feel like I am speaking a different language and that is really cool haha.

My language wish list for this mission: Arabic, Spanisch, Pigeon Englisch, Serbisch.

If I spoke those i would be set haha.

Today we went to Hallstatt and it is basically the most beautiful city I have ever seen. They also have these skulls from dead people underneath a Catholic church with the peoples names painted on the Foreheads. It was a pretty cool pday today.

Love you guys und schöne Woche! 

August 16, 2015

Dear family:

I have interviews in 2wks and I am excited about that because most of the time I feel like I have so many weaknesses that I don't even know where to improve. I finally was able to snap out of a ''happy drought'' this last week and really loved being a missionary but I swear I can't catch a break.

 We went to zone training today and the Zone leaders told us specifically that ward members call and complain about us because we are too ROBOT and have NO PERSONALITY. If a robot is a really attractive man-beast trying to be a humble servant of the Lord then yes I am a robot with no personality haha. I will figure it out. I had a good imaginary fight in my head and feel way better now. 

We had a really good week this week. We tried to set a baptismal date with an investigator and she is considering right now. Half the ward is for it and the other half is against it. So we are going to do it haha. We also had some really good less active work this week. We visited an old lady in our ward and she has really bad hearing so she has a little microphone thing that is connected to earphones that she wears in order to hear you. She is really sweet and hopefully she will feel good enough to come to church on Sunday. It was so funny as we were walking out of her apartment Elder Hale turned to me and was just like '' I have never developed love for someone that fast before...'' haha. She is an awesome old lady we have another appointment with her on Saturday. 

We also taught J., a less active; about the Plan of Salvation and she really enjoyed it. She even came to church on Sunday! She invited us over for dinner on this Thursday and I may have my first food story next week because she is from Nigeria and i heard African cooking can get pretty Gnarly. I am so excited.

ya i don't know what to do about the whole Robot thing because I feel like I have made some really good connections since I have been here. I am in tight with the youth, Old people love me  because they are all converts and love missionaries so I think it is only a 1 or 2 people that don't like us and at the end of the day it's not like I am trying to not make relationships with people that's what its all about. I tell you i knew that i had patience probs back home but they are so clear on a mission and I have made a lot of progress but i need to keep practicing it for sure haha. 

I love you guys. Keep praying for me ( I don't know why i say that because I know you will pray for me so wie so haha). 

-Elder Carr

August 9, 2015

Dear Family-

That's cool that you guys have had
such a good time with grandparents and Tyler's family. I am especially
jealous about the whole pool thing haha. It has been over 100 degrees
basically the whole week. That is really unusual for Austria, the
grass is starting to get brown and a member told me yesterday that
this hardly ever happens.

This week we met with a couple of people. We met with this guy named
John. He is from Nigeria and is basically a waste of time. He has been
meeting with missionaries for 7 years and never makes progress. It is
always kind of scary meeting with him too because he may or may not he
drunk when we show up and most of the time you don't know until you
are already in his house and then you gotta bolt. So ya.

We also met with this really cool lady on Thursday named Frau
Schlagin. We talked about the Book of Mormon with her. She is a really
active Catholic and his even a professor for religion in one of the
schools in Wels. I don't think she has very much "real intent" but we
also started talking about the Plan of salvation and found it
interesting so we will see. Stranger things have happened.

Saturday was pretty hard. We had 3 appointments scheduled and 2 fell
through and the other one was John so it was a 20 kind. There was
nobody outside because it was so it hot and people just were angry
when we went dooring because cool air was going out but opposition in
all things right. Just press forward with a steadfastness in Christ
having a perfect brightness of Hope and a love of God and of all men.

That's all I got for today. Love y'all.
-Elder Carr

August 2, 2015

Dear Family:

Thanks for the Package. Well we still haven't been able to teach any of those potentials yet. 

We went by on Frau E. this week because she stopped answer our phone calls. We were buzzed into her apartment building and she came and talked to us and she told us that she no longer had interest... Felt like (for the lack of a better word) garbage. I asked her why she no longer had interest because I was really confused, she was so happy when we first contacted her. She then informed us that she is jobless and is just trying to keep her apartment right now. I told her that we weren't trying to sell her anything and all we want is 30 minutes. She told us to stop by again... in a month. NOOOOOO. I don't want her to turn into one of those potentials where, in a month, we go back and she says ''come back in a month'' and that cycle goes on for years but you can only do what you can do. I then told her we would do that and that we had a gift for her. I gave her a Spanish Book of Mormon. She took it and that was basically it. We walked away feeling really sad.

Right after that experience we had an appointment with a Less active family in our ward.  They are from Afghanistan and they still have family in Afghanistan. If anyone finds out back there that they are Christian, their family that are still in Afghanistan will be killed. So when we visit them we have to De-Tag. I felt so sick going under cover haha. 

We had a really good appointment with them and talked about our families back home and us a little bit because I am still the ''new'' Elder and Elder Hale is also a ''New'' Elder to a lot of people. We then talked about prayer and scripture study as a family. It was awesome. They are a really cool family and they are moving in September and then they will be able to come to church more. 

They were probably the coolest part of the week. We taught a couple more lessons here and there but the rest was filled with dooring and street contacting but it was fun.

Today for pday we had a district pday. We went to Linz and played Squash. Like racquetball. I ended up taking 2nd in the tourney. I lost to Elder Plumb but he is a worthy opponent. He is getting transferred to Vienna on Monday and i am really sad about that. he is like my mission big brother. I have been in contact with him for the last 8 months. He was my Zone leader and then my District leader. He only has 2 transfers left so tomorrow will probably be the last time I see him. I'm gonna miss him. Anyway I had to buy new shoes this week I will send you a picture and then you will know why I had to buy new ones.

Love ya 

-Elder Carr

I couldn't send the picture of Brett with his worn out shoes with holes in them because there is some sensitive information in the background.  Just trust me when I say his shoes were worn all the way through

Brett's mom

July 19, 2015

Dear Family:

 Sorry I'm writing on Tuesday. Yesterday we had Zone Training in Salzburg. Our train was late which made us miss our bus to the Church in Salzburg and we ran into like 3 Mormons on Vacation so we got there late. We Usually have Zone training on Tuesdays, but there were guys from Utah here. They were from the missionary department and are trying to improve the Language program at the MTC... I think that's what they said. So I took a German reading test and most of the passages it was really hard to pick out the main purpose because they would go off on tangents about something else for a while. My score was Advanced-Low with a Random at the Superior level... So if you can figure out exactly what that means, let me know because I have no idea haha. 

Last Monday was really cool. None of our appointments went through so we just started Dooring the area. We rang at this one apartment building and we pressed a klingel that said Estevez-Jimenez. They didn't say anything but buzzed us in. A 14-15 year old girl was there and I asked if her parents were home and she went and got her Mom. I started talking with her and she was really excited actually. She is from the Dominican Republic but speaks perfect German (YES A LAMANITE THAT SPEAKS A LANGUAGE I DO!) We showed here the ''Thank Him" video on our I-pads and she started crying. We set up an appointment with here. She has relatives that are Mormon and remembers going to church with them as a girl and is excited that the church is in Austria and really wants to come.

On Tuesday we went to Jessica's house. She is a less active from Nigeria. We brought one of the Priests with us ( Did i mention we actually have youth in this ward! There are 4 Priests in the ward and we are trying to get them out with us as much as possible.) The kid who we brought Is Joshi. As we walked into the lesson I asked him if he was ready for an English test (Because Nigerian English is not British haha) he said he was going to try hard. haha he is so sick. We taught her about Prayer and committed here to have family pray with her kids and she said that she would. 

Wednesday we had our Tischtennis abend with the youth and the rest of the day was just finding. 

On Thursday, we had 4 appointments scheduled and everyone fell out. We had 2 JAE's (YSA's) with us who are both leaving in September for their Missions. Sara is going to Greece and Samuel is going to Berlin. We just sat down at a picnic table with them until their bus came back just talking about how to prepare and what its like to be a brand new missionary. It was cool to see how excited they are. While we were talking, this African lady came up to us and started asking us questions. We ended up teaching her the Restoration and asked her if she wanted to meet again but she was visiting her brother and she lives in Sweden. (Watch out Stefan!) She said that if she sees missionaries there that she will talk to them. We weren't able to get here number to give the Swedish missionaries a referral. 

On Friday, our appointment with Frau Estevez fell out but we were able to re-schedule for this friday (Pray that it goes through.) We had a lesson with M., an investigator, but that was basically our Friday.

Yesterday after Zone Training Elder Hale and I went to a former investigator. We set up an appointment with him 2 days earlier but when we got there he told us to get lost... so we did. BUT one thing that President has been trying to show us is that even when Appointments dont work out we should door in the area. So we did and the first hour was really hard. It was a bunch of rich people and a lot of them were really nice about it only a few jerks but for the most part, the people were really nice. But despite that it was really hard for me (one of those days) but I tried to choose to be happy and Optimistic and I said a little prayer that I could keep going and that we could find someone. We doored that whole appartment building with no ''Success''. We realized that there were a bunch of appartment buildings that didnt been contacted for a really long time. We only had 30 minutes left which isnt a long time but we went and startged another appartment building. It only had 12 names on it and that is more than do able for thirty minutes. We klingeled 11 door bells and nobody wanted anything. We did the last one and nobody answered but buzzed us in the door. We started walking up to the appartment number and there is a lady wrapped in a towel with soap all over her (really Awkward) she asked us what she wanted and I told her that we were missionaries and we wanted to show a little video of christ and she said ''ok'' I told her we could come back in 15 minutes and show her the video after she finnished getting her self ready but she was like '' Well, How long is the Video?'' ''three minutes'' ''Ok just show it to me now'' so we did. At the end we told her what we do as missionaries and asked her if she wanted to come closer to Christ and her answer was so funny ''duh!'' haha. Usually that isnt what people say especially after we interrupted them taking a shower haha. But hopefully we will meet with her this week and get a new investigator. 

Just pray for us that we will be able to meet with these people we found this week and help them progress in the Gospel.

Love ya Brett.

July 12, 2015

Dear family:


 We absolutely have to go to the rodeo next year. I have to learn how to be American again haha. Just kidding.   I walk down the street and everyone knows that I'm American. 

This week was pretty good but I ended up getting sick, so that was no fun but luckily I am feeling much better. 

On Monday we went to an appointment and the people weren't there (Classic) but there were some new members who lived right around the corner so we went and visited them. We had our ward mission leader with us to be a Joint teach for the first lesson and he actually suggested that we go by on this couple. It went ok.

Tuesday we went to district meeting and had an appointment after that, but the guy was also a no show. We ended up contacting the rest of the day.

Wednesday we had a lesson with M. and it was really good. She still doesn't understand everything that we are teaching. We asked her if she thought more about baptism and she said yes and she doesn't want to get baptized until next spring and I am on board with that. Hopefully by then everything will make sense for her.

Thursday I went on an exchange with Elder Strauss in Linz. It was my first time working with a German. He is cool, but we only talked in English because he says that he will have plenty of opportunities to speak German when he goes home. We contacted the whole day and it was pretty fun.

Friday we had our ward sommerfest and just had a good time with everyone. We had a less active show up and also an investigator. 

That was basically my week. We are going by on a girl that Elder Plumb and Elder Hale found while I was in Linz so if you are awake, pray that this will go well. We are also going by on the Johannovic family. We found them a couple weeks ago. I really want to find someone to get baptized and I feel like my mission clock is already counting down even though I have the better part of a year before i go home. 

Love you guys a ton.

-Elder Carr