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.