Sister Lehmann: Alpine German-Speaking Mission: Christmas in Austria

Hi there!

Well, this week was really great!! Wish I could go into all the
details but yeah...
Started off with a really great Gingerbread house making Family Home
Evening where we were once again able to invite our investigators, a
different Iranian family! Sadly, I have yet to receive these pictures
but just trust me that it was great and fun!

This week included many many member appointments but we even had to
cancel on one because Sister Leonard was super sick after we ate at
our Irainian investigators. This is actually the first time I've had
to stay home in the apartment while my companion is sick in bed! Wasn't
as bad as I thought it would be because I went through every single
contact in the phone and set up some appointments with some old
investigators so that was cool.

Christmas Eve and Christmas day here were magical though.
On Christmas Eve we had a devotional at the church and then a family
invited us over for the eveing and we had our first taste of a real
Austrian Christmas! I loved it. It was at a family with 4 girls, and
we were there along with 2 other single young women in the ward. So
fun! We had a little Christmas devotional there with musical numbers
and testimonies and the spirit was just so strong in that dimly lit
living room with all the presents and the tree and the nativities
everywhere. Sister Leonard and I sang a duet! It was great! I massacred the
Alto part and she, well, she's in the women's choir at BYU so
haha...yeah.
We werent expecting it at all but we got so many presents! Seriously
such a sweet family. Plus we had raclette and fondue on the same night
so I can't complain. It was such a blessing to be in such a
Christ-centered home on Christmas.

On Christmas day one of our good friends who might be an investigator
but claims to not be religious came to church to watch Sister Leonard
perform a musical number in sacrament meeting! It was so good! She was
talking to everyone it was so great!

The absolute highlight this week would have to be right after we did
our skyping with our families. That moment after skyping is always a bit weird...like, oh...back to work I guess. But the Lord always blesses us for going right to work
after something like that.
We went and visited this live-in nurse that we found dooring last
week. She was really sad because she is stuck in the house 24-7 for an
entire month taking care of this extremely old man, and this week, she
had to be there over Christmas. We went back and when she opened the door she said something that I dont think I've ever heard on my mission before: "I was scared you
guys weren't going to come!"
We shared a message about Christ and all went around bearing testimony
about Him and God's love. The spirit was so strong. It was incredible. She
was so so happy after we left. She said that we were really heaven
sent, and I really felt it. That was a wonderful wonderful way to end
Christmas :)
Love you all, have a great week!

A green chair....
We also had a wonderful zone training in Salzburg and were able to hurry and sneak through the Christmas market there to buy our lunch. Man is it beautiful there... Also all received our Christmas packages. Now that was a Christmas miracle that this package even got to me, seeing as it probably went through several different companionships until it made it from Solothurn to here. Seriously, that is on one side of the mission and I'm on a completely different side here.

This doesn't make sense to me haha. Joy to you. It's a nice message anyway.

Burgers we bought last pday. Sooooo good.

A cat found dooring. The only person that would sit and talk with us. Well, he didn't talk so much, and ran away as soon as we opened the door for him.