Grateful and Committed

Hi there!

This happened last week, but I wanted to write about it. Last week a
really sweet 15 year old girl came to church. She isn't a member but
always went to church in Wien with her grandma when she was little.
Her life got a little complicated after that and her mom was quite
against her going to church. She doesn't live with her mom anymore
though. She kept seeing the Wels sisters at the train station and
telling them that she wanted to come to church but she doesn't have a
phone and can't find the church building very well. Finally after the
3rd time of running into her, the Wels sisters called us and put her
on the phone. I set up a meeting place with her so that we could walk
to the church together, but because of Stake conference, it wouldn't
be for another 2 weeks...

I wrote it down in my calendar but I thought for sure that she
wouldn't be there to meet us, especially since she didn't have a
phone and we couldn't call to remind her. But when we went early
Sunday morning, she was there waiting for us! Turns out she lives
really really far away and had to wake up at 4:30am and ride her bike
45 minutes and take another series of buses and trains in order to
make it there on time. She was so excited to see us and to come to
church. She really connected with the Young Women's president super
well and was so so happy to come to church again. She told us how
excited she is to be baptized when she's 18 and can decide for
herself. Isn't that so great? It's incredible. Wouldn't it be
wonderful if we were are so grateful for church and so committed to
going.

We also started teaching this wonderful family from Afghanistan this
week. They are so wonderful. They were already Christian before but
had never heard about the Book of Mormon. I wish I could
just write all about them and their incredible story but just know
that they are so wonderful to teach. We gave the 8 year old son his
own Book of Mormon this week and before we'd left he'd already read so
many pages! The mother also shared a wonderful experience with us
where something very very difficult was going on in their lives, kind
of an ongoing problem, and she was praying to God about it one night
very late. She asked God if the reason why this was happening was
because she'd allowed me and sister McAllister to come into their home
and share the Book of Mormon with them. An overwhelming feeling came
over her though that what we were sharing was indeed true and that
everything would be ok. Isn't that incredible?? I really haven't had
so many experiences on my mission so far where investigators get such
clear answers from the Spirit so that was really beautiful to hear.
When we met with them again and asked when we could come back, the
mother's answer was, "Immer!" Haha, or, "always!"

As I said last week, serving a mission is the best :) Love it here.
Also had a great zone conference in Salzburg with all the missionaries
in Austria and General Women's broadcast too!!

Have a great week!

Last pday was a mall pday with the Wels sisters

Then I had Tausch (an exchange) with Sister Church which was fun! She's actually from Lindon and is neighbors with the Leichtys! This is Wels. It's pretty, but not as cool as Linz...

I decided to take more pics of what we've been cooking.... well, I've been cooking :) I made up this cool Asian noodle and broccoli stuff which ended up being way good! I had a recipe but didn't have half the ingredients haha so kind of made it up as I went...

And this is Sister McAllister doing morning exercise hahahaha
I usually let her do her thing but this morning I kept telling her to get up and do yoga with me.  She simply refused to get out of bed until 15 minutes later, she found the willpower to come join me hahaha

The train ride back from conference with the Wien Zone missionaries.