Loving it

So folks, don't hate me for not writing more, I will next week but this week was short on time. I'll have loads to talk about next time I suppose!
Things are going great here, loving it!

Final pictures of Linz:

Goodbyes to Mahsa my Iranian friend here...


 
District pics

Linz ward mission team. Last gmk 😢

Sister North. Love her so much. Fun fact, Sister Norths first name is Marian and Elder North's name is Jim. Haha that was a weird discovery!

Distrikt meeting lunch, using the Spam that got sent to me (tysm Pablo). I've never had spam in my life but they were way good sandwiches.

Goodbyes to David and Irina

Goodbyes to Markus the best ward missionary ever (only been a member for a year now and is always bringing friends to church)

Jelena and Mario

A member asked if we wanted some of her old Austrian Trachten. I felt like an Austrian in World War II honestly.

And a fancy tour of the Linz apartment!

#spoiled

Life in Schaffhausen has started:

French members visiting the area; the daughter looked so much like Ian to me haha

Sneak peak at beautiful Schaffhausen!

And a kind lady, whose husband served a mission here 40 years ago, took our picture to text it to my mom...

Back to CH

Hey!

We got our transfer calls on Saturday and I'm going back to Switzerland! I'm going to be in Schaffhausen, on the border to Germany and close to Zurich. I'm really excited but I was also sad to leave. I really love Linz. I have been here quite a while though now, and I didn't even realize it! 

The week was good. I can't even remember what happened, it all went by so quickly... 

on Tuesday we had a zone training and it was honestly one of the best trainings I've ever had. They talked about the character of Christ and how his motives are always charity. How even in situations of incredible physical and spiritual torment, the savior always looked out and not in. It made me really think about my intent as a missionary and why I do the things I do. And if I feel bad for myself as I do it, or if my focus really is just on helping other people. Some interesting stuff to think about...

One of our investigators named David got invited to play at Ping Pong Night with some members on Wednesday. We didn't even realize he actually went but a member came up to us on Sunday and told us that he'd come! Haha maybe it doesn't sound like a big deal but we were so happy. David's pretty shy and only speaks broken English and here he was playing ping pong with two Austrian men twice his age who barely speak any English themselves!

So sorry, that's not very much but things are going well here, and progressing too! 

By the way, pday will be on Tuesday now for us in our mission this coming transfer...

Have a great week! 

Invited ourselves and Asad and Afife over for Family Home Evening last Monday. So fun!

Zone training with all the sisters. Apparently this is in the Sound of Music and is an important building? Anyway, it's just a 5 minute walk from the church building.

My mission friends...

 

The investigator/new member aka Persian gospel principles Sunday School class.

My little Iranian sisties❤️

This is the same house as where Pa lived in on his mission while here in Linz! Had to go by and take a pic before I left. Talked to the people who lived there too, but they've only been here since 2000 so...
What it looked like...

Thank you American friends for sending me American goods...

Both Good and Humbling

This week was both good and humbling, but I mean, that's honestly how every week is :) 

Started out with a lovely pday in Salzburg. Austria is so beautiful I can't get over it. Most of the time anyway!

It was cool, Kais and Huda brought a friend of theirs to church 2 weeks ago now. He has really terrible German. Really terrible. Yet he absolutely loved church. He came by himself to general conference the following week. I didn't see him, I was sitting in the English room but later the bishop came to us, asking who he was. He told us that he had seen him getting very emotional throughout the conference which we all found so incredible considering the fact that he understood nothing. We met with him this week and it was so funny. We really couldn't teach him anything unless we used google translate the whole time. He was still so excited though and tried retelling the whole story of Moroni showing Jospeh smith the Book of Mormon using his hands and a mix of German, Persian and sound effects haha. It just goes to show that it doesn't matter much what is said, but rather what is felt.

Wels had a church open house this week and we went to help one evening. We got there and apparently almost our entire district decided to be there too haha so it was just a bunch of missionaries kind of waiting and not really anyone there except for members. So Sister McAllister and I went out and tried doing some street contacting, inviting people to come see the church building. But apparently Wels is just empty. Haha there was nobody! We had to run across the street real fast to catch them! No one was too interested except for maybe one Turkish guy who might have just been more interested in Sister McAllister.

To follow up on the story of the girl last week, we met again and it was so great! She brought her boyfriend with her too! She said that she had prayed this week that she'd finally be able to sleep, because she hasn't had a good night's sleep in months. She said that she's not sure if she'd gotten an answer, but that she suddenly fell asleep before she could finish her prayer. Haha Sister McAllister and I looked at eachother and were like, that's the most immediate answer we've ever heard of!

Have a great week!

Pday in Salzburg:

First time eating Pho

Glam.

Maybe Now is the Time

This week was another really great one.  We had a lot of lessons with new people that all went well!

One of them was a good friend that I've made while here in Linz. We'd met on the bus and it turns out that she works right by our apartment in the grocery store there. We go by every once in a while to say hi and she's come to a lot of other activities and even Kais and Huda's baptism. For whatever reason, for the longest time there, I didn't know how to invite her to learn more about the gospel, it just never felt right. But when Sister McAllister came and I told her all about her she was like, well, why don't we just ask her. Haha well duh. Why hadn't I thought of that before! Haha jk, ok so I had, but it just didn't feel right before. But this time I prayed before hand and told God that I wanted to ask her, but asked that He help me.

So next time we went by and we asked her how she was doing, she told us that she hadn't been sleeping so well and that nothing seems to help and that things are actually not so dandy at the moment. I told her that when I can't sleep, I pray and we talked about that for a bit, but then I was like, wait, why don't we meet up some time to talk about it! Because I mean, there are more ideal places to demonstrate prayer than at a grocery store while someone is on the clock and should be stocking shelves :) and she said yes!!

So we finally met up yesterday and it was really really good. She asked us loads of questions, about what we do all day as missionaries, about what we believe and other stuff. We taught her all about Heavenly Father and why we're here and how He wants to hear from us! The spirit was so strong. She didn't want to pray right there in front of us, especially because it would be her first time, but she said she wants to try it out at home.

 Part of me is mad with myself that I didn't just invite her sooner, but I also really feel that it was important for her specifically that we didn't jump on her and come on too strong. It made it so that when it was time for us to really teach her, her heart was not only open but also desirous to hear what we believed and taught.

I was studying in Enos and in Alma 22 this week and something I noticed in the two stories is that both of the people, Enos, and also the king, were in contact with missionary type figures. They both had been in contact and heard some of what they taught, but they had a period of time where it was important for them to just ponder and reflect on the words they'd heard them say. They also both had time to ponder on the missionaries themselves and the unusual but also inspiring lifestyle they were leading. And then when the time was right, they wanted to hear more about the gospel, and they were excited to pray and feel that God really is there and loves them.

Maybe we all have a friend that for a long time we didn't feel was the right time to ask them if they wanted to learn more about what makes us so happy. But maybe now is the time. I don't know, and neither do you, but God does! If we really pray and let God know that we want to ask them, then maybe just like for me, something will come up in a conversation where you can take the opportunity to ask! Just a thought. But I can say that there is truly nothing that makes me happier than to see a good friend of mine feel the spirit for the first time, and to really learn the nitty gritty of life. :) 

Have a great week!

We went to Mauthausen last pday. It's a concentration camp close to Linz. It was interesting but also really really sad and rough to learn about. 

Look! Austria has alps too!

Ghetto Haribo vending machine. Don't judge the candy by the candy dispenser though. Still was👌🏽👌🏽 love me some classic gummy bears.

Spring is hurrrr

Cute family we had family home evening with. The Elders missed their train and couldn't come, that's ok though cause now we're the kids' favorite missionaries. Mostly just cause we gave them Haribo though.

Hole in the wall falafel shop that was soooooo good I think I annoyed sister McAllsiter as I kept bringing up all day how good it was. Haha like really I closed my nightly prayer and was like, "sister McAllister! That falafel tho ammaright??"

There's the falafel and a cute courtyard and my comp

I decided to capture some of what I cook these days. Sister McAllister is blessed to have me as a comp what can I say. Jk, she helped. She cut the olives really nicely. 

Ok so three types of pizza, one with Alfredo, one with tomato sauce and one with pesto.

Pasta with avocado and pesto sauce

Puff Pastries with ham and cheese and egg and onions and other random yummy things

Cream of mushroom sauce on pasta topped with Parmesan and cilantro