Hi Everyone!

 So, today I am emailing later than usual because we had our district meeting this morning. What? A district meeting on a Monday? Yes, BECAUSE President Kohler came to Vienna today and did interviews. It was actually a lot of fun. One district has their meeting going on while President pulls you out to do your interview. There was an Austrian reporter there who wanted to talk to President so he could write an article about what missionary life is like. It was interesting. We were in our district meeting singing our opening song and one of our Elders pulled out his guitar to accompany us. He does that sometimes and it is SO fun. It's like singing around the campfire and all happy and stuff, and then the reporter came in and started recording us singing. That was a bit uncomfortable, but it was really funny. Eventually I got pulled out to have my interview and it went really well. He just talked to me about keeping on going and serving people. It was good. After the interviews we had a lunch together in our church building and it was so good! The Elders basically constructed a sandwhich buffet. Let me tell ya, I am really going to miss the European bread after my mission. It is quality stuff here. Basically my breakfast every morning is a large hunk of delicious bread and yogurt (which is also delicious). I am so spoiled.

Anyways, this week was another good one. I'm at this point right now where I'm really just enjoying being a missionary. When challenges do come up, ya work them and that's it. On Friday we had a sport evening in our ward in Wiener Neustadt and so many investigators came. It was fantastic! We even had a bunch of less active members there too. We got to talk to them a lot and befriend them and I got to work on my poor volleyball\soccer skills. All in all it was good. I've realized that there is no such thing as a person who is not interesting to talk to. Everyone has their own story or interests that are just so interesting to talk about. If anyone knows my Dad they know that he is pretty big on running, and running shoes, and running clothes, and running magazines, and so on. Well, yesterday we were on the train from Wiener Neustadt to Wien and I noticed that the guy accross from me was wearing Newtons (a brand of running shoes) and was reading a running magazine. Basically, if you can click into a conversation about running shoes with any passionate runner, you are in. I mentioned the Newtons and the guy lit up and was able to keep going with me on this topic. Actually, he kind of took over. It was really funny, but it was cool for me to realize that every single person on this earth is interesting, and that every single person on this earth needs the gospel and as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is my job to share that message with them.

On Thursday, I got to have my first experience with Austrian dentistry...that was fun. I was flossing a couple of nights ago, like anyone would, and then randomly, part of my tooth popped out of my mouth. A PART OF MY TOOTH CAME OUT OF MY MOUTH!!!! I don't think that just happens. It hurt to drink or eat with that tooth, so I called the Mission nurse...again, and she made an appointment for me. That was nice, so we went to the address she gave us and we ended up in this really sketchy looking apartment complex. I was so not excited. It looked like this was going to be the worst dentist appointment of my life, but we found the door we were supposed to go in. We opened it and it was actually a super nice dentist office. That was a huge relief and the dentist was really nice. My tooth was fixed in like 15 minutes and the problem was solved. That was a HUGE tender mercy. Being a missionary is quite difficutlt when your tooth is hurting, so Heavenly Father's hand was in that one for sure. 

I don't have much time, so I just want to talk really quickly about what we did for p-day last week. After getting errands done, we went to the palace in Austria called Schönbrunn. It was so pretty! We basically took loads of pictures and just drooled the whole time. I'm going to put some in this email. Today, we might go see something too because we are in Vienna this week and the Sister Training Leaders from Graz are staying with us until Wednesday actually. They have meetings here with the Zone Leaders and stuff and so we have a full apartment, but it's super fun. We'll see what happens, but I hope everyone has a great week and makes good choices!

Love,

Sister Smiley

How the heck are we half way through August already?

 HI All! How are things going? I hope all is well. I'm doing pretty darn good. Serving in two wards and two areas is really an interesting challenge but I think we are finally getting into the groove of it...I may have just jinxed myself by saying that though. 

Anyways, we had zone training this week and it was so good! This is only my third zone training, but I felt so pumped to go out and do missionary work after this one. Something they focused on a lot was "working smarter". It is very easy to run out the door in the morning and kind of just float around and call that missionary work. It is too, but the thing is, there is a way to make it so that we spend every hour of our day doing something affective. In an ideal world, we would have appointments all throughout the day, and be doing contacting as we travel from appointment to appointment, since we go by way of public transportation. We've been trying to do that a lot. Another thing they talked a lot about is working with the memebers. MEMBER MISSIONARY WORK IS SO IMPORTANT. I think half the reason I needed to go on a mission was to realize how important member missionary work is. When the members get involved, the work is so much more affective. It's just so exciting. We have some wards that are really excited to work with us. I've been studying the ward mission plans and I'm really excited to put both of them into action. It's cool because they are really tailored to each ward. So yeah, it was a good zone conference.

The day before zone conference, we were trying to get in touch with a member so we could sing happy birthday to them, we were kind of playing phone tag and waiting for them to call us back. Well, the phone rang and we were so excited to sing happy birthday that we just put it on speaker phone right away and started belting out happy birthday. We were about half way through when Sister Freimann looked down at the phone and goes: "It's the zone leaders!". That was our bad. I picked up the phone right away and took it off speaker and all I could hear was one of the Elders saying, "Well this is awkward." It was hilarious. Maybe it was one of those "you had to be there moments", but we were laughing for a super long time.

So in our ward we have a couple who we love so much. The wife is Mongolian and I have no idea where the husband is from, but they are both awesome. We have our mission correlation meetings at their apartment because she is a ward missionary and they are about as sweet as you can get. Well, this week, the husband was checked into the hospital because he is having heart problems. They have been there about a week now and we know that they aren't having the most fun time ever. We've been able to visit them a couple of times, and one evening we went over with the Elders to have FHE (Family Hospital Evening). We brought some snacks with us and played UNO and had a spiritual thought. It was so good. It's hard to see these sweet people stuck in a hospital, but I hope that we could brighten things up a little bit. They do so much for the missionaries. We could at least try to do a little bit for them.

On Tuesday we had English class which I am a huge fan of. The one Mongolian lady that I talked about before came again and she brought a friend! I never really know what I'm going to teach when we go into the class, but I say a prayer before and with their questions and some help from Heavenly Father, we are able to have a super good hour. It is just so cool to be able to help people in that way. I have never done something like teach a language before, but it is so fun.

On Friday, we were in our Vienna apartment doing weekly planning when we got a call. One of our investigators was at the YSA center and the senior couple there had to leave, but she wanted to be taught, so we basically ran to the other side of the city and met with her. We stayed at the center and made waffles and talked about the ten commandments, because that's where we are now with her. It was a really good time, and when I was thinking about it afterwards, I realized, that I would drop almost anything if it meant helping someone come unto Christ. It's is a real special privilege being able to do this full time.

So on Sundays, Europe basically shuts down. I don't know where everyone goes or how they all do it, but literally, there is no one. We've kind of had a hard time figuring out what we should do with our proselyting hours once we have finished studies and going to church, but we finally figured something out and I think it is a really great idea. So we made this thing called The Cookie Calandar. It has birthdays on it. We also have this thing where we go to church and ask the Relief Society President who there is that she thinks needs our help or a visit this week. We then go home and bake a lot of cookies, and after our studies, we run around and give all of the cookies out. It's great because a lot of the people on the Cookie Calandar are less active, so we are able to come in contact with them, and, we are already making a dent in the list from our Relief Society President. It's a good time and I'm really happy about it.

Today, we are in Vienna for p-day. We have a bunch of errands to run, but hopefully, we'll be able to see some sights too. Who knows. Well, that's all for today. I realize that there is no real organization to these letters and that I just kind of tell random stories, but I hope people think they're interesting or slightly entertaining. I hope you are all doing well and making good choices!

Love,

Sister Anna Smiley

Pictures: The three of us wearing our matching Austria shirts headed out to do some serious service (aka, we organized wood while the Elders chopped it), Family Hospital Evening, and a rainbow we saw from the hospital room when it stopped raining.

I have no idea what to call this one so come up with your own title :)

Hi Everyone!

I think I usually start by saying life is good, but yeah, it is still good. Having two areas is pretty hectic, but we''re making it work. 

On Friday, we were doing our weekly planning and we got quite stressed because we are in two fantastic wards where they are ready to really help us do the work, but we just physically cannot do everything we could if we only had one area. We were just staring at our planners for a while wondering how we were going to make this work as best as possible when we all had the same epiphany at the same time. NO one wants to "get this transfer over with" so we can start doing "real work" next transfer.We want to make this transfer super duper meaning full because there are so many different circumstances that we're working with. Well, that's when we realized we really have to work with the members. There is literally no other way for us to do this work. We need their help and they are willing to help us, so basically the plan is to love the heck out of them and make sure that every week we can have a progress record full of things we've been doing to try to build up their ward so that they get excited and want to help too. It seems simple, but we have already seen how effective it is. When they know us and befriend us, they want to be a part of this work. IT'S SO COOL!!! That was just our little epiphany this week. We'll see how it goes.

 

On Tuesday we were at the Young Single Adult Center in Vienna just finishing up our district meeting when this cute little mongolian lady walked in. She saw our sign for teaching english classes and said she wanted to learn. Sister Freimann and Sister Bushman have never taught English before and I did it a little bit in Ludwigsburg, so basically the torch was handed to me and I gave this sweet lady her first English lesson. It was just so cool. I have been in an abundance of foreign language classes in my life so I'm pretty familiar with how the first one goes. I loved teaching her so much and we get to do it again this week!!!!! That was divine intervention for sure. Who cares if I got a C in my freshman English class in high school. I can talk and read just fine and that's all you need along with help from Heavenly Father. 

Last monday we were in Vienna and we decided to just go into the city and see the touristy parts of it. First of all, it was hilarious because we were surrounded by American and asian tourists speaking English. That was pretty strange, but it was so beautiful. We went to Stephans Dome which is a giant cathedral and we walked along the pedestrian streets. I got a new bag because mine had a gaping hole in it and did not function any more. So we went into the most hipster H&M of my life. It was in a super old building and made all of the clothes look like works of art.

 

On Tuesday we came Wiener Neustadt. It's this sleepy little town outside of Vienna and is so beautiful. It's surrounded by vinyards and you can see the Alps a little bit. It's a really pretty train ride from the city. The only thing is, that since it's a fairly small town, there is no public transit which means that we walk EVERYWHERE. I have good shoes so it's not too bad for me, but Sister Freimann's foot has been getting swollen and she said it hurts too. 

That leads me to our next adventure. This morning we were in the emergency room for about two hours. Her foot was not looking good so we went and basically, she has carpal tunnel, but in her foot. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but she has drugs and cream now, so hopefully she'll be ok. It was pretty exciting to sit in an Austrian hospital though. It was so old. Sister Bushman and I read the Book of Mormon while we waited so it was still productive :) 

Yesterday I gave one of my two talks. It was in Wiener Neustadt and it was on ordinances. I thought that was a bit of a strange topic for a missionary, but it was actually so interesting for me to be able to study that. I came to this realization, that without the priesthood (the power of God on the earth) we are basically doomed. I think my talk went over well. I'm giving another one next week in Vienna about agency, so I'm excited to start studying about that :) Well, I don't have much time, but I hope you all have a great week and make good choices!

Love,

Sister Smiley

Pictures: Us at the hospital this morning, the train ride to Wiener Neustadt, and me in front of stephans dome

When in Wien (that's how you say Vienna in German)

So I'm in Wien now. That's kind of crazy. You would not believe what I see when I look out the window from this internet cafe. Heavenly Father spoils me.

So saying goodbye to Ludwigsburg was actually heart wrenching. I got so comfortable there and loved the people so much. We were seeing a lot of success too, so leaving was super duper sad, but Heavenly Father knows what He's doing, so I'm just going to roll with it :) 

On our last day in Ludwigsburg we had English class and I had to say goodbye to a girl that became really good friends with. She gave me a book that I'm dying to read after my mission, and she wrote a note inside of it, so I'll just have to wait a while until I can read the book, but that was super sweet of her. 

We also had three eating appointments that day. Sister Powell did a really good job of letting the people of Ludwigsburg know that she loves ice cream so literally the only thing we ate at all three of those appointments was ice cream. My mouth was thoroughly covered in sugar after that.

Thursday was transfer day and that was insane. Like probably one of the most insane days of my life. Me and one other elder were going all the way from Stuttgart Zone to Wien Zone. That meant three two hour train rides with like 10 minute layovers. There were always lots of other missionaries on the trains with us, so organizing suitcases was a lot of work. Basically, when you get to your stop, Elders start throwing suitcases off the train and you HAVE to make sure yours gets off or its going to Berlin. Then you take what you can and ask other missionaries for help and book it to your next train. Once you get there, the suitcases get thrown back on again and you HAVE to make sure that yours make it on. So when we got to Munich, I also needed to meet our golden (new missionary), Sister Bushman, and help her out with getting to Wien. I found her and we dashed off to our train and somehow made it here with all of our stuff. It was insane. Transfers are always insane, but it's good and builds character.

Wien in beautiful. It is such a privilige to be serving here. Basically, everything is attractive and the food continues to be really good. We have some errands to run, but if we have time today, we are going to go see some sights.

Sister Freiman and Sister Bushman are great. They are my two companions and it is actually super fun to be in a drit. There is always someone to talk to. Sister Bushman is a beast of a golden. She's from Kansas and she literally talks to everyone. I'm learning a lot from her. Technically, Sister Freiman is the trainer, so she takes care of the official business, and I just help. Sister Freiman has four transfers left on her mission and is super great. She comes from Hannover, so she helps a lot with learning German. One thing is, when you get to your second area, everyone expects you to know German really well already. Compared to Sister Bushman I'm "experienced", but I still feel like a chicken running around with my head chopped off. I think that will be a normal feeling throughout my mission.

One fun surprise about being in a sisters drit is that we have two areas we work in actually. We have Wien 1 and Wiener Neustadt. Wein 1 is in the city and Wiener Neustadt is more like a suburb of Wien. It's kind of a struggle to try to get to know two wards at once, but there just aren't enough sisters here right now to give every ward the amout of missionaries they want, so we have to be shared around. We have two apartments, two area books, two phones, and two sets of keys. It's a little cray cray, but it is an adventure for sure. 

Another "fun" thing about two wards is that I get to give a talk next Sunday and the one after that. They aren't making Sister Bushman do it yet because she is new, so I get to do it. Fortunately, I can write out the talks and Sister Freiman can help with the German, but Heilige Kuh that is a lot of talks. Guess Heavenly Father wants me to work on my German public speaking skills. Well bring it!

Anywho, life is great. People are nice, and food is good. I hope everyone has a great week and continues to make good choices.

Love,

Sister Smiley

Pictures:

We took a family picture of the three of us this morning: Sister Freiman is in the middle and Sister Bushman on the left; Sister Freiman and I, and then we kind of stumbled upon the parliamnet building when we were stopping to get some food on Friday. It was pretty exciting.