On Tuesday, we had English class with our two Mongolian friends here in Vienna and it was just so much fun. We talked about prepositions. It's really cool to see their English skills actually get better. After class, we asked them if they knew anything about the Mormon church. They said not really, but they would love to learn more! It was every missionary's dream come true. So we got some Mongolian Book of Mormons and are working on setting up an appointment with them so we can start teaching them what we're all about. They are the two sweetest people ever. I'm excited to see them tomorrow.
On Friday morning we went to go see a woman in Wiener Neustatd who is less active. She is middle aged and is divorced with a teenage daughter living with her. We went just to say hi, to get to know her better, and hopefully make another appointment. What actually happened was way better though. She invited us in and gave us something to drink and told us why she didn't come to church anymore, but that she wants to come back. She's just scared. At that appointment I really saw this woman as one of God's children who He loves so much. He wants her to come back to church and is really proud of the desire that she has to change things in her life around. She asked us to come back. She said that she needs people in her life to be consistent, so we are going to do our best to help her and get the ward involved too, because she really just wants to do what is right. I thought it was the sweetest thing ever.
On Saturday we had a ward activity in Wiener Neustadt. Basically, for the past two weeks, we have been running around and making phone calls trying to invite everyone under the sun to this activity. It's a really great way for less active members and investigators to get integrated with the ward and see that we really aren't different than other people. The theme of this activity was like country western...so basically American. It was kind of trippy being at an American party in Austria, but they did a great job with it actually. They hired out a square dance caller for the night, so everyone got to square dance, and they had musical chairs and jump roping too. It was a lot of fun and there was SO MUCH FOOD. They basically had every variety of meat, lots of salads, and torte, and cakes, and puddings. It was hard not to eat everything. There was a really good turn out at this activity. We invited about 14 people; less actives and investigators. We had 10 of them show up. It was great. We got to know them all better, and the ward got to know them better too.
Yesterday, we went to church in Vienna. It was all good and normal, and then in Sacrament meeting an American woman asked me to translate for her. I have never translated for anyone before and I really didn't know if I could do it. I can understand what is going on, but I don't know if I can put that into coherent sentences for someone else. Well, I didn't say no, because I feel like you can't really do that as a missionary, so I sat down and started praying in my heart like crazy. The meeting started, and I was able to translate just fine! It was literally a miracle. I don't know how it happened, but I was able to tell this woman everything that was going on in sacrament. Tender mercy for sure.
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Anyways, last night we had an eating appointment with a lady from the Vienna ward. She lives about 25 minutes away from us by foot. When we left the apartment, the weather looked great, so we just walked out. WELL about 5 minutes into our walk, it started pouring. We didn't have umbrellas with us, so we got soaked. We kind of just threw our arms up in the air and enjoyed it anyways because what else could we do. We just got wet. The eating appointment itself was a bit interesting. This lady invited the Elders over as well as five male friends (one of them is a member, the rest were not) and she wanted us all to exchange religious ideas. Sounds harmless right? It was until the quiet guy in the corner said that we were all wrong because Jesus is a communist so we should all believe in communism. Then the other mormon guy yells back, JESUS IS NOT A COMMUNIST. One of the Elders tried to calm everyone down, but there was some tension in the air, so we left after a few minutes to go do some language study. We all just laughed about the whole thing later. holy cow it was interesting.
Well anywho, that's all for this week folks. I really love being a missionary. I consider it a privilege to wear Christ's name over my heart every day. I hope that things are going well wherever you all are. Make good choices.
Love,
Sister Smiley
Pictures: us getting super rained on, the second one was supposed to be in front of a sign that says "everything happens in threes" but it kind of didn't work out, us and the sister training leaders sitting in front of the opera house
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