The Proposal

August 14, 2018

The Proposal

Perfect mission T-shirt

So last Tuesday we didn't do much in the way of touring around Vienna, because we spent the majority of our day buying chocolate to send home. I think it was worth it, but I decided that before I leave Vienna (and since I don't know when that is, by the end of this transfer) I want to visit Belvedere Palace and the Albertina. Which, won't. E happening today but I will get to that.

Wednesday, I don't really have an interesting story -it was a lot of the little things like texting people and working on VISA papers, in addition to finding.

Thursday, we met with a Neu-bekehrt named Lisa and had Eis for lunch (but like, gourmet ice cream, so it was really good). We went finding, and we stopped this guy who had missed his train and he said he would talk to us for a couple minutes if we wanted to get some Eis.

Naturally, we agreed. He ended up not only not giving us his number, but not even taking a pass-along card. RIP, but at the same time, if he wasn't ready then he wasn't ready. For dinner, we had some subpar Asian noodles. Needless to say, that night we crashed on our apartment floor in front of our fans with a bunch of water and just felt sick to our stomachs. Dehydration, no real food, and too much Eis is a triple threat.

Friday, we met with Elvira again - she's basically my favorite person. :) She's always so sweet, and even though she's making very slow progress, she's still making progress and it's easy to see that she has a desire to find the truth. Fun fact: The Elders before the Sisters came in (she's been meeting with missionaries for about a year but there's only been Sisters in Wien 2 for a transfer or two) neglected to teach her about Jesus Christ. Granted, they were probably focusing more on helping her to believe that there is a God, but needless to say we will be teaching her about Christ next time. After Elvira, we met with Bruna, another Neu-bekehrt. She made an amazing lunch for us, and we were able to talk very openly with her (I mean, we always try to talk openly, but there's just a different energy and Spirit sometimes). It's really cool to see how much some people trust the missionaries - even though we're just 18 and 19-year-olds. Yay for the Spirit! That night, we met with Hannah, yet another Neu-bekehrt. We taught her about the priesthood, and we also got to try some milkshakes (in Europe, they're really just flavored, slightly frothy milk - i got coconut

). She's sweet, and so invested in member-missionary work!

Saturday, we met with this girl named Zohreh, who is the friend of a convert-of-two-weeks in our ward. She shared her background with us (and I'm not allowed to say much of anything specific because of legal reasons), but my goodness can I just say that some people are so strong? Her testimony is rock solid, and it helped me to realize just how important it is to have faith in Christ, and how blessed we are. She's such a sweetheart! We gave her a Book of Mormon in Persian, and she got so excited!

Saturday night we went finding, and S. Neumann and I had a very interesting experience. We had been going for a while and decided to stop one more person on the way back to the U-bahn Station. Well, we stopped someone. The ensuing conversation is by far the most unique one I have had as of yet. He told us that he had lived in Vienna for 8 years and that he had seen "the other members of our community" walking up and down Mariahilferstraße many times, but that none of them had ever stopped him. He told us that he and a few of his friends had been in a Mormon church a few years prior to "conquer their fear that they would never make it out again", but that they only lasted 45 minutes before they left. He asked us how many wives we could have, thinking it was about 6-7, but if that was outdated that maybe then we had an upper limit of 3. We were able to clarify that marriage is between 1 man and 1 woman, and testify about eternal families. He asked us if we could notice anything special or unique about him, and to be frank I got a little nervous at that question. It turns out, it was just that he was spiritual. He told us that he was something-I-forgot (he spoke very fondly of the Dalai Llama (I have no idea how to spell that)), and basically that as you conquered your fears and stopped looking for God, you would find Him. And that he had personally seen God only a couple days prior. He kept telling us that he was listening not only to what we were saying, but also to our emotions and warmth, and that we were both very warm people and he could tell there was something different about us. He told me I was shy, though. And then he stopped himself and said: "I'm sorry, I just feel that this is very important for me to say. Please know that this is entirely honest, and that I feel this very strongly." He turned to S. Neumann. "I would marry you right now if you said yes. Right now. I would be Mormon for you." She and I both choked a little bit. "You're just so warm, and I can feel that even at the end of a long day, you still have so much love for everyone. I don't need a Mormon wife, but I need a wife with warmth like yours." It was an interesting conversation, and it was amusing trying to leave because he said that he knew she was a missionary right now, but that he would wait for 5 years and come to the states if he needed to. And this was all in an accent that was very similar to the scientest from Captain America. He asked for her number and we were a little concerned, but we had already given it to him on a pass-along card. Luckily, we made it out fairly quickly after that, and haven't heard from him since. I'll keep praying that he finds some Elders to teach him about the gospel.

Sunday, Zohreh brought a friend with her to church, and she was very excited to ask if she could also have a Book of Mormon. We can't wait to meet with her! We gave a spiritual thought in Jungen Damen about charity and a girl had an awesome object lesson about eternal marriage using paper versus plastic cups, and how we should strive for a "Plastische Ehe". It was amusing. We also had a ward picnic, which was nice.

Yesterday, we had district meeting, which is always fun. We also went finding for a while, and I tried some Topfen-Stachelbeere Eis. It tasted like Yoplait vanilla joghurt.

Today, we are heading out to Wiener Neustadt for a district p-day. One of the Sisters in our district is going home tomorrow, so we are going to play soccer and eat crepes to celebrate.

So yes, missions are fun. They're also hard. But they're worth it.