Eis Eis Baby

Wednesday, 17th:

Schwester Kraus! What an absolute gem. We had lunch with her again, and this time we talked about President Nelson's invitation to study all about the temple (when you don't have the opportunity to attend). She was so sweet! Every time we meet with her, I just want to give her a big hug. And since it was S. Smith's first time eating with her, she asked a bunch of questions about her life that I hadn't known how to ask when I first got here, so I got to know some new things about her. When she told us that she didn't have any children, she looked a little sad, so I said, "Aber die Missionare sind Ihre Kinder!" and she just got this huge grin and laughed and said, "Das stimmt! Ich habe viele Kinder, die ich verwöhnen kann!" Isn't that just the sweetest?

We did various other things for most of the day, like going through our phone (we've decided that we needed to contact everyone in our phone, and if they're interested keep them, but if they're not then delete their number - my reasoning behind it was that I was thinking about how each time we go finding we expect to find new people that are ready, but we have people who have already agreed to talk to us in our phone! And why should we expect God to lead us to new Friends if we haven't even talked to the ones He already helped us find?) and helping the Wien 1 Sisters find a baptism dress for an 8-year-old girl in their ward.

In the evening, S. Smith had an appointment with someone from the office over the phone, so we set her up in the FHV room in the church and I drew a girl in a Dirndl. It made me happy, and I'll have to take a picture.

Thursday, 18th:

I felt a little sick on Wednesday morning, but got progressively worse throughout the day. On Thursday I woke up and just felt like garbage. You know that kind of sick where you feel like you should be fine, but you can't breathe, your eyes sting, and you can just tell you're not really there mentally? I was so out of it. So after our studies, S. Smith made me take my first nap of my mission. It didn't do much, but I appreciated the extra sleep.

We got some Eis when we were finding because I was feeling sick, and naturally the best medicine is gelato. ;)

We taught Englisch Kurs that night! We invited Dalil a few hours before, and then he came! We had an awesome English lesson, and then he stayed for our lesson-lesson. We hadn't planned anything for him because it was pretty last minute, but he opened with a question about why we ate bread and drank water in church, and that led us to talk about the Sacrament, Christ's mission on earth and Atonement, and baptism. We didn't invite him to be baptized, but I have to say that was one of the coolest lessons I've taught so far! I went in to it "not knowing beforehand the things which I should do" (1 Nephi 4:6), but because we were living worthily and doing our best, I could definitely see how we were led by the Spirit. We were able to whip out different resources to help him understand the answer to his questions. Plus, he also brought up an interesting insight, so I was also taught during this lesson. He asked if we blessed and passed out bread because Christ fed the multitudes with just a few loaves of bread. I had never thought about that before, but I thought it was an interesting parallel. It was also a unique lesson because Elder Luke, from Egypt/England/Bulgaria came to the institute and so he and Dalil were able to speak Arabic together, and I feel like Dalil really needed that bonding. Honestly, it was so cool.

Friday, 19th:

We tried going by on a JAE (YSA), but her address must have been false, so we decided to go finding in Karlsplatz instead. We went to say our prayer to open, and S. Smith seemed a little off. I asked her if she was okay, and she brushed it off and said that she just needed to get to work. So we stopped one person, he wasn't interested, and I went to talk to a girl on a bench, but S. Smith walked off. I talked to the girl on the bench for a few minutes, and then went to find S. Smith. She was sitting on a metal bar, so I went and joined her. I asked her what was wrong, and we ended up sitting on that metal bar for a while talking about how she was adjusting to Wien. I won't get into the details, but mostly I think she just expects a lot from herself, and she wasn't seeing herself reaching her goals (as a perfectionist, I can relate). So I asked her how I could help, and she said "Ice cream". So we went and got some gelato from a Conditorei in Stephansplatz and ate it as we appreciated the architecture of Stephansdom. After that, our finding time was up, so we went home and gathered some junk in our apartment to be taken out for our up-and-coming mission-wide dejunking day.

Saturday, 20th:

We had our weekly Book of Mormon Extravaganza! The biggest memory of this one: I was on splits with S. Christiansen and we were walking back to our Ausstellung when this guy says, "Hallo, entschuldigung, aber ihr seid zwei hübsche junge Frauen." S. Christiansen didn't quite hear him, so she asked him to repeat himself and he just switched into English. He talked at us for a little bit about how beautiful we are and about how much he wanted to draw us, and then he gave us each a business card for his animation channel (I made the mistake of getting excited about animation), and then he gave me a second business card. He said that he would love to date me some time in the future. We gave him a pass-along card and tried to leave, but he insisted that we call him so that he could draw our beautiful faces. We managed to leave after that, and just walked away a little weirded out. But then like, 30 minutes later I was at the Ausstellung going through our boxes of the Book of Mormon, and I hear his voice talking to the Sisters behind me (who were in a conversation with the Elders). He was making sure that they were going to call him, but they were so confused because they had never seen him before. So I turn around, and he recognizes me and says, "You! You're the one I was talking to. Don't forget to call me. You're a very nice and beautiful person." And then eventually went away. The second he was gone, all of the missionaries turned to me and clamored to get the story behind this flirt-to-convert guy. I quickly cleared it up, but I've already been teased about it a few times. *sigh*

Sunday, 21st:

Sunday, we taught an impromptu lesson in Sunday School about Eternal Marriage (because we forgot until that morning). I was less than satisfied with it, aber es passt schon.

Then we went home and did our weekly planning, and we were very slap-happy. That comes with exhaustion.

Monday, 22nd:

Zone Conference!!! Woooh! What a party! I absolutely loved it, as per usual. I took many pages of notes, and I had a lot of fun bonding with my MTC friends (shoutout to E. Buss, E. Boden, and E. Fairbanks!). I know I've joked about it before, but man do I need men in my life. Living with Sisters is fun and all, but I just feel so much more normal around guys. I also had a good conversation with an Elder Jensen from Denmark (about an hour north of Maria's hometown) and Sister Brown. I got my first flu shot, so that was fun. We got Halloween cookies. And oh yeah, I GOT MY PACKAGE! AND A LETTER FROM MARK'S FAMILY! I was so excited! I couldn't wait to open it, so I had fun looking through everything on the train home. I loved it all! Thank you to everyone for your notes!  

Tuesday, 23rd:

Today we did some cleaning in the morning and discovered some mold behind our dresser! So yay! We get to sleep in the living room while we take care of that. Which also means our apartment is torn apart right now and I was already going crazy with the clutter, but now we don't have hopes of putting it away for a little bit. RIP.

To have some fun, we went to Stephansdom and went up the South Tower. I got a lot of fun pictures. :D

Then we ate lunch at Schnitzelwirt because we were freezing and wanted something warm. We ran into the Wr. Neustadt Sisters as they were finishing their lunch. It was amazing, but the Gurkensalat was PRIME. So good.

We killed a little bit of time by popping in and out of some shops (I found a Rapunzel watch in the Swatch store! I was so tempted to get it...), and I ended up getting a scarf because I needed a second one. So that was good. :)

Then we came to the Institute Center to write our emails with time to spare, but then the Elders texted asking us for our fahrplan to a joint dinner appointment tonight, and it turns out it's actually 30 minutes earlier than they had told us, so our time has yet again been cut short. Well, dang it.

Favorite new word: verwöhnen - to spoil (so if someone is verwöhnt, they're spoiled rotten)

Favorite funny story: Flirting-to-converting by merely existing. I guess my countenance just shines so much that I must seem like an angel. *hair toss*

Favorite spiritual thought: Read the talk "As Many as I Love, I Rebuke and Chasten" by D. Todd Christofferson from April 2011 Gen Conf. I really love the video that was put out with it, but I can't remember what it's called. Something to do with a currant bush.

Bis nächste Woche,

Sister Hamilton