A Week of Celebrations

(Tuesday, 1st:)

I got a new Dirndl from the Dirndl Frau! She had sooooooo many! She's been collecting them for 30 years, and when we got to her home, she pulled out more Dirndls than I've seen even at the most bekannt Dirndl shops.  Like, literally. Her house was on stilts (all in the area are, because the Donau usually floods there in the spring), so all of her Dirndls were under her whole house and lining garage. It was like Hoarders: Dirndl edition. But it was amazing! We felt like princesses. :) So I got an incredibly cheap, classy Dirndl. I'm very proud of it.

Then when we got back we went to the institute center to call through our phone, and we were able to help the Elders teach a lesson to a young woman named Tutu who has a baptismal date in December. That was a very special experience.

Wednesday, 31st:

Happy Halloween!

We ate lunch with Schwester Kraus, and she (as always) just warmed my soul. I had painted my nails "Urban Chameleon" (guess why I bought it, LOL) and she loved them! When we saw her on Sunday the 4th, she had painted her nails, too, and she couldn't wait to show us.  

We had an early curfew because it was Halloween, so we were home by 18.30 and DE-JUNKED. We went through almost everything, and it was so satisfying.

We had 4 kids and a mom stop at our door and say "Süßes oder Saures", so we only gave out candy once, but we just finished eating the rest of it today. ;) So not too shabby.

Thursday, 1st:

Happy Allerheiligen/Allerseelen! (Also known as, the more celebrated day here in Austria)(#catholicism) (we actually had one investigator rant against the paganism of Halloween)

We travelled all the way out to Gattendorf (we were three stops away from Bratislava) to eat lunch with a member family. We've been trying to focus on following the rule of only 1-hour member appointments, and they weren't exactly used to that, so they had planned for us to stay for 3 hours I think, but they were kind and helped us out. So in 1 hour, we managed to eat Fritatten Soup, Roast Pork (the Roast Lamb wasn't done in time ... I love lamb...), Spaetzle, and Trifle, and then book it to the train station to make the once-an-hour train. I was quite impressed, but I'm still sad about not getting to try the lamb, because everything else was soooooo good. 

We had a WhatsApp-facetime training call with one of the members of our Missionspräsidentschaft about how we can be more consecrated. It's optional, but it was really cool. :)

We met with an investigator named Amelie. We asked her if she had any questions, and she asked us the most inspired questions. She asked us how we FEEL about the Book of Mormon, how we came to feel that, and she asked how one recognizes the Holy Ghost. We had an amazing conversation, and she kept saying how interesting it all was. She texted us a couple days later and said she thought a lot about everything, but that she's pretty sure she doesn't want to learn how to feel the Spirit because of a  couple different reasons, so we're trying to help her through her reasoning and see if she'll keep meeting with us because she could honestly be so ready, she's just getting in her own way...

Then we had a dinner appointment with the Barosch family, which is an older Ehepaar, but they also brought along Eva Könnyu and Helga Nica, and it was so cool. The chocolate cake for dessert was one of the two best chocolate cakes I've ever had. The other is Dad's Schwarzerwald cake. And I don't like chocolate cakes, so the fact that I wanted to not just have a second slice but also to have the recipe, that means it's pretty amazing. Schwester Barosch said she would write it down for us, so here's to hoping.

Friday, 2nd:

Happy birthday Kirk!

We tausched early in the morning and I got the lovely Sister Adams from Houston, Texas (baby)(name that reference). I. Love. Her. So much! She's such a goofball and full of energy! She did marching band (in TEXAS! LIKE, THE MOST AMAZING PLACE TO DO MARCHING BAND), and she had 2 pet chameleons, this is her first transfer auf mission and she's an STL and opening an area, and I just needed this Tausch. We... didn't get much done....  mostly due to waiting for a couple of appointments that both fell through. But we had a lot of fun and laughed a lot, and I feel like my soul is refreshed.

We taught Elvira, and we followed-up on her Buch Mormon reading. She said she wasn't satisfied with her answer to her question of "Gibt es einen Gott?" (She felt like there was no clear answer) So we asked her if she had prayed before reading and if she had a clear purpose as she read, and she responded with "Ertappt!" So basically, we found exactly what she hadn't been doing (she'd just been vaguely flipping through it). So we read Alma 36 with her together. Looking back, I think it would have been better to read a chapter more about Christ, maybe Alma 34 or Alma 7 or... Idk, next time! But reading Alma 36 was still good, and we had a good conversation about it. We soft-invited her to baptism at the end of it, and she said that she doesn't feel like she's there yet (well, obviously, Elvira) but she thanked us for considering her. We're going to keep meeting with her, because she is still working hard and making slow progress, and I really believe that one day she's going to say a prayer, and she's going to realize that she's slowly come to believe that what we're teaching is true, and the only thing she'll be able to do after that is either choose to be baptised, or to stop meeting with the missionaries. I know which decision I'm praying she makes. ;)

We then went to the institute center to call people, but we ended up taking a lot of silly pictures instead (there's some where we're trying to recreate an ad that we always see on Mariahilferstraße).

Saturday, 3rd:

The only day where we weren't celebrating something!

We tausched back, and we went straight to our apartment to de-junk. The Elders came with a van and took a LOT of stuff out of our apartment. Why we were storing a bag of dirt, a broken suitcase, pot(s) (420 @Kyle), a singular candy cane, and a bunch of other random junk....it's beyond me. And now our apartment is so empty!! I'm waiting to take pictures until after deep-cleaning day. But in the meantime, I'm much happier. 

We went on a walk with Majid while we tried to teach him a lesson (I say tried because today was his "off" day, so he told us he didn't want to think about anything because he didn't have to), so we mostly talked about Vienna and slipped in a bit of the Word of Wisdom.

We ran off to the Book of Mormon extravaganza. After a few minutes of waiting around, we realized that not only did we not have the ausstellung fahrrahd, but we also didn't have any extra copies of the Book of Mormon. Due to a LOT of junk, the Zone Leaders had been delayed driving around the van, so they weren't able to come for the first hour. But we made do with the copies of the Book of Mormon that we had in our bag. A couple of members came, so I was able to go on splits with the same woman that I did splits with last transfer (when we went by on the Weniger Aktivs). Story time: I'm so used to only stopping walking people that are alone, but this Schwester Soucek was fearless! She went up to these two girls sitting on a bench and started talking to them before I even had time to register what she was doing. We quickly learned that these two girls were from Serbia on a school trip. Backstory: I had brought along a Serbisch Book of Mormon to give to the Hansens (our institute Ehepaar) for someone they know, but I hadn't seen them yet so I still had it with me. Through pure "coincidence", the only copy of the Book of Mormon that I had with me that day was in their native language. We were able to leave it with them, along with a pass-along card. It was amazing! It astounds me how the Lord guides us in exactly the way He needs us to be. That was my favorite part of the  Extravaganza. We eventually did get our Fahrrad, and it was cool because once it was all over, we were the only ones available to ride it home, so I got to rent a city bike and ride through the streets of Vienna. It was so cool! I would totally do it again. I felt like a true Wienerin, weaving my way through 1-way streets, passing Stephansdom in the dark, my skirt flowing in the wind... It was like a movie scene! And then I'd hear S. Smith crashing into bushes behind me and dinging her bell to warn pedestrians. To be fair, though, she was the one actually driving the Ausstellung bike, and that thing is just so awkward to steer.

Sunday, 4th:

Happy birthday Beth Sampson!

Church was chill, ward choir was chill, studies were chill. We planned our week and ate some good food to break our fast. 

Monday, 5th:

Happy half-birthday me!

We had Distriktrat, and because we're angels S. Smith and I brought some lebkuchen for everyone (it was really cheap).

We wrote our letter to pres.

We had a dinner appointment with David, Elke, and Alvin Krywult (Alvin is the cutest little 1-year-old). They were sweet. :)

Facemasks! We found a fancy "premium platinum" face mask tube while de-junking, so we decided to try it out. We looked like shiny aliens. :)

Tuesday, 6th:

Happy 5-month-mark!

We took a nap until 9 am. Yeet.

We got food. Yeet.

We met up with the Wien 1 Sisters and ate burgers and went to Naschmarkt and got ripped off when we were buying nuts but also got dried fruit for a good price. Yeet. 

Favorite new word: Ertappt - guilty/red-handed (basically, "You got me!")

Favorite funny story: All of those pictures with S. Adams... also, the fact that we were Hamilton and Adams. 

Favorite spiritual thought: Alma 36. It's phenomenal. 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen, 

Sister Hamilton