Mohana, You Ugly!

Tuesday, 20th:

What a p-day! I have to say, it was the perfect ending to my time in Wien.  We left right after writing emails and met up with Marie-Louise. We realized the Naturhistorisches museum is closed on Tuesdays (*tears*), so we focused on the Kunsthistorisches museum (so, like, it worked out). I LOVED it. The only thing that would have made it better other than no time limit would be to have my family there (specifically Dad - we're Museum buddies). I was psyched to find the painting that's been hanging in our dining room for my entire life, and I also really liked its partner painting of the Schönbrunn gardens with Wien in the distance. :D They were gorgeous, big, and very colorful in person. I also saw a few famous paintings (e.g. Madonna in the Meadow) that I had learned about in my humanities class in college. That made my heart happy. :)

Then we headed over to the Christkindlmarkt by Rathaus. It was so cute! I loved it! I could have spent a whole day just walking around and appreciating everything - the atmosphere was wonderful. There were twinkling lights, carols being sung (on a recording, but it was good), the smell of roasted chestnuts and candied almonds and lebkuchen hearts... It was wonderful, and they all tasted good! Roasted chestnuts are a little strange, though.

And then we booked it over to Schnitzelwirt and ate... Schnitzel! And Amelie came, but had to leave really quickly, so we didn't get to teach her, but I feel like she also needed to just see us as normal people, and after she left Marie-Louise requested to be a part of our next lesson with Amelie! It made me so happy. Then we parted ways, and we left to go teach Dalil, who didn't show (his friend came to visit too early, so he wasn't able to meet), and then we taught Joseph.

So all in all, it was a solid and wonderful day. :)

Wednesday, 21st:

Well, it was transfers. Dalil was super sweet and felt bad for missing our lesson, so he showed up at Bahnhof and said a quick goodbye before running off to work. There's a reason we refer to him as "the sweetest of souls". And then I hopped on a train with a few other missionaries. The Elders staying in Wien ran alongside the train to send Elder Konietz home, which was cool to see. And then I got off a couple hours later in Salzburg and met Sister Spratt! We spent literally all day in Bahnhof because the Elders ran off to go finding, so we watched their luggage. And waited for a companion to show up for the Sister that I rode from Wien with. We made it home in time to eat dinner.

Thursday, 22nd:

We went finding! Which was so different from what I was used to. When streeting, we try and stop everyone we see with something along the lines of an umfrage (=survey)(can be a formal question-answer list, or it can be a less formal question-based conversation (my preference)). This is because if you go straight into who you are, they'll say they're too busy and be on their way before you have time to say "Jesus Christus" (sometimes they do this anyway because they can see your nametag). When dooring, we get to be 100% straightforward about who we are and what we're doing. Granted, in the past week I haven't actually stepped into someone's home, but it's been refreshing to say, "Wir sind Missionarinen der Kirche Jesu Christi, und wir teilen einen Botschaft über Jesus Christus." I love dooring. So much! Plus, we're kind of out in the middle of nowhere, so we get to go out to little dorfs and enjoy the European scenery. :)

Friday, 23rd:

I got my license translated, so I can drive for the next 6 months without getting an Austrian license.

We waited for a potential to show up to his lesson, but he never did. We're pretty sure he blocked our phone number.

The Jungen Damen had a Hütte at the Christkindlmarkt, and they asked us to help out. So we went to one of the smaller markets in town and found their little booth and stood their for an hour and a half or so, being moral support. They were selling candied almonds, walnuts, fancy pancake mix, advent wreaths, waffles, and...Æbleskiver!! I was astounded! It turns out one of the FHV (relief society) leaders is 1/2 Danish, and we have a lunch appointment with her tomorrow (the 28th) so I am so excited to find with her over Denmark. But yeah, none of the JD were there, but they still had a few ward members show up, so they didn't need our help after all. 

Saturday, 24th:

We did some more dooring, and didn't talk to anyone beyond the intro.

We wrote our letters to Präsident, and did a bit of work on areabook. After going a little stir crazy, we took a quick break and went to Spar and bought chocolate and Haribo and Maoam and Lebkuchen. It was wonderful. 

And then we did weekly planning.

Sunday, 25th:

We went to church in Wels, and I feel like I made a good impression on the ward.

We went to lunch at Ma and Pa Schmidl's home (the Schmidl family is about 1/3 of the ward, and they have children all over Austria - they are the epitome of small town). Their house is a sweet farm house just outside of Scharten, which is just outside of Wels. They've lived there for decades, and they keep adding onto the house as their children get married and have children of their own. So there are 3 or 4 houses all strung together into 1 big farmhouse. It's fun. But yeah, we ate a really good lunch with them, and then left to go finding.

We didn't end up finding, because we realized it was too close time-wise, so we went straight to the Christkindlmarkt to help at the Hütte. We ended up spending multiple hours at this Hütte (and because it was Sunday, we didn't actually sell anything, we just handed out these little bags of cookies with a pass-along card tied to each one (the FHV I believe was supposed to make those, but we did all of them - so es geht)). It was actually a lot of fun, and we had some really cool conversations with people and sang carols and in general had a blast. The Elders and Ehepaar from Linz all came down to help out, so I got to see my good friend Elder Buss! I don't remember if I've already said, but he's in my district again, so I have yet to have a transfer ohne any MTC buds. We stayed until wrap-up, which included taking everything down because it was the last day for this smaller Markt (it's an Adventmarkt, so I think they might switch out boothes every weekend?). It took a while, but Ma and Pa Schmidl were very grateful, which is good because if we get them to like us we basically win over the whole ward. Yeet.

Monday, 26th:

We did a lot of finding - a whole 3 hours and 15 minutes! Which is almost two days worth in Wien. It doesn't sound like a lot numbers-wise, but to put it into perspective, we have a mission goal for every companionship to get 12 hours each week. So we're getting there. Unfortunately, this coming week we have a lot going on, so we might not schaff it. But I believe we can! It'll just be a bit crammed in.

And fun story, so we had started klingling (ringing doorbells) our second apartment building, and for some reason people don't like to use their sprachbox, so they buzzed us in and we went up to this one guy's apartment (first klingl, by the way) and he said he wasn't interested. So I turned around and started walking down the stairs when I heard this slipping and crashing sound behind me (it was snowing, by the way), so I turned around and saw S. Spratt sprawled on the steps, with her umbrella on the flight of stairs below us! She looked at me with huge eyes and started laughing in pain. We made it all the way back down safely, but she was in a lot of pain for the rest of the day. And then last night she was complaining about nausea and the bright lights, so I called our mission nurse and she confirmed that S. Spratt got a concussion while slipping down 7-8 stairs. So now we get to "take it easy". Meaning, we should be taking it easy, but we can't because we literally have like 3 straight days of travels and conferences. It's going to be a party. But yeah, it's been fun.

Tuesday, 27th:

Today! We got to clean the car and get groceries (with a car), so that was a new experience for me.

I bought some warm things like gloves and a knitted headband thing, and then we went to the Christkindlmarkt in Wels. It's not super big, but it was fun to look around. I got a couple of things for the family, and I just have to say - Baumrollen! Oh my goodness! I won't be sending any home, haha. Basically, they take dough and wrap it around this log thing and cook it over a charcoal fire and then dip it into cinnamon, or nuts, or coconut, or whatever. And it's basically an amazing sugary biscuit pastry thing. I'm in love. Oh, and candied almonds. Those are good, too. Next week we plan on going to the Christkindlmarkts in Linz (they're bigger), and hopefully I'll be able to send a Christmas package home shortly after. I'm hoping to get it out in time for Christmas, but if not, just remember that it's the thought that counts. ;)

Then we went home and ate lunch (we got Princess-shaped Noodle Soup, so we were very excited to try it - it's not bad. The noodles were the best part).

Favorite new word: Pinienzapfen - Pinecone

Favorite funny story: S. Spratt, shortly after getting her concussion, ran out into a field of mud and made a snow-mud angel. The video of her waddling out there is prime. :D

Favorite spiritual thought: *ahem* Does this count as spiritual? We watched Johnny Lingo twice this last week and OH MY GOODNESS. Men, if you want to know how to treat your future wife right - watch that movie. And no, the answer is not to buy her with 8 cows. It goes deeper than that. He's known for being the thriftiest trader (not yet important), and he's loved Mohana since they were kids (again, not the important part) and marries her when she's already considered "old" (19, but again, not important). The fact that he's loved her since they were kids means he planned to pay 8 cows for her since he was young - meaning he had to become a thrifty trader to save up so much. This takes him a while, which is why he doesn't marry her until she is older. He could have settled to pay 5 or even 6 cows for her and married her sooner, or he could have just payed 1 like everyone thought she was worth and not had to worry about any of this stuff. But he put her first. He saved and he waited. And the result was that he helped her to realize her true value, which helped her to find true happiness. It's just SO sweet. Also, @Dad, the Legend of Johnny Lingo... that's a separate movie, right? Is it just expanded, or is it about something else? Because we need to watch it in a year from now.

I hope everyone is jamming out to those Christmas tunes!

Much love,

Sister Hamilton