Wait, We're in Germany?!

Wednesday, 12th:

We actually got all of our studies in and planned for the day! Too bad we didn't actually get them done. It's rough, I think I mentioned this already, but we plan them for the end of the day because disturbing-the-peace and all that, which means they usually get pushed aside when other things crop up.

We went dooring.

We helped the Mohammadi kid with his English homework again, but we had another (dinner) appointment right after, so we knew we had to cut this one short by 30 minutes. That caused a funny turn of events where we were about to say that we needed to leave, when the father comes in with a quesadilla-like thing and joghurt (which S. Spratt despises) for us each. So we scarfed that down, pulled some sneakery of putting the joghurt into our backpacks, quickly chugged the water he brought for us, too, said we needed to go (in a nice way, apologizing and whatnot), and then booked it out of there. We were 15 minutes late to the appointment that we had already pushed back 15 minutes, but all was well because everyone is so nice.

The dinner appointment was with Schwester Auer (she's half-Spanish, half-Danish - I've mentioned her before). She made us Wurst Knödel and apple pie, because she had promised that she would make us something traditional Austrian, but "not Schnitzel. That's actually German, not Austrian. The Austrians just adopted it and made it their own." She said that in Denmark she always ate apple pie with sour cream instead of whipped cream or ice cream, because then you had a fresh taste to contrast the sweet. I decided to brave it, and I asked to try it. It was actually really good! It sounded disgusting, and I don't normally like sour cream, but that was something I would gerne eat again.

When we got home, I made round 2 of biscuits (round 1 was us getting locked out) for Distrikt Rat the next day because our Ehepaar was making chicken noodle soup.

Thursday, 13th:

Interviews! Always the best, of course. This time Präsident Brown prayed for Kyle, so blessings are coming your way. ;)

During interviews, we had our Distrikt Rat. It was a good, normal one.

Afterwards, we ate lunch together and invited Präsident to join us. It was a lot of fun, and I don't think he would have had time to eat anything if we hadn't had lunch for him.

We practiced for our musical number in zone conference, too.

We went dooring, fancy that!

We got on a train to Innsbruck, and spent the last few hours of our day travelling. We realized on the last train out to the Innsbruck Sisters' home that we didn't have a ticket for that train. So we hopped off and bought our tickets, and then had to wait for the next every-half-hour train. We found some janky vending machines (one was originally Haribo, but was converted to gum. Schade), where one gave out ROCKS! So we all got Tausch rocks. Mine is a pretty green. :) And then we made it to their home.

Friday, 14th:

Tausch! It was lit - I got to bond with my comp-for-the-day about drawing. I LOVED being in the mountains again.  I've decided that Innsbruck is one of my dream areas to serve. The list is currently: Innsbruck, Graz, Interlaken (but that's only Elders right now), Luzern, and maybe Tübingen or Göppingen. And Wien again at the end of my mission. ;)

But yeah, on tausch we set up their church for their Christmas party, and I was inspired because it looked amazing and the decorations in grand total cost €10, but could've been even less if they had looked in the Relief Society closet first. Props of using nature as your main centerpiece. ;) And reusing things from years past.

We went back to Wels! The train went through Germany, so we got to see the beautiful view of Deutschland (of pitch blackness, because it was at night, but the thought was there). We didn't know this beforehand, though, so we panicked when we saw that our phone was telling us we were in Germany, because we thought we were on the wrong train. It was verspäted, so we would've missed our connection but that was blessedly also verspäted, so even though we ran to make it, we got to catch our breath for 5 or so minutes before it actually took off. And we made it home just after 9:30, with a call to our Distrikt leader. ;)

Saturday, 15th:

Dooring!

We had lunch with the Familie Pingera, an older couple and their son who takes care of them. They were super sweet, and they have this logbook of each missionary who comes through Wels. It was a lot of fun to flip through it!

Dooring, again!

We went to an appointment with a previous investigator, Frau Schwertfegger, whom we had found while calling through areabook. We learned, the second she opened her door, that she is a heavy smoker. She smoked a grand total of 5 cigarettes in the time we were there. Windows closed. We were very excited to get out of there. Literally everything that went into that apartment with us came out reeking of Cigarettes. We have since washed everything that could be washed, and perfumed everything else. (I'm secretly very happy thay our next appointment with her is while I'm in Salzburg on Tausch.) She liked asking a lot of questions that were along the lines of "punishments for bad people". So... we'll see how this next lesson goes.

Right after that we booked it over to a potential, named Ghaleb, and his wife. They are now both friends of the church! There's a bit of a language barrier, as they're both learning German and their native language is Arabic. But they're sweethearts!

On the way home, we saw a grand total of 5 bunnies bouncing off the road! I wanted to hug each and every on of them... I've really missed our bunnies...

Sunday, 16th:

We were in Haag for church, and we got to meet one of our investigators for the first time! The joys of busy Friends... 

Wevate lunch at Familie Doudou's. The husband is our new not-GML, so the... 2nd counselor in the Priesthood quorum? Right? They're young and have a new baby, and he already has ideas to help Haag's mission initiative start hoppin'. We're psyched! Plus, they fed us Käsespätzle. 

We managed to reach our 12 hours of finding by calling through the phone.

And this is lrobably my week of best numbers on the mission so far! I was so proud of the work we've been doing. :)

Monday, 17th:

Dooring!

We practiced for our multiple musical numbers coming up. I almost have Away in a Manger memorized! 

We helped the Mohammadi Kid again,  which went faster because he didn't have as much homework. 

Tuesday, 18th:

 We had planned to go the Stille Nacht Kapelle, but travel times meant we couldn't today, unfortunately. So instead we went to Pluscity, the most American mall you'll find in Europe, in Linz! But kein Stress, we plan on going to the Kapelle next transfer. It won't be exactly 200 years, but that means there will be fewer people, right? :)

Favorite new word: Gehirnerschütterung - concussion (because you want to have to use a word like that when explaining to the doctor what's wrong with you) 

Favorite funny story: Sister Spratt has a little bit of road rage, so we've been working on being nicer to other drivers on the road. This means she channels her aggression by thinking of unique names to call people. Favorites so far:  "incompetent buzzard" and "numb-nart".

Favorite spiritual thought: Nephi! As in, the son of Helaman (who is the son of Helaman of Stripling Warrior fame). He is SO cool! Literally, why don't we talk about him more? He's one of my favorite BoM heroes.  Go read Helaman, and see why. 

TLDR: This is a new section for my lovely friends who are either missionaries or similarly busy, and don't have enough time to read this whole thing (you can thank Sister Zappala for this): I ate apple pie with sour cream, and it was good. We had interviews, and I still love Präsident Brown. We had Tausch, so I got to go to Innsbruck to be reminded of how much I miss my mountains. On the way back, our train cut through Germany, which scared us because we thought we were on the wrong train. We have a new Friend who smokes more than a dragon taking a steam bath. 

Merry Christmas, my darling friends!

Love, 

Sister Hamilton 

P.S. Happy 18.12.18!