I Love the Mountains!

Wednesday, 30th:

We had lunch with Familie Jaburek again! This time we had a traditional Austrian food (I didn't catch what it was called) that's basically noodles with bacon bits. I had this back in Wien, and we ate it with sour cream and paprika. It's actually really good! And for dessert, they gave us something called Mohnknödel. It... Isn't my favorite. It's actually probably more on the nasty end of things. I LOVE Knödel. I love poppy seeds (Mohn), and I love plums (the filling in the middle of the Knödel). And it had potential! It was just a little too soggy and boiled-dough-like for me. 

We were going to go by on Familie Mohammadi, but they canceled right before we went, so we just ended the day by uploading Area Book. 

Thursday, 31st:

The Innsbruck Sisters both came up to Waag (Wels/Haag, I figured it's better than Hels) for a super-Tausch! 

We decided to use the reinforcements to tackle "The Monster" - the only 20-story-high apartment building in Wels. Well, I am proud to report that we did the whole building, and managed to get 3 a investigators in the process! Their names are Rosi, Lisa (Rosi's Sister), and Rafil (Lisa's son). It was so cool! Sister Spratt and I had both been feeling like there was something we still needed to do /someone we still needed to find before she left me (which I'm pretty sure will be next week - transfer call updates to come in my next weekly), and she was the one who klingeled into them! It was so cool! We're so excited for the three of them, and they can't wait to read out of our "Bible". They've even read the Book of Mormon before, and they said it all makes sense! Crazy! The Lord really DOES prepare people. :D

We made a quick stop at Gemeinderat (ward council) and didn't really have too much to add, since we had had the fake Gemeinderat last week. :) 

Friday, 1st:

We finally actually split for Tausch. Sister Udy and I went to Familie Ausobsky out in Haag for a meal appointment, and that was a total blast. Fun fact (from Bruder Ausobsky): Tschüß, what all Austrians say, isn't from Austria. It's from Germany. And even then, it's actually French! Due to a long story about the World Wars and the corruption of languages that comes from a lot of time passing, "adieu" turned into "atchiue" or "achoo", haha, which eventually turned into "atchüss", which is now "Tschüß"!

We headed back to Wels, gave the car to Sister Spratt and Sister Billings, and then rode our bikes to go dooring. We ran out of time, though, so we had to turn around so the Innsbruck Sisters could make it to Bahnhof to get back home. 

Saturday, 2nd:

We had lunch with Mathilde. Her husband was a member of the Haag branch, but passed away at the beginning-ish of this transfer. She's very set in her own beliefs, and consequently never joined the church, but she loves to visit with the missionaries and be our österreichische Oma (Austrian Grandma). ️ She's an angel. A very opinionated angel, but an angel nonetheless. 

Sunday, 3rd:

We had lunch with Ma and Pa Schmidl (Brigitte and Johann). They taught us how to make cracked wheat (which is surprisingly good, but also so weird), and I played the piano for them while they got dinner ready. Sister Spratt had been feeling kind of sick (we think there's a bit of a bug going on, because I've started to get the symptoms, too), so she really wasn't feeling good enough to eat food at all, and then she went and ate almost as much as she normally does at an appointment, and I was trying to cover for her a little bit, so I ate more, and we basically both left feeling a little ill. But that was a lot of fun, too. :) I love the Schmidls. They're so sweet! 

Monday 4th:

We stopped by Schwester Unuarhemhen and gave her kids an invitation to Kinder Fasching! For those of you who don't know what that is, you're probably going to have to look it up. All I really know is it's their version of Halloween, but without the creepy. So kids dress up in cute costumes like fairies and fun costumes like astronauts and go to parties and get candy and Faschingskrapfen (which are just doughnuts filled with apricot jam). We get to help out in the kitchen on the 15th when it actually happens. So I'm excited! The theme for the party our church is throwing is "Space". :)

Tuesday, 5th:

We drove down to Gmunden to visit a less active, and now we're sitting in McDonald's waiting for the Linz Elders to make it to Halstatt by train for our Distrikt P-day. We're planning on hiking to a couple of waterfalls. :D I'll include pics next week, if I remember. 

Update: Hallstatt Was phenomenal! And gorgeous! And I want to live here! And I will do my best to send pics next week! 

Favorite new word: Bock - It has no literal translation, because the other thing I was going to write was Lust (not lust, but Lust) as in "Ich habe keine Lust dafür", basically, you can swap in Bock and it means the same thing and they both mean, "I don't really care/can't be bothered". 

Favorite funny story: So in Gemeinderat, someone came up with the genius idea to baptise Celie, our Ward Mission Leader's dog. Everyone discussed what kind of process it would be to get a dog baptised for a solid 5-10 minutes. It was very productive. 

Favorite spiritual thought: My home ward had a mini-mission this past week, and Mom had asked me to write a testimony that she could read to the kids who came to her house. I figured I may as well include it here, too. :) 

"Hallo zusammen! 

I love my mission. I could go on and on about what a mission is and how it's definitely not the image you have pictured in your head; how it's so much harder and so much more worth it, how everyone's mission is different (and not just because of where they're serving), etc. But whatever I say, you're not actually going to understand until you serve a mission yourself. It's one of those things that you can try and put into words, but you're just never going to quite get there.

So that leaves me with not very much left to talk about!

One thing that I think I WILL be able to get into your heads is how to decide to serve a mission. This is going to be different for each one of you. I know from talking with my friends here on the mission that no one has the same experience with deciding to come out here.

For me personally, I've wanted to serve a mission for as long as I can remember. I even cried tears of joy when the mission ages were changed, because I knew I was going to get to serve a couple years earlier than I had planned. For me, it wasn't even a question of "if" I was going to serve a mission, but a question of how fast I could get there. But deciding to serve a mission isn't as easy as that for everyone! My current companion didn't even want to serve a mission - it was one of the last things on her mind. But as she put it, "God wanted [her] here and He wasn't going to have it any other way." And since coming, she's realised that it's the best possible decision she ever could have made. 

My best advice for choosing to go on a mission, is that the decision needs to be made between you and the Lord. As long as you prayerfully consider if you should go or not, or when, and follow the Spirit, you won't make the wrong choice.

But equally as important to choosing how to come on a mission is how to choose to STAY on a mission. It was often said in the MTC that "even if you didn't come out here for the right reasons, you can stay for the right reasons." Granted, there are circumstances where the wisest decision IS to return home earlier than planned, but again - that decision is between you, the Lord, and this time your Mission President. And there are some things you can do now to try and prepare yourself to serve for as long as your call letter states. 

One thing you can do now is to start developing your testimony. If you think you'll gain one on a mission and so it doesn't matter now, you're going to seriously struggle. Daily, people tell me that I'm wrong and that what I believe in is stupid and I'm naive and brainwashed and the list goes on, and if I hadn't already come into the mission with a foundation for my faith, those voices would be louder and stronger to me than the still and small one.  Yes, your mission will help you to develop your testimony, but the tree won't grow unless a seed has already been planted. Prepare NOW. Go to church every week for the full two hours, study the scriptures on your own and with your family daily, actively participate in seminary, attend the temple regularly, SAY YOUR PRAYERS. It's the primary answers! It's what the prophet is telling you! When you follow the Prophet, you're following Christ, and you can be confident that you're on the right path.

And if there's something holding you back, something you might be worried about - be it a temptation, unrepented sins and transgressions, illnesses, mental health - talk to Bishop Bushman. He's here to help you. He has so much love for each one of you and wants to help you to have the brightest future you can. He will help you to prepare. 

And you've got one thing going for you already - you're here! You gave up a weekend to dedicate time to serving a mini-mission. It may only be a couple days, but the experiences I had on each of the mini-missions I attended have helped me here in the field. So do what you can to make the most of it. Truly get into it. The ward doesn't put so much effort into this to help you just to have a fun social event - you know how to plan those things on your own. The ward plans and puts these mini-missions into action in order to help you grow your faith and testimonies. So truly listen to the Spirit. Pay attention to each devotional, each lesson taught, each testimony shared, and internalize it. Keep that same Spirit with you as time passes. Don't get EFY-syndrome, where in the moment you feel the Spirit so strongly, only to lose it the moment you return to normal life.

Another thing you can do is to be a missionary now! Share the gospel with everyone around you, even if they're already members of the Church. I benefited often from friends who shared their testimonies with me at times when they didn't know I needed to hear it. Stop categorizing people as members, non-members, less actives, etc. We're all God's children, and we all deserve to hear the Gospel. No one is exempt from learning more about Christ. I firmly believe that if we start talking more about what we believe, EVEN IN UTAH WITH MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH, we will be able to see the blessings and even miracles that come from preaching Christ's Gospel. 

Do everything you can to gain a testimony. That's the most important work you can be doing right now. It's more important than school, it's more important than work, and it's more important than hanging out with friends. [Alma 5, 34(:32)] Read the Book of Mormon. Truly get to know it. Gain a testimony of the Restoration of Christ's church.

You won't be perfect, and your testimony won't be perfect, and your mission won't be perfect, and that's okay because life isn't perfect. But we are blessed when we follow the invitation to "come unto Christ, and be perfected in Him." (Moroni 10:32)

I know that missions are important because we are helping God "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." We are literally gathering Israel every time we open our mouths and bring someone closer to Christ. Bring yourself closer to Christ, and you'll be able to help others along the same straight and narrow path you are walking. Consider a mission. Pray about it. And even if you don't end up serving, or if you end up coming home before your call said you would, you will have gained a testimony. And that's the most precious gift we can give ourselves and others. 

Of that I testify, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

TLDR: We got a LOT of work done this week! 3 new investigators! I've accidentally been speaking corrupted French! And I included my testimony about missions. :) 

Love you all! Catch you on the flip side!

Sister Hamilton

Pics: Last p-day [edit: moved to the previous post], and popcorn made the only right way (featuring a tired Sister Hamilton, of course).