Beloved Bianca Was Baptized

Wednesday, 13th:

We had Sister Kubricky Ummeld, so now she officially lives here! Time to try and get our licenses. 

We met with Bianca to finalize baptism plans, and she picked a baptism dress and we shared our conversion stories/why we chose to serve missions. It was so sweet. 

The Mohammadis made us dinner! It was rice with dried pomegranate seeds (holy AMAZING) and chicken. Simple, but sooooo good. I loved it. :) And they were so happy to share with us! We even ate on the floor. ;) 

Thursday, 14th:

We had lunch at Familie Cumberworth! They had forgotten, so the house was in its normal young-children state of glory (dressups everywhere!). But we loved it, and it was good to just be able to be normal. :) 

We had Gemeinderat and basically nothing new there. We talked, finalized things for Bianca's baptism. Learned about a couple more people we should go by on. 

Friday, 15th:

So. Once upon a time our sink didn't drain hot water well. So last apartment inspections, I asked our Ehepaar about it and Elder Mecham said that maybe there was something swelling inside when warm water went through. So we started to clean it out, but we had an appointment we had to run to, so we kind of didn't get very far. And Friday was super cold and rainy and windy, so Sister Kubricky did Area Book while I decided to finish the job. I took apart the whole sink and cleaned out each pipe (let me tell you what, that is some nasty trash that gets stuck in there - and who puts a chicken bone and a bendy straw down a sink with no grinder?!). It was nasty (I kind of felt like I had found an alien or a parasite or lasagna noodles stuck down in there). But I got it all put back together, except the piece that goes into the wall wasn't fitting right, and it hadn't really fit well earlier, but now there wasn't any seal and if I ran water through, then it just came right back out. So. I called the Mechams and they suggested going to this one store to get the right rubber seal for it. So we made dinner using bathroom sink water. #BlessingsOfLivingInAFirstWorldCountry

We went to the church to set up some things for Bianca's baptism, and apparently it was a Jungen Damen (young women) activity, and it was so sweet because that meant that even more people were rallying behind Bianca! Bianca was there, too, so she even knows how loved and welcomed she is. 

Saturday, 16th:

Because of my sink adventures, we went to Bauhaus (basically just a European Home Depot) and got the part we needed (thanks to the employee's expert help). I fixed the sink, except for one tiny drip in the middle, and I think I just have a rubber seal upside down, so I plan on fixing that, I just haven't found time yet. For now, we have a little bucket under the pipe, and our sink is fully usable. :) Call me Handy Hamilton. (or not ) 

We had lunch with Familie Pingera, a sweet older couple and their middle-aged son. They keep a record of every missionary to come through the ward, so they're guaranteed to invite each missionary over once. They fed us schnitzel, and it normally has some sort of salad to go with it. Here is an absolute insane and crazy miracle - family and friends, you aren't going to believe this - I still can't believe how incredible this is.... I ate potato salad. And didn't puke.  Granted, I totally wanted to and felt like I was going to, but God looks out for His missionaries, and I managed to keep it all down. It's just funny to me, because literally normally potato salad here is just oil and vinegar and spices, maybe some mustard. But no. This salad was super-special because it had mayonnaise! 🤢 I ate a whole half of my GIANT bowl. And wanted to cry. But all is well and I'm alive. 

We went to Bahnhof and picked up the Salzburg Sisters so they could be at Bianca's baptism (they're not in our Distrikt, but they're the ones who actually taught her. All we had to do was love her and plan her baptism. ) 

BIANCA GOT BAPTISED! It was absolutely incredible! She has such a large support group. She had her whole extended, non-religious family, JAE (young single adults) from all over Austria, and essentially our whole Gemeinde (ward) there. She is so loved! I was amazed when each member of her immediate family participated in her baptismal service. They each shared how they themselves didn't really understand why she was doing this, but that they could just see how positively happy it made her and so it made them happy too. People who didn't even know her that well came because they had seen her bright and happy spirit and wanted to be a part of such a big event in her life. Throughout the whole service on Saturday, Bianca was just positively beaming, and I don't think I saw her stop smiling even for a second. She was absolutely radiant in her white baptismal clothes, and even got up and shared a brief, but powerful testimony after the baptism. (It was funny, because before she had told us that one of her friends had said it was "uncool" to hold your nose when you're baptised, and she totally didn't hold her nose. ) And at her request, everyone stayed and had a gemütliches Beisammensein (with Essen, of course)(which I don't really know the translation for, so it's basically "a cozy being-together", with food of course). People stayed for literal hours and didn't want to leave. 

Strangely, a lot of JAE from Wien 2 were there - including Louise, one of my absolute favorite people on the planet! We bonded a lot, and we exchanged emails so that we can stay in touch. 

But I wanted to end Saturday talking about Bianca, because she's an absolute gem and deserves everything good in life. ️

Sunday, 17th:

BIANCA WAS CONFIRMED! Today her family came to church again, and the Spirit was still just charging the whole congregation as she sat down, received the gift of the Holy Ghost, and was confirmed a member of our church. When the ward unanimously welcomed her in as a member of the Gemeinde, I could almost hear angels cheering on the other side of the veil, and the feelings of love and appreciation for her were palpable throughout all of church today. Bianca truly has such a special Spirit, and the covenants that she made with God this weekend are going to bless her family for generations to come. I'm so happy for her!

That's our big happening of the week. :) All 5 of us (Bianca and Salzburg Sisters included) have just been so giddy and smiley all weekend. I love how much peace and joy the Gospel brings! I now better understand Mosiah 18:11, where when baptism was explained to the people, "they clapped their hands for joy, and exclaimed: This is the desire of our hearts." Bianca was a modern day example of such excitement.

Johann and Brigitte Schmidl invited us over for lunch, and it was so sweet of them! We shared some good laughs (especially when Johann had his mouth full, tapped the serving bowl with his fork and looked expectantly at Sister Kubricky, because he didn't like what was in there and wanted us to eat it so he didn't have to). They're such angels. They're like my Austrian grandparents, haha. 

We went home to do 6 hours of finding. Straight. One day. I don't recommend it. But we had a good reason (Yay Bianca!). 

Monday, 18th:

We had Distriktrat, which was a lot of fun as usual. 

We then went to Maccas (McDonald's, for those of you without Australian Elders to poison your English with Australian vocab) for Distrikt lunch. It was super sweet, because our Distrikt leader (Elder Valencia) bought us all ice cream to celebrate each of us reaching 12 hours last week/to celebrate Bianca's baptism (he and his comp were sick and hadn't been able to come). But for some reason, right afterwards, I just felt incredibly ill and thought that I was going to be sick, so that put a damper on some things. The feeling went away after about an hour to an hour and a half, though, so for the most part the day was great. 

Right after lunch we did Distrikt finding, and we got a potential! For the Elders though, and I'm not sure how interested she actually was... But oh well, I guess they can figure that one out. Oh, and update on our other potential for the Elders, Anna, she's currently reading the Book of Mormon. :) 

We went to the Mohammadis and helped Arash with his homework again. Unfortunately, this time we couldn't share a spiritual thought because they had visitors and needed to take care of them. But it was still good and they requested that we say a prayer before we left. :) 

Tuesday, 19th:

Linz! We wanted bubble waffles (with raspberries ️), and tried on Dirndls (Sister Kubricky bought her second, haha), and basically just walked around the mall in Plus City. We're on our way to Thalia on Landstraße, and I'm hyped. It's basically a cross between Barnes and Noble and Hobby Lobby, and for anyone that knows me - that's dangerous. 

Favorite new word: Neuerung - an innovation or an improvement (I've recently been hearing it used in regards to all of the changes happening in the church, and I like this word because it basically just means "something new from something old", which is honestly what this church is! The Church of Jesus Christ has literally existed since Adam and Eve (but more officially since Christ was on the earth), and yet modern Prophets are receiving new revelation specifically for our day! It's so cool!) 

Favorite funny story: So once upon a time, when someone is baptised there's this REALLY important paper that different people need to sign, basically saying that the baptism was legit. Sister Spratt and I had started filling it out with Bianca months ago. We taped it in a sheet protector to our door to make certain that we wouldn't forget it or lose it. Sister Spratt, before she left, reminded me of how important it was. For weeks, every time I went past it, I would remind myself that we needed to bring that to the baptism for Bischof to sign. A couple days before, I even thought about bringing it to the church just in case I forgot, but I was worried it might get lost there. Then you've probably guessed by now, day of the baptism, I forgot it.  BUT bless Elder Buss and Elder Porter, after the baptism ended, they booked it to our apartment (honestly just a couple minutes away) and grabbed it and brought it back. They were so speedy, it was like it had been with us the whole time! We'll be paying them back with Almdudler. 

Favorite spiritual thought: So I just went back to double check, and it turns out I didn't mention this, but there was one day where Sister Spratt and I needed a little bit of extra comfort. I did talk about it in the spiritual thought of the week of January 23-29, but basically we decided to read the scriptures together, out loud. I just picked up my German Book of Mormon and we read two chapters from wherever I had been reading (not really understanding most of it) and I actually felt a lot better afterwards! So I talked about the power of just the act of reading the scriptures. Well, this week I made a goal to finish Das Buch Mormon by the end of my mission, so I picked it up again and remembered the last time I had read my German copy. I was curious about what I had actually read, so I went back with my German and English books side-by-side, and it was incredible! It was 2 Nephi 19-20. These two chapters are literally about Christ's birth and 2nd Coming. Granted, they are from Isaiah (which makes sense why I didn't understand in German!) so there's a lot of confusing bits, but it also has verses like: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." No wonder I felt such peace just from reading, even if it didn't make sense to me at the time. :) If you need peace in your life - pick up the Book of Mormon and start reading it! You'll find Christ, the Prince of Peace, within its pages. 

TLDR: I tried my hand at plumbing and... Bianca hat sich taufen gelassen! She's baptised! I'm so happy for her. :D She's literally over the moon about all of it. 

Mit viele Liebe, und bis nächste Woche (mit versetzungsanrufe Nachricht (with transfer call news, but idk if that's actually how it would be written out))!
Liebe Grüße, 

Sister Hamilton

Pics:

BIANCA'S BAPTISM! 

Spring flowers

Easter Lamb cake! @Becca

Dirndl twinning

Bubble waffle