A couple of weeks ago I ordered a pocket name tag like the Elders wear in their suit coats so that I could put it on my scriptures. This is what I got…
When I opened this I was laughing so hard! We were at lunch with the district and it was hysterical! Oh, good times good times. I’m now more like my father than ever before!
Early in the week we went by all of the Weniger Aktiv members in our ward that live in Wels and NONE of them were home. No one wanted to listen to us, it’s been incredibly hot and we were tired and hungry by the time we got home after several hours of biking all around Wels.
It may not be a big city, but it’s still decently sized for bike riding.
On Friday we had a really awesome experience. Two of our investigators Toster (from Nigera and his name is pronounced Toaster) and his Austrian wife Gunde asked if our appointment could be at their apartment instead. So we went to their apartment with Bruder and Sister Fuchs and we had an AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL dinner with Fiestaware and everything. We had cold salads with warm bread and Hirsch (male deer) salami, and all of it was amazing. We had a great lesson, a great friendship was developed between Toster and Gunda and Bruder and Sister Fuchs and it was all around amazing.
On Saturday we had a Strasse Ausstellung, I’m not at all sure what that is in English…Basically we have a sign on the street and we talk to people in a concentrated area. It was actually really successful. I’ve never seen so many people on Kaiser Joseph Platz, but because of the summer markets on the streets on Saturdays everyone in Wels was at the Ausstellung. It was really cool!
We found six potential investigators in two hours, which is a lot for Upper Austria!
Later that night we had an appointment with Michael, but between that time and the Ausstellung we contacted for a while more and called people with limited success. One man, Dennis, we talked to on the phone said he would come to church, but for the most part it was an average day.
We had our appointment with Michael and, even though we didn’t get to a single thing in our lesson, it was really great for us because he was still talking about his baptism and we resolved a lot of his concerns. He promised us that he would come to church, but I was a little worried, but kept telling him I would see him on Sunday.
Sunday rolled around and we had GMK ((not sure what that is in English either…) (Where all the ward missionaries and the missionaries get together… Ward Mission something…))
Then we went out and began to talk to the arriving members at church. As I was standing in the foyer of the Gemeinde Haus, a man in tennis shoes, too big pants rolled up a couple inches above his socks, his boxers hanging out and a too tight knit shirt that kept riding up to expose his stomach with a pair of sunglasses on came strutting in.
I had this instant thought pop into my head, I bet that’s Dennis. Lo and behold, it was Dennis! I started talking to him, but church was about to start and I had to go to Young Women. I desperately looked around for someone to grab to help and luckily Bruder Fuchs came walking by and I grabbed him and he took over from there.
It was in the second hour, after Young Women finished late, Sister Lin came to me very excited and said, “They’re all here. All of them are in our class, together.”
“What?” I said with no small measure of incredulity. I soon saw the scene of Fritz Schacaleitner, the church clerk, Toster looking rather uncomfortable in his white buttoned up shirt and tie, Dennis with his pants falling down further, Michael, the small little white-haired man in a long sleeved shirt to cover his naked lady tattoos and Bruder Fuchs in investigator heaven.
We were so excited we had three investigators at church.
We taught our lesson and then went to Sacrament meeting. Bruder Fuchs took Dennis with him to the front and I followed Toster to the back and Michael followed me.
I spent the entire sacrament meeting having Michael nudging me with his elbow and then pointing to a scripture in the Romanish book of Mormon he has and then pointing to my scriptures. I would look up the scripture he was talking about and then I would read it in German and he would get all excited. He LOVES that there are a lot of things that are similar in the book of Mormon and the Bible.
At the beginning of sacrament meeting he told me that Mosia was NOT Moses. I told him that it wasn’t! He was feeling much better about it afterward. He also took me to the back of the Book of Mormon and pointed to where it shows all the books that we have and he pointed to the Perl of Great Price and said, “Ich will dieses Buch haben.” Which means he WANTS the Pearl of Great Price. He likes that it has the Book of Moses in it. He likes Moses.
Gunda came in the middle of Sacrament meeting and so that was also really cool.
But then, near the end of the meeting after one of the Bishopric was bearing his testimony Dennis got up out of his seat and went up and BORE HIS TESTIMONY!!!!!!
He said that he knows it’s not good for him to go out and get drunk and smoke and party, but he does it anyway, and he said that even after having a hang-over he still came to church because he felt like he should.
He said that he wants to change and he wants to be a better person.
It was so cool! Afterward all of the members were coming up to me and telling me what an awesome testimony he had given, that it really came from the heart and one member even started to tear up.
It was truly a cool experience. But then, after the meeting he went into the Relief Society room and started to play that piano. And it was amazing piano. A few people were like, who’s playing the piano and then they would see him and just stand there and listen, and then everyone was like, where’s my husband? Where’s my wife? Where are my kids? And then half the ward was crowded around the relief society room listening to him play.
Everyone is so excited for missionary work.
The Schmidls, who we went to eat with yesterday even invited him to come, and HE CAME!!!!!
SO COOL!!!!!
It was just a really great week!
Love you all!
Lillie
There And Back Again: A Missionary's Journey 