December 21, 2009

Guten Morgen,
Wow what a wonderful day!!!! I wake up today and there is 6 inches of snow on the ground! Yesterday was the cold before the storm however. Well I guess i will start at the beginning of the week. So we were still on bikes. It was just colder than a demon as we were going around. We were able to make it to appointments on time however. But on tuesday we had district meeting and then directly afterwards we did exchanges with the zone leaders. I got the opportunity to go to the flachgau ward where the zone leaders serve and they have a car in that area so that was nice because it got extremely cold. We drove from a small township called neumarkt to a city called Braunau (the birth city of Adolf Hitler) and Elder Field and i parked the car got out into the -13 degree celsius weather (dont know what it is in Fahrenheit) and just started contacting the crazy out of that town. We probably talked to 50 or so people, 8 of which stopped and on the street we taught them about the Restored gospel and then got their information. I tell you what, you seem to not feel the cold when you are having amazing success. So the exchanges went well this week. I learned a lot from Elder Feild. But as soon as we switched back we went to get on our bikes on weddnesday and it had been snowing in the morning and so we were riding to an appointment and that was a disaster. Slipping. Sliding. Death. well not quite death but we ended up taking a corner way to fast on our bikes... and lets just say that tokyo drift does not work with two wheels. we ate it hard and that kinda hurt. so we bought a bus pass. now we are underway with the bus system and that is fun. it is fun to figure out all the times when the busses are leaving and when you need to be at the stop and which bus line you need to take. I love a challenge and figuring out how these steel boxes of doom work is awesome. It has been a hard week though. getting used to the switch between bikes and busses is tough and we have seen an affect in our numbers. We are pushing through though.
What else happened this week that is awesome. Hmmm. Well oh ya i got the package. Didnt have to pay customs. Thank you for the nativity scene. I am teaching a family home evening lesson tonight by a less active members house and i believe i am going to use it in the lesson. o that is another thing too. Elder ensign and i are doing a split today. Its the first split of my mission. We were double booked with appointments tonight after our p day and so we have to do a split. Cool Right!!!! So i will be going and teaching this family home evening with another member from the ward his name is Peter. He is super cool. So this will be fun. I will probably feel funny being away from my companion. Which by the way me and him are doing good together. We are getting along well and we are bringing the work forward. Man i love Elder Ensign. we work good together.
What else is new. Oh where did the t shirt come from. The UVU Heroes Tshirt? That was a suprise i think that college just misses me and how awesome i was and they want me to come and give them money. Hmmm conspiracy theory. ok anyhow.
Ok cool story of me being bold outta my mind. So we were riding on a bus to an appointment and a group of drunk kids around mission age all hopped on the bus and they were making crude jokes and laughing ect. One of them paused for a second to look at my nametag, and i took this as the opportunity that i was praying for to find a way to talk to them about the gospel and so i stood up and then just started to talk to them. "oh i noticed that you saw my nametag,...., here is a book called the book of mormon,...., it was translated by a prophet of God,...., he recieved revelation that we should not drink alchohol." So on and so forth. They were quieter after that and then they were interested that i had never drank alcohol in my entire life and then they were like "respect to you, that is a good thing to do." So that was cool hopefully something will come of that and this group of six young men can one day become missionaries like me! I still think that that is the coolest thing. I am a misionary. I talked to our ward mission leader on the phone the other day and he wanted to have a heart to heart discussion with me. He said that i was such a good example of what a missionary should be adn that he thought i was the best misisonary he knew, and that i need to come back to salzburg before i go home after my mission because he wants to throw a party for me. I told him i have a lot of improving to do not to mention i still have quite a bit of time left on my mission and that he can stop getting all trunky. Ha but it was cool. Elischa Grünauer is a way cool guy too. that is an understatement though.
Well we had an appoinntment out in Wals yesterday adn the busses dont ride out there on sundays or holidays (both of which were yesterday, it was the fourth advent) and so we asked members if they could help us and give us a ride out there and guess what. Every single member that we asked just gave us excuses. The member work here is going hard. So we ended up riding our bikes the 10 kilometers out there in the snow and freezing cold. The ward here is not excited. But we are working on it. I mean it goes forward without them but it is slower and more painful. My toes were so cold yesterday. but my hands were super warm thanks for the Handwarmers! I love you mom. Well i gotta go email president. oh almost forgot. so as for calling 10 o clock your time 18 o clock my time. we call from the mission cell phones and what elder ensign said that we do for calling is that we buy a calling card here with a certain amount of minutes and then we just call. Also i heard that it is cheaper if we call from a land line so i will try and get that worked out but i have no idea. We are not even sure if the cell phones can connect out of the country so ya.... it will all work out, but if we cant connect to you elder ensign told me to tell you that if i cant call then you are supposed to call me. here is our number 004369918300408
wow a million numbers. that is the full number. so if i dont call by 10:30 your time you can just give me a little ring a ling. well have a wonderful day. Schönen tag noch. Fröhe Fest. Feliz Navidad. Merry Christmas. I love you all and to all a good night!