The Lankmayers in Mauterndorf

Mission Blog.  June 9, 2012

Today we did a 122 km run in one direction.  It was actually 249 km round trip, including finding a home in the mountain village of Mauterndorf, Austria.  We were looking for a couple and their two children.  A few years back there was a branch of the church in St. Johannes of Pongau.  It took in the area of St Michaels of Lungau and Mauterndorf.  They incorporated it into the Salzburg ward.  Now so few of them attend church.  It is so far for them to come.  I remember living in Montana 80 miles from our branch.  We were allowed a little dependent Sundayschool.  My family were the only active members at that time.  We had a young sister with her little boy who came, for a little while and then they moved.  There was a mother and three children.  At first they tried to be active, but the mother had some moral issues and so the family fell into inactivity.  But Dad and Mom were very faithful.  Even after Rod and I graduated and went to Ricks College, they faithfully held church each Sunday.  Occasionally they would have a visitor from out of town.  They also saw a couple of baptisms.  Today there is a little branch there.

So we went to visit Brother Josef and Sister Hazel Rose Lankmeyer.  Very sweet and enduring couple.  We arrived in a downpour.  He apologized for not being prepared for us, but we had not even a phone number to call them so it was go and find and pray that they would be receptive.  Though Hazel was not feeling good and actually had to get up, they were very anxious to meet with us.  What a joy it was to sit in their tiny apartment and feel their wonderful and welcoming spirit.  We had not talked long when Hazel announced she would speak in English.  Being a girl from Northern England, her English was of course her native language.  She was wheelchair bound, being born crippled.  She introduced herself by telling her story and how she had found the church.

She was the fifth child and born 18 years after her oldest sister.  She had lost a brother at the age of 16, but the children were all born years apart.  Her mother had some serious problems.  She didn’t say it was diabetes, but it sounded like it as the third and fourth children were born extra large.  When she became pregnant with Rose the doctor advised her to get an abortion.  He told her that neither she or the child would survive, but if the child did it would be handicapped for life.  She chose to have her child and literally went to death’s door to have her.  Rose was born crippled.

Her parents were of the Church of England, though they never took their children to church.  When Rose a 13 year old student when she was asked if she believed in God.   She told them, “No, she didn’t believe in God.”  No one had ever even talked to her about God before.  Then she became curious and started to study and read about God.  She decided that she did believe in God, But she felt that her parent’s church didn’t fit what she thought it should be.  So she started looking at other religions.  She started a penpal with a girl in Scotland.  This girl introduced her to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  With further study she felt it was what she was looking for.  Her parents had no problem with her attending until she asked if she could be baptized.   So she obeyed them, but continued to attend church.

Then she started a correspondence with Josef in Austria. She decided that she wanted to meet him.  So she came to Austria and met him.  They fell in love and married.  She started to talk to him about the church.  He became a serious investigator.  When he wanted to baptized his mother was so opposed to it, that he waited until they were married and had moved to another town, Mauterndorf.  He was baptized and ordained a Priest that very Sunday.  The next Sunday he baptized her.  A year later they were sealed in the Bern temple. 

We asked if we could visit them once a month.  They said, “Yes.”  Elder Storrer asked if there was something we could do for them.  She asked us to please check with Bishop Schubert to see if they could partake of the sacrament when we came.    Talk about faithful.  He also has some health issues related to the work he did, so they certainly qualify.  We just were spiritually excited to see the joy of the faithful to know that they have not been forgotten. 

It was a very rainy day and so I had left the camera in the car.  But now that we have their phone number and can give them warning, so they are more prepared, I plan on capturing their picture the next time.  Also we are planning a message to take to them.  Sister Lankmayer is a published writer, this also includes a statement she wrote for the Liahona in about 2001.

Because of the drenching rain, we actually are going to do a picture taking thing next time.  It took us a bit to find them, including asking a lot of people.  The houses are not in any numerical order so it was talking to the Gas station attendent, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, until we got into the right area of town.  A sweet lady protecting herself with an umbrella knew them well, and since we finally were within acouple of streets directed us to them.  Now the catch is if we can wind into that neighborhood again to the right house.

The town is very old, and there were some old quaint buildings.  One had a date of 1916 on it and probably one of the newer ones. 

Old building in Mauterndorf,  There are even others that are  older

Schloss near Moosham, Austria on way to visit LankMayers.
(Misty and we had a person mess with our camera shutter.
Thank you Dietr for helping us get it fixed.
No one, absolutely no one is allowed to touch our camera
We lost great pictures in the salt mines as he had also turned off our
flash and we are too slow on the tech uptake to fix it ourselves.