Mission Blog.  June 9, 2012

Today we did a 125 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 Sunday school.  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, 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. 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 was a 13 year old student 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 writing as 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.  Then she decided that she wanted to meet him.  So she came to Austria and met him.  They fell in love and married.  What a treasure he is.  He is so sweet and tender with her, and you could see how much she adores him.  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.”  Then she mentioned that the last Bishop, Bishop Zickbaur felt they could have the sacrament when missionaries ever came.  She asked us to please check with Bishop Schubert to see if they could partake of it when we came.  They admitted that they had the trays and cups when it was available.  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.

This is one of my favorites taken in the upper Koenigsee.  We have others that shows the full mountains reflection in this lake.  Elder Storrer  took this one.  We are struggling with both the moisture in the air and possibly camera shutter problems.  However, this is one that I intend to frame.

Norm climbing stairs to a couples mountain home.  They were a lovely couple and kept Elder Storrer talking for about 2 hours as they had so many questions about the church.  We actually went to their home for another purpose, but left them with a pamphlet to attend this and next weeks church for a missionary Sunday.’

This is the picture of that cabin that hangs on my wall at home.  Actually it is probably rebuilt.  I found where a hunter's cabin has been there for hundreds of yearsl

We went to Koenigsee in Germany on a Pday and took a boat up to see the upper Koenigsee.

It is hard to get good pictures when the moisture content in the air is 100% even when it isn’t raining.  It is so misty.  If we hadn’t of spent time up above, we may have captured a similar picture with the sun rays on the cabin.  But by time we got back it had set behind the mountains.

This is one of my favorites taken in the upper Koenigsee.  We have others that shows the full mountains reflection in this lake.  Elder Storrer  took this one.  We are struggling with both the moisture in the air and possibly camera shutter problems.  However, this is one that I intend to frame.  (By time I got this into Google Chrome and able to post, we know it was definitely a slow shutter.  When we first arrived there was a brother so intrigued with our camera.  We had forgotten about Jason, our grandson.  Josef is in his 50s, a convert and never been married.  He is just like Jason.  Within seconds he had changed all of the wonderful settings that Dietr had done for us like turning off the flash so it would not work, taking off the anti shake, and slowing the shutter down.  I have used the DVD's and with a help of a few friends we got the flash working properly, after we lost some great pictures in the Salt Mines, JAE all blurred, and washed out colors.  We got the anti shake back, Finally by skyping Dietr helped us get the shutter speed back  He loves our camera but absolutely no one is allowed to touch it but us, except to take a picture and he would not be one of them.  Great guy and we love him but our camera is definitely off limits to him.