Mission Blog  July 8, 2012

This is the Lankmayer's in Mauterndorf.  We took a sacrament meeting to them.  What a wonderful day it was.  And what a wonderful sweet humble couple they are.  With no chance to attend church in years, they have remained so faithful.

Part of the old city wall that protected Salzburg

Some of the old architecture, they want to replace with modern square marble and glass.  And 81% do not want to lose their historic old city.  After all it is one of the 5 most popular places to visit in Europe.

The missionaries with us in Mauterndorf, viewing the town before we met with the Lankmayers at the appointed time.  Most of the buildings in this part of town date before 1600

 This was the Kugelmuhle where they made large marble balls.  They were sold to the ships for ballasters.  Then they sold them in other ports as a popular decor for homes and etc.  This is also where the small playing marble and game was created.  I know that my dad owned a genuine marble, marble.  I am not sure which brother has it today.

 We were driving straight to the Untersberg to see if their was a shortcut to less actives that we visit monthly. We not only found it, but stumbled up this as well as a museum for the history of marble.  The Untersberg is pretty much made of marble.

This is the birth place of Joseph Mohr who penned "Silent Night."  We stumbled on to this while in the Alt Stadt one day.

So President Gerald Roth just returned as the mission president from Bulgaria.  He was over about 73 missionaries.  They did a fireside presentation Friday evening.  There were 8 missionaries from our Zone boundaries in attendance.  Before they got started he introduced us all.  He was a great mission president; you can tell.  When he first entered the chapel he came up to us and put his arms around our shoulders, very lovingly asked us about ourselves and our mission..  His English was excellent.  As a young man he served his mission in England.  But then his brother also speaks excellent English, as well as his wife.  

They presented a slide show.  Wow!  What a mission.  Bulgaria is a very poor country.  Last Sunday during a testimony he told how they found them, every morning going through their garbage for food.  So they started to leave bags of good food out for them.  Friday he told how all those years of Communism destroyed these peoples will to even earn enough to survive.  In Communism they were given their homes which they still own.  They only have to purchase the Utilities, but hardly have the desire to do that.  However, there are those who are naturally ambitious.  He showed slides of the different Branches, which are about twenty in Bulgaria.  Because there are no stakes he was considered the spiritual leader of the whole mission.  This was on top of being a mission president.

It is beautiful country.  We saw slides also of old historic ruins, dating well before Christ.  He also excpressed that it is a very sad country, as there are so few children.  Prostitition is so rampid that you see 28 year old grandmothers, and 12 year old prostitutes.  In every slide of Branches one would be lucky to see two children. 

However, those old enough are going on missions.  It seems that the more affluent or ambitious are the ones joining the church.  That is probably a good thing for the church to begin to grow.  And it is a relatively new mission, and it is growing and the saints are on fire.  They attend the Kief, Ukraine temple. 

We are working to rebuild our institute.  As we are moving to a new Wohnung we have been cleaning out.  There were notebooks after notebooks of collected materials of those who have gone on before us.  We were amazed in 2004=5 there were 30 relatively active JAE.  They held two classes.  It has been downhill from there.  We have also learned that over the years the missionaries started to run the program, and from the very beginning the instruction was to trust the Young Adults to make those decisions. 

It was a sense we had that this was how it was happening.  While in the MTC it had been stressed to us that we are here only to serve, not to lead.  One of the first Sundays, Elder Storrer told Bishop Schubert we were here as servants and would do what he asked us to do.  Only problem, our first obligation is to the JAE and it falls under the direction of the Stake Presidency.  So B Schubert being a very new bishop when we arrived and learning his job, made a choice which was not his to make.  The JAE had gone to him and told him that they no longer wanted to attend Family Home Evening.  So he made the decision to have us hold it with older members.  We have Bruder Ebner and his wife, converts of 3 years, Marylin a year convert, and Josef a convert of about 20 years, and Gabrille, B. Ebner’s exwife and convert of about 3 years.,  We have faithfully followed that instruction.  However, it has been nagging us that we are really here for the JAE and there are those who do not live at home and do not meet with any family.  While eating at the Fegg’s home, their daughter Doris was there.  It was a wonderful spirit, even though I speak little German we had communication in which I could understand and return some conversation.  I have been told that they have a lot of respect for me, because I do try.

Norm left a spiritual thought about how loving one another, and praying for the desire to show that love to our neighbor will forward the missionary work, and will help this ward to grow..  Doris felt that love and asked if we were going to ever have family home evening again.  She is at the police academy, not living at home and has such a desire to have that spirituality in her life.  Because of her schedule she cannot make it out to institute too often.  We had been talking about it and E. Storrer told her that we had plans for it at our new Wohnung that was within walking distance of the Bahnhof.  She was really excited.

When Norm told Bishop Schubert that we needed to be holding it, and made a second mistake of asking for his permission, B Schubert called Pres. Miles.  President Miles set a lot of things straight.  He told him that we would work under him with less actives, but our first calling was the JAE.  If we were not going to be used in that capacity then Pres. Miles would put us in a area where we were badly needed.  And as we serve in the JAE, it was the stake that determined and made the decisions if we are to have Family Home Evening or not.  We actually are to answer directily the Karl Sikora the High Councilor, over JAE.  I did know that, but Elder Storrer, being the one who speaks German did not seem to make that connection, until our interview last week with President Miles.

That was also a very interesting experience.  We would learn through all of this that the former people here, though good good people were following the tradition of being the leaders rather than “shadow leaders,”   The couple who organized it did it right, as we found their records, and as all the manuals we found stressed that importance, and the YSA wanted to be running their own program.  Consequently it has retreated to 8 average students who attend, though there are well over 65 young adults on the roles.  Some of those are married, however they can still attend institute if they are under the age of 30.  We saw the records where their were activities several days of the week, including an active FHE.  Intererstingly I had a dream about this right after we got here.  We were keeping to busy as Elder Storrer wanted to be prosyliting and finding like the young missionaries.  I told him my dream, but even though he knew it was right, he has struggled between his desires and the JAE calling.  This week we had to go to Munchen to the District Leader meeting.    It really divides him.  He needs the information taught there to help the missionaries in our district, but it gives him the desire to spend hours finding on the street, that we need to work the programs for JAE, and to keep working with the less actives in the ward.

We have to pray constantly to Heavenly Father to help us love these people, and help them not only love each other, which they do, but extend that love to their neighbor.  We also have to constantly pray for guidance to help our JAE, grow and become the tool for missionary work, as the brethren saw it.  We have even gotten a bit of resistance from Achim Erlacher, our stake pres second councilor and the Institute and Seminary advisor, and former instructor for our institute that bringing friends to institute is not part of the program.  Yet the materials specifically spell it out.  So it is really converting the members to their role as given in D & C to be missionaries.  But with love we are seeing good things moving in our ward.  These people really are a great people, and with prayerful help, I believe they will do it.