So all the pictures posted in Missionary posts are dorky so we created our own today with the web cam.  Now if they will only use this one.  Yah, I know black on black.  

January 13, 2013 Missionary Blog

So we now have four Elders in Salzburg and with the two sisters in Neumarkt we are now a district of 8.  It is nice.  They are the Zone leaders, E.  McClellan, and E. Szvoboda (father is Hungarian mother is Swiss.)  E. Caraway is trainer and E. Mochon is the golden.  The sisters are S. Marquarte and S. Armstrong     .   Life is getting interesting.  Our pool of visits to or being visited by less actives is growing.
It is amazing how easy it is to go inactive and how hard it is to make activity in the church a good habit again.

Our major job is really ward and missionary support after JAE.  We are working with a number of less actives.  We are quite close to some wonderful people in the ward. It is amazing how easy it is to go inactive and how hard it is to make activity in the church a good habit again.

Mission Blog:  Jan 3, 2013-01-03

It was a good day.  Though it was transfer day and Elder Harris was transferred, we did expect it.  He was so happy to get to spend Christmas here.  With this transfer he went to Münich as an Assistant to the President.  He is such a sweet wonderful young man.  We will miss him, but joy with him in his new Calling.  When a door closes a window always opens.

With the new increase in Missionaries we will be getting 90 over the next several months.  Even when Degen was serving in Portugal the missionaries were being told that something good was about to happen to the missionary work in Europe.  It is following prophecy, of the last one great push.  So with this transfer we got what we so badly needed and hoped for a second set of Elders in Salzburg.  So Elder McClellan has Elder Sabota the younger brother of another awesome missionary Elder Sabota who was serving as the president’s AP when we arrived.  And We have Elder Caraway and a brand new Elder from the states who he will be training.  Elder Caraway was one of the first missionaries we ever met as an office missionary.  He was responsible for getting our tickets and on the train to Salzburg the next day. 

We also work quite closely with a less active who has a marvelous testimony of the gospel.  We try to meet with her every Wednesday for her own personal Family Home Evening.  Usually she is working on Mondays.

So she was with us yesterday when the Elder’s showed up to teach Rashaid a musiim who wants to convert to Christianity.  Then she asks if she can come over tonight to share something with us.  I know she is starved for gospel discussions and feeling the spirit.  Yet she struggles with becoming fully active in the church.  It was a young couple, boyfriend and girlfriend who came tonight.  They desire to know.  Yet Ildiko called the Elders after they left.  She had participated in the lesson as a member of the church.  We were in the back ground observing.  She was so good and so powerful.  She would be so good for Madaliene the girl as she takes people to her heart especially the young.  Daniel desires to embrace the gospel and drinks it in.

We need every prayer to pray for this.  Ildiko needs these two young people in her life and they need her.  I understand little but I see this clearly.  Ildiko loves to serve, and when she serves she can forget her problems and get so excited about the gospel.  She also would be the ideal person to help these young people get to church and it would help her have the desire to be active.

It is a wonderful experience to see it unfold in our home.

But we are at an apex.  Ildiko called after she left and kindly told the elders that they needed to lower the playing field and talk to them on their level.

We are learning as we work with people here that they need to learn who Jesus Christ is so that they can learn how to have a personal relationship with him and with God.