Mission blog  April 9  Pday activity was to chaperone the Elders and Sisters to the Salt mines.  They have been in existence since the Celtics in about 500 BC started to work them.  They ceased working them in 1989 when they decided that the operation was to expensive to make a profit.  They went from actually mining it like coal to soaking it and extracting it out, where the water was then evaporated.  It was a fun excursion.  First they give you a jacket and pants to wear to protect your clothing.  We rode on a long 5 piece train.  It is an engine and four long connected about 10 inch wide rods.  Then we went through a very long tunnel until we were down in the mine.  It never was very high.  We eventually took two long, slippery slide rides, where you have to hold your legs up.  They had videos set up where they speak in German and translated in Italian and English, because that is the languages represented in our group.  We ran out of time and so plan on going back to see the Celtic village and the “Silent Night” museum.

Actually we were trying to get back to Salzburg and Neumarkt for appointments.  So we left and headed back for the Postbus to pick us up.  However, we ended up waiting for 1 ½ hours.  So we had plenty of time to go through the village and see the museum.  So it was a bit of a bummer.  We plan on going back though We had the missionaries and Rosie (Our investigator) for Easter dinner.  She is the one headed to Serbia.  Her husband is all ready there.  She is the one who requested help getting clothing together.  She asked if there was a DVD of the restoration in Hungrian or Serbian.  Preferably Serbian as she is anxious to show it to her relatives.  So we are working on it.

Salt Miner, probably 500 BC

Salt Mine carings

Sisters Holmstead and Sister Hoffman, in the beautiful coveralls we put on
Good reason as the legs were covered with the pink and brown salts.

Between the carvings, they did a historical video with subtitles
in Italian, French and English

Man made salt wall with lights in it. it.

Proof I was really here

Typical miner

The Archbishop (prince) who controlled the Salt Mines

Our ride into and out of the caves

Typical salt mining tools

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.

Mission blog  June 2, 2012

It is amazing where life choices, particularly when we are young, takes us.  We have been visiting a very sweet almost 80 years old, lady Elfrieda Thibaut.  She shares my birthday August 5.  She was never able to have children.  She chose a good man but not a member of the church and with no desire to go.  So she fell into inactivity.  When he died she moved to Freilassing, Germany as it was cheaper to live.  She is very weak and struggles with health issues.  She spends a lot of lonely hours.  She looks so forward to our visits.  There are two others who visit her about once a week.  She really is a cute tiny lady.  I think she loves seeing Elder Storrer as he makes her laugh and she forgets her troubles.

This afternoon we were invited to visit with Sister Gertrude Roth.  A very lovely 83 year old lady.  She lost her husband at a very young age leaving her a widow with two young sons to raise.  At that time she made a 15 km trip, by bike carrying her two young sons to church, twice every Sunday.  That meant that she rode 60 km every Sunday rain or shine or snow.  We have heard her oldest son Stephan express his fond memories of the Freilassing Chapel.  Today she has two very active sons.  One is on our stake high council, and the other is just completing a mission the 30^th of this month, as mission president in Bulgaria.  She has two grandsons who are serving as Bishop and Branch President.  All of her married children and grandchildren have temple marriages.  Julia, one of our JAE is 28 and would love to be married, but she is keeping her standards high rather than marry outside of the church, or unworthily.

  As Sister Roth expressed this afternoon.  “I don’t judge anyone else, I just know that I wanted the best for my boys and I worked hard to provide a living for them.  I could have married again, but I was not going to marry someone who might not love my boys and have their best interests at heart. Besides I am already sealed to one man. I feel that I have been greatly blessed and rewarded for my choices and endeavors.  Others that I know made different choices and things were and are different for them.  I only know that I believe my choices were right for me and my family.

 Sister Elfrieda Thibaut

Sister Gertrud Roth  

The longest castle in Germany Burghausen

Visiting Scwester Elfrieda Thibaut, we would go to Burghausen Germany through Austria.  We crossed the Salzach River from one country to the next, passing a Grenze in the middle of the bridge indicating the boundary change.  This is the second time, as this stupid computer bounces around if one touches anywhere but the keys, and I really don't want to purchase a german keyboard as it is different from ours and rather difficult to use.  Wish, I had brought mine.

Before one crosses the river we have a view of the longest castle in Europe.  It was built to protect the salt mined south of Salzburg and shipped up river.  It was the gold of the day.  So here are pictures of the castle.
One can drive around the end turret and then follow the wall for quite a way.  But even across the river, the modern buildings hide some of the wall.

You can actually see some of the city wall as we were driving further south before crossing the river again.  It is amazing how many of these towns have parts of ancient city walls still standing.  They aren't actually maintained either.

Tschus until the next blog

We ask the members to pray for---

That the Lord will bless them with the missionary spirit.

That the Lord will bless them with open eyes and hearts that we will recognize the opportunities

That the Lord will soften the hearts of those we help that they will recognize his Spirit and desire to know about his church.

That the Lord will bless us with the courage to open our mouths.

That we will be blessed with a portion of Christ’s love so that we serve not out of duty but for the pure love of our fellowman.

See January 2012 Ensign or Liahona for the article called, "Daddy's Shoes." 

Mission blog    April 22, 2012

Last night Elder Storrer and I were searching for the vision of L. Tom Perry.  Though we never found reference to it we found two wonderful talks from him about showing love.  It was on my mind as I knelt in my evening prayer.  I asked my Father in Heaven to help us touch the hearts and soften the member’s hearts toward missionary work.  It is disturbing to me when I see even members of our stake presidency tell us that the JAE only have two goals.  They are to serve missions and get married in temples.  They are to build the kingdom of God from within.  They have stressed over and over again that the missionaries are responsible to do all the finding.  Now I know that we only have a few missionaries to search throughout all of Germany and the millions of people.  They could work day and night and could never begin to touch very many lives.  It is demographically impossible.  It takes every member having the missionary spirit, “When we have been warned we are to warn our neighbor.”  (See D & C  1:4, 38:41, 63:58,and  88:81}

We have been talking a lot about how we can get our members to have the spirit of missionary work.  Our Ward Mission meetings have become spiritually intense, as we have been struggling to try to accomplish this with this ward.    They resist with the idea that they are Austrians and not Americans.  Just because it works in America don’t expect it to work in Austria and Germany.

Elder Storrer had a dream the day we were asked to serve a mission.  It was not my dream.  Only as we get more deeply involved in the missionary work and the problems in this mission, the meaning of that dream has deeper significance.

The key is Love.  The greatest commandment Christ gave us is in Matthew 22:25-27.  He tells us that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all our heart.  The second is like unto it.  We are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Then he adds.  On these two principles hang all the laws of the prophets.  This tells me that this is the pure love of God.  This is the pure love of Christ that he was talking about.  If we can keep this commandment to its fullness, we will abide by every other commandment.  It can only be done through constant prayer.

I awakened this morning with the desire to write out my testimony to this knowledge.  About 4:30 am I got out of bed and turned on my computer to put it into word.  I typed it out and then went back to bed.  But sleep still did not come.

The following were my thoughts.

Elder Storrer always says, “Satan has an arsenal of tools, but the one tool he lacks is love.”  It is the most powerful tool on earth.  Satan will use all of his tools he has to to stop it.  He is clever and knows exactly what he wants to accomplish.  His whole goal is to stop our Father in Heaven’s children from progressing.

When the young boy Joseph Smith went into the woods to pray Satan knew exactly why.  He was desperate to stop him.  The greatest tool he had was to bind Joseph’s tongue. 

The only way that Joseph Smith could defeat him was to continue praying silently.

I realized that the greatest tool Satan has to keep the saints from sharing the gospel is to bind our tongues.

And just like Joseph Smith, the only way we can defeat him and open our mouths is through constant prayer and communication with our Father in Heaven.

I am sure this message has been shared by Prophets in the past, but to me it was a testimony of their words.

We can only share the gospel if we love one another, serve one another and loosen our tongues.  None of this can happen unless we pray “unceasingly” for the desire and ability to love our neighbor and the desire to share the gospel.  As all good things it takes work on our part to show our Father in Heaven that we believe him and have faith in him.    Faith always precedes the miracle.

When we refuse to go to the Lord in prayer, he calls us “stiff necked.”  It is with humility that we bow our heads and sincerely entreat our Father in Heaven’s help in the name of his son Jesus Christ.

April 30, 2012

Elder Storrer was asked to speak in church.  He worked hard to prepare that talk.  It was more so than any other talk he has ever prepared.  Our mission district goal, (and he is the District Leader, a unique position for a senior missionary to be in) is to help the wards with 5 goals.  But to help them from being frightened from it we will spoon feed them.  (Don’t know what I am talking about.  I struggle to just tell them that I should not eat sugar. I can pray and I can bear testimony in German, and I can smile.)  So it pretty much falls on his shoulders.  I can usually understand the gist, if I know what they are talking about.  After he had it pretty much in his mind, he let the spirit dictate what he was to say, in German.  He felt like he was searching for words.  It was cute, At one point several members in the congregation helped him.  They are so very good that way.  He used as his example the love they have shown us.  And they really are a loving people, as they get to know you.  Anyway, so the five points are:

1.      Pray, unceasingly to love our neighbor

2.     Pray to find an opportunity to help them.

3.     Pray that we will recognize the opportunity.

4.     Pray that it will touch their hearts and they will ask us, why we are the way we are.

5.     Pray that our tongues will be loosened and we will tell them what the Lord wants us to tell them

So he presented the first three in his talk.  He asked Elder Rosenvall to come and tell of their recent experience using those tools, and how it has born fruit.  There are people being prepared all the time and we stumble on to them as we ride the city buses.  We know that on the days we are more prayerful and full of the spirit, we love those people, and they do often question us.  We even had a Catholic Sister, from Ireland sit down by me.  When the seat across became available, Elder Storrer joined us.  She had never heard of the church before and gave me one sentence, in English to tell who we are.  Yes, the spirit gave me those words to tell her that we are the same church that Christ organized upon the earth, but we are the Saints of the Latter-days.  She was quite intrigued by it.  She rode as far as we were going, into the old city.  She was a delightful traveling companion and after Elder Storrer had his turn was more enlightened.  We also have been helping our neighbor Rosie collect clothing, bedding,  ect., to take to Serbia.  We finally got the Restoration in Serbian that her neighbor is suppose to pick up, along with a Serbian Book of Mormon, that she wants to share with her neighbors.  We found a gold mine of clothing in the Elder’s apartment.  Clothing that was left by Elder’s as they were transferred.  It included two winter jackets, two wearable suits.  About a dozen white shirts.  Dozen’s of winter scarves, hats, gloves, some blankets and sheets, and etc.  We ended up with three big bags.

Saturday we ran to Lidals, a local grocery store for a few items.  Suddenly this woman from Serbia stopped Elder Storrer and expressed, “You are good people.”  During his conversation he asked if she knew Rosie.  She did not.  She is a refugee from Serbia, who lives with a group of people.  So Elder Storrer, gave her a pass along card with our phone number and invited her to visit with us in our home.  Because we have the miles we took the Sister’s last week to St Micheal in Pongau, about 1 ½ hours away to visit with a couple who were ready for baptism when they moved there.  The Mission President gave them permission to visit with them one last time.  They are so far away from the church.  We will be visiting with them once a month, to help strengthen their testimonies.  They also are from Serbia.  It seems that the ones interested in the gospel are from other countries including Africa.  The people in this ward desire that they just teach the Austrians.  The gospel is for all.  And the foreigners tend to be a bit more humble.

If we continue to pray to love this people and the five points, it lets them know who we are. 

Mission Blog.   April 21, 2012

We have had some interesting spiritual experiences this week.  We taught our first lesson for Institute.  We worked quite hard for that presentation, which included a lot of prayer.  It would give us a chance to bond with the students.  We did a power point presentation.  It was about finding a mate, and the steps one goes through.  It turned out quite successful.  We felt very good about it.  I was in the kitchen heating up the burritos for the imbiss meal.  Norm said that the young adults immediately went to the computer to review some of our family pictures.  I put a picture of “Finding the one,” with Norm in his uniform and me as a senior in high school about the time we started writing.  Then a couple of the temple and us in front of it.  Then we moved on to  10 tausen mal 10 tausend or ten thousand times ten thousand to show how many people through the generations would be affected by our choice in choosing a mate.  Put up the picture taken at our fairwell and then a collage of our children’s families.  

Norm was his usual funny charming self, except when he used his sister as an example of the destruction of an unhappy choice.  He told how she found her mate in a dance hall like the locals here.

But the interesting answer to our prayers was the “Miracle of the disappearing newspaper.”  As we were putting the finishing touches on preparing it, we found a local weekly newspaper, “The Salzburger Fenster.” Or The Salzburg Window.  They had a little card attached  saying, “Eternal Love,”  In German.  It came to us how we could use it.  Well Norm opened the page and translated about 95% of the world’s view on love, you know the usual passion, emotion, tragedy, greed, jealousy, etc, etc. including older couples who were happy with their relationship.  Just enough Satanic, truth to entice.  They were advertising their paper.  If you purchased a months prescription you would get all these four articles.  Across the bottom was a picture representing the four articles.  One was pornographic.  About 1x 2 ½ inch pictures.  Stupid us, we thought well if we only held up the front page.  Then Norm set it on the couch. In plain view.  As we went down the lift later we realized we had forgotten the newspaper.  When we returned to the apartment we could not find the paper.  It was gone.  When we prayed about it we had a very warm feeling that it was not to be found.  As we left to set up at the church we talked about how the Lord did not want us to use it.  We used the little 4x6 advertisement card with the same picture as was on the newspaper.  Later as we observed how they were like squirrels at the computer we realized, that one of them could have just as easily opened that paper.

Then we also knew that the Lord did not want that trash in his house.  We also knew that they would have lost their confidence in us. And Thirdly what if one of them had viewed it and it destroyed our life.  The Lord had really protected us from our own stupidity.  He knew we were only trying to do good.  We also realized how satan really tried to cleverly get his tentacles in there.  We see daily how we must be on our guard.  We and our two elders have had a lot of experiences.  One day we were returning to visit Victor and investigator.  His outside door to the street was locked.  It would not open when he pushed the buzzer.  He finally came down and tried to open it with a key, to no avail.  We have not been able to catch him at home since.

We went to Berghausen today, to Sister Thibaut.  She was sent there for a cure.  I think they are trying to rebuild her strength so she can go home.  She is a tiny thin little thing at 80 years of age, with poor health.  I am not sure, but with President Miles’ permission to leave our area and go visit her we did.  It is just across the border from Austria.  The Google map took us the longer way up through Germany.  We crossed the bridge that separates the town as well as Germany for Austria to see the longest castle in Europe and found we saved about 10-12 km.  Both ways the country was magnificent and the buildings, with all the art on them were unique.  We were in a hurry to get there so didn’t stop for pictures.  But we got some cool ones coming home.  I intend to piece together what we have ove the longest castle.  It must have been at least a mile long.