I will only be using my blog from now on to post adventures and pictures while we live here

Feb 12, 2013

Boy, I am the most technilogical illeterate.  I am learning that nothing is safe from all prying and inquisitive eyes.  I am also learning that I need to post all spiritual and thoughts concerning the welfare of others in my private diary.  My problem is so often when I write things out that I am troubled with, or trying to solve problems  I find writing things out so often helps me analyze things.  I should know better.

Wow!  Forgot to mention that the Primary has asked us to come to their Fasching Party, (and party is correct here in Germany and Austria as they have adopted the word.)  The theme is about the Americanisch Indiana (American Indian) and guess who has been asked to come dressed as Indians.  Everyone comes in customes, but we have been asked to specifically show up as Indians.  There is no cheap material, so we are going to use the cutoffs from the white curtains and either go as Angel Indians?  or find some dye and make them brown.  Got to find the dye, have seen it, and figure out how to use it.  That means your dad better translate correctly so we don't have a brown washing machine or brown hands.  I think E. Storrer will wear basically a smock with fringe, and his brown suit pants, and me the same with my brown skirt.  Looking for a blanket so I make a real squaw, and need an old american cowboy hat to attach a feather.  Or get really creative.  Will post pictures if they turn out.
Then we are going to tell the story of Mary and the Indians, as we think that is the appropriate one for Primary children.  (don't think Conrad Storrer or Robert Fisher would work to well, since most of them are the younger children.
And we are asked to bring a dish.  How about fry bread and honey?

Feb 3  Post.  Pictures posted, but the blog draft did not so I will copy again.  Thank goodness I always do it in word first.

February 3 Blog.  Well on Feb 5 in two days, our anniversary we will have been in Salzburg one year.  It has been a very eventful year.  We have watched our original calling migrate away from the “Outreach Youth Centers,” to what it really has aways been in Salzburg, and Institute.  It is a direct correlation with the stake and not under the Mission.  The Stake aways has controlled the funds, and had representatives, but so has the mission.  In our last interview with President Miles we told him that we really had little to say, and were basically relegated to Cooks and bottle washers.  We have an awesome Stake director called, who also shares with her husband the teaching of the institute.  We have a great YSA called as President, who is a great capitan.  He has some good YSA on the committee.  They are putting together a great fireside schedule, and taking charge of their own activities.

In a dream after we arrived and in answer to prayers, Norm had a dream that told him we were to work below the foundation and the members would began to build the church and pull us up making our work lighter.

We are seeing it happening in our JAE, and now we are observing the ward finally getting the picture that they must be involved in Member Missionary work, however it is slow in coming.  They needed prodded by the prophet in Munich last September, and the missionaries always ask them to pray for their success.

But we have a lot of less actives, and total inactives that no one knows, even if they are still in the area, for they are on the books but were baptized and never attended church again.  

Today we had a wonderful baptism.  The Bishop told the Elders that he did not want a baptism on Saturday, where he would be confirmed the next day, but rather on a Sunday, right after church and then and imbiss meal right after, provided by the RS.  Well E. Storrer felt he was going against mission set programs.  But as I was sitting at the piano providing the music and the spirit was so strong and the strongest members, without small children, some with, stayed.  There was a packed chapel for Sacrament Mtg, today, and about as many as we often have on a ighter Sunday who stayed.

So in our last interview when we talked about our job, and how it is disappearing, which we are glad, because we have felt for some time that it should be local members, who know these youth, running the program.  He told us that is exactly how the church wants it to run.  If they cannot rely on the missionaries, many will step up to the plate and quite looking for excuses.  We followed the prompting and found our work and worries made lighter.

Now the majority of our attention is turning toward Ward and Member Support.  We have a circuit of people we try to see, some less actives and some contacts that have fallen into the area book as the missionaries don’t have time for these people.  They are reachable, some have had the lessons’ many times.  One sister was close to baptism and fell out.  However, we are creating friendships and bonds with these people, and know that someday, they will reach out to the church.  And Rosie Kinz, our nonmember missionary.  We visit with her several times a month.  She takes all the clothing left in Wohnungs by the missionaries and taken to the mission home when they dejunk the apartments.  She loans out one of her three Books of Mormon, in German, Hungarian, and Serbian and she is always showing her personal copy of “The Restoration.”  Don’t know if she will be baptized in this life, but we are working on it.  She was looking for pictures of Christ to make picture books for the orphanage she visits in Serbia.  Many of them are abandoned by their parents or taken from them by the state because they are so poor they cannot provide for their children.  She says they need a lot of love, and she wants them to know about Jesus Christ.  So we are giving her all our old Liahona’s both English and German.  Hoping of course that she will also read them.  Our works are slow, but we are prayerfully hoping that if we serve and love them, they will come to Christ, by our example.

We cannot afford to let others draw us in to family concerns and squabbles as it draws from our spirit and in order for us to be effective missionaries we need to pray unceasingly for the gift of Charity.  Charity never faileth and we cannot afford to fail these people.  The love of Christ and showing love to our fellowman is the only way missionary work is done.  And it is the only way people are truly converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

                                                  A Greg Olsen painting.  Love the Messages

                       We discovered how true this is in the quiet hills of Switzerland last September

Everythings fails,--but Charity never faileth  Moroni 7:45-48

 Our district with the addition of the new Elders.  S. Marquart, S Amstrong, E. McClellan, Svoboda (Hungarian father but raised many years in Vietnam and speaks perfect German, English, and speaks also Hungarian.  His brother was here as an AP when we arrived, released to train his little brother.  He is a sweet young Elder and very sincere about the gospel.  Hopes to join to siblings at BYU after his mission. Caraway, who was office when we arrived, but now trainer to Mochon.  Of course there is us with the xtra pounds of Christmas.  I have lost 8 kilo and two inches around the waist since then.

 The Altstadt of Salzburg from across the Salzach river and the Festoon built to guard the river, in stages between 1050 and the 1600's.   Picture taken from Kapuzinerberg where there is another Catholic chapel

 In the tops of the Alps near a ski resort on our way the Lankmayers to visit them and take them the Sacrament.

                                  Another valley and a nother group of mountains in a panorama.

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.