A Golden Tausch of Glory and a Family Reunion

Hey everyone!!

It has been a long week this week, but a good one! Sometimes so many things happen in a week here that I can't remember everything that we've done!

This week we had a lot of good eating appointments!! Our members are amazing and we always have lots of eating appointments. Its super nice to be able to get to know the members better. They are all so awesome!

We also had an aus tausch today and Elder Hilton from Linz came to the Haag area with me all day on Thursday and half of Friday. He was the transfer before me so we are still both greenies and it was super cool. We were able to understand and speak to people in german all day. There was only one time we have no idea what was going on the entire time and we were totally able to fake it! Pros haha! We had an interesting expirence where this old guy asked us if we were from Utah. He then invited us in and wanted to only talk about Utah. He has okay english and an obsession with Utah. He wanted nothing to do with the Gospel and wouldn't talk about it. He offered us help with anything we need and even offered us money just because we were from Utah! We told him to say hi to any future missionaries and talk to them and he told us he would if they were from Utah and if they weren't they he wouldn't let them in haha.

We also had a random experience at the train station. We were waiting for a train and this guy with piercings all over his face and weed colored shoe lases stood up and started preaching about "the gospel of Christ". Then some old guy started yelling at him to shut up and that everyone here already has their faith. They both just tried to yell over each other for a minute or two with the one reading of some scriptures and the old guy yelling at him. Then the preaching guy just sat down and a minute later he and his friend walked away. It was really random.

On Sunday I had one really awesome thing happen and one not so awesome thing happen. We usually have a meeting with our investigator Barbod every Sunday during church, because that's the best time for him to have lessons. This week he came very upset. We had scheduled a meeting appointment for this coming Friday. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication, and apparently he wanted us to be there this last Friday. Unaware of it, we had missed the appointment. We had called him on the Thursday before Friday to ask him if he would be at Church on Sunday and because of bad german on both of our sides of the call, he thought we cancelled the appointment and only cared about if he would be at Church on Sunday. He was very offended and has decided that he is never coming to Church again and that he doesn't want the lessons anymore. We are really sorry that it happened and are going to bring him by an apology cake this week.

But on the good side, my family from Graz came to Haag this week and we had a family lunch! They brought Sister Lex with them and it was super cool to see everyone and have lunch. It was weird to have it all in German but way fun! I'm super grateful that they came by and it really motivated me to work on my German and for the rest of the week so far.

So yah, its been a long and busy week, but a great one! More good news, THE GREEK MISSIONARIES HAVE BEEN IN THE FIELD A WEEK NOW! Good luck guys, you'll do great!

I hope you all have an amazing week! I love you all!! Bis Später!!

Elder Wi(e)ser   

me and a couple from my ward​

Family Reunion Fun

Culinary Geniuses

Me and Elder Mendenhall's culinary genius (actually tasted okay but it looks like poop)

Hey guys.

Its been a good week and I had lots of fun. I went to Saltzburg on an Exchange and did my first solo contact!! Turned out to be mostly all in English, but that's okay! I also got a cold from being in the rain so long, but I am over it now which is good. My exchange was with a missionary named Elder Litta from Germany. Shout out to Elder Cziesla and Elder Roffler, he says hi!

I don't have a lot of time this week, but I hope that you are all doing well. The mission has taught me a lot and I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to be here. There is a song that I have listened to a lot this week called Mountains to Climb by Erin Thomas. Heavenly Father is always there for us and he wants us to become the best people we can be. Sometimes it is hard to see that light, but when we endure with faith, we can find it. Heavenly Father knows each of you personally and he will never give you anything you can't take. Be strong and have faith. Put the Lord first and everything will work out okay in the end. I know this to be true.

I love you guys, thanks for all of the support! Your amazing!

Me and Elder Litta

Saltzburg - overnight difference

Us and Günter 

A rainbow in Linz 

A weird car we found

A beautiful evening sky in Haag

Miracles in the Haag area!

Hey guys!

It's been a long week this week, but a great one. To start it off, we had zone conference. Our zone only has about 25 - 30 people so it was a pretty small group, but the meeting was amazing and had many things that I needed to hear. President and Sister Brown are really amazing!

Most of this week was just finding as we only currently have two people we're teaching. The members are amazing and we often are invited over for meals! As a zone we are really trying to push missionary and member work. The best missionary work is through the members! Never be afraid to share the gospel with your friends. Over the past little while I've heard so many stories about amazing members who have been able to share the gospel with their friends and bring that light into their lives.

This week has been a series of small miracles that were just amazing. On Saturday, we were planning on visiting an in active member named Zadwiga. We didn't know her phone number and our GPS couldn't find her address so we picked the area we thought it was and started walking. We found an old lady walking her dog and asked her if she knew the address, she said no but pointed to where we might be able to find it. We went to that area and found a girl named Sarah who was struggling to bring some stuff from her car to her apartment. We asked if we could help and she said yes. While we were carrying things up she asked if we were on our way to visit her mom. We asked her who her mom is and it turned out to be Zadwiga! She pointed out where her mom's apartment building is and we were able to find her mom's apartment! We had a great night and Zadwiga gave us dinner. We met another of her daughters and are planning on going back for a return appointment!

Another happened just today! We went to Linz and went on a boat tour for district P-day (I'll attach photos next week) and did some shopping. We got on the hour long train ride to come back home and after an hour were really wondering where the heck we were. WE WERE AT THE FURTHEST NORTH OF OUR AREA. We quickly got off the train to figure out how to get back home. The first miracle is that there was a train going back home anytime soon, we live in the middle of no where and trains don't come often throughout the day. The second miracle was that we could pay for it. We had exactly enough change to pay for our tickets. I mean exactly enough, no left overs. It was amazing.

That and other miracles like being able to catch trains and finding people to talk to have been happening all week.

We also had an amazing discussion with Andres this week. He is a stud and reminds me of the Book of Mormon characters like Ammon with how strong his faith is.

I hope you guys had an amazing week!! I love and miss you all but am so glad to be out here! When we put the Lord first, he will take care of the rest.

Love,
Elder Wiser

Welcome to the Haag area!

​Me and Elder Mendenhall

Burning the Calories

Outlook of Pram

Illegal licences from secret military agents

Hey!!!!

Tomorrow is zone conference so our P-day got moved to today!

Not much new has happened this week.We have handed out a couple of Book of Mormons and met some awesome people, but so far no one has been interested in learning more about the gospel. We still have two investigators, Barbod and Andraes and they are absolute studs!! Haag is a pretty spread out place so the only contacting that is effective is dooring. I am still very much in the early stages of german, so I have the approach down, but I need Elder Mendenhall to take over after that. But I am still learning and hopefully soon Ill really be able to talk with someone. 

My subject is due to an interesting development that happened on Thursday or Friday. We were going to get my licence translated at a car shop and ran into some problems. At first it took forever. We were waiting for like 30 or 40 minutes for the lady to get to us. Then she was looking at the back of my licence. On the back of the Utah licence it has a small statement about Military and Military dependents. So she asked if I was military. We told her no, it is just a standard licence. (This is all in german so I mostly just tried to smile and looked confused while Elder Mendenhall and her talked.) Then she told us that she couldn't translate it because it is a military licence. We told her again that no it is a standard Utah licence. Finally, Elder Mendenhall went and got his licence and translation and told her look, I got my translation here, and its the exact same. She looked at it and spent some time calling people and talking to her other workers. They then took my companions translation and said that it was invalid. Luckily they reimbursed him. They just didn't seem to get that we don't have military licences. So we were wondering how to get anywhere without driving when we learned from the office that our regular licence still works in Austria for a while. We have to go to the police station and get our licenses there. Hopefully they wont ask us for proof that were not from the military haha. 

I had a great week this week and am loving Austria. It is always so gorgeous here. It has been raining, but I love the rain and it feels really nice. We got to go to this pizza restaurant for helping some members clean the church and I got amazing pizza and we also have a new potential who we will give a Book of Mormon to this week! 

I love you all and have a good week!!!     

Elder Wiser