Emergency transfers and secret police

Hey guys!

Hope your doing well. Had a pretty good week over here, but not a whole bunch to say.

First off, my new companion, Elder Walton, is here! Hes pretty cool and we have a lot of fun together. Were really hoping to get some things going this transfer. We've also had a lot of our time taken up by legal stuff since Elder Walton has never been in Austria before and hes got to get a license now. Other then that we've been doing a lot of finding.

Had a cool experience finding the other day. We were talking to people, and ended up meeting a guy and teaching him most of the first lesson right after meeting him. He had a lot of questions, but it went well and we are going to met up again! The really cool part is that morning for personal study I had decided to go over the first lesson in Preach my Gospel to improve my teaching skills. Crazy how fast the Lord tests us sometimes!

We also had 2 awesome member appointments this week. I really love the members here, they are always so nice and great to work with. We are currently working a lot with member missionary work and it is fantastic to have such good feedback.

Crazy story of the week, we were on the tram at a stop when all of a sudden out of nowhere, multiple undercover cop cars showed up and people started running around. The police were all chasing a guy on and off the tram. They got him, and then the tram was allowed to drive away. It was pretty crazy, especially because it all happened so fast. Morale of the story, don't mess with the Austrians I guess.

Here's a quick spiritual thought for the week. 
Preach my Gospel Lesson 2 : The Plan of Salvation

" Wir müssen unseren Weg als Glaubende gehen, nicht als Schauende." 

" We must walk by faith rather than by sight. "

I found this phrase and I really love the simple way it wraps life up. Sometimes we get so caught up in the little things, we forget which way to walk. When we try and do everything walking by sight we will almost always miss something that we simply could not see. However when we walk by faith, we need not fear, because we know that God loves us, has a plan for us, and will do what is best for us. I have noticed this on my mission more then I ever have before. It is amazing what the Lord does to help us. We need only trust him and it will all be okay!

I love you all!!

Elder Wiser

Here we go again!

Hey guys! How's life?

Things are going good this week. Sometimes we have so many things happen in a week, I feel like I just lived a month in that week and it just couldn't possibly have only been one week. This was one of those weeks.

We started the week off right with Interviews with our mission president. They went well and it was really nice to get to talk to them. My mission president and wife are awesome! Anyways, during the Interview, President basically told me I will be staying in my area with Elder Golly next transfer. This is because it will technically be my 5th transfer here, though kind of third because two areas got merged and so I am in both. It's complicated ha ha. So I wasn't surprised when we got transfer calls Saturday.

Had some good finding this week. Another Deutsch Course which went good. It's been really nice to be in an area with 4 elders because we are able to plan and work together really well.

Saturday we went to get some visa stuff for Elder Golly and were told to come back on Monday. We ate lunch with the Mayers and it was fantastic! Sunday went well, we were in Haag am Hausruck for church. After we ate at the Branch Presidents house for lunch and it was great. In the evening we spent a fair amount of time locating a hospital to visit Günter. He is an awesome member who has really poor health. But he is really funny.

We had district meeting yesterday which was fun as always. One of the best parts of the week in my opinion. Sadly we will lose three of our district members next transfer. We ate at Burgerista after which has really good American burgers!👍

Things really went crazy yesterday morning when we went back to finish the visa stuff for Elder Golly. He was told that he could not get a new visa and could not stay long in the country. So he is getting emergency transferred to Passau. Which means that I am now getting my 5th Companion Elder Walton from Utah. Elder Golly is transferring on normal transfer day so that will be tomorrow. Could be an adventure.

Other random notes include getting checked by the Police again while driving. Good news is we survived. It took the officers a while to figure it all out, but I am legal in this country and Elder Golly was not driving with Alcohol in his system. #Blessed. Eventually we were allowed to keep going.

Spiritual thought!

Mormon 5:16
"16 For behold, the Spirit of the Lord hath already ceased to strive with their fathers; and they are without Christ and God in the world; and they are driven about as chaff before the wind"

I came upon this in personal study this week and it just jumped out at me. There are so many people in this world that I have meet that just don't want Christ in their lives. They think they are strong enough and that to follow Christ and to follow God is a pain and not worth the effort. They don't realize the peace and love they are missing out on. I am so glad to have Christ and God in my life and to know that they have a plan for me. I have a foundation that can not be knocked over by the tempest of the world, but will keep me firm and sound. And I am trying to help others to feel the Peace that comes from that. So if the missionaries come knocking on your door, just let them in and talk to them for a minute. I promise you won't regret it!

I love you all. I hope you are doing well! Keep it up!

Elder Wiser

Some days, you just need expired fruit drinks.

Hey guys! Hope your week is going well! Everything is pretty good over here! We've been pretty busy, but nothing super new has been happening.

We had a couple of awesome eating appointments with members this week, and that means great food!! Oh, the food here is so awesome. At home I was never a huge fan of salads, but Austrians can make a mean salad. I mean like awesome! Of course I can't be too healthy, so I make sure to get lots of other good stuff in there as well. Including Knödel. It is a really good type of food.

We also had an interesting eating appointment this week. A friend of the church, bless his heart, took us all out to breakfast. It was at a social breakfast and the meal cost 20 cents. Normally this is to help those who don't have as much get some food, (this friend is technically homeless) but as missionaries, we went in white shirts and ties. I've never felt so upper class in my life and it was terrible. The food was really good, but I felt like a snob eating it. I am super grateful for this friend of the church though for taking us there. It was very nice of him. 

Don't worry, not all that we do is with eating appointments haha. We also did some good finding this week and had some appointments planned with friends of the church. Unfortunately many of them fell out, but that's okay. We have planted seeds and I am confident that when the time is right, these people will have the chance to receive the restored gospel of Jesus Christ!!

I hope that you all had an amazing week and that all is going well!

Spiritual Thought:
2 Nephi 31 : 21 - " And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen. "

This is the message that we as missionaries share with others, that we have found the truth, and we know it to be the truth, but here is the best part,

Ether 12 : 4 - " Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God. "

When we are just willing to believe, we are filled with hope! From this hope, we can come to know that we can live with God again! Our message is of happiness! And I know it to be true!

I love you all!

Elder Wiser

Members are the Magic!

Not much to report on this week, so this one is gonna be a little short. Sorry! We did a lot of finding and a super exchange with the zone leaders. Me and one of the zone leaders went to visit a member from Iran. We got to the refuge home and it was very interesting. They live above a storage house, in what was probably a joyhouse before. Pretty awkward haha.

We also met with a couple of bishoprics from the surrounding area and talked about ward missionary  work. It was really awesome and helped us all have the same goals and get on the same page. I never realized how much members help in Missionary work before my mission! Keep slaying it you guys!

Spiritual thought : Jacob 4 : 6

"Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea."

1. Read the scriptures and words of the Phrophets
2. Pray about it and you will receive a confirmation of the truth
3. Hope with all your heart that good things will come from this world
4. Be faithful and remember God and Jesus and what they have done for us
5. Be courageous and act on your faith

This is the formula to have a miracle and I know it to work. I have seen it on my mission and in my life. And it applies to the big things, as well as the little. Even something as simple as how to help a friend. I challenge you all to be firm in your faith and to expect miricales to help you. As long as we try our best, God will help us! He wants to bless us!

I love you guys, have a great week!

6 month mark!

Servus!!!

How are you all?? I hope that everything is going well. This week I hit my 6 month mark on my mission. I feel so thankful to have had this opportunity in my life.

This week went pretty well. We now have two new friends of the church to work with!! They are both from the Dominican Republic. Luckily, we have the amazing tool of Facebook, so with any luck, in the future, our discussions will be in a mix of German and Spanish! It should be awesome.

More news, we had another Deutsch class this week, though this time with a couple people from Iran as well. It is a great opportunity to get to know some of the members better and we can all learn better German together!

As for church news, we now have a new President of the church, President Nelsen. No matter what happens on this earth, the truth will never be stopped. I am so glad to be able to help others to learn more about it.

Spiritual thought :   Alma 48:16-17

and this was the faith of Moroni, and his heart did glory in it; not in the shedding of blood but in doing good, in preserving his people, yea, in keeping the commandments of God, yea, and resisting iniquity.
17 Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men.

Now is the time to be men (and women) like Moroni. I really find strength from these scriptures, because even Moroni wasn't perfect. Just like us. Only Jesus Christ was perfect on this earth, but we can all become spiritual giants. All we need to do is our best. That is all that Heavenly Father asks of us. And when we do our best, as Moroni, the very powers of Hell will shake and lose their hold on us!

I love you all! Bis später!

Elder Wiser

Nope, the holidays aren't over yet!

Hey yall!!

Hope you are all doing well and that everyone is having a good time.

To start off this week right, we had a prayer circle. This sounds a little bit interesting, and we went there to see what exactly was going on. It turned out to be a really cool and spiritual experience. Apparently, a lot of things have been going down in Iran lately. In our ward, we have a lot of refugees who have family or friends in direct consequence of the things going on and it has been a huge stress on their shoulders. Brother Ausobskie, one of the members of our ward, is good friends with a lot of these people and organized this night so that we could come together and strengthen one another. He shared the story of his experiences with the fall of the Berlin Wall. He also shared a story from the Book of Mormon of Alma the younger and how things were changed through the faith and prayers of the saints. We then all knelt down and those that wanted to had the opportunity to offer prayers to Heavenly Father. Most of the prayers, were in a language that I did not understand (Persian for the most part I believe), but the Holy Ghost was clearly there. He speaks across language barriers. It was very good and will continue every week on Tuesday for the foreseeable future.

To explain the subject, there was another holiday this week! Although in America, we are done with Holidays by now, we still celebrated Heilige drei Könige (the three holy kings day). It is a Catholic holiday and since most people here are catholic, it is a very big holiday. It was the last holiday of the season and per the norm for holidays, all of the shops closed down and everyone spent time with their families. Very few people were on the streets which made contacting a little difficult. However, this is the last holiday of the season, so after this, everything should be going back to normal.

Also this week we got to meet with another member family, Walter Mayer and his wife. They were very nice and they taught us a lot about the church history of Austria. It is amazing to hear the stories of peoples' sacrifices and what they have done for the church or to stay in the church. That is the kind of faith we as missionaries are both building in ourselves, and trying to help others to find!

To close off this week, I thought I would include some "modern scripture" from President Monson. (Thanks for sharing it with me Mom). It is said to hear that President Monson passed away this last week, but we are glad that he was able to do so much good while he was with us. I am sure that even now he is helping people learn and is plenty busy on the other side.

President Monson's final General Conference address: "If you do not have a firm testimony of these things, do that which is necessary to obtain one. It is essential for you to have your own testimony in these difficult times, for the testimonies of others will carry you only so far. However, once obtained, a testimony needs to be kept vital and alive through continued obedience to the commandments of God and through daily prayer and scripture study. My dear associates in the work of the Lord, I implore each of us to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day. As we do so, we will be in a position to hear the voice of the Spirit, to resist temptation, to overcome doubt and fear, and to receive heaven's help in our lives. I so testify with all my heart in the name of Jesus Chirst, amen."

I know that President Monson was a prophet of God, and when we follow his words, we will obtain the promised result. We need simply do and try our best. I hope you all have an amazing week! I love you all!

Elder Wiser

Happy New Years!!

Happy New Year everyone!! Guten Rutsch!!

This was a pretty quiet week for us, and nothing super crazy happened. We had a couple lessons that went really well. Right now our Friends of the Church (investigators) consist of a pool of about 3 people. We are working hard with them and have had some really good experiences. It is amazing to meet people who are so willing and ready to accept Jesus Christ and his love into their lives. There are not a lot of people here who are willing to really talk to us and try out our message, but there are always a couple who are amazing and prepared. It is a testimony to me of the truthfulness of our message.

We had one rather interesting experience this week that doesn't happen very often. We had a lady who used to be an investigator of the Linz Sisters text us. She had all of the lessons about two years ago but said she was unsure about all of it. But when we met with her she told us that she would like to be baptized and become a member of the church. She has forgotten much of the lessons, but we are going to do our best to help her achieve her goal. We are also going to be starting a German course for a member of our ward who can't speak German and very little English. More news on how that goes next week. Please pray for our German skills ha ha.

I hope you all had a great New Year and break!! There were a lot of fireworks going off here, but nothing super crazy. The holidays on the mission give us a chance to talk more with the members and build better friendships with them. It is amazing to meet so many different people and hear their stories. There are a lot of amazing members here.

Scripture of the week: 1 Nephi 19:9 And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.

It is amazing to think about how much love Jesus Christ has for us. He offered himself, fully aware of what would occur, as a sacrifice for us. He loves us so much He made it possible for us to return to Him. He is the way and He is the path. He has made it possible to be whole again. I am so grateful for what He has done for me. He is one of my best friends. Through Him we can feel light where before was only darkness. Because of Him, we need not wonder in paths of unknown, but have the opportunity to strive with knowledge of the direction of where we are going. This week I would challenge you all to try and improve your relationship with Jesus Christ. He loves you and knows you and all that you go through.

I love you all!

Elder Wiser