Faith to Find

Another week has come and gone!  Holy poop! these mission things go by fast. 

Tuesday we went back to Wien, again!!  Three weeks in a row!  How lucky am I?!  Haha they just can't get enough of me there ;)  Once again, the train ride was gorgeous.  Might have drooled a little cuz of the view.  This time we were going for Zone Training!  I can't believe it was already zone training time again.  We just barely had one!  Time goes too fast.  I learned soooo much that whole day, though.  It was like a personal General Conference for me!  I learned how I can be kinder to myself, how to be a more diligent missionary, and how to manage my time better, and to put Christ as the center of everything I do.  I wish I could tell you 2% of the things the spirit whispered to me!  But yeah, I am so grateful for inspired people, for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and for the power of 40+ missionaries gathered in the same room.  It really is quite a special and sacred thing to be a member of this little army preaching truth to the world.  After Zone Training my district went to a restaurant called Herbs, famous among Wien missionaries for awesome and GIANT schnitzel.  The missionary challenge is to eat a giant Cordon Bleu and a bowl of French fries the first time you go there, so I had to do it. It was HUGE so yeah I didn't finish haha, but it was so good, and so fun to be there!

Wednesday we went finding with the elders, which means we walked down opposite sides of the street and had a competition of who could talk to the most people, give out the most pass along cards/Books of Mormon, and who could get the most phone numbers!  It was pretty fun :)  We have also been having a lot of member dinner appointments lately!  We haven't really had that many since I've been here, but last week when I got up in sacrament to introduce myself and bear my testimony I said, "Ich mag Essen" (I like food) and BAM! Member appointments coming out of our ears! ;)

Friday, Sister Kinghorn (senior missionary couple in our ward) came over and helped us clean the crap out of our apartment!  She is a beast haha.  We basically bleached everything, threw away half of the furniture and things other sisters have left behind, wiped everything down with vinegar, mopped, swept, and vacuumed the floors, walls and ceilings, washed 18 loads of laundry, and stuffed moth balls anywhere and everywhere we could. And we now have little moth traps all over the place, and a new supply of moth killer spray, SO YEAH MOTHS..TAKE THAT!!  It was great.  Matthew 6:19-20 is also now framed on our wall.  ("Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.")  Now we just need a plumber to come over and fix all of our sinks, and then a painter to repaint for us :) but it feels so good to have a (hopefully) moth free, and squeaky clean apartment.

Saturday we planned to make dinner for this nice lady in our ward.  She is an older single lady, and a less active who we are just now reactivating, and she is doing so good at coming to church every week and reading in her scriptures every day!  She invites us over every other week, and tries to make us food, but her house is just so gross, and covered in cat excrete, so we will not eat her food.  So to compromise we decided we would just meet her at the church and make her a super nice meal and have a nice appointment reading in the scriptures together.  So Sister Fast and I got to the church like an hour and a half early and started cooking our little hearts out, and then 15 minutes before she was supposed to show up she called and cancelled :(  So then we had this Austrian feast sitting in the kitchen (I'm really becoming quite the chef out here), and the elders were gonna show up any minute and we couldn't just eat alone with them, so we just started freaking out and calling everyone in our phone who might be able to eat with us last minute.  Finally we just called the Kinghorns, and they saved us!  So it was a little missionary meal, and it was so fun!

This week we have really begun to see the fruits of our labors.  We have been working SO HARD the past couple of weeks, and progress is coming along!  Very slowly, but still coming along :)  I know without a doubt that our companionship was inspired of the Lord!!  We teach each other so much!!  Sister Fast is my trainer, so obviously she teaches me how to teach lessons, and helps me with my German, and how to get around the area, and adjusting to missionary life.  I love her!  And lately I've been helping her with being brave and bold!  I am finding that it is way easier for me to go up to a random person and ask them if they want to be baptized into our church than it is for Sister Fast (haha)  I was struggling with the fear of talking to people a little bit last week, but then I realized that was Satan trying to discourage me from fulfilling my purpose, and now Sister Fast tells me I'm a little TOO bold sometimes! Haha.  Then I tell her there's no such thing as being too bold as a missionary, and I run up to the next person and shove a Book of Mormon into their hands and tell them church is at 9am on Sunday.

A big part of missionary work is having the FAITH that you will find people, and that Heavenly Father wants things to work out even more than you do.  This is His work after all. We are searching for the elect...those who are spiritually starving and looking for the truth. So obviously we have to talk to EVERYONE so we don't miss that one person who might be the one Heavenly Father has prepared!!  Having faith is much easier said than done, but I can bear witness that my faith has grown leaps and bounds.  I still have a long way to go, but I am so grateful for this new perspective I have out here.  Being on a mission really gives you a tiny tasting spoon of the love that Heavenly Father has for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS CHILDREN!  Even the gross dirty homeless guy on the street.  Even the smelly cat lady.  Even the prideful and stubborn oldest child who thinks they deserve everything.  No matter the circumstance, no matter the history, no matter the appearance, Heavenly Father loves each one of his children so so much.  And because of His son, Jesus Christ, we can all become perfect, and clean, and pure, and find peace, joy, and hope, and return to live with God again!  Because of Jesus Christ we have the opportunity to change, and to become better, and to work towards something much more important and much more eternal than our simple earth life!  ETERNITY PEOPLE.  THATS THE GOAL!  Always keep an eternal perspective :)

Well, have a great week guys!  Just so you know, this email took forever to write because English is getting harder honestly haha.  Which is a good thing I guess!  Maybe I'll sound like President Uchtdorf by the time I get home!  Oh yes, also, Sister Fast and I made a music video hehe. You can beg my mom to show it to you if you really want to see it. Here's a sneak peak ;) 

Love y'all!

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Thunell