Alpine German-Speaking Mission

E. Ward, E. Botcherby and E. Spencer bros for life! Christmas Market in Vienna Ausria Two happy young men serving the Lord Josh with his Golden Elder Lance Ward from NC Enjoying a creme filled donut a Krapfen Snow in Leoben Merry Christmas From Leoben Austria E Badders, E Ward, E Thomas E Spencer roomates

here are som of this weeks happenings: e

So to start off...HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!!!!!!! How many is that like 38??? :D hope you had some turtle cake and got lots of hugs at school! haha sure you loved that! I really hope you like all of the pics this week! It took me forever to email them but i thought there were some good ones on there! Definitely better then last week for sure! And thanks so much for the pictures!!! I do have to say those are probably the best part of emails on Monday! I love seeing pictures of everyone and their activities! The boys look so good in their football stuff and jacers looks super awesome on the soccer field! Those will be some cute wedding pictures someday of Jace and Eva!!! So this week.....lets see! Ill give ya a quick outline: We had to take an entire day in the week just to clean our apartments!! We went to Slovenia again!! Had some really awesome appointments with our investigators and with the members!! So, to start out, PUTZEN TAG! (cleaning day) President and Sister Miles ...

 Vienna, Austria Zone Vienna Zone Conference, Elder Spencer was able to help with a musical number and be the pianist for the meeting

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Number one, thanks for the letter last week! Jace and Colson, your art is amazing! They brind the spirit into my study area so thanks for that! And Justin, thank you for your little devotional! I will definately use that this week with one of the members and I will report to you to tell you how it went! Last monday we went over to our Ward Mission Leaders house for dinner. The Schäffners are so stinking aweseome! Brü Schäffner served his mission in Czeck and after dinner we looked at all of his mission pictures! It was really fun! It was my turn to give the spiritual thought and I shared a scripture in Moroni 7. It was verses 27, and 29. They talk about miracles and that there are still miracles happening today! Because I am a missionary I am going to give you all a commitment. Anyone who is reading this email can do this activity. Every night before you go to bed, count the miracles that you saw that day. They can be small. For example, the other day we were running a little late an...

 I will report on our investigators! Mario: He is so awesome! He is still meeting with us which is a miracle in itself! He keeps reading out the book of mormon and is finding the stories interesting. We have been teaching alot about prayer lately and trying to get him to pray about the Book. Unforuanately he leaves on vacation in the next couple weeks but hopfully we can meet with him when he gets back. We really struggle with staying on topic when we teach him. He has really deep questions and I think we need to just stick to the basics! and thanks for the scriptures dad, Ill use them next lesson! Fam Ancea: They are the Romanians that we met with a few weeks ago. The husband just got back from vaca, but his wife is still there. We set up an appointment to go back and teach about the Book of Mormon! Janic and Hagop: Oh man, these are my favorite!!!!! Janic is a less active member who live with his grandparents. His grandparents are active but he doesnt come. He is 18 y...

EGrüss Euch! Ich hoffe daß alles gut geht mit euch!?!?! Es ist so wunderbar hier in Österreich zu sein! I thought about doing the whole email in German but you probably wouldnt really appreciate that! I feel like my german is coming along really well. I am so much more confident when I speak and I think people understand me ok! To start off, THANKS SOOOO MUCH FOR THE JOURNALS!!!!!! They are perfect! I hope they werent too expensive?! You can take the money out of my account if you want! Weekly highlights! Probably number one is chatting with RY right now! haha its like Im texting him! haha good think it isnt against the rules! SO this week. We did a lof of work with the members. We have set a mission goal that every companionship will have a baptism this transfer. We only have 4 more weeks to get that done so taking someone off the street will be pretty hard. But I do know that if we take some who knows a member, they will be way more likely to join the church. We just need to ...

GRAZ DISTRICT MEETING with President Miles

Elder Spencer gets to be with new District Leader, Elder Botcherby for a little longer  Elders on their way to interviews with President Miles Josh brushing up on Spanish, they met a contact that only spoke Spanish,  they are on a hunt to find someone that can teach in Spanish...in Austria! This is a ward member Bruder Kudic who offered his organ to  play  and introduced him to the  accordion, he was in heaven! Service day with Elder Pugmire and Elder Kelly

Josh was excited that he will be staying in Bruck an Der Mur with his trainer Elder Botcherby till at least the next transfer. His companion is a new Dictrict leader and will be having more frequent meetings in Vienna...Josh was willing to tag along to Vienna with him :) Pictures coming soon the other computer is acting funny and I can't get to them right yet.... Some tid bits from his letter home this week: Also, this week we had Interviews with President Miles. Mission presidents are really awesome. Its pretty incredible how they can remember so many missionaries. Honestly I thought that he wouldnt remember me, but in my Interview we talked about what I had siad on my first day. It was really cool. We talked about how we as missionaries can help members want to do missionary work. Its been something that we have been struggling with. Just a little bragging moment.....He asked me to say the opening prayer in German of course, and afterwards he asked me if I was "Fast-Trac...

spring time in Leoben Austria

Hey hows everyone today?!?! I hope you all are enjoying summer vacation. Thanks for all of your emails this week! Dad, dont kill anyone! and I had plans to wash that bucket out when I got home ;) Mom, good luck with the new calling! You will have to give Sister Dunmire a call and get some suggestions. Hopefully you can have the same impact on the students lives as she did on mine. Justin, congrats on the baseball! Sounds like you are doing awesome, and unfortunatly no, I have not eaten anything crazy yet.....hopefully soon though!! Jace, have fun with swim lessons! Tell Conner Hi for me! So this week was FABULOUS! I made many good memories and had some incredible experiences. So here goes: Ok so the first highlight of the week was our meeting with Brüder Kubic. He is a really old member of the ward, he lives by himself, and he is awesome. We went all the way out to Trofaiach to meet with him. We got there and he wanted to show me something. He pulled out this absolutely ancient Organ...

We had some more appointments made out and they fell out....but hey no point in getting a bad attitude! I think one of the reasons they send elders out on missions is to prepare them for being rejected by girls when they get home :) But anyway, we have been doing alot of member work, as well as just plain finding (dooring, and street contacting). We did have a cool experience as we were dooring an appartment building in Kapfenberg. We had doored about half of it and finaly one of the people said, "Hey, you're the Mormons right? I have one of those books!" So we went in and talked a little more about it with them. They are romanian and their german is not very good so it was hard to communicate and they basically talked the whole time, but at least we were able to bear our testimonies and set up a return appointment! It is so interesting here with the amount of "Auslanders" we meet with. I think that word means foreigner in english....anyway, they are all very ...

The other highlight from this week happened on Sunday . The theme of sacrament meeting was missionary work, and so all four of us missionaries were asked to speak. I gave a talk on how I prepared for my mission. I would send you the talk, but I dont think that would do anything! haha I thought it went really well. It was probably on about a 12 year old level, but hey, Ive only been speaking this language for like 15 weeks now! So yeah, that was really cool. Oh, and I dont know if I told you this or not, but I am officially the ward organist! Im glad I am able to contribute in at least that way.  

So Josh says his is a very popular drink second to Beer.  Not a favorite of his but had to have the picture of ALMDUDLER So this missionary is enjoying the culture of Austria in his Lederhosen.  He and Elder Botcherby look the part

Ok, the lesson that I learned this week. The little things do make a difference. Last wednesday we were working in Kapfenberg. There are a couple members there and so we wanted to go contact them, share a message and move on. It turns out that we kind of underestimated the size of Kapfenberg. Its the second biggest city in the Steiermark (the state of Austria I live in) (Arnold Swartzeneggar was born here by the way). Anyway, we walk to our first appointment which took way longer than we thought. We get there and the Sister opens the door and invites us in. But, we had to make sure her husband was there in order to follow the rules with exactness. Sure enough, her husband isnt home. Then we had to tell her that we couldn't actually come in because that would be agains the rules. She got really upset and was yelling at us, for who knows what, and threatening to call our Mission President. Finally we got her calmed down and made out another appointment. Elder Botcherby and I were kin...

Bruder Cisse on the left was baptized this week This train was described as being like the train at the Portland Zoo a 1 1/2 hr ride This is the kind of train these Elders are use too much better I loved tis photo with the terrible historic flooding taking place in this region, this rainbow reminde me that the Lord's work still moves forward. TheElders will participate in flood clean up in Salzburgthis Saturday.  Long train rides mean study time and...... play time :) Josh had a dinner appointment this week. He was served a "really good soup"he said. He did not understand the recipe that was shared...after they left, Elder Botcherby told him he ate LIVER KNODEL ( liver dumplings) he said it was the first time on his mission he was glad he could not understand what the family was saying. But he liked it !

"All is Well" I would not choose to walk to walk the paths of the mighty pioneers. To walk accross the country, living constantly in fear. Their faith so strong they up and left everything they had. Their homes, their things, their saftey, the children feeling sad. They walked by sight not of men, but of Almighty God. Leading them to the place, the gospel could spread abroad. Their motivation:Faith in Jesus Christ and the Prophet Jospeh Smith. His divine and inspired calling, most thought was just a myth. I would not choose to walk the paths of the mighty pioneers. I do however, have my own 'Faith Tester' for two years. To honor those who did the task that none of us could do, I choose to share their message of the love of God for you. Everyday I thank the Lord for the mighty pioneers. Their choices will impact us for many, many years. The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ saves us all from hell. We must thank the pioneers who sang, ...

Austria feels like home, wet and rainy Elder Botcherby and Elder Spencer on Twin day, in their very European shirts and skinny ties