Alpine German-Speaking Mission

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