3/23 LB

Guten Tag meine Familie und Freunde!

So much has happened since I last wrote (obviously). I flew into München through Atlanta on Tuesday morning and everything has been crazy ever since. Even this German keyboard is crazy.
So the rest of Tuesday I stayed in München for orientation meetings and such. President Condie and Sister Condie (mission presidents) were very welcoming. The mission office is just a part of a building in this nice residential area, super classy.
Tuesday night we walked over to the mission home (I believe it´s where Pres and Sister Condie live) and had a lovely meal of lasagna. Danach, we found out where our first areas were. It took a long time since there were 14 of us new missionaries. So as many already know, I was called to serve in Wien Drei (the third ward in Vienna). We live in an apartment between the fifth and sixth districts and have two proselyting areas: the tenth district and the 13th and 14th districts. It's somewhat strange that they aren't contiguous but whatever.
I took a train to Wien on Wednesday with some other missionaries who were transferred there. It took about 3 hours, don't remember exactly. At 13:40 it arrived in Wien west main station.
I met my companion there. Er heißt Elder Whitsitt, er kommt aus Chicago. He's a super nice guy and everything. Ummm he went to BYU Idaho for a semester before leaving on his mission. He's 13 months into it I believe, so we actually graduated high school in the same year (very strange to think about). He's about my same height and wears glasses, so we look very similar when I'm not wearing contacs. I would best describe him as poised under presssure, a characteristic that has been apparent given our first few days here (more on that later)
The very first thing we did after putting our bags in the apartment was go across our apartment building to a member's house for lunch. Thank goodness there were a bunch of other missionaries there to talk, because I didn't understand a thing. Wienerisch accents are straight up ridiculous. The old couple there seemed nice enough, but it was hard to tell when I couldn't understand anything, ya

Anyways, we came back to the apartment and I unpacked for a little while. Then we hit the streets. Definitely a harrowing expereience the first time around.
I believe we were in the 13th district when we started to do our street contacting. Natrually Elder Whitsitt took the lead, but after he did five or so I finally mustered up the courage to ask someone if they had heard about the Book of Mormon. Nothing came of it, but it was good to face the fear. We tried talking with other people for a while. Eventually two young men who were eating kabobs I believe stopped and listened to us. After I had spat out a few sentences, I tried listening to what they were saying. No dice, but we did get their numbers. Afterward I inquired as to what had happened and Elder Whitsitt said that they wonder about the purpose of life quite frequently. We still haven't gotten in touch with them yet, but who knows what can happen.

Thursday was a day full of appointments. Our first thing was to go to student housing and knock on doors. No one was home until the very last one: guy had read a little in the book of mormon but didn't have interest to talk about it.

We met with this 60ish year old lady in the hospital named Slaviza. I guess she was super stressed out by her 30 year old daughter at home. Once more, I didn't understand anything much at all. We gave her a blessing of health and shared a spiritual thought.

We met with Björn and his mother in the afternoon. He's like 6'3 or so and was wearing a cast on his right arm. I was taken aback by his appearence and thought he probably could pummel me in two seconds flat. Despite that, he was super nice and had kept his commitment to read in the BOM in Alma 40. We discussed the first half of the plan of salvation. Well I actually didn't talk whatsoever besides a bit of an introduction in the beginning. Björn spoke English to us and his mother spoke in German but I guess understood English too, I don't even know. Elder Whitsitt was teaching in German, it was crazy.

I remember coming back to the apartment after that and being just dead tired and kind of sick all over too. It was some awesome combination of jetlag and nausea from trying so hard to listen to German all the time haha. Ya, not the best. We took our afternoon pause and I gathered myself.

In the evening we watched The Testaments with a woman named Zaimar and her 9 year old daughter. I believe they mover from Cuba a few years ago. Anyways, we watched it in Spanish on her computer (after failing to get both the DVD player and hotpink Playstation to work). I actually spoke after it was done and talked about the nature of faith. Little steps of improvement.

Friday we had Zone Conference. So within the mission boundaries there are four stakes: Salsburg, Vienna, Nurnburg and Munich. Each zone in the mission corresponds to a stake. All the missionaries in Vienna gather together for these things, so that was cool in itself. Better was the presence of Elder Kopieschke of the quorum of the 70. The conference lasted around eight hours, and besides introductions and lunch, Elder Kopieschke taught basically the whole time. It was so excellent. I also had Schnitzel for the first time. Glorious.

Our appointment that night fell through, so not much else happened. Saturday we did some service for a member who was renovating his appartment. We then delved into weekly planning, which is only supposed to take three hours or so. It took much longer, as I became acquainted with the area book that contains records about what we've taught and to whom. We actually had to finish everything on Sunday haha.

Saturday night we taught Brother Tanasee with his family. He's the only one who can speak German. The rest of his family speaks Romanian. He's in a wheelchair and the only member of his family. Moreover, there are 6 people there living in the space of maybe two rooms. I felt really bad for their circumstances, wow. They even fed us a really wonderful meal too. So he's a new convert and we're reteaching the lessons to him. Spaß

Sunday was stake conference, so we got to go to the international UN part of Wien. Totally different look and feel. Everything looks so modern and clean as opposed to where we live (it's still really clean, but it's quite old. It was cool to see all the members in the Vienna stake come. We met in a conference center of some sort, I don't even know.

Also Sunday, we had a lesson with Raby, a 40 year old Egyptian guy who only wears a shirt and a speedo. He's genuinely crazy I believe haha. Nice enough, but has some super strange ideas about drugs when we talked about the Word of Wisdom with him.

So here I am today, typing away in some small internet cafe. Although I have much more time to write emails, I still can't email to friends. Shame. Oh well.

Ummm oh I'll give my address here. The apartment is incredibly nice and is huge. I love it. There are three large rooms plus our kitchen, washer, bathroom and everything. No dishwasher and dryer, but everything else is promising.

Linke Wienzeile 156/14
1060 Wien
Austria

Okay well I miss you all like crazy and love you!!! Hopefully I'll be able to settle into some sort of groove by next week in terms of everything: language, sleep schedule et. all

Love
Elder Ek