Week #50 Personal Revelation!

What a time to be a missionary! It is so cool to meet all of these cool people from all over the place! Sometimes they do not continue to stay in contact but I feel like I am a better person after I meet them. Let me tell you about a few of them...

Elder Mendenhall (my companion) and I

One of the first people we met this week is called Toni. He moved from Romania to Austria a long time ago and he has been investigating the church 10+ years. However, we started contact again and he said he wanted to learn something from us which is always nice to hear. We hope to focus on the Book of Mormon with him so that his testimony his strengthened. He makes incredible spaghetti so that is a plus for meeting with him. 

We met two girls this week who are finishing studies in Wien and heading home for the summer. We were able to meet them both twice (we did not meet them together but it helps with the story) and we were able to talk about the Restoration. Both girls have been members in their church for their whole lives. The first girl, Helene, told us that she was really interested to read the Book of Mormon. The second girl, Rachel, told us that she already found the truth and did not think she needed any more. Sadly, both of them are leaving Wien so we can't meet anymore but we are referring Helene and hopefully she meets up with missionaries in her area! 

To be fair to Rachel, I would have a hard time learning more about another church because I have been a member my whole life but during the lesson, I could tell something touched her and sadly, she did not like it. I heard a good comparison which is leaving a dark theater and going straight to sunlight. It can be blinding and one may not like it. It might be the same with the Spirit. They had no idea what it was really like, they feel it, and sadly, they are not interested. It may have been totally different from her side but there is a scripture that says the teacher and learner are both edified by the Spirit. Somewhere in Doctrine and Covenants. Anyway, it was just interesting to see two different reactions to a similar message and the same Spirit. 

We also have been spending time with some members this week. One member we have is such a bro. He moved from Ireland to Austria as a kid and he has been able to do German and English very well. They had us over for a nice barbeque and then we sat down with him and talked about so much stuff. Ministering, member work, the mission. It was great. His name is Brother Byrne and he is way cool. He taught Sunday school this week and he explained the Apostasy and Restoration with a cool analogy. There is a mirror (the Church) hanging by two strings (Revelation and Prophets/Apostles) to a nail at the head (Christ). Apostasy comes and removes one of the strings. The mirror falls and breaks in pieces. No one can collect all of the pieces and put them back together. The Lord must restore the mirror and use the same kind of nail and strings as before. I thought it was a way good analogy and we used it a few times this week during lessons. 

Where I live! 

Grey building in the middle.  We are at the very top.

We also met this cool guy named Zelim this week. He loves America and he likes to practice English with us. He actually came in good contact with the church through the English course they had here. It is interesting how we can reach out to people in so many ways! 

Yeah, that is pretty much all I got for this week. For a spiritual thought, I wanted to talk about the Book of Mormon. I have been studying the Book of Mormon for the last few months with the Institute Manual and a notebook to write down spiritual impressions. It was so cool to learn some many different truths that I did not realize before. Here are a few for example: (sadly I do not have scripture references to go with it)

1. Faith, hope, and Charity- the Foundation of all Righteousness

2. The Brother of Jared was rebuked for not praying for 3 hours. It shows how important prayer is to God. It also shows how good the Brother of Jared was to accept the correction and move forward. He would later see Christ in the Spirit, which rarely happened. Correction is one of the best ways to move forward

International House of Prayers! (why not)

IHOP in Vienna 

3. Moroni, in Moroni chapter 1, chose to continue writing even though he thought he was done. His goal was to help the Lamanites come closer to Christ. It was interesting to me because Moroni's people had been destroyed by them and they were the cause of 21 years of lonliness for Moroni. Yet Moroni still had charity for them and provided more truths for all of us to learn. "Charity never faileth"

I just love what the Book of Mormon has to offer. I don't know what life would be without it. Read it every day! There is so much God wants us to learn and it is so easy to find! 

Love you guys!!!

Elder Evans

We went to the American store today and I bought peanut butter and chips! I'll be honest, I miss American products

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