We're trying to get President Monson's call of combined missionary and member efforts really going in our ward.

October 28, 2013

Servus!

This was a pretty good week. We had interviews with President on Saturday and they went really well. They were the last interviews I will have with him until I am departing home. We also had Stake Conference this weekend which was a special blessing for me in that I was able to see members from St. Pölten again. When we went to the Saturday afternoon session, I came in looking for some of them and couldn't find them. As I went to go find a seat, I recognized a man named Mr. Brunnsteiner. He was the husband and father of one of my favorite families in St. Pölten but he himself was not a member. However, during my time there I had built a pretty good relationship with him. He recognized me instantly as well and we were really excited to see each other and visit again. I ended up sitting with him that evening and he had pointed out that the ward in St Pölten had made up the choir in front. It was really great to see them and what was especially cool was to see that a couple of the less active members that I and previous missionaries had worked with were involved with the choir and as I found later, were actively attending church. It was really cool to see them.  Afterwards as I got to visit with the whole Brunnsteiner family, the husband himself asked if my companion and I would be allowed to come have dinner with them one evening in the next week. President Miles was there at the conference so I went over and explained the situation to him and he said it could be a great missionary appointment and that I could go once. So, either this Friday or the next week sometime I get to go visit St. Pölten and have dinner with the Brunnsteiners. That made me really excited and also to see that the ward was doing really well.

Also this week we were able to give Sister Jelineks neighbor a blessing before she went in for her operation and while she was there, her granddaughter Denise who we have been taking to a number of YSA activities came to general conference which was her first time to church. She said she really enjoyed it and would like to come more regularly in the future. I think little by little she is feeling more and more of the spirit and I believe soon we will be able to start teaching her pretty regularly.

This week we also able to get in contact with an investigator that Elder Smith and I had found back in June named Jan. He was someone we felt had a lot of potential, but we lost contact with him. We found out as we met that he had been going through a more difficult time with work and had been bouncing back and forth between here and Poland. Our lesson with him was very spiritual and uplifting and afterwards he said that this week he would be in Poland, but he wants to come to church on Sunday and after that he will be staying frequently in Wien. You could tell he had really felt the spirit.

Right now our ward mission program, that our ward mission team and us put together is working very well. We visited the Bishop this week and he's a big fan, and now we'll try to meet with all the members in the weeks to come. We're trying to get President Monson's call of combined missionary and member efforts really going in our ward.

I hope all is well, I love you lots.

Elder Bodily

Gott sei mit euch bis aufs Wiedersehen