Stocked up on warm clothing!

December 3, 2012
Servus Zusammen!

I hope it has been a good week for everyone.

From history we learn that at the height of the Ottoman Empire when they were the most powerful kingdom in the Eurasian powers, they tried twice to extend their reaches into Western Europe, but twice were stopped at the gates of Vienna. Most historians credit this to the Austrian winters they had to fight against. Well, I know what they mean now. I made the great decision of deciding that we would work this week in the outskirts of town where we would have to bike 30 minutes to an hour to get to and then have to bike back in the evening. It gets dark here about 4-4:30 and it has dropped 7 degrees Celsius from two Sundays ago to now, but the worst part was biking home against the wind. I think we are going to be sticking to foot for awhile now. I am pretty sure I almost killed Elder Chapman though. He is about a half inch to an inch taller than me, but about 70 pounds lighter (even after my weight lost), so in other words he had no body fat to protect him. Anyways, today we've made sure to stock up on buying lots of warm clothing. But hey I could be somewhere where it's 120 degrees throughout the day so I'm not complaining.

This week we were with our ward mission leader at a part member family's house. The mom and the daughter are members, but two of the other kids aren't and the husband doesn't like the church very much and doesn't like having the missionaries over when he is home, so we can only visit when he is away. While there though we invited the 14 year old son, Tobias, to church since the dad leaves it up to them to choose as to whether they come or not. He said he would and then he actually came yesterday. During Sunday School we were able to talk about the basic beliefs of our church with him, in particular Jesus Christ and the restoration, and he was rather interested. Not as interested as Joseph Smith was when he was 14, but nonetheless he seemed to have sincere interest and he wanted to read the Book of Mormon by the end of our time talking to him. It will be a little difficult meeting with him and with his family because of how opposed the dad is against the church and doesn't allow the topic of the gospel to come up in the house too often, but even if we have to go slowly I think we can see some great things come for Tobias. 

We were informed this week that we will be having 90 extra missionaries coming into our mission between March and sometime in the summer. We currently have 140 so that's more than half of what we already had. A lot of people will be training in the months to coming.

I hope all is going well for everyone. Again I am going to have to cut emails short this week because of some scheduling issues, but I love you all and wish the best.

Elder Bodily

Gott Sei Mit Euch Bis Aufs Wiedersehen