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| Elders Chapman, Bodily and Davies in front of Ludwigsburg Palace. |
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| Making deep fried Mahl Tashen. |
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| Mahl Tashen where Germany meets American South Cuisine! |
Monday, July 29, 2013
This week has been rather crazy!
July 29, 2013
So you know how I told you that
Elder Naegle was going to be my new companion? Well, he is in Ireland right
now. The morning of transfers President Miles called me and told me that for
the time being Elder Naegle will not be my companion because as he went to
unregister from the city of Linz where he was formerly serving. The people at
the city hall told him that his visa papers did not get registered and that he
had passed the leeway time that he was allowed to stay in the country. More
than that it was a European Union law so he had to leave any European Union
country except Ireland which is the only EU country willing to work the
situation out with him. We will find out in a week or two as to whether he will
make it back. The situation though is that the city of Linz lost his visa
papers so that part is their fault, however, they gave specific instructions
that if he didn't get his visa in a certain amount of time that he was to
return a report that the visa didn't come and he didn't report until about a
month and a half later. It's about 50-50 as to whether he will be able to
return or not and we won't find out for a little while what the situation will
be.
As for what is happening to me, I am
currently working in a threesome with my roommates, the Wien 4 Elders, who are
Elder Martin and Elder Reading and we are covering both areas at the moment. We
are going to stay as a threesome for the next couple of weeks until Elder
Naegle gets back or we find out that he can't return and President Miles will
figure out a way to find me a new companion.
However, that's where the next step
of craziness comes in. Both areas are doing well with the work and keeping busy
so we had to figure out how to rearrange our appointments and activities or
figure out a way to get a number of splits so that we could do everything and
so we have been running around non stop from one thing to another and we had to
cancel a few things which I will explain later. Then there was also the
question of church and in Wien very few people have cars and our apartment is
far out away from the church. So since our churches were at the same time we
had to have the senior couple from Wien come and pick me up and take me to my
church while the other Elders went to theirs. Afterwards we were to meet back
up somewhere in between. However, that didn't quite work out as planned which
leads to the next bit of craziness.
On Saturday I developed a chest
infection and a sore throat . On Sunday it then got worse for the chest
infection as well as the sore throat. I
lost my voice to the point that I could only speak slightly through squeeks. I
went to church with the Strongs, the senior couple, but after 20 minutes the
second counselor in our ward, Brother Zickbauer, said although I was the only
missionary there his family was going to take me home because I looked and
sounded dead. He and the Bishop gave me a blessing before I left and said that
they would find people to make sure the investigators were more than taken care
of and then I left with the Zickbauers. They were already probably my favorite
if not one of my favorite families from the ward, but then they went the whole
ten yards and let me rest while they found any possible medication that could
help. Brother Zickbauer had been sick
earlier this week, so he was already stocked on all sorts of good stuff, as
well as keeping me there and making lunch and dinner for me while the other
Elders went about and did what they needed to with their ward. Brother
Zickbauer had also had pneumonia on his mission like I did back in February and
thinks that something happened that caused it to act up again.
Our guess as to what we thought may
have happened is the following: For both my ward and the Wien 4 Elders ward,
this week they were swarmed with service projects. When we had to take over
both areas that became too much, and we had to cancel some service because it
conflicted with appointments from the other wards side. However, the weird
thing is that when we went to go tell some of these people that we wouldn't be
able to make it to their service project because of conflicting appointments
and what not because of transfers, they told us straight up no that we couldn't;
and then they made us feel guilty and
said things wouldn't work out if we didn't come, (which is not a common
response at all from members ever). Anyways, we got wrapped into doing all the
projects and we had to cancel some of our appointments because of it. As to
where I got sick, this week was the hottest week in Wien in the last twenty years
and the service was essentially all heavy lifting (furniture, hay rolls, etc). Sometimes we were lifting furniture up 4
flights of stairs in apartment buildings. Because I was the biggest I usually
got involved with the heaviest matters. To give you an idea I lost 8 pounds
this week alone from work in the heat and we did over 21 hours of that this
week. With the heat and heavy lifting it probably broke down my body and
because of my former pneumonia and all the dust and what not from the furniture
and fields it probably shot my immune system.
Well mom, you asked me this week to
be completely honest about my health, so I hope I built it up enough. The truth
is though I was doing really well for the two weeks leading up to this week.
Because of the Zickbauers though I am doing a lot better. I still haven't got
my voice completely back, but I can at least hold out conversations and I am
able to move about. But don't worry mom, after emails we are heading straight
back to the apartment for some rest.
I was able to meet up with the
Stapletons a little bit though before I came here. They were going to the
Schönbrunn Palace which is right by our apartment and so I was able to pick up
what you sent with them and talk to them for a little bit.
I hope it didn't come off to
stressed in this email, but things here have been a little crazy as you might
imagine. I hope you are all doing well.
Amber if it does work out that I
could come to yours and Rolfs sealing I would absolutely love that. That would
be something very special since I wasn't able to make it to the wedding.
I hope you are all doing well. I
love you lots.
Elder Bodily
Gott sei mit euch bis aufs
Wiedersehen
*Added information entered by Elder
Bodily's mom. As you know, moms do worry and I have been worried since his
pneumonia feeling that he didn't get an
antibiotic or the right thing to help.
When Elder Bodily had his walking pneumonia our doctor here in Orem
wanted to send him an antibiotic and a refill, but the postal service couldn't
send it through the mail to Germany.
Shauna Stapleton contacted me last week and invited me to send something
to Houston with them. They left this
past Thursday morning to pick up their son from his mission in Germany. The
package that the Stapleton's delivered to my son this morning had the
antibiotic from his doctor!
Monday, July 22, 2013
Cool experience with a less active member this week
July 22, 2013
Servus!
Well we had transfer calls this
week. I really expected Elder Smith and I to stay another transfer together,
but the plans are different. First of all Elder Smith is going to a city called
Innsbruck. It's one of the most coveted spots in the mission because it's in a
small valley right in the middle of where the highest mountains in Austria are.
If you think of the shape of Austria as a chicken drum stick he will be in the
middle of the bone part. As for me... I am going to be greenie busting again
(with Elders Young, Smith, and now my new companion this will be my third
time). His name is Elder Naegle and he is from Alpine, Utah. He was in Elder
Smiths MTC group, he was Elder McGinns MTC companion, and Elder Stapleton was
his trainer who has been with him for the last three transfers. I don't know
him personally though yet. And of course I will be staying here in Wien 3rd
ward. I am excited for the upcoming transfer, but I will definitely miss Elder
Smith. Even though it was only one transfer we had a ton of fun and we made a
really good team. I learned a lot from him and he is going to do some good work
in Innsbruck, I expect him to be AP one day. This Thursday is transfer day.
In my apartment the other Elder
Smith is heading home and Elder Martin will be getting a new companion named
Elder Reading who is at his year mark now.
This week for the work things went
great. Rebecca is making lots of progress and getting more and more excited
about her baptism. Ambrol is doing fantastic as well. We set a specific date
for him for his baptism, August 17th, the week after Rebecca's. He is someone
who just gets so excited about the gospel it's quite amazing. They were both at
church yesterday as well as two other investigators we weren't sure if they
were coming. So it was awesome to see them there.
We had a really cool experience with
a less active member this week. I think I am just going to copy and paste what
I wrote in my letter to President Miles:
This week we had a really cool
miracle that I wanted to share. It was about giving a less active a blessing,
but everything that went along with it fell in place perfectly because of the
spirit. We had a finding day in our area last Saturday and the day before we
spent some time to plan out everything. We went through the area book and
picked out old investigators from two different districts in Wien and started
writing them down on a list for people to go by. I found a less active member
in the area book and at first I thought I would just put her record away and
just focus on the former investigators liked we plan, but as we went on I kept
having this feeling that I needed to put her on one of the lists. The next step
came when I was making teams and deciding which lists certain Elders should
work on. For a long time I had a feeling that Elder Riser and Elder Jimenez
needed to take a specific list (which as I later realized was the list that had
the less active member, Amelia, on it). Finding Day came around and at the end
Elder Riser and Jimenez told us that they had made an appointment out for Elder
Smith and I to go by the next day on this less active and give her a blessing.
The amazing part was that she was in the middle of the list and for whatever
random reason that was the first person that the two Elders went by. They
caught her right as she was leaving her house, perfect timing. When we went to
give her blessing she told us she was having an operation on Tuesday and was
really scared for it and she had not thought about a blessing at all, but when
the two Elders came by and recommended it she felt God was looking after her
and taking care of her despite her believing that her faith was weak. She asked
if I would give the blessing and it turned out to be one of the most spiritual
blessings I had ever been a part of. There were some very specific points
addressed, and at the end she was crying, but just filled with joy. During the
blessing you could really feel just how much Heavenly Father loved her and that
she meant the world to him and that he had great plans for her. She was filled
with the spirit and at the end she told us that as soon as the operation was
over and she was recovered she would start coming to church again and
realigning her life towards thinking more about Christ. Everything worked out
perfectly and it was such an amazing experience to see.
We also had interviews with
President Miles this week. They went really good. It was a lot different than
interviews when I was a zone leader because it was a lot more relaxed and fun
and there weren't as many responsibilities to report abou,t so I enjoyed a lot
not having the extra assignments to talk about. During the interview I also got
a new temple recommend because mine expires at the end of next month.
This week I also reached the point
of no return. The bishopric in our ward found out that I played the piano and I
am now the back up to the ward organist/pianist when she is sick or gone and
they already asked me to play at least two musical numbers during sacrament
meeting within the next month and a half.
I am going to wrap up there since we
have a lot to do today, but I will try to send a package this week which has
the memory card for this transfers pictures. I love you all a lot.
Elder Bodily
Gott sei mit euch bis aufs Wiedersehen
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Week was full of some absolute miracles!
July15, 2013
Servus! So this week was full
of some absolute miracles.
The first one I will tell about has
to do with Rebecca. On Wednesday she sent us a text saying she didn't feel like
she was ready for her baptism in August because she didn't feel like she knew
enough. We sent her a text back saying we felt she was more than ready for the
baptism, but we could talk about it the next day during our appointment. On
Thursday we met up with her and she told us about how she felt like she loved
the Book of Mormon, but it was hard for her to remember names, that she has difficulties
remembering certain points, and now because she hadn't read the Bible all the
way through that she wasn't ready enough. I told her I hadn't even read the
bible all the way through yet either, and then explained how her concerns weren't
bad. We read about the qualifications of baptism in Doctrine and Covenants and
about how it hangs on your willingness to follow God, your desire to keep his
commandments and do good, and the humility that comes from seeking after that
of spiritual worth. We also talked a lot about testimony and helped her
realized that she really had a testimony and that was the fundamental key to
her being baptized. It was the most spiritual filled appointment we have had
with her up to this point. Up to this point I think she was concerned as to whether
Heavenly Father was truly going to accept her, but she left more confident than
ever before about her role as a daughter of God, and she came away with an
understanding of just how happy he was for her, and joyful he was that she is
working so hard to follow him and the Savior Jesus Christ. Her baptism is still
on for August 11th and I think everything should continue to go well from here
on.
The second miracle that happened was
with a new investigator named Ambrol. Ambrol was a referral from church headquarters
and we went by on the apartment building where he lived, but there were no
klingels (doorbell, speaker box things) that we could buzz to let him know we
were there and we had no other way to let him know we were there. We started to
walk away when this little kid walked up and asked if we needed to get in. He
went and kicked the door open and we walked right in to this little courtyard
area. A man ran up to us and introduced himself as Ambrol. He was busy, but
wanted to talk to us for a couple of minutes. The building was a foster home
that he owned for refugee kids. Anyway, he had started a year ago searching for
the Truth. He was born catholic, but he felt like he was missing something. He
started looking into other faiths and felt like he was being lead step for
step. Eventually he saw a movie one day that mentioned the Mormons and it
sparked a lot of interest in him. He started investigating on lds.org and came to the realization that the Mormons were the only
ones who had similar beliefs to him and even had more beliefs that completely
made sense. He had a spiritual experience that helped him believe that this was
the right direction for him to go. He requested a visit from the missionaries
and that's when we showed up. He was super excited for the Book of Mormon, the
fact we had a church that wasn't too far away, and that we would take time each
week to teach him our beliefs. He asked if there was any way possible if he
could get baptized before the end of summer. He came to church yesterday and
absolutely loved it. He even fasted so that he could fill the spirit even
stronger and we hadn't even mentioned anything like that to him. He was a
little worried that his little daughter that came with him might not like it,
but she went to primary and made friends instantly and didn't want to leave at
the end. He had to hurry home right after, but we are meeting with him this
week and setting a specific date. I am super excited to really start teaching
him. The ward has already clung to him rather fondly. His parents were Romanian
and Serbian, but he was born and raised in Austria and is really more Austrian
than anything.
The third miracle we had was when we
went by on a former investigator named Frau Hofmann. She is an older lady of
about 80 and was just content with her church, but didn't mind hearing from the
missionaries. We stopped by on her while we were in the area and she told us
how she wasn't doing so well health wise as her legs were causing her a lot of
pain. We told her we could come by the next day and give her blessing for the
sick and she said that would be wonderful. We came back with a member and we
did the anointing and gave her a blessing. She explained how she was wanting to
go visit her family in Berlin because of summer break, but she didn't think she
could make it because of her health. It would be the only time she could have
seen them this year. She was praying as to whether God could provide a way for
her and to see them, and then an hour later or so Elder Smith and I showed up
and offered her the blessing. For her it was a great sign of Heavenly Father
really looking out for her and showing his love.
The fourth that happened this week
is we were to have a home teaching appointment with our new convert Liz at the
library with the elders quorum president. As we got there a lady who was
friends with Liz saw her and came up and talked to us. We asked her how she was
doing and one thing lead to another and she ended up explaining how this had
been a few hard weeks because of some things that were happening in her
apartment building. I can't explain the situation, but it was pretty serious.
She was praying while she was in the library as to whether she could talk to a
close friend about this who could help give her advice, but that she didn't
know who and that is when Liz arrived at the Library. She talked about her
situation and she seemed relieved to get it off her chest and at the end she
seemed to have an idea of what to do, but we also offered her a blessing of
counse.l She said that she would try and call us this week about it and also if
we could give her a spiritual thought.
It was just really neat to be part
of everything that happened this week. There were a lot of prayers of gratitude
and some really strong testimony builders that happened. As you might imagine
you can't help but just love the work when instances like these happen.
That is the extent of what happened
this week. We were also able to do an austausch with the Wien 5 ward elders. I
was able to work with Elder Sponsellar in their area. It's amazing that they
live in the same city as us, but it still takes almost an hour to get from
where we live to where they live with public transportation. Today for our P
day we had a Lederhosen party and went to Stephansdom, the giant church in the
middle of the city, with our roommates, both sets of Wien 5 Elders,
Wienerneustadt Elders, and Wien 4 sisters. We got asked for a lot of pictures
from Asian tourists.
I love you all and I hope you have a
fantastic week.
Elder Bodily
Gott sei mit euch bis aufs
Wiedersehen
Monday, July 8, 2013
Rootbeer and Creme Soda from the secret store!
July 8, 2013
Servus!
I hope you all had a wonderful 4th
of July. Our 4th of July consisted of us buying a lot of Rootbeer and Creme
Soda from the secret store that no one knows about at Vienna's train station
that sells some American products and getting some Ben & Jerry's and making
Rootbeer/Creme Soda Freezes. Even our British roommate couldn't help but be grateful
to celebrate America's Independence Day.
Well this Wednesday marks a month
since the Book of Mormon reading challenge started that we all agreed to. If we
are on tract we should be at 2 Ne 9 if you count in the extra 2 chapters we
would need to read each month. I hope you are all enjoying it. (Just so you
know I am beginning Mosiah right now :)
We were able to meet with Rxxx this
week and she is doing well. We talked about tithing and fasting and she
accepted everything very well. That is one of the lessons that you can truly
tell how dedicated someone is to the gospel if they accept right away or at
least say it makes sense and they will act in faith and hope everything works
out. On Friday Rxxx asked if we could give her a blessing for the sick at
church, but because of an unexpected family issue she wasn't able to make it.
However, we are meeting tomorrow with her and hopefully giving her the blessing
there. Her baptismal date is August 11th and she will be more than ready for
that day I believe.
We had some troubles this week with
getting appointments to work out, but I think this week is going to be a lot
better for some of our investigators and so hopefully they will go through. We
were able to use our time this week to get our area books organized. We
have literally hundreds of former investigator sheets in our apartment. If you
were to take all of the former investigator records from all of my other areas
combined it wouldn't be half as many as the ones here in this part of Vienna.
Elder Nelson made a promise at one point that in each area book there is at
least one person who will be baptized. We have our records organized into 8
books, so now the trick is finding these people. However, we have made a good
system for getting in contact with these people so hopefully things will work
out well.
On Saturday our district had a huge Finding Day in the Wien 5 Ward's area. While I was there I was able to work with Elder Eaker for the whole day and it was incredibly fun. Elder Eaker and I were made and released as Zone Leaders at the same (he was in Munich) and he has been out one transfer longer than I, so we have been out relatively the same time. Not counting my roommate Elder Smith who will be going home in a couple of weeks, Elder Eaker and I are the two oldest missionaries in our zone. If you take the 6 youngest missionaries in our 10 Elder district and put their mission time together Elder Eaker and I, by ourselves have been out longer than that. When he told me this it really blew my mind that I was starting to become an old missionary... but anyways, working with Elder Eaker was great. He works similarly to Elder Davies so it was easy enough to work well with him and we had some really fun conversations. On top of that, towards the end of the day he treated me to what was probably the best Italian Ice Cream I have ever had, which is saying a lot because that is the only type of Ice Cream you can really find here.
Something that has been sticking out
on my mind is what one of my football coaches always had us do; whenever the
4th quarter came around he always had us stick our arm up with four fingers and
start yelling "Fourth Quarter" and get excited about it. The
principle behind it was despite whether we were winning or losing in the game,
the fourth quarter was something special, it's where legends and miracles take
place and it's important to play this quarter as your hardest. It was something
that always made us excited because it was the chance we had to go all at it to
the end and really prove ourselves. This Wednesday I have exactly 6 months left
so tha'ts when my fourth quarter starts. The idea of that has really pumped me
and I am more excited than ever to go full out with my full effort and really
just make these last 6 months the best, hardest working, most fun filled, most
enjoyable months so far. I hope it goes well.
I love you all and I hope you are
having a fantastic week.
Elder Bodily
Gott sei mit euch bis aufs
Wiedersehen
Monday, July 1, 2013
Great ward and the members are super friendly!
July 1, 2013
Servus!
Ok, so this week was a little bit of
a recovering week because our apartment has been pretty sick. I have still been
having some bad headaches from last week and both the Smiths got a really nasty
cold. On top of that Elder Martin got some pretty bad stomach cramps. But!
Everything has worked out and we are all doing a lot better. I havent had any
of the headaches since Friday and the two Smiths are top notch right now.
It still didn't mean that we weren't
able to do work. We were able to meet with our investigator Rebecca twice this
week. She is really making a lot of progress and she is well on track for her
baptism in August. She is a little shy, but as she has gotten used to us she
has opened up a lot and now I think she really enjoys when we meet together.
She loves coming to church and the ward has taken to her very fondly. She gets
along well with the members and they are treating her super good. Yesterday in
church during sacrament meeting she went through about three chapters in 2
Nephi and just marked some of her favorite scriptures in it because she felt
like that was what she needed to do. She is already asking questions from
Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price as well.
We had a fantastic appointment with
a lady named Elsa this week. Elder Smith and his last companion met with her a
few days before I got here and weren't able to make another appointment until
now. When we reached her house she seemed a little nervous and she told us that
this would be our last time meeting together because she was Muslim and she
said she had enough and didn't really need more. That instantly resulted in a
lot of silent prayers for the spirit. We started off with getting to know her
better and she opened up a lot and it became a really enjoyable time and then
she asked, "So what do you actually believe God to be?" From there we
took off following the spirit and asking a lot of questions and relating our
beliefs to what she already believed. You could see the spirit come over her
and by the time we started introducing beliefs that were unique to our church
she accepted them fully. By the end of our time she kept saying how if we had
more time she would love to keep hearing more and that once she gets back from
Albania (she left the next day and won't get back until mid August) we could
start meeting again. It was a great example of how the spirit can reach people's
hearts in a special way.
Do you by chance remember one of my
old investigators back in St. Pölten named Liz Chavez? She moved to St.
Pölten's area with the Hirschman family (my eventual new ward mission leader's
family) for a few weeks, but then moved back to Wien into her own apartment.
Well what I didn't realize is that she is in my ward. She had been in Spain for
vacation up until last week so that's why I hadn't seen her yet. She has since
been baptized as of February. It was really cool to meet with her again. You
can see how much the gospel has lit up her life and she has an awesome attitude
of wanting to share the gospel with the rest of her family.
This week we had a number of service
opportunities to help members in our ward with moving. We have a really great
ward and the members are super friendly. It's a ward that you can tell is
really closely bonded with each other and they are super fun to be around.
So, I had a "brain fart"
this week and forgot that I was supposed to give a talk yesterday in sacrament
about enduring to the end. I remembered as I got to church that morning. The
fortunate thing was that in Germany and Austria they always have priesthood
meeting first, followed by Sunday School, and then Sacrament meeting at the
end. I had time during the first two hours to come up with ideas for my talk
and experiences to share. Thanks to all the talks I had to give while I was in
St. Pölten, I have long gotten over the time where I had to write my whole talk
out rather than just write the ideas down and speak about those. It went well
and I was able to cover my whole 15 minutes. Thankfully Heavenly Father is
willing to help me out with getting ideas of what to talk about after I
completely forgot I had an assignment.
Mom, could you send me a chocolate
chip cookie recipe by chance? I seemed to have lost all my reciepes when I got
here (I probably left them in the Stuttgart cupbard) and our apartment was
craving cookies the other day. Don't worry though, I still have my Swiss bread
recipe memorized so you will still have the chance to have some when I get
home. Thank you.
I sure you love all a lot. I hope
you have a wonderful 4th of July this week. Make sure to celebrate some
American pride for me.
Elder Bodily
Gott sei mit euch bis aufs
Wiedersehen
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