Mongolian Lady Miracle Sept. 17, 2012

September 17, 2012 Mongolian Lady Miracle

Servus zusammen!

Well first of all, this week we did a lot of work with calling the Elders in the mission office who ended up calling one of the old missionaries who is now back in America (he went home last transfer) to figure out everything with this whole registration issue and we got it just about all figured out. I will actually not have to go back to Rosenheim now, which on one hand is too bad because it would have been great to see it once more, along with Elder Young; but on the other hand it will save a lot of stress, time, and money and we can just concentrate on the mission work in St. Poelten instead of having to worry about all of this transfer deal. I am just about legal in Austria now.

This last week was momentous because we got the apartment completely clean which according to our ward mission leader  is the first time it has been so in a long time. I was able to completely unpack and now I am starting to feel settled in. 

As far as the work goes this week we spent a lot of time tracting and we were able to find a new investigator named Arun Johnson. He is originally from India and speaks English, but not a lot of German. We were able to have a very good first lesson with him and he was really open to the church and excited about the Book of Mormon. The only unfortunate thing is that because of his work he has to travel around a lot and we won't be able to meet with him again for a few weeks. But he was a really nice guy and we are excited for what may come for him. 

This last week I had an austausch with Elder Moon. It was probably the funnest austausch I've had so far and it was really good to catch up on what had happened since junior high. By the way mom, I never knew until now that it was you who told him and Cade Wilkes to steal Mrs. Jensen's stapler so you could put it in green Jello. I guess you can always find out something new about your parents. From last we heard though, Mrs. Jensen still thinks it was just Elder Moon and Cade who were behind it.

Two Sundays ago this Mongolian lady came to our church who we had ran up to us the week before asking for a card to where our church was. The problem was that she could hardly speak German at all and no English, and so it was very difficult to communicate with her. However, when she came, we went to the computer in the church office and pulled up the google translator to communicate. We found out that she was a member from Mongolia and was here working to save money. The only problem is she didn't have a lot of money and needed to find a free German class so she could go to school and get around the country. We were able to tell her about the Young Single Adult German Class in Wien (Vienna) and that it was free. She then also asked for a Book of Mormon because she had lost hers on her way here to Austria. Fortunately, of the 5 different languages of Book of Mormon we had in the office, one of them was Mongolian. She started to get really emotional and was super appreciative during it all. What was also a miracle is that Elder Root had been on an austausch with one of the Wien Elders and during the austausch they had a dinner appointment with possibly the only Mongolian speaking member in the Wien wards, Sister Huy is her name. So we told this Mongolian lady that we would have Sister Huy call her to arrange everything with getting around. We called Sister Huy that night and told her the situation. It turned out to be really good, because Sister Huy then called us back later and told us that apparently this Mongolian lady was here working as a nanny in the St. Poelten area in order for her to get money to go to school at one of the music universities in Wien. However, the family she was nannying for signed her to a contract, but took advantage of her. They started only paying her the equivalent of 450 dollars a month and she had to work from 8 am to 9 pm Monday through Saturday and worse they started to get abusive. The Mongolian lady had no way of contacting anyone and didn't know what to do about the language barrier. It just so happens that Sister Huys husband is a lawyer and so they were able to basically rescue her from the mess she was in. The Mongolian lady is now living with them in Wien and finding a new job while learning German from the church. It was a miracle that it all fell in place and that nothing worse happened to her. I guess that was the extent of this week, but it's been great to work with Elder Root here.

Thank you so much for the birthday package you have sent. I really appreciate it a lot. Question, has the package I sent arrived yet? As for mail here, we get letters in a post box and if we get a package we just receive a slip in our mail box saying that a package is waiting for us at the post office to pick up. 

Your question from last week: by the end of my time with Elder Field I had lost 41 pounds. After a transfer with Elder Young I regained 10 back, but it stayed the same through the next transfer.  So I have kept off the 31 pounds I've lost since the beginning of my mission which isn't bad.

Dad, thank you so much for the mission story you sent me. I've heard that one from you in the past, but it was good just to have it in its whole like you sent it to me. Keep those stories coming. Thank you for having served a mission and being such a good example for me. 

Mom, I already have an idea for what I would like for Christmas if you are willing to put the work in. If it's too much don't worry about it, but I figure I could at least give you a notice in advance so you can decide. What I would like is a calendar with pictures of our family in it. Specifically I would like each month dedicated to members and I kind of thought of an order for it:

January: Brittney and Brandon

February: Mom

March: Tyson

April: Amber and Rolf

May: Zach, Emily, Koen (I don't know when Rolf's birthday is.

June: Grandma and Grandpa Crow, Nydeggers, Ricks family

July: Friends

August: Dad

September: Bekah

October: Grandma Bodily, Roberts family

November: DeMilles

December: The family

If you need any help with the friend pictures I am sure Sister Pearce could help you out with that and getting photos from facebook. If you are willing to do that let me know cause I would absolutely love it. 

 I really love you all and I appreciate everything you are all doing for me. Thank you guys so much, love you lots.

Elder Bodily

Gott sei mit euch bis aufs wiedersehen

No, that was not a mistake Sep.t 10, 2012

 Well it's been a great week this week in Rosenheim...

No, that was not a mistake. I said Rosenheim, not St. Pölten. Just to add more confusion I'm actually in Vienna right now.

Story Time: You have to register and unregister whenever you move cities in Germany and Austria. If you move to Austria you have to have a police record from the last country you lived in. When I unregistered from Germany, the lady in the office was either new or didn't know what she was doing because when we asked how we could get a police record she said I had to get it from a website after the unregistering process went through. Well, I got to Austria and went to the website that the lady gave me on my P day. I got to the website and it said specifically on it, "You cannot get a Police Record from the internet" in German of course. Just to make sure I didn't read anything wrong, my ward mission leader and I went through to find out what we needed to do so that I could get the record in order to legally register in Austria. After searching on the website we found out I needed to go back to Germany in order to get it from the Rosenheim registration place, because that's where I last lived. I talked with President Miles and we received permission to go Thursday back to Rosenheim and stay the night with Elder Young and Elder Gochnour because the register place was only open from 7-10 in the morning. (Just by the way it was incredibly fun to be with Elder Young again and be together as a foursome). Friday morning we went to the register place and talked with a different lady. That lady was not entirely sure as to what I had to do being in my current situation, so she gave me a phone number to call. The problem was that the call center didn't open until 3. So we had to spend a day working in Rosenheim with the Elders there again. I called the place and they referred me to a different website to know what to do. We went to the website and found out that I have to be reregistered in Germany before I can get the police record again, but by this time the place was closed and wouldn't open until Monday morning. Because it takes four hours to ride from Rosenheim to St Pölten, we had to stay the night again, but we talked to President Miles and the Mission secretary as to what we should do. We got it arranged so that Elder Young and I could sign a paper where he would have permission to reregister and unregister me in Rosenheim. So Saturday at noon we headed back to St Pölten and today Elder Young is registering me in Rosenheim so that in 2 weeks (which is the time required for this process) I can come back to Rosenheim and apply for a police record so that I can register in Austria legally. Then after that Elder Young can unregister me after a couple of days. It was a very complicated process, but it was a fun journey nonetheless. The good news is, is that I am registered Germany so if by some chance I do get in trouble with Austria, all they will do is just ship me back to Rosenheim. It was great to see Rosenheim and Elder Young again through all of this. All of this should be taken care of pretty easily now.

Funny side note, I had to ride 5 hours to get from Munich to St Pölten when I first got here; we then had to ride 8 hours from Rosenheim and back last week. I will have to take another 8 hours for the journey in two weeks. Also the week after that I have to take 10 hours to go to Munich and back for a District Leaders counsel that they hold every 4 months (I was lucky enough to go to one of these). Plus we have to spend 2 hours going to Vienna and back every Tuesday, and an additional 2 hours for my austauschs with the rest of my district and the Zone leaders. I am getting a lot of train miles for just one transfer.

As far as the work goes, we were able to find Elder Root his first investigator and he had his first appointment after 7 and a half weeks in St Pölten.

Today we are having a P day in Vienna with Elder Bassett and Moon and then staying the night for a Zone leader training counsel that we have tomorrow here. Which we actually have to go here pretty soon.

Before that I just wanted to say that I am very happy the reception went well for Amber. I am sure it was fantastic. Also, what is my blog address? Another quick question, first of all thank you so much for getting me Bishop Rife's book; I was wondering if when you send it if you could also get me Gordon B Hinckley's book "Stand a Little Taller"? That would be fantastic. I am going to be sending pictures from last transfer home this week. Also Dad, I was wondering if you could send me some information about your mission: for example which cities you served in and how long, what some of your companions were like, some of your interesting experiences and good stories, etc. I wanted to learn even more about your experience. 

Thank you so much for everything you have all done for me. I really appreciate all of your support. I love you all and I'm so grateful for this opportunity I have to be here.

Elder Bodily

Gott sei mit euch bis aufs wiedersehen 

Do you know Mekamma? Sept 17, 2012

 September 17:   Do you know Mekamma?

Servuss Zusammen!

First of all, congratulations Amber for getting married. I am very happy for you and it sounds like Rolf is a great guy. I was supporting you in spirit through it all. I hope everything goes well for you two and the kids. I am so excited for you both and I know everything will be good for you two. Love you lots.

Well we had transfer day and it was very hard to leave Rosenheim and Elder Young behind. That has really been an awesome experience for me that I will remember forever. However, I am way excited for the new adventures that are here in St. Poelten (I am using an English keyboard so I can't use the umlauts). We have a lot of work to do here. At the moment there are no investigators so we need to change that around. I think Elder Root is going to be a good companion to work with because he is very humble and really wants to work. I guess what I'm really excited about is that Brother Harmer - my good friend Jake Harmer's dad, who served here in St. Poelten for 11 months during his mission to Austria (speaking of which I will get you a letter when I can about what is going on in the branch). The first thing that a member said to me when I went to church on Sunday was if I knew a Mekamma because he told me that he informed him through facebook that I was the new missionary here. It took me a little while to recognize that he was trying to say Mike Harmer. Since Mike would know, it was Brother Schildbroeck who was the ward mission leader when he was here, but is now the Melchezidek Priesthood Quorum leader. By the way Mike, what other areas did you serve in?

As for St. Poelten, the area is a lot like Rosenheim in the sense that it's a bike area (though we don't use them as much as in Rosenheim) and we are about as far away from Vienna as Rosenheim was from Munich, but instead of mountains it has a lot of giant hills (kind of like the Appalachians). Our Ward Mission Leader is Brother Bauer who is really nice and excited about the work. The Brother Schildbroeck (son of the above said Schildbroeck) is the manager of a regional Football team (not soccer football, actually football) that plays against other teams throughout Austria and he has the missionaries come once every two weeks or so for about an hour to give the team help and tips, because apparently if you're American you know everything about Football and they will listen to whatever you say. It will be fun though to see. 

As for District Meetings we meet in Vienna every week. One of the Elders in my district, Elder Basset, is training Elder Moon who went to Oak Canyon and was in my German Class; so I get to be his first District Leader in the field. 

Real quick my actually mailing address is Trautson str. and not Trauson str. Hopefully if you sent anything it will still make it to me just fine.

I have been really blessed with amazing companions. Elder Davies and Elder Field were both amazing, but Elder Young has been an amazing friend. It's hard to say because I didn't think I could get any better. We had a ton of fun and we have a lot of things planned for when we get back off the mission including being roommates along with Jake and some others at BYU. We are also thinking that we might possibly extend the thirty days that are possible on our mission because where we both just miss the winter semester start line, we figured if we extended then we would be closer to when spring semester starts and we could come back together on the plane. We will see though, there is still lots of time.

I figured out why Elder Roots original trainer was transferred out, or my guess anyways. Elder Volz was sick for a few weeks, which made it hard for him to really train a new missionary. From what I can tell there are no identified investigators here. He forgot to explain to Elder Root that you could have the mission pay for train tickets and so Elder Root has been going with little money and has been near starving by the sounds of it.  I nearly starved just living here since Thursday based off the little food there was. So we've been basically white washing it.  Today we are spending the day cleaning the apartment. Elder Root said that Elder Volz was cool, it was too bad he had been sick, but he's glad there was a change. Prays would be greatly appreciated for us because we will need them here. Brother Harmer's letter actually helped me a lot, because at first I was a little discouraged, especially when you just come from an incredible area like Rosenheim with an awesome companion where you always had effective work going. 

In other news I finally got to see both Elder Stapleton and Elder Terry who were the two people in my mission I knew beforehand. When I went to go drop off  Elder Young to find out who he was training we got off at the Munich Train Station where we found out a bunch of Missionaries had been riding on the same train as us for the last 45 minutes, but we didn't know. Among those was Elder Stapleton. There was much rejoicing! Then later as we went down the train station I ran into Elder Terry who was also going to be training. On Saturday we had a meeting where the Zone Leaders met with the District Leaders and their companions in our Zone. Elder Stapleton isn't district leader, but his district is half in the Vienna Zone half in the Salzburg zone and so he was acting as the representative from his district in the Vienna Zone, so I got to see him there again. After the meeting we all went to a place called Herbs in Vienna where they worship the missionaries because we come so often. They have this challenge there where you have to eat this giant Cor-don-blu with a bowl of fries and salad - of the 10 of us there, only Elder Root, Elder Stapleton and I completed the challenge. 

I have a favor to ask you mom and dad. Is it possible to get another one of Bishop Rife's Divine Virtue books? I gave my copy to Elder Young because he really enjoyed what he read from it. 

Well I should probably get going. My emails might have to be on the shorter side from here out (though not too short) because there is only one computer in the church here that we can use and so we have to share and that takes a lot of time. Before I go, Happy Birthday this week Bekah! There is a package with a b-day gift for you in it! I can't believe that you are now 10. Also Brittney and Brandon, I hope the mud slides haven't caused too many problems for you. It didn't sound fun at all. I'm sorry for those who have had mud come all through their homes.

Love you lots

Elder Bodily

Gott sei mit euch bis aufs wiedersehen