Thursday, February 28, 2013

Liebe Familie,
Sister Armstrong drove for the first few days until we learned that she hates driving and I love driving. We called the mission office to ask if I could be the designated driver. So, I have been the driver since then. But, I need to get an Austrian driver's license. So we have had to drive to Salzburg a few times this week for paperwork. I also had to have a physical this week! It is a crazy process, but the license is good for life, so I guess it's worth it:] It's also a little crazy driving here because all of the lines on the roads are white! But I'm getting used to it. Don't you worry:]
Our mission president has really been urging us to clean out our area books. There will be a lot of white-washing next transfer with all of the new missionaries coming in, and that will make the process a lot easier. As we have been cleaning them, we have been calling former investigators, potentials, usw., and we have had a lot of success in finding this week! We set up appointments with a couple of people for this week just by calling them on the phone and asking if they had interest again. 
When I first got here, I noticed a lot of license plates had "BR" on them. I asked which city that was, and Sister Armstrong said it was probably Braunau, a city at the other end of our area that we never visit. I told her I thought we should visit it at least once. She agreed, especially because we needed to go by on a potential to write down his address. We can't go often because we are limited on how many miles we can drive each month. But we planned to go Saturday, and to see what happens. As we cleaned out the area book, we organized the former investigators who lived in that area, and called a few of them to see if we could come by. What a day of miracles that was! We called a lot of people, and two families agreed that we could come by. We went by one family from Romania first. They have 7 children, and they were all excited to have us there. The youngest of the kids is 8, so that is wonderful, too. They will all need a Romanian Book of Mormon, as they gave away the one that they had to a friend. They still have one in German, but Romanian is better. They chatted for awhile with us. They then asked if we had other appointments, and we told them we did. They asked if they could feed us dinner first, and we agreed. That was wonderful, too! The dad is also very into music. So, they put on a mini concert for us! He played a traditional Romanian song on his accordian, and two of his sons accompanied him on trumpet and saxophone. It was a lovely afternoon. Then we headed into Braunau and dropped by on a couple of potentials. We gave one a Book of Mormon, and made an appointment for this week. On our way back, Sister Armstrong thought we were done, but I remembered that there was still someone else she had called. Then she remembered, too, and we found our way to their residence. It was very cool! They said they had waited for us earlier that afternoon, but when we hadn't come, they had gone to Germany for the afternoon. They had only recently returned when we klingeled their apartment! They come from Albania, and they fled because of the war 15 years ago! I cannot believe the people we meet here. The mom and dad were very interested in learning more, and they have four kids. We will try to get the kids to join us next time. We could not believe how many new promising investigators we found just by cleaning out our area books! 
There will be more news on these families to come:]
This area is absolutely gorgeous, and I am so grateful to be here on my mission right now! Helping these people realize their potential is indescribable. 
Alles Liebe!
Liebe,
Sister Stephanie Reid

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