May 1 2012

May 1, 2012 Hi, I typed a long letter yesterdays at the church and then the computer went off and I lost it all. will try to write more now. We are going on a walk through the woods this morning with the ward here in Linz, Austria. It is a big ward with about 150 members that come to church. Most of them are related in some way.

The Relief Society president speaks great English and she was introducing us to everyone. This is my brother, and this is my cousin and this is the brother of my sister-in-law etc. It will take awhile to get to know the people. They are all very nice and are excited that we are here. They have not had a missionary couple here for a long time. We will be helping the missionaries with the less active members, by visiting with them and inviting them to come back to church.

 Later we will be working with the Young Single Adults. They have about 12 kids that come to the activities. We went to Family Home Evening with them last night. They had a lesson and then ate dinner here at the church. They played ping-pong and Dad had fun playing with them.

 I was going to tell you about coming to Germany. We just had a great flight from SLC to Seattle, and then to Amsterdam. We had about 25 missionaries and 45 members of the BYU orchestra on our plane. At Amsterdam we all split off and went separate ways. We had two Elders with us. We raced through the airport and barely made it on the plane.

When we landed in Munich, our suitcases didn't make it so we are happy that we had our carry-on with us. The Mission President and his wife met us. They are very nice and took great care of us. She is the daughter of Apostle Nelson. We had our orientation and then some teaching and had wienerschnityel, salad, rolls, potatoes, and dessert.

The next day on Thursday, April 26, we went to the middle of Munich to look around and then had dinner with 3 other couples at a nice restaurant. In the morning we had a meeting and some of the missionaries had transfers. We were told that we would be serving in Linz, Austria. It was not a surprise that we were going to be going to Linz, Austria. The lady in the office told us that our apartment in Linz was going to be nice although no one had seen it yet. The word out was that one of the members found it for us and that the RS president was trying to get a bed and table and a few other things for us. The Mission President didn't know that we already knew where we would be going. We were excited about serving in Austria!

So Friday morning, April 27, 2012 the Mission President took us to the train station with 6 bags and our backpacks. We were pretty loaded with baggage. I wish I could have had a movie of the mission president and Dad trying to get all the luggage and us on the train in the 3 minutes that it was in the station! We almost didn't make it! A couple of guys were holding the train doors open while they were automatically trying to close. After the commotion, we had a peaceful ride to Linz, through Germany and Salzburg.

 The mission couple that lives in Hag, Austria, met us at the train with the 2 elders from here. Otherwise it would have been a joke trying to get everything off the train and into their little car. The missionaries, Brent and I took a bus back to our apartment and met Elder and Sister Hopkin there. We unloaded all the luggage and went up to look at our [home] for the next 18 months.

We were pleasantly surprised to find a nice apartment with 2 bedrooms, a nice kitchen, bathroom and living room with a little deck. They had bought some groceries for us and new rust colored bedding to go with our bright apple green walls/curtains in our bedroom. It will be fine although it might keep us awake at night! We also have a new bright green toilet seat that looks kind of like the jungle, pictures later! We have one borrowed rug, table and 2 chairs, and a little couch in the living room. The bed in the bedroom is 2 twin beds pushed together so that is nice. We also have a large wardrobe cabinet in our bedroom. There is nothing in the other bedroom but our luggage, but we are suppose to get 2 more mattresses to put in that room for visitors, so welcome to any of you that want to come and visit. We are in an apartment building and we are on the 3rd floor although it is really the 4th floor. They call the bottom floor the earth floor. Thank goodness they have an elevator!! You have to use your key to work the elevator or it won't go up or down. I think you pay extra for the elevator and those that do not pay, do not ride!

The Hopkin's took us shopping and thank goodness they did because we will not have a car and it is quite far to any of the bigger stores where we can buy food and supplies for the house. There is a little Billa grocery store down about 2 blocks for basic bread/milk stuff but it is expensive. There is however, an ice cream store behind the Billa, a member owns it and so we get free ice cream. Anyway, that is what the missionaries told us. So, Friday night we were pretty exhausted and went to bed early. Saturday morning we arranged all the things in the apartment, then the missionaries came to show us the way to the church. It is about a 30 minute walk, but we get to walk through a little park and it is not too strenuous for 2 old people.

A man at the church gave us a key so we could get in and use the computer. That is good but we would rather have one at home. This one does not have a printer or scanner and Dad really needs to print some things off. One of the members said we could use hers, she said she only lives a short distance from us. Sometimes when they tell us that, we find it takes us longer than they think.

Here is the second part about our walk in the woods.................

We had a great time wandering in the woods this morning, we had about 100 members attend. We only went about 3 miles, but it was easy going, the place was beautiful, and the company delightful! I think there were more kids there than adults. We walked about half was and then ate lunch and then walked back to the cars.

We were invited to ride with an older couple, she is 81 and I don't know how old he is. She is quite a fun little lady, When she heard that we needed things for the apartment, she brought us some crochet hangers and a lamp and 2 chairs and a hanging lamp and a mirror. All vintage of course! She proceeded to tell us that when we left in 18 months, she wanted it all back so that she could put it in her attic again. She brought along 3 grandchildren, 1 seemed to be autistic and would go up to people and hug them or he would just sit and talk to himself about Jesus. She said that he usually spends the week in a home for the disabled, he is about 18 years old.

When she brought the stuff to our apartment, she saw some of the neighbor ladies and told them we were from America and that we didn't speak German, but that we would be their friends.