Salzburg Austria Week 3

Mom wanted to see our apartment!

Our church building.

The Von Trapp Family Home

Working on my Chaco tan!!

Hello family and friends! I hope all my fans back home are doing well! As for me, things in Salzburg are prima. This week has been fantastic. We are still waiting to find our first investigator and teach our first lesson. One of these days it will happen.

We have spent a lot of time finding so we can teach some people. Most people either don’t care about God, hate Mormons, or think we are Zeugne Jehovoas (Jehovah's Witness) -- and just avoid us like the plague. People around here really can’t stand Jehovah’s Witnesses.

A funny story this week... There is this one JW lady who always stalks people at the Bonholff train station. She gets really excited to see us because she loves telling Mormons how dumb we are. She basically followed us onto our train in order to argue with us. We were having a pretty nice conversation about the Church with a guy on the train when she found us. I was about to tell her to leave us alone when the man we were talking to started telling her that she was from the Devil and how much he hates Jehovah’s Witnesses. He went as far as telling her that maybe people would listen to her if she was not as ugly. I’m not sure why people say Europeans can be rude?  :)

It has been a pretty normal week to be honest. Deutsch is coming pretty good. I am studying super hard to learn all the grammar rules. That’s the hardest part of Deutsch. Like instead of saying, “we are grateful we can go to church today", they would say, "we are grateful that we to church today can go”.  It can be super trippy.

Today we had a super solid P-day. We hiked this huge mountain in Salzburg called Geistberg. It took us about 3 hours but the view was unbeleivable. It was a good object lesson for missions. When we were climbing, it was super hard. There were times when I wanted to quit and go back. I just had to put my head down and keep going. It was all worth it when we got to the top and had the most amazing view I have ever seen. I thought what a shame it would have been if we would have quit. Missions are hard. There are times when I think how much easier it would be to just be at home playing golf and hanging out with girls.

God made missions to be hard for a reason. He has sent Elder Lyman on a mission to learn something about Elder Lyman. Even though we have not had too much success, when it comes to teaching lessons and having investigators, I have learned that if I work as hard as I can everyday and do everything in my power to be the best servant of the Lord, not a single day of my mission will have been wasted.

I’m doing my best to be like clay and letting the Lord mold me into what he wants and needs — instead of what I want to be.

Love you all and buckle down because its GENERAL CONFERENCE THIS WEEKEND. LETZZZZZZZ GOOOOOOOOO!!

Elder Lyman