Linz Austria Week 6

Hello friends and family! Its me again. Another great week in the mission field. We had transfer calls this week and found out that Elder Spencer and I will be staying together for another transfer! He only has one more after this one so maybe I will "kill him" here in Linz! I do not really want to because I got really "trunky" when Elder Kingery went home, but who knows what will happen? I was actually sick most of this week with a cold so that was a bummer. We had to stay in the flat for one full day. I am feeling much better now, which is good! 

I would like to tell a story this week just to spice things up a little and add some length to my "short, dry" weekly letter -- whatever that means?  A funny thing happened this week which pretty much reflects how my mission has been going so far.  We got a call from a guy who joined the church here in Linz back in 2012.  He then left the church  a year later to become a Muslim (kind of weird i know).  Anyway, he called us and told us that he heard a voice telling him to go back to the Church. He said he wanted to meet with us so that he could be re-baptized because he had his membership removed.  Of course we went over and had a great lesson with him.  We were super excited for him to come back to the Church!  He described the feelings he had as we met with him as "coming home” — so he sounded pretty golden to us!  We were really happy and excited!  This is when the story gets interesting.....The next day we woke up and we had a voicemail from him saying basically he had NO INTEREST in coming back to the Church and he wanted NO CONTACT with us for the rest of his life!  He literally said, "I never want to see you again!" Anyway we were obviously sad — but got over it.  The mission will definitely throw you a curve ball every once in a while!

Well there it is. A story. Take it for what it’s worth. We have a few solid appointments this week with some new people. Hopefully I will be able to report next week our progress with these new investigators!

For P-day today, we rode this little train up to this really sick old church on a mountain here in Linz. It was super cool!  Pöstling Berd is what it is called. Maybe you can google it. Anyway we went up there with some people in the district and it was awesome. It has a great view over all of Linz, so that was cool.

Well, that is it people. We are enjoying ourselves here and working hard. I hope everyone back home has a great week!

Shöne Woche und viel Spaß!

Elder Lyman

Linz Austria Week 5

Hi friends and family! This week has been just great here in Linz! 

First, we had a super cool mission conference in Munichl!   We all piled into a rail jet train and headed to Germany.  About 60% of the mission was there.  Elder Kearon from the Seventy was our presiding authority and spoke to us. It was amazing!  He is a really great guy.  It was also nice to see a lot of the missionary friends that I have not seen in a while.  It seems that when you first come on a mission, you obviously don't know anybody -- but as time goes by, you leave with so many cool friends! It is kind of amazing to see that! Anyway, that was the big highlight from the week.

Today we had a cool district P-day as well.  We all went to Wels, Austria which is only about a 15 minute train ride from Linz -- and we went bowling! It was really fun! It reminded of all the times I went bowling with all my pals back home! We have district meeting tomorrow back in Wels and we are going to this really good schnitzel place.  We’re celebrating that an Elder in our district is dying this transfer.  (That just means he is going home.)  Somehow I got roped into paying for it because I have some extra money for the month. I guess that is what I get for having a big mouth about how much money I have.

We did not do to much teaching this week. We have a lot of investigators but it is just hard for them to find time to meet with us. We just need to keep working hard to find new people to teach. Actually one cool thing happened today — on our way back from Wels, the guy next to me was wearing a jacket and it had a patch on it that said something about the Rocky Mountains and SLC. I asked him if he had ever been to SLC and he didn’t even know where it was.   Anyway, I ended up giving him some stuff about the Church in Linz, so maybe something will come from that?   It was just nice to talk with someone.

Other than that, it is just same old!  We are just going to keep plugging along -- working hard!   Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers for me!   Love you all!

Shöne Woche,

Elder Lyman 

Linz Austria Week 4

I love this little fire place!

We are getting so much snow!!

Gettin my Harry Potter on!!

Cool new ties for 3 euros each!!

Hallo everyone! I 'm afraid this weekly letter will be rather short because my family had taken most of my time to email.  Anyway this was however a fantastic week here in Linz!  It is snowing like crazy here and has been all week!  It can be really pretty at times,but I'm ready for it to be warm again! 

This week we found some new cool people to teach!  One little thing that happened was this really cool young guy just showed up to church wanting to learn more about the Mormons!  Normally when that happens they are homeless or really drunk and he was neither!  He was normal!  He came to the investigator class after sacrament meeting and then we talked about the restoration with him 3rd hour!  It was really cool!  It kind of shows that the Lord will send the people he had prepared right to you!  We are going to meet with him again later this week so that should be really great!  His name is Andreas if you want to pray for him!

We also did some more service for a less active man in the ward which was fun!  Same person as last week.  We are taking out these really tough steel door frames with a jack hammer which is really fun! I'm really sore though.  He has been coming to church as well which is really great!  He even said we could come over and talk to his non-member wife about the church! 

Well that is about all this week folks.  I'm living the dream here in Austria!  God bless you all!

Shöne Woche,

Elder Lyman

Linz Austria Week 3

H&M Selfies

Our Bahn Stop

Hallo friends and family!

Another great week in Linz down!  This week went by really fast for me.  It have been snowing a lot this week which has been nice.  It is really pretty here when it snows but I am ready for an early spring so I can break out the short sleeve shirts for sure! 

Something cool that we did this week was help a less active member of the ward with a house that he is fixing up!  It is a classic swiss looking house up in the mountains and it is so pretty up there!  He is basically tearing up the whole house and and making it brand new.  We broke up a lot of the cement floors and removed it all!  We also moved a lot of fire wood that he had and stuff like that.  It was really fun!  We were there for almost a whole day so I am kind of sore but he actually came to church yesterday so it was a win win! 

Something that will be great this week is that I get to go back to Salzburg for the day! We have interviews with President Kohler so that will be fun!  It will be nice to get back to my home base for a day and see some old friends! 

The work is going better in Linz every week!  The Elders had a really cool African investigator from Ghana before I got here but we have not been able to get in contact with so I have been fasting to have contact with all of our investigators this week.  It was really cool because he just randomly showed up at church on Sunday!  It was just a little tender mercy reminding me that the Lord has my back when I need Him!  That was nice to see!

Well hopefully this next week brings some new adventures to share!  Have a great week everyone!

Elder Lyman