Zone Conference

Dear family,

Excerpt from my letter to President Condie: "We are still doing well and excited to apply all that we learned in Zone Conference and the Sisters' Conference into our teaching and finding. We met with Susanne this week, who is the daughter of a woman in the ward. She was a lot more interested than we were expecting based upon our information from others and we hope that she can become an investigator. She prayed at the end of the lesson and her step-father (also in the ward) told us that was the first time ever. We were so happy.

Frau Varga prayed at the end of the lesson! She paused for nearly two minutes during the prayer and said "I don't really know what to say now..." but we just waited and she continued. She has readily accepted everything we taught and we invited her to really know for herself that what we have taught is true. She told us at the end that Alex (her son who gave us the referral) was really sad he could not be there since he had to work."

So, this week I went to Munich. It was so beautiful and wonderful. We have 24 sisters in our mission (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) including two senior sisters who are also in Wien. It was wonderful to see my former companions Sisters McGuire and Anderson and to hear of their areas and experiences. It was even better to learn all that we learned. We had learning from 9 am to 9 pm for the whole time we were there. I came with many questions and was able to have many answered.

We learned more about our Einführungslektion (introduction lesson) given to us by the area presidency. This is the first lesson we teach to establish prayer in each lesson, an overview of what we teach (in 4 minutes), writing down the investigators "questions of the soul", meeting 3 times a week for 4 weeks for 30 minutes each, and invite them to be baptized. I learned this from President Condie the first day I arrived, but it was great to hear it explained again and testified of. At Zone Conference, several Elders who were initially skeptical of the Einführungslektion and simply "proved the Lord" in applying it, powerfully testified of its effect. I can see already the difference when we do everything in our first visit we are told to do and when we don't. The Lord truly sets out His way to do things through Preach My Gospel (the Einführungslektion really comes from ch. 10).

The big thing I learned from this Sisters' Conference is that I need to take ONE thing at a time and have a vision of the missionary I want to become. I am aware this is my first transfer and I have a lot to improve, so I know the Lord will guide me as I review what I learned often and make every day better than the one before.

We also had Zone Conference. The timing of my arrival is perfect as everything is changing. :) As is happening in every mission in the world, Zone Conferences and interviews will now be quarterly (every 3 months) instead of every transfer. Because I sung in the choir for the Mission President Training, we were given the privilege to watch President Monson speak to these new Mission Presidents, where I heard the Prophet tell of these changes. That gave me a nice perspective to all of this. Oh, Sister Borcherding, Elder Gneiting (from Colorado, Parker ... or Englewood), Elder Ray and I sang in Zone Conference "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go". I kind of made up the arrangement and had an expert pianist (Sister Hansen) do an unwritten accompaniment. It was good, but I did not get it recorded. We also got about 75 new copies of the Book of Mormon (we only had one left in German and we often need other languages). That was fun to take back to our apartment. :)

I am excited to celebrate my companion's birthday on Saturday (and Monday, because Saturday is quite busy). The sisters from Germany are almost always older because if they stop their schooling at 21, they have to start all over. We are excited and will make cookie dough ice cream to celebrate.

--

Sister Carla June Carroll

The Lord truly blesses his missionaries

Dear Family

Excerpt from my letter to President: "The work is steady and strong here in Wien and we are working hard. We had 10 appointments this week as well as several eating appointments, but we are exercising every morning to make up for that. Our miracle of last week, the Familie Varga (Briggita, Alex and Victoria) is still interested and golden. They were not able to attend church this week due to visitors, but we look forward to seeing them there next week. The Familie Kostić came to church (The father, Sondra, Alexandra, Sanja and Sanni) and we showed them the baptismal font afterwards. They understood and the father started to ask many questions. We are glad they are thinking more about what they have been taught. We met a new Wieniger Aktive, who was baptized 15 or 20 years ago and stopped attending church shortly after. She accepted 3x4 and everything, so we met with her several times. She is great and has forgotten a lot, but remembers more each appointment and we will teach her all the lessons. She was not able to attend church as well, but we have an appointment with her next week and look forward to seeing her at church."

We got a call on Thursday from President Condie that we are having a three-day conference in Munich with all the sisters in the mission. We are so excited and head out in an hour. We do not know what we will be learning, but are excited to find out. We had to make arrangements for our appointments Monda-Wednesday and cram 10 scheduled appointments into Thursday, Saturday and Sunday (we have Zone Conference on Friday). We are so excited we have such a large group to work with! Just a few minutes ago we got a call from Goran, a man we met on the street a week ago. He has a young family and is from ... Serbia? (I forget) There was something in his eyes that told me he was ready. I hope he realized he is ready when we meet when we come back to Vienna. The field is white ...

We are working hard and doing all we can to proclaim the gospel. There is SO much joy in this work and blessings. I hope everyone who ever considered a mission will go. The Lord truly blesses his missionaries. I love this gospel! I love all of you!

--
Sister Carla June Carroll

Nine lessons this week

Dear family,

Excerpt from letter to President Condie,

"We had 9 lessons this week and are working hard to bring it up to between 15 and 20. We had an amazing experience in a church tour with Christina Bräuer and Schwester Hones, a member. We all felt the Spirit very strong and bore our testimonies of baptism and the sacrament. Things went really well, but she had to leave for vacations this week. We are continuing to teach Familie Kostić and look forward setting a baptismal date soon. We met with Sabrina Schmidt (about 25) and Frau Khamara (about 35) who have been investigating for several years, but we are seeing definite progress.

We met several with several people that we found through street contacting, referrals and dooring. We met a woman named Ezma from Bosnia, who speaks mainly Croatian. She is in her 40s and has a son who is 10 or so. He translated most of what we said. She was very interested in the Book of Mormon, but we had to give her to the Elders because she is moving to a different area next week. Yesterday was our day of miracles as we contacted a man, Walter Alt, we had met on the street who accepted the invitation to learn more. We were delighted he had his wife at home (we had explained that we cannot meet with him alone, so we needed her there, and we wanted to teach her!). He was very kind and interested in our message. We will meet with him in a week, when he is back in Austria. His wife spoke only a little German (Romanian is her language), but she was very enthusiastic about our message and we will vorbei a Romanisch Buch Mormon later today. Last week we met a young man on the street who said he did not believe in God and really had zero interest, but when we asked if he knew someone who might have interest he gave us his mother's information. Her name is Briggita Vager and we visited her yesterday as well and she is amazing. We gave the Einführungslektion and she accepted everything! She investigated the church 10 years ago and even came to church. Her son was there and though he insisted he was not interested, he listened in the background the whole time. We think he is interested and simply does not want to admit it. Her daughter, Victoria (12), was there too and accepted a Book of Mormon and to join in on the lessons. Frau Vager is an answer to our prayers and we are excited to meet with her again on Tuesday."

I am very surprised how many people accept our message after a short time of talking on the street! It is so clear that the Lord prepares others to hear the gospel and accept it. So, I have a few funny stories ... all from eating appointments. Two weeks ago, we met with Schwester Kraus, who fed us delicious Wienerschnitzel and more. She sent us home with several schnitzels, but we had an appointment immediately after, so I put them in my bag. In our next appointment, Verena Maier's 2 year old son, managed to find the meat in my bag, pull it out and find one and we saw him eating on with his hands. It was so funny! We have dinner appointment every week with Schwester Hinterhauser. I cannot think now of a specific instance, but we leave each week giggling to ourselves. She is very interesting.

By the way, President Condie clarified what is meant by emailing "family" for this mission. Family is only mother, father, siblings (and siblings-in-law). So .. I cannot email my cousins or Grandma, or anyone else. I do not know who I should ask to not email me, but I know that if I get emails from non-immediate-family, I just need to write a letter in response.

Oh, and I scored two goals in Fußball this week. Whoo-hoo!

--

Sister Carla June Carroll

My companion is an angel in missionary clothing

Dear family,

The plane ride was fine and another missionary shared a sleeping pill with me, so I was able to sleep most of the flight. We arrived at 7:30 am in Munich (11:50 pm MST). We immediately got on the train with a copy of das Buch Mormon and several pass-along cards and we were to "go and do". My temporary companion had been fast tracked at the MTC because she already speaks German, so she spoke with people and I just smiled and nodded ... most of what I do know. We went to the Mission Office where they tried very hard to keep us awake and tell us very important things. The video we watched on eating manners was so useful when I had my first eating appointment. Things are a little different here, but I like it. We left first thing in the morning on the train to Vienna, where I went with Elders Field and Ramage (Elder Field is the one with the broken leg--the doctor said he could still see the tear, but that he would be fine to go). We also went with Sister McGuire going to Haag and the other sister who returned to the mission after a medical leave. I will be embarrased later when I read this and remember that I did not remember her name. I have had a lot of new names go into my head. The train ride to Vienna was only about 4.5-5 hours. My "indestructable" luggage from Sister Missionary Mall broke sometime during the trip (I do not know when since usually Elders took my luggage, but my guess was on the plane).

Apparently you have already all heard, but my first area is VIENNA!! I was very surprised and found that I will be applying for my Visa while living here. My first companion is Sister Borcherding from Stadthagen near Hannover, Germany. She is an angel in missionary clothing. She has brown hair and a wonderful smile. Even though she did not need to learn the language for her mission, she is very patient with my rather pitiful German and helps me move at my pace. She has an amazing testimony of everything. She is the second oldest of five girls. Her older sister has four children. She also served in Vienna for her first transfer, then went to Salzburg (now closed for Sisters), then back to Vienna, so she is an expert. She has been out 4.5 transfers (maybe).

The field is white, already to harvest in Vienna. The ward members are great and welcoming, though I generally do not understand what they are saying to me. We visited with a few members throughout the week. Most are interested in sharing the gospel with others and responding to our referrals or praying that we will find people to teach. We met with Christina Bräuer from Peru and brought along a joint teach. She is in her 40s or 50s and very kind. Christina is very responsive to what we have taught and wants to apply these teachings in her life. She is afraid to come to church because she does not know people there, but Aline, our joint teach, bore a wonderful testimony of her experience in coming to church for the first time and how she was welcomed and overtime, the ward became her family.

We met with Cetin, a very intelligent student and currently Muslim. He had very good questions and Sister Borcherding told me later that he was more open and willing to participate in the lesson this time, probably because he is anxious about his German since he is from Turkey and my German is very new. We made another appointment for later in the week, but the next day, he texted us and told us he does not want to meet any more. We also met with Christina Zukal, around 25 and anxious to get married. Before I arrived, she responded positively to our message about families and accepted the pass-along card with little children on the front. We spoke a lot about the importance of families and bore our testimonies of the restored gospel. She was very receptive to our message and even prayed outloud at the end of the lesson.

We met with Ivana on Saturday. She was making very good progress up until this point, but when we arrived (also had a joint teach), she had a lot of questions about information she found on the internet. They were good questions, but the attitude with which they were asked were questions unto doubting and not understanding. She is from the Ckech Republich and so she spoke English with us a lot, so I understood a lot more of what was going on. She told us at the end that she wants to be more familiar with the Bible and then start to accept other scriptures. She told us she is not willing to read any more in the Book of Mormon. She liked what she had read and thought it was impressive, but continued to refer to it as a work of Joseph Smith, not of God.

Our family came to church!! (Kostic family) I have not met with them yet, but we hope to commit them to baptism this week. They are so sweet and the children are especially excited about the gospel. If you want to see a picture of my ward (WIEN II), just pick up any German pamphlet on any of the lessons (Die Wiederherstellung, Der Erlösungplan, bzw.). That is my ward! The GML (Gemeinemissionsleiter = Ward Mission Leader) was late yesterday, so we were not able to meet before church. Oh, and I spoke in church to bear my testimony, so all the members know now that I do not speak German. :)

--

Sister Carla June Carroll

First Area is Vienna, Austria!