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!

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Sister Carla June Carroll