November 27

Dear family,

First off, I have to explain that I am typing on an English keyboard, and it's really throwing me off. This week was amazing involving Mission Tour on Thursday with Elder Texiera from Portugal. Our mission used to be well known for obedience and seeing miracles because of it, but since the missions combined, it has been a really big struggle. Thus, the main topic of Mission Tour was Obedience. That is absolutely the first step of anything and the first principle we have to follow. Due to Mission Tour, I had the opportunity to do another Austausch--this time with Sister Dietz. We met and became close in the MTC, as she was there for the last three weeks of my time at the MTC. I was really excited to go and contact all of our Emphalungen (Referrals) and everything, but I got really sick this week and we ended up staying in our apartment and studying together. It was still a really powerful experience, just not the one I expected.

With Mission Tour, everyone needed a way to get to either Wien, Munchen or Zurich. I took the task of ordering all the Train tickets for the 168 Missionaries. It went pretty well and I think everyone made it! The work I do in the office has been really different than the Missionary work I was doing before. I really feel privileged to work with the Senior couples, Elder and Sister Walters and Elder and Sister Gardner. A mission truly needs miracles to be run and these couples work that every day. I will be interested to see how things are different when I serve a senior couples mission.

We visited the Christkindelmarkt in Marienplatz and found a lot of neat little things. We did not buy anything, but will go back in a couple weeks and see. Lots of talent from all over the world crammed into the center of the city. It was amazing to see. Christmas is a huge tradition here--even more than in America. Advent started this week and it's been snowing, so everyone is getting excited. It will be certainly different to spend Christmas here. The gospel is true!