Monday, December 22, 2014

Ready for Christmas

Hey!

This week was awesome! All of our members have been giving us tons of candy and things for Christmas! We got tons more Oreos yesterday and the other Elders got a lot of chocolate. It is going to be an unhealthy week. Luckily Elder Nelson and I run a lot!

Our Christmas week is going to be a lot of fun as well! We will be with the Picard family on Christmas eve, the Cleavingers on Christmas, the Bakers on the 26th, and another family wants to invite us over as well. It is going to be a great time. And so that you know, I will be skyping you at about four in the afternoon, so around eight in the morning for you if I am not wrong. I hope that you get my package before Christmas. I spoke with Bro. Cleavinger and he said that he sent it so it should get there soon. 
 
I bet you are all really excited for going to Mexico! It would be fun to come with you! I love that trip. 

Elder Nelson and I are working great together. It is really fun to be his companion. The work is going well and we are having a good time. You have probably already seen the video that the church has put out for Christmas, but if not, it is really great and you should see it. 

I hope that you all have a great week! I will see you on Christmas! Can't wait to talk to you! Love you!






Elder Eldredge

Monday, December 15, 2014

Conference in Salzburg and a Christmas Party

Hey everybody!

We had a great week! The highlight was our conference in Salzburg. We had a gift exchange and watched "Meet the Mormons!" It was really great! At the conference I got to see some people that I hadn't seen in a while too so it was really fun. I got to see Elder Ringger as well but it had only been a week. Our train ride was fun too. 

We also had our ward Christmas party on Saturday! That was a blast. There were tons of people there! The members really did a good job of inviting their friends and families. There were some awesome performances as well. It was fun to see all of the different cultures and Christmas traditions that come together in an international ward. There were drum dances and African Christmas songs, as well as a really cool shadow play of Christ's birth. Luis was supposed to play Gabriel but ended up not being able to come. He was pretty sad about it. One of our members brought 150 pieces of chicken, and they were all huge! I've never seen so much chicken in my life. Someone also gave us some peanut butter jars from america, plus some peanut butter Oreos! That is close to impossible to find around here so it was really nice. 

The work is going well. We are talking to a lot of people about Christmas time, and they are more open to talking with us about that. Our amount of appointments is going a bit down but that is normal as we approach Christmas. It will be easier to meet with people when they aren't so busy getting ready for Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, Bro Cleavinger is sending off my package today so it should be there before Christmas. Sorry that there isn't tons of candy and goodies in there. I made sure to put in some. But I sent my journal home that is from the first six transfers or so. Feel free to reed that. 

I love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Monday, December 1, 2014

Staying in Vienna

Hey!

This week was really really great! I haven't eaten so much food in just one week before. We had three thanksgivings throughout the week so I was about as stuffed as the turkey I ate. We also ate at our favorite schnitzel place again with a lot of the other missionaries. That is always a great time. 
 
We got transfer calls on saturday and Elder Ringger is heading off to Innsbruck and I will work with Elder Nelson from AF. I've talked to him once before and he is really nice. I am excited to work with him. He has been on his mission for about six months. He came with Elder Ringger. 
This Leica camera is apparently worth over $60,000
Yesterday was also really fun. We had a party after church with the ward just because it was the fifth sunday. There was lots of food and the kids were running around like crazy. We eat a lot with our members. It is always fun. Today we are going to eat at the Picard home and they are vegan. They make some of the most delicious food ever, plus you can eat all you want and you go home feeling awesome! If meat wasn't so darn tasty I would eat a lot more salad. 

We already have a good week planned. It should be busy and a lot of fun. I hope you all have a great first week of december! Love you all!


Elder Eldredge


Monday, November 24, 2014

Mashed Potatoes

Hey everyone!

We had a really good week last week! I am writing later than usual because we had a big thanksgiving lunch with all of the missionaries here in Vienna. It was fun to hang out with everybody and to play some games. The food was also great! I made ten pounds of mashed potatoes this morning! They were delicious. We should have a really great week because we already have three thanksgiving appointments. Luckily they aren't all on the same day. 

We had interviews with President Kohler on Saturday. It was good to talk to him. This Saturday we are going to get transfer calls! There will probably be a change because I have been with Elder Ringger for two transfers now. I am excited to see who my possibly last companion is. 

The people we are teaching are doing great! They can't always meet as often as we would really like to but it is still ok. What is important is that people that we are teaching, less-active or non-members, are coming regularly to church. The few hours at church are the busiest. It's almost like a game to see how many people we can try to make appointments with for the week. luckily our ward members are pretty happy to have us over. We see them often and they take good care of us. 

Studies have been going great lately. I can't stress the importance of trying to increase our knowledge of the scriptures. We really should be taking every opportunity we get to learn something new and something spiritual. As members of the church we have a much larger capability to learn about God and how He works and I am really thankful for that. 

I hope you are all doing great! Have another good week! Love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Monday, November 17, 2014

Christmas Markets and Speaking German

Hey everybody!

This week was great! It was a bit slower than usual but we still had a good time. For some reason we couldn't get as many appointments as usual. It caused for some long days out on the streets but I guess I am used to that now. This week is already much busier and I am happy about that. 

The Christmas markets are starting up around here. Last night we got to walk through one on our way to an appointment and it was amazing how many people were there! They sell lots of cool toys and really tasty looking pastries. They really really like Christmas here. I think there are about 20 markets here in Vienna! 

We have already gotten about three invites for thanksgiving. Well two of them are only possible invites so we aren't really sure what is going to happen. We might get a lot of thanksgiving this year. I am hoping that our ward will try and organize some flag football in the morning so that we can play. 

I went on exchange with some other missionaries here in Vienna. It was really fun because I worked in their area so I got to teach in german! We visited some members of their ward and it was really refreshing to speak german, and just the way they think is different. I will really miss the little austrian homes when I come home. I also ate a lot of austrian pastries this week. Too bad we don't have this stuff in Utah. They're so fancy with their donuts here.

We have interviews with our mission president this saturday. It should be really good because he plans to spend a lot of time with each one of us. It will be nice to have some extra time with him. Sometimes interviews are just way to short and you don't feel like you really had an interview. We are also going to eat some awesome schnitzel tomorrow for lunch. They are really big! 

So life is great here. I love Vienna a lot. Have another great week! Love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Monday, November 10, 2014

Vienna is the place to be!

Hey family!

It's been another awesome week! Vienna is the place to be! It is fun to be a missionary over here. We have seen a lot of progress with the people that we are meeting with. We have been meeting with a girl named Wanni. She is a member in our ward and we are just helping her prepare for a temple prep. class. When we started she wasn't coming to church often and she never read her scriptures but now she really loves coming to church and we don't even need to remind her to read every day. She is also more excited to meet and she asks really good questions that show that she is really thinking about things more. It is fun to watch our friends really make progress in the gospel. 

The Elders that we live with are really great. Elder Pugmire will go home in three weeks so we are all pretty sad about that. He is a really close friend. Elder Brady is awesome too. He really likes to dance a lot. I couldn't have better roommates. The greatest thing about living in Vienna is that you are constantly around other missionaries. We see our friends almost everyday and it is just nice to have a big support system. 

It has been really warm and partially sunny for the last few days. It is really pretty with all of the leaves changing. We are preparing to be pretty cold in the next few weeks. 

Things are going great. We work hard and we are having success. I never have anything to complain about and life is just plain good. I am glad to see that everybody else is happy too! I'm especially happy to hear that Emily and Geoff are having a little girl! I can't wait to see her!

Have a great week! I love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Monday, November 3, 2014

Happy Halloween!

Hey! 

This week was really great! It has been really good weather. I like it when it is cold a lot more than wearing a tie in the summer! Halloween was fun even though they don't really celebrate it here. We had a fun Halloween party at the YSA center with all of the YSA people and some other missionaries. All of the people from here got to try candy corn for the first time and I don't think anybody liked it. More for us I guess. 

Ainsley's wings on her costume are awesome! Good job to whoever made them. All the kids are looking pretty cute in their costumes! I dressed up like a hogwarts student. I kept trying to find a nice stick for a wand but I didn't see one all day. 

Work-wise it was a bit of a slow week because the people we are teaching were mostly all out of town. But we are having a lot of fun and success. I am happy about the work here. We have a good list of contacts and they are all really interested and want to meet often. 

We had an awesome eating appointment at our ward mission leader's home. We ate J-dawgs with the sauce and everything! It was tons of fun. They live in a neighborhood where there are mostly Americans so there were tons of american kids running around and jumping on the tramp. You would have never known you were in Austria. It was also great because they let us eat tons of their left-over american candy from Halloween! 

Tomorrow we are going to eat lunch with a man in our ward who is going to bring his old Leica cameras to show me. I am really excited. We are going to eat at his tennis club with six other missionaries. Should be a blast. 

Thanks for the Halloween pictures! I hope that you all have a great week! Love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Business as Usual

Hey everyone! 

Look at that cute baby! I can't wait to hold her! It is good to have another baby girl. It's only been like 11 years. Happy birthday Ainsley!
We had a great week over here! I think I mentioned last week that we were teaching a sixteen year-old girl from Alaska. We taught her again and she has gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith! She is really cool and she comes to the activities at the youth center so we see her pretty often. She also came to our stake conference yesterday and I think she really enjoys being around the other missionaries and she really feels welcome. She is doing really great and she is a good friend.

We are also teaching a man named M-----. He is a bit of a tough case. He has a problem that he can't trust anything. He doubts pretty much everything and it stops him from making any progress and becoming happier. It has made me reflect a lot about how we need to trust the spiritual confirmations that we've received. We can't panic at every question that we don't understand the answer to. If we approach our questions with patience and trust that the Lord will teach us when He knows is best, we will be much more peaceful and we will learn faster. 

There is no news about transfers. We are both staying for the next transfer. I am excited about it. I really love Vienna. It was a bit of a sad transfer call because a lot of my friends are leaving, but luckily our apartment is staying the same. 

Today we are going to go and see the cemetery! Elder Ringger says it is one of the biggest ones in Europe. There is also an LDS section so we are going to see that. 

Thanks for the pictures of Piper! She is pretty darn cute! Tell her I love her! I love you all too!

Elder Eldredge 

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

YSA Center

Hi everyone!

Sounds like a really fun week back home! We were also really busy this week. It was possibly the busiest week of my mission. It is really fun getting to teach someone everyday. The missionary couple that is in charge of the YSA center were out of town on a conference this week so we had to run the center and make sure all of the classes were being taught. It was a lot of work but everything worked out. They are still going to be gone until tuesday so we get to keep watching over the center. Tonight we are running the FHE activity, and on wednesday I get to teach institute. I am really excited for that. I get to teach about the first five chapters in the book of Mormon. 

Church was pretty crazy yesterday! L--- brought his parents to church. They wanted to see what he was getting into. They didn't seem to have a problem with us so that went well. W---- and G------ both came as well. We are helping them prepare themselves for the temple. Ever since we started meeting with them there has been a lot of progress. There was also three child baptisms right after church! It was great because most of the ward stayed and there was lots of food. They said there would be refreshments but it was a full meal for everyone. 

This wednesday we will find out about transfers. We had a seven week transfer and our next one will be a five week transfer. I will almost surely be "dying" here in Vienna. We will see though if Elder Ringger and I stay together. We probably will be.

You all need to let me know what I should put in this package for christmas or I am just going to need to shove it full of stuff I don't want to carry home in a few months. Just let me know!

I love you all and I hope that everything is going great!

Elder Eldredge

Monday, October 13, 2014

Enjoying Vienna

Hey everybody! 

There isn't ever a boring day in Vienna! We have lots of fun. This week especially. We had a double zone conference in Salzburg on Saturday. We had two other missionaries stay in our apartment over night on Friday so we had to wake up at 5 o'clock to leave our apartment at 6:30. We brought a lot of scones with us on the train for breakfast and the sisters made some no-bake cookies. It was a lot of fun to sit and talk with them for a few hours. The conference was really great but I barely knew anybody from the Salzburg zone because they are all so young. I got to talk to G-----(from Haag) on the phone when he called the Haag elders. It was nice to hear from him. We took a train back home and got to our apartment at about 9 o'clock and that was our day. I really liked it. 

We had a great time yesterday as well. We ate with a family from Fiji. They are really excited about missionary work and we should do family home evening with them and their friends in a few weeks. They also played the Ukelele for us and sang in Fijian. 

The new window on the house looks great mom! And those kids are all getting so big! 

L--- is doing really well! He is really looking forward to getting the priesthood and his parents are coming with him to church this Sunday. They just want to see what he is getting into but we hope to make a good impression so that they want to learn more. 

We are also working with a new convert named G-----. She is from Italy. We are good friends with her and she really wants to prepare to go to the temple. She was sick for a while but now she can start coming again. 

Everything here is great. My roommates and companion are all awesome. We make sure to have a lot of fun and work really hard. Thanks for the pictures! I love you all!

Elder Eldredge


Monday, October 6, 2014

General Conference

Greetings from Vienna!

We had a great week as always but general conference was definitely the highlight. I loved not only hearing the uplifting talks, but it was also a great time to be together with the other missionaries in Vienna. I love being able to see my friends so often. On Saturday night we had all four st. Pölten elders with us in our apartment so that they could see general conference. We had eight elders in our apartment. It was fun. We made around 60 scones for breakfast and sang a lot of hymns for fun. We still haven't seen the Sunday afternoon session but that should happen sometime this week. 

L--- also came to two sessions on Sunday with us and hung out with us and the rest of the missionaries in between the sessions. He really liked conference. N--- also came and watched in Spanish, but she also brought her boy friend with her to the second session and introduced us to him because we talked about doing missionary work in our last lesson with her. She wants to invite another friend to church as well. She really enjoyed listening to a talk in Spanish that didn't need to be translated. 

Today we went to a park and played Ultimate for a while. It felt really good to go outside and play. It also made me miss my cleats because I fell over on the wet grass all day. The weather here is perfect. The leaves are turning and falling and there is always a slight cool breeze. I really like the fall.

Glad to hear that everybody had a good time at conference! I sure miss that chicken chili every time conference comes around. Have another great week!

Love you all!
Elder Eldredge


P.S. Dad, I got my card in the mail last week. It took a while but it is here. 

Monday, September 29, 2014

Pictures!

Hey everybody! 

This week was really great! On monday we had a fun p-day with the other elders and some sisters. We played Ultimate in a park! It was one of my favorite p-days. Just as we started playing, it began to rain really hard for about 10 minutes and then it was really nice weather for the rest of the time. Today we are going to by ice cream and then go to Schönbrunn and have a picnic. 

There were a lot of great moments this week. I have told you about L--- before. We met with him on friday and he wants to be baptized in the summer! He also came up to me on sunday and asked what he needs to do to go to the temple. He is such an awesome kid. We have been working with a girl from china named W---







 She is a member since about two years ago and we are just helping her to understand the gospel more because she is from a different background. She is really funny and plays the piano really really well.

We had an eating appointment on saturday with a family in our ward that only eats vegan food. It was delicious! It was also funny because the family also invited a few members of our ward who are from Fiji, and they were really surprised that there wasn't any chicken or beef. But they told me all about the different kinds of bananas that they like to eat in Fiji.

We also went to Herbs (that schnitzel place) as a district on Tuesday. I am really going to miss schnitzel when I am not here anymore. 

Everything here is going great. It is good to hear that you are all doing well too! Thanks for writing. I love you all!



Elder Eldredge

Friday, September 26, 2014

American Food

Hey everybody!

This picture was sent to us by Brother Cleavinger,
the Ward Mission Leader.
Sorry but I can´t send any photos today because my camera turned on in my bag and it is all out battery. But next week I promise!

I am all comfortable here in Vienna now. I really love it here. We had a lesson with a woman named N---. She is from Peru and we are planning on giving her a baptismal date on Wednesday. We also have a lesson planned for Friday where we are hoping to give L----
a baptismal date. Those two were at church yesterday and they are doing great.

We had a really great eating appointment yesterday with our ward mission leader Bro. Cleavinger. It was really great because they are from our valley and love everything america. We had a Sunday roast, and we have already planned our next two meals with them. J-dawgs, and cafe Rio. They also sent us home with tons of american candy. Bro. Cleavinger also wants to give us a Christmas gift by paying for a package back to you, so let me know what stuff you want in the package. 

We have already got a good week planned and I am excited for it all. One of my favorite things about Vienna is all of the transportation that is everywhere. It is a lot better than walking everywhere. 

Today we are going to a park to throw a Frisbee and play games. It should be a lot of fun, and luckily the weather cleared up since this morning. The weather was nice all week though. Not too hot, and not too cold. 

I hope you all have a great week! Love you all!


Elder Eldredge 

Monday, September 15, 2014

English Speaker??

Hey!

Vienna is awesome! We are having lots of fun over here. It is great to be back in a four man apartment. Elder Ringger is also a great companion and we get along great! I love finally working in a big city. There are so many people and we see a lot of crazy ones. I am not the district leader but it is strange because I still live with the old members of my last district. I am also pretty sure that Elder Richmann is serving in Graz now. So he is in my zone. But seeing as my area is the entire stake, we are basically serving in the same area. I am technically still in St. Pölten as well. Pretty funny. It is really nice because we never need to ask permission to leave our area. 

The work here is going really well. There are a good number of investigators who really love the church. We have a good friend named L--- who learned about the church while he was an exchange student in Wyoming and we overheard him talking to the bishop about baptismal interviews. He is 17 and likes us a lot. We also taught a really funny lesson with two guys from nigeria n
amed C--- and F----. I am still getting used to carrying my english scriptures around and teaching everything in english. I had a really hard time singing the hymns in english and I found myself trying to use german pronunciations.

Our ward is awesome as well. There are tons of YSA guys who like the missionaries. We have members from all over. Some from Fiji, china, Afrika, Mexico, America, and who knows where else. There are also about 120 active members here. They are awesome. 

It sounds like you all had a great week! I can´t believe that Haley will be having her baby so soon! This transfer won`t even be over by that time. I will take photos of my apartment today so that I can send them to you mom! We will also spend some time sight seeing today so I will have some photos of Vienna next monday. I hope you all have a great week!

Love, 

Elder Eldredge

Monday, September 8, 2014

Ich bin ein Wiener!



I'M GOING TO VIENNA!!!!!!!!!

I am getting transferred to the vienna fourth ward! It is awesome because I already know my next companion pretty well. His name is Elder Ringger. He is the one who left from the heritage stake dad. I will be greeny busting him. I have been really excited since I found out. Also, Elder Stilger is going home this week. Time really flies! I am happy to stay in the Vienna zone as well. I have a lot of good friends. St. Pölten will get two new missionaries so there will be four now! The apartment will be a bit tight but they will do good work here. 

Things went really well last week. We taught W----- a few times and he was doing really well but for some reason he didn't show up to church. We should meet again this week and see what happened. 

We are going to herb's tomorrow for lunch and I am getting a giant schnitzel! We are having a zone training meeting right across the street from my next apartment so I am bringing a suit case to make my transfer day easier. It couldn't get much easier though. Especially compared to my other transfer days. The train ride only take 24 minutes. That is a lot better that 14 hours to Konstanz or 11 hours to St. Pölten! 

I have started the Book of Mormon over again this week and I am marking everything that has to do with the restoration and it has been really impressive to me how often it comes up. It has really helped me understand the importance of the restoration a lot better. I have also been learning a lot of lessons from the apostles in the book of Acts. They really knew how to do missionary work. I always think of what Alma said, "Use boldness, but not overbearance" (Alma 38:12). I love being a missionary!

I hope you all have a great week! Love you all!


Elder Eldredge 

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Patience and Miracles

Hey everyone!

This week was really great. It has been really interesting actually. During my time here I have been trying really hard to get things going, and we see lots of miracles every week. But we have never really been able to get some real momentum going. For a long time that was really hard on me and I was a bit frustrated that nobody wanted to listen to us. But I have noticed in the last few weeks, and this last week especially, that it was necessary for me to go through all of that so that I could learn to just be content with what I have. It has made me a lot happier and I am really content and pleased with my work so far. In romans 5:3-6 it says that "tribulation worketh patience." That is one of the big lessons that I have learned here. 

We had some great things happen this week. We met a man on the street on Saturday named W----, and we invited him to come to church the next day. He didn't end up coming and we were a bit disappointed but as we were leaving the church building we saw him walking with his friend at the end of our alley. Apparently he was in some catholic church asking for the mormons. We showed him our church and set up an appointment for that same evening. When the time came around we were in the church showing one of our members how to use the church's website but W-----


didn't show up. We went to the window to look for him and he had stood in the rain for fifteen minutes trying to open the door (it is broken). Our lesson was amazing. He was born in Dubai and he spent 48 days walking to get here. He was born muslim but he doesn't really have any connection with Islam. He kept saying that he just wants to start over his life and be a new person. We shared Ether 12:4 with him were it says "whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world." When he read that (in arabic) he started to choke up a bit and I know he felt the spirit. Without us asking he said he would start reading 3 or 4 pages a day, and he wants to meet several times a week. He also said the prayer at the end! We will meet again on tuesday evening.

Transfer calls are on saturday so who knows what could happen! I hope that you all have a great week! We sure have a good one ahead of us! 

That was an awesome video of you two mom and dad! If I do it can I go to bear lake too? Love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Monday, August 25, 2014

President Kohler

Hey everybody!

This week was great! We taught a man named H--- on Monday evening. It was a really great lesson and he was excited to read the Book of Mormon. To get to his house we had to walk along this road for like 20 minutes in the middle of a lot of farmland. Austria is really really pretty! We set up an appointment for last saturday but sadly he all of the sudden had to go to germany for work and he won't be back for about three months. Hopefully the missionaries will be able to get a hold of him then. 

We also taught a woman named L---. We brought one of our members with us and he bore really strong testimony. L--- was pretty quite the whole time but we could tell she was listening. She told us that she is going to have a baby and we think that is one of the reasons that she decided to meet with us. 

We had interviews with President Kohler this morning in Vienna (that is why I am so late today). We always have district meeting while interviews are going on and our meeting was really really great. Our district is really happy and everybody is trying really hard to be there best. Pres. Kohler was good to meet with because he took a lot of time with each of us. I think my interview was around 30 minutes. It was relieving to finally get to know him more personally. 

I haven't gotten any emails from sarah for a while so maybe she is sending them to the wrong address. When is the last time that she wrote? Thanks for the line of authority dad! 

Transfer calls will be in a week and a half from now. I am pretty curious to see what will happen. Unless things get crazy I will be moving into my last area. While I was talking to Pres. Kohler today he said that I am entering that part of my mission where I will either be a powerful missionary or I will get tired and lazy. I am determined to be the first. 

I hope that everything is well at home! That new door looks great! It took me a minute to realize where it was in the house. I thought you might have built new stairs somehow! Thanks for writing! Love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Monday, August 18, 2014

Another Kind of Flood

Hey!

This week was awesome! Elder Anderson's foot is ok now so we got to work. We had a great zone conference on tuesday. Our district won a bunch of cookies because we built the highest paper tower. Ours was actually the only one that stayed up but it was still almost seven feet tall. It was to teach us about planning, because we built two towers, and the first one we couldn't make a plan our talk with each other and it fell over, but the second one we had a few minutes to plan together and it worked a lot better. Imagine that. 

I got to work with Elder Abbott on exchange this week. It was way fun because we were in the MTC together. It was fun to see how much we have both grown in the last year and a half. We talked a lot about how we could make the Book of Mormon a bigger part of our work. We both felt that our zone could do a lot better at giving books out, so that was our big focus. We were able to give out quite a few before we changed back. Our next district meeting will be all about how to effectively give someone a Book of Mormon and how we can do it more often. St. Pölten is getting flooded with the Book of Mormon!

We had a hard time having appointments this week because we went a week without being on the streets, but we got to do a lot of contacting, and hopefully the people that we found this last week will become new investigators this week. We had a really cool experience the other day. We went to a place called Hainfeld because there were a few people to visit there, but we didn't have a map. We were walking around asking for directions. We walked past this group of ladies eating at a restaurant outside and asked another man for help. He said that we needed to turn around, and on our way back these ladies asked if we needed help because they were watching us walk around, and then they wanted to know what we were doing. We told them that we were talking to people about the Book of Mormon, and they were interested! I opened my bag and just started handing them all of the books that we had brought with us. They really liked our message and we should meet in about two weeks. 

So things are great over here. The weather has been perfect all week. Even a little cold, which is the best for us. I'm happy out here, and excited to work hard again this week. I love you all and hope that you have a great week! Don't worry mom, I always have my camera with me and I will make sure to send some photos soon.


Elder Eldredge

Monday, August 11, 2014

Elder Anderson's Foot

Wow that was a lot of photos! That looks like it was a lot of fun! We should make it a tradition so that I can do it too! 

We had an interesting week over here. On monday we went to the doctors because E. Anderson's foot has been hurting a lot, and the doctor said that his foot was over-worked and that he shouldn't walk for a week. So... I got a good amount of studies in, our apartment is clean, and our area book couldn't look better. We did work as much as we could when we already had appointments made out so we kept ourselves pretty busy. The only day where we couldn't go out and really work was on Saturday. 

So I am really excited to work this week! We did have some good successes this week though. We met again with Bro. K------ and he bought us ice cream before we had our german class. We spent that time talking about the church and he said he has still been reading everyday in the scriptures! We also invited him to come to the entire sacrament meeting because he was only coming for the last twenty minutes or so. He ended up coming for all three hours! He was even commenting and asking questions during the priesthood class. I had to show him how to tie a tie because it has been a while for him. It is a really big success seeing as he hasn't come for about 15 years. 

Being on a mission is awesome! I am still surprised with how fast it is going. in three weeks the sisters who were in the MTC with me will go home and I will be officially "old." 

Our district meeting this week went great! I talked about how important it is for us as a district to be completely obedient and to have courage using the story of the stripling warriors. Everybody was excited for the coming transfer. Our district is really really amazing. I have had the best missionaries in this district. They make my job much easier.

I am doing well! I was wondering if I could get my line of authority though. I hope everybody is doing great! I love you all!


Elder Eldredge 

Monday, August 4, 2014

Journal Writing and Scripture Study

Hey! 

This week was awesome! We had a lot of fun. Last sunday we set up a few appointments with some of our members. That really helped us be busy throughout the week. It is hard to do normal contacting in the evening because the people go home so it was nice to have appointments in the evening. We also had a good lesson with a guy named M-----. He was invited by a member to come see the church and to meet us and we ended up teaching all about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. He felt the spirit really strong and is now reading in the Book of Mormon from the beginning until we meet next time. 

You should all be proud of me because I actually have been pretty diligent in writing in my journal everyday. For the first six months or so I wrote every few days but I have made it into a habit to write after we plan. I was reading last night about my time with elder Stilger and it reminded me of some of the crazy things that happened. I also so how I grew a lot since then. 

We had a meeting for district leaders in Vienna on saturday. It was awesome because Elder Abott (the new zone leader) was in my MTC zone and it was fun to talk about our missions since then. 

In the last few weeks I have been studying really hard to learn the scriptures better. That has been one of my focuses in this area but it has really picked up in the last three weeks or so. Our Branch President here is really smart and he lets me ask him all my questions and he gives me some reading assignments as well. I am beginning to see how important it is to be constantly learning. We should always be trying to find answers to our questions about the gospel and we can never become spiritually "full." 

Well, things are going well. I'm happy. Have fun with your "staycation!" And thanks for the info dad!

Love,

Elder Eldredge

Staying in St. Pölten

Hey!

This week was pretty great! We are not getting transferred so I will spend at least another six weeks here in St. Pölten. I am excited to work with Elder Anderson for another transfer. It sounds like England is treating you all well. Going to church a lot and eating at other peoples houses sounds a lot like my life over here. 

We have been working a lot with a less active member named Bro. K-----. I think I have already told a little about him, but he came to church again yesterday and is getting really active in genealogy work. That reminds me, I have been meaning to ask how long our family has been in the church? I looked up how many of our ancestors were pioneers and there were a ton! There was even an Eldredge company. 

Elder anderson got sick on thursday and that put him out for the rest of the day and he was still a bit sick for the next two days. I gave me a lot of time to study on Thursday. I have been trying super hard to write down everything that I learn that impresses me, and the more I am ready to write down impressions that I have, the more impressions I get. It is really amazing. I have noticed that my understanding of the gospel and especially of the Atonement has improved in a large amount. I still have a lot to learn, and I am excited to keep learning.

We are having a lot of fun. Today we are going to Vienna to have fun with the district before two of the sisters go home. We are getting two really young sisters. One is being trained and the other has only been here for three months. Other than that our district is staying the same. I am happy that I still get to be district leader. It is a lot of fun. 

I love you all! Have another great week!


Elder Eldredge

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Give and Elder an apron....

Hey everybody!

This week was pretty great! We had another zone meeting in Vienna and I got to go on exchange in Vienna so I spent a lot of time in the big city! It was really fun. The elders in Vienna in our district live right across the street from their church that has a big field by it so we played frisbee for morning exercise. We also found a really cool chinese guy picking berries in a public park. He took a book which was cool because I haven't given out too many chinese books on my mission. He was pretty excited about it. 

The weather was fighting against us quite a bit this week. It was really really really hot! We are pretty gross and smelly by the end of the day. But luckily it started to storm really bad last night so today is nice and cloudy with a nice wind. One of the greatest things about st. Pölten is that there is usually a breeze all the time. 

This friday we get transfer calls! I can't believe that it is already coming around. I have also been here for three transfers already so it is possible that I get transferred next week. It will be interesting to see what Pres. Kohler does for his first transfers. 
I got an apron in the mail! Thanks for all of the cool Scriptures! I made sure to go and cook something right away. I took a picture too. 

We should have a great week coming up. We are excited to see what happens. I hope that you all have a great week and that you are all safe in your different parts of the world! I love you all!

Elder Eldredge

Monday, July 14, 2014

Pig Legs and a New President

Hey Everyone!

This week was awesome! We had a lot of fun. Sadly though, Elder Anderson got sick on monday and was out for the rest of the day. It was good though because then we couldn't do what we wanted to do and I was basically forced to clean our apartment as he slept. But on tuesday we met Pres. Kohler and his family! They are really really cool. He is really young and so I feel like I will have an easy time connecting with him. He and his family are from Provo and he worked in the MTC. It was also fun to go all the way to Salzburg with the missionaries. We got to just talk and make jokes in the train for a few hours both ways. 

On Saturday our ward had a BBQ for all of the members and their families and friends. It was a really fun day because we left at 9 in the morning to go help with the grilling. We had two huge pig legs on a stick that took a few hours to cook. Once everybody came there were lots of games and eating. I ate way too much food so I couldn't move that easily. It hurt really bad but the food was too good! Some of our members even brought there violins and everybody learned how to square dance. We couldn't dance but it was fun to watch everybody else. They had never seen such a thing. We were there pretty much all day and we made friends with a lot of non-members. It was awesome!

This next week should be really fun. We get to work in gardens and people have invited us over for dinner. We are pretty happy campers. I'm glad to see that everybody else is doing well! I love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Monday, July 7, 2014

Summer Vacation

Hey everybody! 

Wow it sounds like another crazy week at the Eldredge home. We had a fun week over here. It is that time of year again when all europeans go on vacation for like three of four weeks so most of the people we have talked to weren't from here or were having vacation at home and didn't want to be bothered. But we still had fun. 

The fourth of July was hot just like always, but it lacked explosions and watermelon. We did run into an american girl at the train station in McDonalds so we just had our own little "Merica" moment right there. 

Elder Ringger is actually in our zone! I met him on his first day when I was picking elder Anderson up. He seems like a real cool guy. He is in the same apartment as the other elders in our district so I will see him when I am on exchange there next week. Being a district leader is still way awesome. Like I have said a billion times our district is amazing. Everybody is working really hard.

Tomorrow morning we will be taking a train to salzburg to meet our new mission president and his family! I am really excited to meet him, plus all of the missionaries in austria will be there and I will see some friends that I haven't seen for a while. 

Our invesetigators are doing well but like I said it is vacation time so it is really hard to meet anybody lately. But we are still excited for them. 

Next sunday Elder Anderson and I will be singing in church, giving talks, and very possibly be giving the class in priesthood. It could be a very busy day. One of the women in our ward really likes church music so our goal is to make her cry. 

We are doing well and everything is great. I can't really believe how long I have been in St. Pölten already. It is pretty crazy how time flies. 

I hope you all have another great week! I love all of you!


Elder Eldredge

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Fußball

Hey!

This week was awesome! The weather was pretty nice and we were able to have some success on the streets. We did get to watch the USA-Germany game! It was really fun because I was on exchange with the zone leaders and the missionary I was with came out with me. We had a lot of fun and the family we were with gave us lots of food and soda. 

We met again with B----- and she actually read in the Book of Mormon and checked out the church's website. She is really interested. She just wants to talk to her friends about us before we start the lessons. It was cool though because she brought up the Book of Mormon at the beginning and told us the she really liked the first few chapters of Mosiah were King Benjamin speaks to his people. She even remembered his name! She had a lot of questions and she said that she really likes everything we teach. Hopefully her friends won't be negative about it. 

Our friend S----- is doing well. We can't really teach him  until we get some pamphlets in persian so we are just reading the Book of Mormon with him. He sadly couldn't make it to church but we will see what happened this week.

We have been focusing on the Book of Mormon for the last few weeks in our streeting efforts and it is working great! We have been able to give out a really good amount of books. Pretty soon we are going to need to order more!

Well, things are going well. We are having a good time and I love being out here. I am really learning a lot from my studies and I really feel like I have become a much better person in the last few weeks. It is amazing how much spiritual strength comes from regularly studying the scriptures with a desire to understand what they are teaching. 

I hope all is well with everybody at home. Thanks for keeping me updated. I love you all!

Elder Eldredge

Monday, June 23, 2014

Hello Elder Anderson

Hey!

We have had a great week! I am with Elder Anderson now. He is really funny and the last few days have been great. We are really excited for the next transfer! We are focusing on finding new investigators this transfer. We have a goal to find 25 as a companionship. Our district goal is 65, and I promised my district that if they reach this goal they can throw pie at my face. They are really excited. We have been having a good amount of success as well. We started meeting with a guy named S-----. It is interesting teaching him because he is just learning german and he can't really speak english. But he likes to come to the church to read the book of Mormon (He can't read it at home because his roommates are muslim). We also met a woman yesterday. She said that she didn't have much time so we just asked if we could give her a book, and she agreed to quickly hand it to her. When we gave it to her she got really excited and bought us ice cream and we talked for a while. Her name is B-------. So things are going well here now. We have a lot of fun planned this week. 

In my studies I have been trying really hard to write down more impressions that come to me while I read and it really makes a big difference. Now I always remember what I studied and I feel more confident teaching and talking about what I read there. Plus I remember the scriptures places a lot easier. It is pretty cool. 

It sounds like a lot of fun at home, which doesn't surprise me with strawberry days and everything. Also, nobody ever told me that Matt and Natalie were getting married but that is awesome! 

On monday, Elder Buckley and I went and saw two castles! I will send some pictures. They were really cool to see. We got to climb all over one of them. It was like a big adventure. The first one was really cool though because it was in better shape. It felt like the middle ages at a few points. I really love this place. 

This thursday I will get to watch the USA- DEUTSCHLAND game with some of our members. I am pretty excited. Plus we seem to be doing pretty well. 

I hope that you all have a great week! Thanks for writing! I love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Monday, June 16, 2014

Goodbye President Miles

Hey!

It sounds like a party all the time lately! It's nice to hear from more of you this week! I knew it would be a girl. How long has it been since we got one of those? eleven years almost? 

I am getting a new companion named Elder Anderson. He is from sun tan, I mean, san tan Arizona. I wonder if he is related to the andersons in our ward. I am really excited to meet him this thursday. Elder Buckley is going to Munich to work in an english speaking ward. He is really excited. It is the same ward that Elder Sardoni started out in. I am really excited to still be district leader for the next transfer. Our district is really excited to work hard seeing as two of the sisters in our district will go home after this next transfer. We are going to eat schnitzel after our district meeting tomorrow at a place called herbs. They know the missionaries there. 

We had a really good/sad zone conference this last thursday. It was sad because it was the last time that we will see the Miles' before they leave. We all got to take photos with them and they gave us each a DVD with tons of photos of the mission since 2012. We are excited to meet President Kohler and his family in a few weeks. We will have a special double zone conference in salzburg next month where we will meet him and his family. He is bringing two kids with him. 

Yesterday we had ward conference. It was awesome to see our group of 25 members jump up to about 50. Sadly most of them were from the stake, but it was still good because a lot of less active members came with there active families. The whole ward conference had the theme "Patience." It was a really good topic for me because I would really like to see this area make a lot of immediate progress but we just need to be patient a little bit until it is the right time. 

Luckily we don't have to wear our jackets all the time. In fact, I really only wear it to church and to zone meetings. It is really nice that it isn't required because I might have died from the heat last week if I needed to wear my jacket.

We are having a better time finding people lately. Almost all of them are old women for some reason but they need the gospel too. 

Well I hope that you all have a great week! I will send some photos this week. Today we are going to see two different castles so there should be some more good photos later. 

Love,

Elder Eldredge



Monday, June 9, 2014

A Fireside and a Castle

Hey everybody! 

This week was really great. The weather has been crazy hot though. School just ended over here and since the sun is out, everybody is out. We had a really great fireside in Vienna on Friday. Sister Wixom, Sister Reeves, and Elder Kearon (from the seventies) were there. They invited the whole stake but the didn't rent out a center for it so we just had it in one of the churches in Vienna. There wasn't quite enough space for everybody there so we were all packed in, which really didn't help with the heat. But the meeting was good and Elder Kearon was really funny. The sad thing is that they can only say one sentence at a time because they have a translator right next to them, so they can't cover as many topics. 

We had something really cool happen yesterday. We were going to our mission leaders home for lunch after church, and he decided that he wanted to see this castle up on the hill that we see on our way to his house. So we drove up to it and there were lots of people up at the castle dressed up like knights and princesses. They were this club that likes to pretend they are in the dark ages and have battles up at this castle every once in a while. We could see the whole castle because they had it rented out but it was still cool to see all of their stuff. It felt like we time traveled. Hopefully we will visit a different castle next Monday. 

This week, on Friday, we will find out about next transfer. I will almost surely get a new companion. President Miles is going home in about two weeks or so. We will have a zone conference on Thursday and that will be the last time we see them. It is sad but I am excited to see what President Kohler will be like. 

I am going to guess that Haley's baby is a girl. We need more of those in our family. I remember being sad about being outnumbered by girls, but we really took the lead now. 

For my birthday I bought this really cool old camera from the late 50's. It is in perfect shape like it was never used. Now I just need film. The camera costed the exact amount of money that I had so I just look at it without being about to use it. I will send a photo of it if the computer cooperates. 

Not to much else happened this week. I started getting a bit sun burnt, but I seem to be doing ok for now. We have a lot of eating appointments and meetings this week so it should be really fun. I hope that you all have a great week! And congrats to Ben for getting that award! I love you all!


Elder Eldredge 

Monday, June 2, 2014

Happy Birthday!!

Hey! 

I finally made the big stage! It is a little bit strange that everybody will see my face when they got on the site for the church. I already have like 5 emails asking me if it is really me. It's pretty cool though. I got a text from our mission office telling me that I was famous. Pres. and Sister Miles called to sing happy birthday to me and told me that I was famous. Apparently they talked about it all day. It was a pretty good gift from the church. 

You all sound pretty happy! Way to go Ben! Is it hard to catch with a golden glove? We had a pretty great week too. We did a lot of dooring this week because it kept raining and nobody on the street wanted to talk to us. I forgot how crazy dooring can be sometimes. You meet some weird people. We saw a house that was so big it could have held 50 people easily. We had at least 5 people let their dogs out on us. Luckily, everybody here just has those tiny dogs so all they can do to us is annoy us. But it worked. 

We had a really great district meeting on tuesday. It was the last time for

Elder and Sister Strong, so the sisters wrote new words to "Edelweiss" and we made paper flowers with our faces taped onto them. It was a lot of fun and really sad to see them go. But the Parkers are really great as well. They were a bit tired because of the jet-lag but they are doing better now.

My birthday was pretty cool. As a mission we were fasting that people would come to church, and two people came! One was a women that we met on the street and she didn't want us to come by so we just invited her to church and she took a card. It was cool because she seems to be really insecure, but the meeting helped her. Our members were all really awesome as well. They all spent the week in the temple so they came back really energized and happy, and they all bore amazing testimonies. The woman that came said that she will come again in two weeks. The other woman is named A-------. We found her on last Monday and committed her to coming and she came! She liked church too but she couldn't understand all of it because she is from Brazil. But she said she will come next week. For the rest of the day we did dooring and got attacked by the kids in our neighborhood. They think that we are from England and try to steal all of our cards. Elder buckley made pancakes with eggs, bacon, and hash-browns for dinner. It was pretty good. The sisters also sang happy birthday to me when I tried calling them to collect numbers too. It was a great birthday. 

Not too much has been happening other than that. It keeps raining on and off so we are working hard to not get sick. So far so good. Thanks for all the birthday wishes! I hope that you all have another great week! I love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

The Heat is On

Hello family!

It sounds like you had another action packed week! Sounds like Ben did a great job in his tournament! It has been really hot over here for the last few days. At the beginning of the week it rained a lot but then the sun came out and stayed out. We had to pull out the fans for our apartment because it gets so hot, but luckily we are one the first floor so we don't have the heat from the other apartments. There were a lot more people out this week because the weather was so nice, well... I guess it was nice if you don't have to wear a tie all day. 

Our district is really great! We started eating lunch together on tuesday before district meetings and it is really fun to get to know everybody. This week the senior missionaries in our district, the Strongs, will be heading home and we are all really sad about it. But the replacements, the Parkers, are here. They are from Alpine. I am excited to meet them tomorrow. 

Elder Buckley and I are doing great. He is starting to leave his golden zone and is talking to more and more people. His German is getting much better as well. He will probably be leaving here pretty soon. Transfers are in three weeks and he has already been here for four transfers. But who knows, maybe he will stay. Speaking of people leaving, the Miles' are going to be going home really soon. We will have a conference in about two weeks and that will be the last that we see them before they go home. It is a little strange to be getting a new mission president but I am sure we will love him and his wife just as much as the Miles'. 

We found a guy named M----- last week and we taught him this week. He is 17 and really cool. He is just excited to learn more about Christ and wants to learn our message. We watched the restoration film with him and he really liked it. He is on a trip this week to france but when he comes back we will keep teaching. He seems like a really great investigator. 

Things here are just great. We are having a bit of a hard time finding people to teach but it will all work out. As long as we do our best the Lord will do the rest. I hope that you all have a great week! I love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Monday, May 19, 2014

Rainy Days

[Note: one of my colleagues from work is traveling with his wife in Austria and they met Parker at church on Sunday - they sent the pictures included here and the note added at the end of this post - Scott]


Hey!

We had another great week here. I am pretty sure that it rained for at least four days straight but we still aren't sick somehow. Seeing dads boss in church was pretty fun. I think the ward here might think that they were my parents so I might have to clear that up later but oh well. 

My first district meeting went really well. Our district is really amazing and the other missionaries always teach really inspiring parts in district meetings. I am really enjoying my calling. 

Mom, I have the same problem as you. As soon as I sit down to write I forget everything that happened and I don't know what to say anymore. I did meet a really interesting guy on the street. His name was Valentin. But that is just his street name. He asked us if we could give him some cigarettes but then he was interested in who we are. He kept saying "street life is rough man... street life." He also kept forgetting what he had already said so when I called him by name he almost freaked out. I asked him what my street name would be and, without hesitation, he said "Wolfstein." So I guess that is my official street name. He was a really funny guy with a lot of problems. It was sad having to tell him that we couldn't help him get off the street because he didn't want to stop stealing from people. But he was nice.

We had a lesson with a woman named A----- this week. She was referred to us by some members in Vienna and she is really nice. We are having a hard time getting her to understand exactly what our expectations are, but we watched the restoration film with  her and she said she was really touched. We also committed her to coming to church but for some reason she just didn't show up. But her friend in Vienna invited her to a fireside with several general authorities speaking and she is excited to go with her friend. Just goes to show the power that a friend has in inviting others to learn about the church. 

We are doing well. We do a lot of street contacting and trying to get in contact with old investigators and we get rained on a lot, but I love it. Sorry that there isn't too much to say about this last week. Oh! I got a call from pres. Miles the other day and he gave me permission to skype with M and L since they got baptized. I am excited for that. We just have to organize it with Elder Sardoni in Konstanz. So that is how things are. 

I hope that you all have a great week. I love you all!

Elder Eldredge


Scott,

I finally have Internet access so I can write more about seeing Elder Eldredge this morning. Their meetings started at 9:00 but we were late and got there by 10:00. The branch meets on the third floor of a building used by businesses. It wasn't easy to find, but eventually we got there. The branch is very small, there were about 25 people present.

When we got there we introduced ourselves and asked where Elder Eldredge was. I guess what every parent wants to hear is that their missionary looks well, which he was. Eileen and I were very impressed with his German, in particular his pronunciation which is very close to native (and much better than mine). He and his companion are the only missionaries in St. Pölten and spend most of their time doing "bus tracking" which appears to be a way to approach people who are "trapped" on the bus. I asked if they did any door-to-door tracking and he said that they didn't. 

In any case I hope that you and your wife like the picture. I can give you a bigger version when I get home.

Best regards,
Bill Lund

Monday, May 12, 2014

Happy Mother's Day

Hey Family!

Skyping last night was awesome! I can't believe that those munchkins are talking so well already! You all look like you are doing great and it was great talking in real time. Like I mentioned yesterday, things here are going great. We have been having a hard time getting lessons to not fall out but I know we are just being tested a bit. I am confident that we will see a lot of success soon. Things are going up-hill! 

I just checked our baptized list from the mission and I learned that L---- and M----
were baptized! I am really happy that they made it even though it took a little longer than we expected. I am sure they are doing great and the ward in Konstanz loved them a lot before I even left so I bet they are already part of the family there.

We actually do eat a lot of asparagus here. All of the food has been great my whole mission. Even almost all of my companions have loved to cook so I have been treated like a king for the last 14 months. My favorite things to eat are probably Schnitzel (if it is made right), and then Leberkäs with a cold Almdudler (the austrian ginger ale). 

I was reading in the "teachings of the prophets: Joseph F. Smith," and he said something that I thought was really cool. He said that he started seriously studying the Book of Mormon before he was old enough to be a deacon, and that ever since then he never stopped studying the Book of Mormon. He said "Through my life I have read the Book of Mormon over and over again, and I have still not read it enough." I really took that to heart and I am trying to improve my Book of Mormon study and I notice the effect that it has on my overall attitude and also on my confidence as a missionary. It is amazing what the Book of Mormon can do to a person who decides to make it a regular and important part of his life. All imperfections start to wear away and you automatically become more like the Savior as you live the principals that are taught in the Book of Mormon. 

Well I hope that you all have a great rest of the week and I can't wait to talk to you next week! Love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Monday, May 5, 2014

A New Assignment

Hey everyone!

That sounds like you all had an awesome week! We had a lot of fun over here as well. Elder Buckley and I are staying one more together but I was called as the district leader. I am really excited! But today is the first day of my tenth transfer. I am hitting double digits! I still don't like the mission time warp. The work in St. Pölten is going well. I just got permission from Pres. Miles to buy bus passes and I think that will help us a lot. We have just been walking everywhere but now our playing field is much bigger. 

Mission tour was awesome! On monday evening I got to work with Elder Stilger in Vienna and it was for sure the most fun I have had contacting on my mission. We had a blast and talked to tons of cool people. Plus Vienna is beautiful just to top it off. Our conference on tuesday was also really great. I saw a lot of missionaries that I haven't seen in a long time and we got to catch up on each other's adventures. Elder Dyches gave a really cool discussion about working with real intent. It is always good to have a day where you just refuel a little bit so that when you leave you are ready to work hard until the next meeting. 

I found a quote from Elder Holland this last week and I decided to make it the theme for the rest of my mission but I also think that it also puts forth a good mind set for any member of the church. This is just a part of it: "We have got to take things to the edge. we have to move into the realm of the miraculous. We have to live in such a way that we cannot do it alone anymore - where we will resort to the Lord - where we will cry out 'without thy help I will fall - help me fly.' Go to the edge where miracles happen - move into the realm of the miraculous."

I got to work in Vienna on friday as well because we were on exchange. I worked with Elder Peterson from Salt Lake. We ran into five members of the church! Three of them were even students from BYU on a study abroad. We were supposed to have an appointment there but it fell out so we went by on some old investigators. The people that we talked to were all really awesome and we had a good time. The weather was beautiful as well, until about 7 O'clock when it began to drop buckets on us. It rained so hard in such a short time! There was thunder and lightning everywhere as well just to make it cooler. And because I was on exchange i didn't have a jacket so I just ran as fast as I could while trying to stay dry under my broken umbrella. It was a fun evening. 

The pictures that you sent arrived! Thanks for those! They will be great for showing people. Just so that you know I will be skyping at 6 O'clock (Austria time) from one of our members houses. I am really excited to talk to you all next sunday! I hope that you all have a great week! Love you all!


Elder Eldredge

Monday, April 28, 2014

Focus on the Basics

Hey everyone!

Well we had another great week in St. Pölten. Luckily I didn't get sick like the rest of you. I can't believe that pretty much everybody was sick through the week. So far I haven't been sick on my mission but I am keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way. 

Well last week I had mentioned that we had been having a hard time finding people to teach but now things are getting a lot better. We were at a restart phase when I showed up and now it is starting to pick up pace a little bit. We met with a woman that we found last week named D-----. She is from Russia, and due to a lot of deaths in her family and losing her job at the same time, she fell into some pretty heavy depression and lost her faith. But she has now realized that she really needs her faith in Christ and she is studying in the Book of Mormon. Our only problem with her is that her English is not very good and neither is her German. She sort of speaks both of them at the same time. We understand her pretty well but she doesn't always understand what we are saying completely. We will probably start teaching her German pretty soon. 

We also found a young Austrian family with two children. They were really interested and they want to have a tour of our church building. They also wanted to come to church yesterday but they had somebody visiting them to see their new baby. The father had a lot of questions that were good questions but they weren't going to help him develop faith quite yet. He was asking us a lot of "deep doctrine" questions, and although we could have answered that he hasn't yet developed the faith to believe what we would tell him. I have found it interesting that no matter how much interest a person has about the Gospel, if you don't take the time and focus on the basic principles of the Gospel, you can't make nearly as much spiritual progression. 

Today all of the missionaries in Austria will have a big finding day in Vienna and I get to work with Elder Stilger! I am way excited. He has been working as a zone leader in Salzburg and I have only seen him a few times since he left Haag so I can't wait. We also have a mission tour tomorrow in Vienna, and Elder Dykes from the quorum of the seventy will speak to us. We will be there for almost the whole day. There will also be about 80 missionaries there so it should be a good time.

I am sorry that I have only been able to send a few pictures since I have been here. The computers are just too slow for it to work. Oh ya, this transfer is only five weeks long so we will get transfer calls on this coming saturday. Also, Dad, the address of our church that you found for your old boss is correct. And it does start at 9 as well. 

I hope that you all have a great week and that you are all feeling better now. Congrats to Haley and Andrew for graduating!

Love you all!


Elder Eldredge