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

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

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

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

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

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

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