"Sister Lewis mit zwei flags" - August 12, 2013 from Vienna

Okay so so many great things happened this week! I don't even know where to start.

First, the other day we decided to do some work with the area book. I don't even know how to explain the area book. It's a "record of the dealings with God's children in your area." So I was calling past potential investigators and Sister Judd was calling past investigators. And making phone calls auf Deutsch is terrifying! If I actually get someone to talk to me, there's no way I'm going to be able to understand what they're saying. And we were just trading off using the phone because Sister Judd said using speaker phone made it even harder to understand. I have a few more people to follow up on, but at least one of the potential investigators that I called is now an investigator. He's so cool and the Lord has totally prepared him to accept the gospel. He came to church yesterday. The catch is he's not actually in our ward, so after one lesson with him we had a lesson with him and a set of elders in his ward. And in that lesson we gave him a tour of the church he would be attending. And it was cool. And I had actually never done a tour of a church building with an investigator before, so mostly just the elders and Sister Judd did a really good job. Last in the tour comes the baptismal font, and when they opened it the Spirit was just soaring. We had our lesson with him in that room.

This is what I told the mission president about it:

Another good week! I'm learning so much. One of the highlights of my week was finding a new investigator by calling past potentials. We met with him, he came to waffle night (even though we weren't there), and we met with him again. We invited the elders who actually serve in the ward where he lives. During that meeting we gave him a church tour, and the Spirit was so strong. He really opened up to us and told us all about the role religion has played in his life. Then he came to church! He was really excited about receiving a Book of Mormon in Persian, but it was hard to assign him reading because we didn't realize at first that the entire BOM is not yet translated into Persian. So the one we gave him only has excerpts. I really hope he continues to progress.

Okay so I'm really sorry I'm the worst writer ever. Thank goodness that you have a handwritten letter coming within the next few days. The real reason I told you hardly anything is because I was trying to figure out DropBox. I found out that we have permission from the mission president to use DropBox, so I sent one up.

So now you have a lot of random pictures that you might not understand. I will try to explain one. There's a picture of my name on the flag. One time when I moved districts in the MTC there was this little chart about whose turn it was to read and pray. And my name wasn't on it yet. And I said something, so Brüder Hill put my name on the big flag hanging up in our classroom. And then eventually they added a little flag for me so that I was on the chart but my name remained on the big flag. Eventually Sister Kervinen got  "jealous" and wrote her name underneath mine in little letters. And later people just wrote funny things on it. And one time when Brüder Hill was asking me a question he addressed me as "Sister Lewis mit zwei flags." Except he said flags in German. I can't remember how you say that in German. But it was funny. So that can be the quote of the week. "Sister Lewis mit zwei flags." Even though it happened forever ago. And I'm probably the only person who thinks it's funny. Well maybe Sister Kervinen does too.

I'm sure this is one of those "guess you had to be there stories"! 

But I love the little silly stories.

And Sister Kervinen got to come sleep over for two nights! It was so good for both of us. Especially for her. The sisters that we live with are the sister training leaders and so Sister Kervinen was here on tausch. 

Last week we we went to Schloss Schonbrunn on P-Day. That's what others of these pictures are from. The elders in the lederhosen are our elders that we serve in the same ward with. So we see them a lot.

Much of Schloss Schonbrunn was built in the 1700's although the
history of the buildings on this site go back to the 1400s and it has a
prominent place in the history of the Hapsburg dynasty. It has 1441 rooms
decorated in primarily the Rococo style and is Wien's #1 tourist attraction. 

This is the Neptune Fountain in the gardens of the Palace. 
It was built in the 1770's.

Sorry this is the worst email. I love you all. The work is good. I'm excited for you to get my letter. I love letters. If you ever send me anything will you put ore of those fruit/veggie packets in it and also that black shirt with the zipper that I didn't bring?

Alles gute,

Sister Lewis

Looks like a slumber party in her apartment, don't you think?