My adventure at Church in Vienna

Today was such a good day. It really made me fall in love with Vienna and its people. We woke up and walked to the Ubahn station for our first “independent” experience on the transportation system. Luckily, we got on all the right subways to get us to the institute right in time for church. Church was different today. It was celebrating the beginning of the institute so church was held at the institute like a stake conference. (Generally, there is not a singles ward in Vienna.) We walked in and there were so many Young Single Adults. I loved it. It was so amazing to see. All around there were about 100-150 kids there. There were kids for Salzburg, Vienna, Gratz, and more. I really enjoyed sacrament. Luckily we had translators, so I was able to understand everything they were saying. I couldn’t stop smiling or laughing during it. I was just so happy. Not to mention the YSA rep for Vienna was beautiful. He sat at front with the speakers and I just stared at him the whole time. Hahah Lyndsi and I both noticed though that the WHOLE time he was staring at us. It was funny because every time we made eye contact I would smile real big then start giggling. He would smile and laugh back. It was fun. Haha He was so cute. I learned from someone that his name was Johannes and he is the YSA rep for Vienna. After sacrament the Institute had prepared lunch for all of us. We set up the tables and waited for about an hour for lunch to be ready. That is when the mingling began. I was so ready to become friends with some Austrians. That is one of my goals while I am here. I want to be able to make Austrian friends so I can really have a cultural experience. I was so nervous, but I decided I was just going to go up to them and try speaking German to them. (None of the other kids in my group were trying to meet other people. They just kept to themselves.) I got all the courage I could then went up to a girl with brown hair and a big nose and a boy that looked like her brother, and looked at the girl and said “Wie Heisst du?” (What is your name?) She gave me the meanest look, rolled her eyes, said something in German to her brother, then quietly said Sarlina (something like that). I didn’t hear it at first and asked again. She seemed annoyed. After that I just sat and silence… Her brother then asked “Are you from America?” I said yes. Then they both just stared at me. I shook my head up and down and then walked away thinking… OKBYE! Haha I was shocked! They were sooo rude to me. They completely shut me down. I went back over to the kids in my group with me and they all were shocked. They could not believe that happened. I laughed it off. I was not going to let them get me discouraged. I was not giving up. I WAS going to make friends with these people. I told everyone in my group “I AM GOING TO MAKE THESE PEOPLE LOVE ME WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT!” haha I was so determined. We sat down at the table and there was a boy a seat away from me. I looked at him and said, “Ich mag diene Krawatte.” (I like your tie) He gave me the weirdest looked! Looked around. I pointed at his tie and said it again. He still looked at me so weird, then turned away. I was shut down AGAIN! I couldn’t believe it. I WAS going to make a friend. I HAD too.

I saw another boy. I decided to tell him the same thing. I looked at him “Ich mag deine Krawatte.” He looked at me, smiled, and said Danke schone! (Thank you very much!) I got one person to be nice to be! I was so happy. I felt successful. Then there was another boy who was serving us the drinks and water. He came up to me and said something to me in German. I had no idea was he said and just responded “Nein!” (no) He then kept speaking to me and I had no clue what he was saying. I then looked at him and said “Meine Deutsch ist awful!” (My German is awful! ) He responded in German. I just nodded my head. I found out that he said “I don’t hear any bad German!” Isn’t that nice? He didn’t even look at me the rest of the day but I didn’t care. He said something nice to me! That made me happy. For lunch we had Schnitzel. It is this fried chicken type thing that is an Austrian delicacy. Everyone loved it, but I thought it was okay. Austrians take a LONG time to eat. They sit at the tables and eat for hours so we waited a while for the next activity to start. After lunch we split up into teams and have a scavenger hunt in a BEAUTIFUL park in the north of the city. A lot of us BYU student were not too excited for that. They didn’t really feel welcomed and wanted to leave. Like I said though, I was determined to make friends so I was staying for the scavenger hunt. I was on team blue. They did not seem too thrilled to have me, or 2 other girls from BYU on their team. I felt like everyone thought we were dumb Americans. Our group consisted of Amanda, Torey, and me (From Byu), and 5 other people. The beginning of the scavenger hunt was bad. They did not seem at ALL interested in us so they did not talk to us. I was starting to get a little discouraged, but then I just decided to be positive. I was going to be friendly to all of them and go out of my way to talk to all of them! There were 2 girls in are group from Salzburg who I talked too who were actually really nice. Their English was really good as well and helped me with my German. Their names were Rachel and Leisel. Rachel was 24 and Leisel was 18. They were very friendly and made the trip a lot more fun for us. Then as we were on the ubahn to the park, I sat down to another girl in my group. Her name was Sabrina. I think she was 26? She was an artist from Vienna and was actually very nice as well. We spoke for the whole train ride until the park. Then walking to the park I met David. David was probably my favorite in the group. He spoke broken English but was so friendly. He had so many questions to ask me. He made me feel really welcome to the group. I really enjoyed talking to him. He was 26 as well. The YSA in Austria are very old compared to the ones in Georgia I felt like. There was one person left in my group who I was determined to talk to. She always looked at me like I was crazy. Her name was Magdalena. It took her a HECK OF A WHOLE LOT of time for her to warm up to me. I finally did it though. I mean it wasn’t a huge warm up, but she finally cracked a smile at me and would kind of talk to me. I felt so accomplished. The park we went to was called DonuPark? It was absolutely beautiful. It was so big with so many different playgrounds, paths, ponds, bridges, huge chess games, tennis courts, it had everything. I really loved it. I plan on going back there a lot this semester. We ran into Lyndsi and Ali’s group at the park. I tried talking to the people in her group because they were speaking English. Their names were Oliver and Emmanuel. They thought I was crazy. It was funny because I would try and speak German to them, but I would then laugh because I sounded funny. Oliver actually served with Calvin Roberts in London so we talked about that for a bit. After talking with them they thought something was wrong with me. I overcame all my fear talking to the Austrians though. I decided I didn’t care what they thought about me. I wasn’t going to let them affect my experience in Vienna. Lyndsi told me that after I left Oliver looked at her and said “Is she okay??” And pointed at his head. I just laughed. I thought it was hilarious. Every Austrian I have met thinks I am crazy because I smile and laugh so much.

For one part in the scavenger hunt we had to sing a hymn out of the hymn book. We chose “Love One Another” since it was short. We had a lot of fun with that hymn. We ended up singing it at so many different places just to be funny. When we got to the front of the train station we sang it, we were waiting for the ubahn we sang it. We had a lot of fun being weird. After finally becoming friends with the Austrians, I learned so many interesting facts about them. Rachel told me how she actually lived in GA with her mom after her parents got divorced when she was 13. She told me how she was baptized 3 years ago, and her dad did not approve. David then told me how he was not yet a mormon. He told me his story. He told me that his friend was always so ‘magnetic’ and he always wanted to be around him. He moved to Vienna to be closer to his friend because of that. They ended up being roommates and his friend invited him to church. I thought that was so cool. It really goes to show that you seriously can be an example to those around and really shine the light of Christ. I loved it when he told me how his roommate was magnetic. I thought that was so awesome. We then headed back to the institute for a little dessert, then the BYU kids left for the Minert’s house for dinner.

All in all today was definitely an adventure. I learned a few things from it... 1.) Austrians don’t smile that much. 2.) Every YSA Austrian thinks I am crazy in the head. And 3.) Austrians are not nearly as friendly as Americans. Surprisingly, It made me love the Austrians so much!! The fact that it is so hard for them to give me the time of day is such a challenge to me. It makes me want to open them up. I love it! I know I am going to meet some really good friends here. They might not think that they would ever be friends with me now, but o they just wait and see.

I am so excited to be here. I already love it. I am so happy for this cultural/learning experience I get to have. It is going to be a great 3 months.