A Weekly Snippet.. 3 months worth.

December 14, 2015:   "Thursday was transfer day, I got up at 4 a.m. to catch the 6:45 a.m. train to Salzburg thenwaited a hour and went to München and from there to Passau.  Elder Faux is a cool guy he is 2 transfers older than me so he will hit his year mark this transfer but yeah there are sister in Passau and they are cool Friday we passed out Christmas cards to people here for a hour then went to the church so the church here well it's a branch and it's the smallest branch in our mission like 10-15 on a good day yeah but they are all super awesome and we have some cool investigators here too but yeah the church is in a office building I'll send a picture next week but it's nice here I like it a lot." 

December 21, 2015:   "I bought a giant pretzel and took a pic just for you haha but yeah so this week was pretty not interesting if you are not a missionary haha we just had appointments and went finding but Friday and Saturday we went caroling with the sister missionaries here, they are pretty cool, but we just went door to door and knocked and sang.  It was mostly old people who we sang to for some reason haha, but on Friday we only sang to 3 and the 3rd lady she invited us in, well we were talking and I saw a really old pug, btw it's mops in German, but I saw him and loved him so I think that's why she let us in, but she led us downstairs, she had a pretty big house, anyway and she gave us fruit tea and home made cookies that she made.  The pugs name was Otto and he had one eye and his tail was all droopy not at all curly but we talked and shared with her a Christmas video we have so she was nice.  Then Saturday caroling we sang more and well people wanted to give us money, well donations, haha and we klingled and there was a party going on full of old ladies and they were so happy and well the kinda pushed like 15€ on sister Fogg the brand new sister here, so sometimes there is nothing you can do about it cause people here kinda give out money haha.  We decided we are going to use it for fast offerings so nothing special haha."

December 28, 2015:   "Thursday so we went to the branch presidents house cause on the 24 is the big deal here, they open all their presents and what not. I did not take pictures cause we were always doing stuff sorry, and I also forgot my cord again so sorry about that.  For dinner we had meat fondue, like chunks of raw meat with a pot of boiling oil to cook them in and there were different dips you could put on your meat, it was really good.  Then we spent the night at the Landshut elders place cause it was 10 by the time everything was done, so we got up and went back to Passau.  We went to the Sagmeister place for Christmas, they are a really cool family, pretty much the Weaslelys  from Harry Potter, but we ate there and I skyped you also.  It was really great to see everyone but now that I think about it it feels like the Skype call was so long ago and that it has not been that long of a time, it's weird how time moves on your mission.  Some weeks are long and some fly by.  Saturday we just weekly planned and then went to an all you can eat Asian buffet a member took us to.  It had like kangaroo and alligator and ostrich, deer, elk and stuff like that.  You put the raw meat on your plate and they cook it and bring it to you table. Sunday was Sunday, church and then we did studies and went by on people so yeah, that's my week.  Today before we emailed we went to the Catholic Church organ concert, like its the largest organ in the world or in Europe at least.   It's 5 organs in one kinda thing, it was pretty cool."

Santa visits all good missionaries.

January 11, 2016:  Some times I just don't want to write home, sorry mom.  Friday night my left ear started ringing and it has not stopped ringing so yeah fun.  It's just a ringing, feels kinda numb like when your foot is asleep and you can feel it when you touch it but not really, that's how it feels.  Oh and I've had a headache since the ringing started so fun  Wednesday Elder Carr and I went by on a referral that took pretty much all day to find out where he lived cause it said 90 but it went from 89 to 91 and there was no 90! They do that pretty often though, they just skip house numbers like that but they we tried on number 9 cause maybe they messed up and put a 0 so we did and it was the guy  We both felt like we should try the 9 and when it was the guy we wanted it was pretty cool feeling. 

When Ben doesn't feel good we pretty much send goofy pictures to each other.  Sometimes writing home when your sick is just "uuuhhhh."


 *NOTE FROM MOM  Ben had a few hard weeks worth of emails, so I'm keeping those private but these few ending of several of the emails sums up that missions help produce strong, loving Men.  

"Thank you mom for well, everything!  You have done so much with and all the advice you have given me.  You really are the best mom in the whole world!   Even when I have a wife and she is a mom, you will still be number one.  I love you lots Love Elder Summers"  

Last week with Elder Faux

February 2, 2016:  "Well as I'm looking back through my planner I know that I did have blessings and that the Lord did bless me this week, a lot, but I don't remember the days that they happened so I'll just give a summary of what I saw.  So we have been doing a lot of finding lately and well, we are just not finding anyone.  Like we were out for 4 hours talking to people but not one potential, but later that day someone found us!  This week almost every day we have had people come up to us and start talking to us so yeah.  Not all of them turn out to be potentials but it was nice that they are talking to us. I have been reading in Alma, that's were I'm at, anyways I read that the Lord is unchanging and he does not change. So when he says "ask and ye shall receive", we shall receive!  That when he says I can learn this language and the gift of tongues is real, I can learn it!  That gave me hope this week.  Saturday I remember was a hard day but I made it through it so yeah. He has blessed me with all the wonderful people here and also back home who love and support me when I need it."

February 8, 2016:  "So while we were waiting for the S family to pick us up, some guy came up to us and said how he wanted to become Christian but he is a Viking and believes in Odin...so yeah, but he seemed sincere so yeah that was fun. A lot on Sunday, so yeah Sunday as we were going to church some lady came up to us and said are you Mormon and we said yeah and she got down on one knee and put her hands together and said God bless you and stuff like that so it was a great start haha. So this week was Fasching week, ask sister Tingey about it, but there were these 16-18 year old girls dressed up as clowns.....like a nose makeup but not the clothes really and they all had a bunch of roses and we walked past them and one of them broke off from the group and gave me and ES each a rose and said something but we did not understand so that was fun.."

February 15, 2016:  "Well this week was good for the most part yeah I'll just give you a general run down of my week:  We met with our Viking friend twice, had zone training, had tausch so I worked with elder Bliss,  had a lesson, went finding,  had a eating appointment, and some really drunk guy tried to show us around Passau and would not leave us alone so we walked with him as he talked English with us, the language of drunk people here in Passau is English, so fun."

February 22, 2016:  "I thank you so much for the prayers you have given for me, it really is such a nice feeling to know you have someone back home who is praying for you, We have eaten at the Sagmeisters every week and she is such a funny woman, like she is almost the German version of you haha!  But yeah we make schnitzel every week and it's so good you should try to make it, ask sister Tingey to help if you want.  Have you been to Aldi yet? It's a German food store in Tulsa you know where it is?  But yeah that's where I go shopping sometime in Austria it's called Hofer but yeah.  I bet they have German stuff there try the weiß Wurst it's so good.  You just boil and suck them out of the skin haha.  I'll show you when I get back home. But yeah this week was just full of normal missionary work haha Tuesday we had district meeting and then lunch with a member family, OH YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS DISH CALLED Dampf Nudeln!! Ok? You really need to try and make it it's soooooooo good.  we had apartment inspection from the Ehepaar from Linz we passed with flying colors so yay for us!  We had a lesson with a new convert who lives a good 15 away from Bahnhof and it was snowing and raining and guess who that day decided to not carry their umbrella with him.... Me.  So I was soaking wet when we got there and it was snowing even harder when we left, so fun.  We almost missed our train it would have come in another hour if we had missed it but it was late so that was a blessing ."

February 29, 2016:   "Friday we went to Neuötting and sang to old Bayerisch people in a old people home it was fun to see them all sing along with us as we sang older songs with them, it made me really happy. In Neuötting we missed our train, but that's ok it comes every hour.  We were stuck for a hour so all the pictures I sent are in Neuötting of the church's there.  Look it up.  I took a picture of a couple dead saints, like legit skeletons stuff it's so freaky and I bought a rosary while I was there cause I wanted one but yeah that was my week in a nut shell."

March 7, 2016:  "Thursday we helped sister Bishop with her bags and then we met with a lady who has come up to us a couple of times but this time we talked with her and yeah got her address and we went there on Thursday and she is pretty.....different.   She drinks a lot and speaks English with us but she is a lonely lady who said she feels all gross inside, but yeah we talked with her and said that we would like to help her and how we don't think she is gross and then she started to cry. So all in all it was nice" 

March 14, 2016:  "We only taught one lesson this week to a guy from Holland.  He is a artist and he showed us around a modern art thing for a hour so it was fun. He is a cool guy. We taught him the restoration and the Book of Mormon and he honestly seemed to like everything and agree with what we said but he is gone now he left Sunday but he was really cool I got a picture with him.  Was the Mormon message you watched called " Mountains to climb" ?  Because if so, I watched that one on Sunday, it was a rough day for me and it helped a lot actually, but yeah.  It's just been rough the past week.  I love you so just much mom I wished I would of listened to you more back home now that I'm here I realize how right you were about well everything haha I hope you are doing amazing g and that this week is great love you mom Love Elder Summers"

March 21, 2016:   "Ich weiß nicht was zu sagen aber es war eine gute Woche. Wir haben viele getan, ok nicht so viele getan aber ein bisschen Spaß gemacht. Hoffentlich nächste Versetzung  werde ich versetzt werden, weil ich schon hier drei Versetzung bin und schon drei mit dem Elder Staheli aber ja.   I hope that's good for you,it won't be all right with the adjective ending and word placements and stuff like that but I hope it makes sense to you.  Saturday we just cleaned the church and went by on a guy who we are wanting to do service for.  His place has mold and gnats everywhere so we were going to help him clean it but he was not feeling well so we ate linner, it's was at 4 so that's why it's called linner. Then found for a hour or so and that's my week for ya, nothing too exciting happening this week but next week I'll be in Landshut for Tuesday till Thursday morning or so should be fun."