My Road Less Traveled By

So today I went to church. You know how people say that the church is the same everywhere? Well, I’m here to tell you that they are wrong. The gospel is the same. Church is different-and it is in fact, better. It took the usually shenanigans figuring out how to get there but somehow we got to our building. We went to the English speaking ward at 1:30. Everyone in the ward seemed to be from a different country and the two things they had in common were their religion and that they could speak some English so they came. I was in love with it the moment I set foot inside and I’m pretty sure I haven’t enjoyed church that much in a long time. I wasn’t looking around seeing Utah hair and Shade shirts. Instead I saw people in traditional clothing from their native countries (Africa) and many nationalities. The Bishop’s name is Simon. He has a last name that I can't remember and he taught our young adult class as his other calling and asked us to call him Simon. We were welcomed to sacrament meeting by an Australian (Simon), the opening prayer was given by an Englishman, and the first talk was given by someone from Africa the pianist was from Arizona. A lot of the people there worked for their respective embassies and one kid got up to tell the congregation that his mom had raised ten kids in eight different countries. Sunday school consisted of the students in the ward introducing themselves. There were a few others there from SUU and graduates from BYU and still others that were backpacking through Europe and such. Relief society was taught by a no-nonsense African woman and the president was an African woman who literally doubled over when she laughed. We had a lesson on prayer with the same manuals that we use back home (this seem s obvious to me but some people seemed to be surprised by this) though people actually bring their manuals to church here it seems. One woman had no less than three in her bag alone. At the end of relief society the primary kids came in and sang a song about mothers for Mother’s Day. It was one of those heart melting moments that make you really miss your mother and I really do miss my mom a lot!
So there are a few things I notice about Vienna that I’d like to share. On my subway/tram/bus ride home (yes I had to ride all three of those by myself to get home today) I took some pictures to illustrate some of the things that I’ve noticed in the past few days.

People have dogs. They do all over the world it’s true, but it seems that there are so many here. And I have seen many many more people with dogs than with children. In fact I think their dogs are something like their children...they look more like their owners than many children I know look like their parents. Either that or the owners really look like their dogs. I have spent a substantial amount of time being a stalker and documenting this phenomenon and I’m having a hard time not starting a blog specifically for it. It’s truly uncanny how dogs and their people look so much alike.

Along with those dogs comes a lot of poop. It’s a fact of life but I rarely see any of it. They take great care to clean up after their pets. I thought this was because of the abundance of these signs in every piece of grass in the city.

Come to find out “sind dir wurst?” means” Are you sausage?” I will let you know when I figure out the relationship between there signs, the grass and the dogs.
I am not an advocate of Wal-Mart. In fact, I will avoid going there at all costs in the USA but I have to admit people in Vienna are sure missing out. There is Billa for fruits, veggies, and other grocery stuff. There is Bipa for cosmetics. Libro is for paper supplies and books. Frick is mostly just for books. And there is a whole other store for meats. The list goes on and on. If only they knew the wonder of going into one store and finding everything you need. I understand that in a big city it’s difficult to fit a super Wal-Mart, but that’s what multi-story buildings were invented for and they really should take advantage of that. At least put them next to each other.

That’s about all of my observations for now. This is the green grass outside my apartment. The weather is beautiful and the grass thick and green. It’s pretty awesome.