Last week of school and moving:

We finally moved to the Bishops house. He has two kids, Jonathan is 6 and Matthias is 1. He and his wife were really nice! I never really spoke to them before we moved into their house. It is really far from the center of the city (which is where I used to live). It is at the end of an u-bahn (metro) station, and then we had to take a bus for a few more stops, but it was a really cute house. They have a front yard, and on Sunday Anne and I laid on lawn chairs as we relaxed and read. It was really nice to get away from the city for a few days. Instead of five minutes to the center of the city, it took about a half an hour.
Last day of German classes – So we finished our German classes on July 30th. We had our finals and said goodbye to our German teachers Patrick and Peter. Peter has been our teacher the entire summer, and I have really enjoyed having him teach our class. He was really dedicated to helping us learn the language, especially the grammar, and he was really funny too. Our other teacher, Patrick was really great because he had us write a few essays about topics such as public transportation, and an experience in our lives that had a significant impact. I really fel like my German has improved a ton since I have been here in Austria, and I am so glad that I will be living in the German house when I get back!

Art museums – We went into several art museums with our art class, and again it was way better than sitting in a classroom looking at slideshows all day. We would meet at Professor Isaak’s apartrment and she would show us slides of what we were going to see in the museums the next day. It was really amazing!! We saw lots of works by Gustav Klimt including the famous “The Kiss”. WE also saw works by Kokoschka, Schiele, Claude Monet, Albrecht Dürer, Holbein, Breugel, Caravaggio, Rubens, Velazquez, Rembrant, Vermeer, David, Friedrich, Renoir, and the very famous Raphael. I really enjoyed time looking at paintings instead of just whizzing through museums like I would normally do because I previously didn’t really know anything about art. It was really great learning more about the details of a piece of art. For one of our assignments, we had to sit in front of a piece of art for at least 15 minutes and pick a character and write our thoughts as though we were that character in the painting. That assignment really changed the way I look at a piece of artwork. I also began to appreciate that, wow! How did these painters put so much detail into their works? Talent!!
Art project and poem: For another one of our assignments, we had to pick one of the three secessionist artists (Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele) and create an art piece after their style. I chose to take one of Schiele’s pieces and recreate it. I had lots of fun using water colors and colored pencils to paint. We also had to write lyrics that one of two composers (Arnold Schönberg, and Gustav Mahler) would write music to. Mahler did a series of depressing “Kindertotenlieder” and several of us wrote poems in this style. For our last day of art class, Wednesday, July 29th, we had a ‘Salon’ where we all shared our pieces of artwork. It was a fun way to end our class.

After classes were over on Thursday, I went to a surprise birthday party for Victoria, one of the YSAs in my ward. It was really nice to just sit outside, eat really yummy German food, and shat for a few hours (all in German, it was wonderful!!) The people here in Austria are really sweet! It has been such a great experience getting to know the people who live here. I definitely have a new perspective, now that I know people who live all over the world! I have also met many people from the middle east who have come here to get away from the corruption that is going on in their home countries.

Thursday night I tried to find my new home, the bishop’s, in the dark, and I hadn no idea what the address was, or where I needed to get off the bus. It was almost midnight, and the last bus. I only knew that the house was by the cemetery, I said lots of prayers and met lots of angels. Luckly my roommate was home and was able to give me the address and describe some of the buildings near by. I just have to say that Heavenly Father really was watching over me the entire time. Although I was really panicked, He helped me find the house really quickly, and no harm came over me! I do believe in MIRACLES!!

Crazy cuz it is the last weekend in Vienna, I feel panicked hopefully I have seen all that I want to, I need to enjoy the time that I have had, and the opportunity that I have had to be here.
Speaking German helps me think in German, and it makes my English worse
I have been using German grammer when I have been speaking English… ☺
I love it though!
The next two weeks we are going on adventures
Salzburg, Halsstadt, Dorfgastein