Dear Family,
As you can see from the title, I'm in a threesome again. That's some interesting news isn't it? Let's step through the series of events that led up to this. Well, last Monday after we finished everything for our P-day, we were hanging out at the building for a little bit before we went back home to get ready to go out working, and I got a call on my phone and saw that it was from President. I immediately started thinking to myself, "Uh oh, what'd I do?" Anyway, I picked up and said hello and with the big booming voice that he always speaks in, President said, "Well hello, who am I speaking with?" I told him that it was me and he continued, "Well, how are you doing Elder?" We went off like that for a moment, and then he finally asked me where the other elders were, and I said that they were right there with us. I then asked him if he wanted to speak with them, and he said yes, and to also ask them why they hadn't been answering their phone. I went over to Elder Anderson and handed him the phone and President asked him why he wasn't answering, and he told him that he didn't have the phone on him, and that he must have left it somewhere or in the car on accident. Anyway, they spoke on the phone for a while, and toward the end Elder Anderson was laughing almost hysterically in the way that people do when they're really stressed about something. When he got off, he told us that he had to be in Prague the next day! He was moving to Prague to be the new AP because Elder Hatch has to go home two weeks early so that he could start school. Jejda (kreiky). ***(by the way, the guy next to me looks an awful lot like brother Lysenko, the shorter Lysenko because I can't remember if he's the older or the younger and I already can't remember anyone's name - by the way, where is their heritage from?)*** So that night we had to go home and get stuff together and head over to the other elders' apartment so that in the morning when Elder Anderson would leave, Elder McGowan wouldn't be alone. So basically what's happened is Olomouc (our entire district) has turned into one threesome companionship and it's crazy.
The only thing that I'm not really liking about the threesome right now is that we're teaching all the lessons from both areas as one companionship, so we've lost just about all of our finding time. We're not allowed to split up and have two of us go finding while the other teaches the lesson, because that would be against the rules, so all our finding time, just about, has gone out the window. Interesting.
This week we're really excited for Libor Jelínek and Pavel Golař, both of whom have baptisms coming up this Friday! Pavel is from the other area, and Libor from ours. One thing that was really cool is that Libor came to Family Home Evening and when he came in, he sat down and said to me in English, "I'm excited for this Friday." I asked him why, just playing around, and he said, "Because I have baptism!" That was really cool. To see someone who wants to be doing so much to progress in the gospel and to want to be baptized because they see the importance of it. Libor has been accepting things right and left, and we've only run into a little problem with the Word of Wisdom with wine and alcohol, but he decided to live it anyway. The only problem that he had with it is that Jesus Christ drank wine, and why are we "trying to be more perfect than Jesus Christ?" We explained it to him, and he didn't seem really excited about it, but he accepted anyway, and recently he's been showing lots of progress and keeps telling us about how he didn't have his daily coffee and other such things.
Also, we already know that Satan likes to work on those that have baptismal dates, and even those who start to work with us, but the thing that is most fascinating to me is how Satan attacks people. For Libor, since he's homeless, he has a big camping backpack that has everything he owns in it and one night while he was sleeping in his tent (yes he sleeps in a tent - one time we asked him where he sleeps and he said, "Under a tent, like the Jews while they were in the wilderness), his backpack was stolen and he lost everything. When he came to his next meeting, he said that everything that he lost wasn't that big of a problem, but he seemed the most sad about losing his Book of Mormon. We assured him that it was okay, and we gave him a new one. So now, after ever meeting, he leaves his Book of Mormon at the building, so it can't get stolen again.
Another example of how Satan works on people is that he gets other people to do bad things so that we lose a little bit of focus. One of the investigators from the other elders' area, named PJ who's a big 19 year-old Mongolian guy, had his restaurant in Prague broken into Saturday night / Sunday morning. He texted the other elders and said that he wouldn't be coming to church because he had to go to Prague to clean it all up. PJ has a baptismal date, and that's why Satan's working on him so badly. PJ has told us that he's probably going to sell his restaurant so he can focus on the gospel. He's also told the missionaries that he wants to study at BYU and serve a mission because he only wants to preach the gospel. PJ is really awesome, and Satan knows that and that's why he's working so hard for him to stay away from us.
A little fun story that I can tell you is that one morning, while we were all sleeping, I guess around 5:30 in the morning, Elder McGowan was woken up by me praying out loud in Czech. He said that he sat up to look at me. Supposedly I was kneeling next to my bed praying out loud in Czech for like five minutes. Elder McGowan said that I was speaking quite loudly also. I don't really remember this. I do remember praying but only enough to know that I was doing it. I didn't know why I was praying, I didn't know what I was praying for, I don't even remember starting or finishing. Something weird about it was that I remembered a few times that I stopped talking, I told myself, "I need to keep praying," so I did. Also, even afterward, I got back into bed and supposedly continued to talk for another while before I finally got completely back to sleep. I wonder if that counts toward our SOL (Speak Our Language) hours for the week. Probably not.
Well, today's a crazy P-day, and because of certain meetings that we need to get to, it's cut down and we have to start working by 3:00 today instead of 6:00. So, time is short, but when is it not? I'm so surprised that this transfer is nearly over! This is the last full week and the day after tomorrow (pozitří) is my six month marker in the country! My oh my how time flies. Anyway, I love you all and hope that you are all doing well.
Praying for you and missing you all,
Starší Monk