Dear Family,
Well, first off, the reason I'm writing on Wednesday and not on Monday: this Monday was a Czech holiday, and then Tuesday was as well. So it being the Czech Republic, everything closes down on the holidays. Guess that's good, unless you want to speak with your family! I suppose they don't know that though, so I'll let it slide. I can't remember what Monday was, but I think that Tuesday was the day that Jan Hus was burned by the Catholic church for fighting against them in the Hussite wars. Jan Hus was a Czech man, so they love him here, and he has a holiday. I must say, holidays are the worst. Nobody, no... no one is in the towns on holidays. It's even worse than weekends. All the people that we saw on Monday and Tuesday were tourists, and it was rainy. Terrible combination.
In other news, after church on Sunday, the other elders came over to our house and we had a fourth of July celebration! Basically, we got Czech sausages (which kind of resembled hot dogs) and rohliky (kind of the Czech staple of life - basically a long roll of bread) and tried to make hot dogs. It was interesting. We did, however, succeed on one front: we got Coke in cans! That was very exciting. All the soda in this country is in glass bottles, and they're fun, but cans are better. We also tried to make chicken fingers, and they weren't too bad either, except for the fact that we had to clean it up after and fried foods without a deep frier are terrible. So that was the extent of our fourth of July festivities, but what can we do? We're not allowed to buy fireworks.
So, as for the drama part of this week, where can I begin? Let's start with Libor, the guy who was just baptized. We saw him on Monday, and we were supposed to have a meeting with him on Tuesday, and he's never missed a meeting, but this week he did. He didn't come to his Tuesday meeting. Then for the rest of the week, we didn't see him on the street selling his magazines like we always do, so we knew something was up. We thought that perhaps he was on the trip to the temple with the rest of the members, but on Friday (the day after they got back) I called up President Šlezar and asked if Libor had gone with them. He told me that he wasn't there. This only made me more worried about him. We continued about the week, just worrying and wondering what happened to him. A few times, I had the idea that perhaps he died... seriously. He's not that old, he's just 57, but he does live outside, and other such things. Before this week, we'd probably see him about four or five times a day outside of our meetings, so it really worried me as soon as he completely fell off the face of the map. Well, then Sunday rolls around and Wlastik (Vlastik) shows up and says that he saw Libor and that when he saw Wlastic, he turned and walked the other way. That made me really confused. I started getting ideas of him going "anti," or other possibilities. I didn't want to think that it could be true, but I decided that if I saw him on the street, I'd run after him to find out what it was. Luckily, on Monday, Laďa called us up and said that he saw Libor and he stopped to talk with him, and that the both of them were waiting to speak with us, so Elder Page and I ran to the center to meet with them. Turns out that Libor had just gone to Ostrava for the week to see his father and see how he was doing, and that he had forgotten to tell us. Nothing big at all. Turns out that Libor is just as strong as ever, and he's reading three chapters in the Book of Mormon a day, and he started Mosiah a few days ago when we met with him. We've met with him a few times since then (Monday evening and Tuesday) and he's still way solid.
I wish that I could say that this was all the drama that I had this last week, but I can't. So our other drama story for this week is that Laďa, one of the members here, is always having a really hard time with money and he can't seem to find a job, ever. He's also got four kids, and is trying to get a job and a place to live of his own so he can have custody of them. So, he's been going to basically anywhere he can to get money, and he just about always spends it in really dumb ways. Basically he doesn't know how to manage money correctly at all. So on Saturday, I got a call from Laďa asking me about how someone goes about leaving the church and other such stuff. I then called him out and asked him if he was planning on leaving and he basically said that he was planning on it. I was pretty confused, wondering why he would say something like that, because he's been really solid in the church depsite some really dumb mistakes he's made in the past. The thing was, he wouldn't tell me why he was deciding on leaving. He just kept telling me that he had to, but he didn't want to. Very confused, I called the zone leaders and told them and they were very confused as well. They called me back after a little while and asked me to call a few district leaders and ask them to ask their districts to pray for Laďa so he doesn't do something stupid. Another plus that we had, was that it was fast Sunday coming up so we asked them to fast for him as well. When I spoke with Laďa, he said that he didn't think he was going to come to church, other than to just speak with President about leaving. Good thing came about the next day: Lada came to church and stayed for the entire time. Weird thing, however, he bore his testimony in church and told the members that it's been one year to the day since he had been baptized, and that he couldn't stay-- that he had to leave. That was way weird... wish he hadn't done that. Despite that, he stayed for the entire three hours and at the end he had a little talk with Preisdent, and he came out really upset saying things like, "I can't believe I've believed in these fairytales." That was scary and he kept telling me that he was going to leave, that he couldn't stay. I went to President afterward to see what was going on and if everything would be okay. He seemed unsure, but hopeful, as I should have been as well.
So Laďa came to church, but made the decision that he'd leave the church. Later that day, after our fourth of July festivities, I checked my phone and saw that Laďa had called so I called him back and he told me that I needed to call back in five minutes. So I waited and called him after five and he said that he needed another five minutes so I waited again. This time while I was waiting, I got a call from President and he told me that he just finished talking with Laďa and that he called to apologize for being rash and that he was just really afraid of the possibilities that were weighing on him. Then I called Laďa because it had been a little more than five minutes and spoke to him and he basically told me the same thing, so I thought that everything was okay. So that night I followed up with the districts that I had called the day before and told them that our prayers had worked and that we needed to continue praying for him to make sure that he stays solid in his decision and to help him find some comfort in what he's doing.
Then the next day when Laďa called us about Libor, we went to see what was going on. Basically, Libor was completely fine and I used that time to see what was up with Libor. After I found out that everything was fine, I had Elder Page practice Czech with him because he knows a little English and he's really nice and patient. I went in to talk with Laďa, and finally got to the bottom of the problem and found out what was going on. So the story goes like this:
Laďa, because he's always looking for money, borrowed money (3000Kč) from some guy, who turns out to be part of a mob or something and the guy wanted the money back that day and was threatening to kill Laďa or hurt his children if he didn't pay it back. That's a little thing that I don't get, because 3000 Kč is just $150. Is that much money really worth killing over? Anyway, this is where it gets interesting. So, one place that Lada found that he could get the money to pay this guy back is from his old Catholic priest who said he'd give him the money if he'd come back to his kostel (cathedral/church) and deny his affiliation with the church. That's really black tactics if you ask me. So, Laďa not being so smart, saw this as the only way out of this predicament.
So when we went to meet him on Monday, he had a piece fo paper that he had written saying that he can't stay part of the church and basically apologizing. Gah! He was asking me questions like, "Can you come back to the church after you leave it?" I kept telling him that you can, but you have to repent a lot for leaving in the first place. He also kept handing me that piece of paper and then taking it back almost immediately. Finally, he took the paper and ripped it up, quite to my surprise, and he looked relieved. I asked what he was going to do next, and he told me that he didn't know. We left the building for our meeting with Libor later that evening and were walking with Laďa toward our house so we could get changed for work (because it was our P-day and we were still in normal clothes) and Laďa commenced making calls. Basically, the way that I see it, once Laďa made the decision to not leave the church, Heavenly Father blessed him with a way out of this trouble for the time being. He found a cousin who lives far away who is willing to give him the 3000 Kč if he can find a way to come get it. Laďa was very very relieved to find a way to pay the man back and not have to leave the church. As for right now, Lada is trying to find a way that he can get the money to get there, which will cost about 270 Kč ($13).
Something that I've learned from this is to just hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, because when we have hope, we also have faith, and faith is the driving factor of everything around us. Without faith, we have nothing. When I prayed for both of these amazing members, I was very hopeful that something good would result, and so far, both of them are back on track and doing well. I never had a super strong testimony of prayer, but this week has really bolstered its importance in my mind - without prayer, we had no relationship with God, and without some kind of relationship with Him, we are only as powerful as the dust of the earth.
I love you all, and I hope that you can all learn as much from these experiences as I have. Pray in faith and be hopeful.
Starší Monk