This week was the sad farewell for Elder Page: gone to Ostrava - land of the Škoda cars. I think that's where they originated, or at least had a plant there for a long time. Sometimes Czechs will say "Škoda škody" which means "Pity of a Škoda;" škoda means pity. We got a pretty good picture at the train station. I don't know if any of you have heard or even seen the movie (I don't know exactly what it is called in English because I've only seen the adds in Czech) called "Still Together, Still Alive" or something to that effect and has Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz - if you translate it exactly in Czech it means "In the Meanwhile Together, In the Meanwhile Alive" and that just sounds silly.
Anyway, we dropped off Page at the train station and said our goodbyes and then we waited for Elder Pearson to get in. So, looking at this transfer, we don't really have anyone making any real progress, so another huge finding trasnfer! We still have Saša and Ondra, his friend, but they're about it. So the the first day that Elder Pearson was here, yes, the day that he got in, we went out and did lots of finding and we saw some really cool things! We talked to lots of people, and I can already see that Elder Pearson is a contacting machine. During our evening of contacting, we got five numbers from people, three lessons set up for the next day, and one new investigator! That's incredible. The next day we went and the first guy we had set up with actually came and he listened to our message and then ran away because someone called him up and he had to go, but we set up again for the Tuesday (tomorrow).
Also, it's really weird being district leader. I'm not sure how much I like it. Both of the zone leaders now turn to me all the time and say, "okay, District Leader, what are we doing now?" I guess it's my responsibility now and they are my district so they have the right to say that to me. It's just so weird thinking that they're under my responsibility when I'm also under theirs. Get what I mean? It gets all weird and tangled up, but basically the way that it goes, is that I'm the leader of Olomouc and the zone leaders are only my leaders insofar as them being responsible for my area when they report to the APs and president. That's about it.
We had district meeting on Thursday and we all felt like it was really good. Basically, I assigned each one of us a little topic (repentance, exercising faith, bringing forth good works and praying always and how each ties into missionary work) and then I tied it all into Alma 26:22 and that if we do these things, we can get the blessings at the end. I suggest all of you read it - it's really good even for non-missionaries.
I can't say that there are any really big things that happened this week that make it really cool, but it's just the number of little cool experiences that we had - cool contacts, solid potentials, no one picking up our calls but after a while they call back and say that they can meet any time during the week, atd... There were many of those little things this week.
Now something cool, I think I said a few weeks ago that we were going to be having some big changes in the way that we will do missionary work, and the way that they're going to change over to this new way of working is by training people in the MTC with the new program. For the people who are already in the field, they're going to be having four day conferences where we learn all the new material and practice implementing it each night. Guess what? It's this week and only the leaders and trainers get to go. Since I've become a district leader, I get to go to this conference. Now, the really cool thing is that it's going to be in Bratislava! You can look all you want on the Czech map and you're not going to find it. That's right, I'm going to Slovakia! So, that's going to be really cool and I'm sure that I'll have tons to talk about next week. Elder Pearson is staying here and having another missionary whose companion is going to the training come up here for the four days. I really hope that I've showed Elder Pearson the city well enough so he doesn't get too lost.
I'm way excited for this next week and next transfer because amazing things are going to be happening! Everything is pointing in this direction and I am working my hardest to get there. I read a really cool chapter from the Book of Mormon the other day. To me, it's all about missionary work and what every missionary should desire. If you want to read that, it's Alma 29.
I love you all very much, and I desire the things that Alma desired, but sadly I cannot say that I have as much faith as he had, so I'm still working. :-)
Starší Monk