Dear Family,
So this last week while we were sitting in our large planning session (the planning that we do every Friday just so we can evaluate where we stand in the work and see what we are going to do for the next week). We took the white board and erased the entire thing and rewrote it all. We quickly found out that we do not have any baptismal dates (we have not had contact with Hoang since our meeting with him when he asked when he could be baptized), we do not have any progressing investigators, and all the investigators that we have are few and relatively new, thus one of the reasons that they are perhaps not progressing. Then we have our potential investigator pool. We have about ten or eleven names that we have rallied up this transfer so far (three weeks - I cannot believe that it has been that long already) most of which we are quite excited about. I just told you this so that you have a little look into the missionary work here in the Czech Republic. My mission has been this kind of numbers for about the last six or seven months. At some points we would not even have investigators or sometimes even potentials. It has taught me a really good lesson in patience and hope, even in the face of what may seem like failure. So if you ever wonder why I do not send home any really cool stories about amazing meetings that we have and then the next week I tell you more about that same person it is probably because something happened with them (not to be discouraging or negative).
Anyway! Despite these things, we are looking forward to a really cool week where we have really cool and awesome potential! We already have five meetings set up on the plan and they are looking very solid, but we will see whether they come or not.
We had a few cool things happen this last week. One was on Thursday and while I was with Elder McGowan - we were on a small exchange. We were out on the town square trying to talk to someone. We spoke to a few people who, some politely and some impolitely, told us that they do not have interest. Then we started talking with this one lady named Petra. She was hurrying a little bit, but we told her that we did not want to keep her long and just wanted to share a brief message with her that we knew could change and help her life. As we began speaking with her, she opened up a lot and told us that she was a believer, and started believing because of an illness (we did not ask why or what kind). We spoke to her about the Book of Mormon and that through it we can come to know Jesus Christ and God better in our own lives and that they will help us in times of need. We could see that something in her countenance changed and she was touched by our words. We asked if she would have some time to meet later, and she thought about when she would have time (you can really see which people actually think through their schedules and those who do not and she really did). She told us that she would have time on next Tuesday and we said great. We exchanged numbers so that we could arrange something more concrete later and the next day I texted her saying that we were really glad that we could meet and that we were looking forward to meeting on Tuesday and also asked if I could call her on Monday. She texted back about ten minutes later (which is amazing! usually people do not text back at all...) and said that we could call on Monday and that she was looking forward to meeting on Tuesday as well! So sweet. We will be calling her a little later today.
Then the next day, the zone leaders came down from Prague and they were with Elder McGowan and Horvath. They did mostly tracting that day and at the end of the day we had a district flood (where the entire district gets together to find together), but the zone leaders decided to take the entire group together to go tracting. While we were out tracting, Elder Rhodes and Elder Weser got locked INTO a panelak and at the last door had to ask the person to let them out. Elder McGowan and Anderson went to another place, and I am not quite sure how much success they had. Then Elder Horvath and I were together and we were ringing through one of the intercoms and just trying to get in. I had faith that we would get in though. At one of the buzzers, I did something a little differently. The lady picked up and I said, "can you let us in?" then she asked who I was and I told her my name and that I was here as a missionary and that I would like to talk to her. She asked, "with me?" I assured her and said yes. Then she told me that the door downstairs was bolt locked and would have to come down and unlock it. I then asked her if she would be so kind as to do that. She then told me to wait a second and hung up. I was a little confused because I have never made a intercom contact that way, but I was certain that it was good and that she was coming down to let us in. A few minutes later, an older lady (probably in her late fifties early sixties and still in good shape) came down to the door and let us in. Then she invited us up to her home where we had a really nice time talking about the gospel and the Book of Mormon. She said that it was really important to believe and that we should talk to more young people. At the end of it all, we had taught her a lesson and prayed with her, got her number, set up a return appointment, gave her a Book of Mormon and committed her to read some from it. She wants to come to church and she also wants her grandson to hear our message! What a miracle!
I only have a few minutes left, but I want to say that if we are patient and hopeful, having faith in Christ, everything will be taken care of and the Lord will watch over us.
I love you all and hope that these blog posts help you at least a little bit,
Starší Monk