Never Want to be a Social Worker (Nikdy Nechci být Sociální Pracovník)

Dear Family,

Well, this week I have a little story to tell you. So last Monday, we were walking around Trebic with the elders from Jihlava, because we have nothing better to do in these tiny towns on P-day, and I was with Elder Bailey. We walked past this guy with a little kid, and I was really distracted by the sun because it was really bright and also because it was probably the first day we had had sun in about three weeks. So I'm walking past this guy looking like an idiot trying to figure out why the sun is so bright, glancing up at it and then back down to see where I'm walking, just to find out that I blinded myself by looking at the sun, smart right? Yeah, not terribly bright - me that is. Anyway, this guy passed us and I looked at him, and I could almost swear that he was amused by my amusement with the sun. Anyway, didn't really think much of it; I was terribly distracted with the sun.

About five minutes later, Elder Bailey and I got bored of walking up the street we were on, so we turned around and went the other way to try and find the other elders. We found them talking to that guy who had passed us! In the mean time, Elder Bailey and I tried to look inconspicuous and "found something interesting to look at" in a nearby store. When they finished, they told us that the guy had met with the missionaries a while ago and used to come to church even, but wanted to come over to their place the next day and talk about the Book of Mormon. That was cool. Can't say that I've had that happen before. Why not?

Well, the next day, we had a little while before the meeting with him, and Elder Ingalls pointed out a part of Trebic that he had never been to that you can see from the building, so we decided to go and look at it. Perhaps we'd find a few places that we'd like to tract later on. Just so you know, we found some really cool houses. Yes, houses, not panelaks. Way awesome. I kind of felt like I was in part of Spanish Fork. Weird. Anyway, before we realized it, we had to run to make it to our meeting on time. We started running, but soon found out that we had no idea where we were; all we knew was the general direction we had to be heading in. We ran across some muddy parks, we even jumped a stream. That was fun, but we were only ten minutes late to the meeting. Not terribly bad, considering.

We had a decent meeting with him. It was more of him speaking about the missionaries that he knew, and how he knew that the Book of Mormon is true and how that knowledge didn't come all at once, but slowly over time. He also told us that he wanted to start his life over because he knew that he had done some stupid things and knew that baptism is a good way to start fresh. The more and more that we listened to him, the more and more we were really excited. We soon had to run to get to our English class on time, but we prayed with him and then ran to English (got all the way across town in fifteen minutes when usually it's about a twenty to twenty-five minute walk), and there five minutes late. Oh my word, I was so sweaty. Gross, however my English class didn't seem to care very much. English went well.

The next day we went and visited Martin (the guy who stopped us) again. There we talked about what it means if the Book of Mormon is true and how through baptism he can be cleaned from all the dumb things that he's done, that he can start again, and that he can follow Jesus Christ more closely in his own life. He asked us the soonest date he could be baptized on, and we told him the 12th of March. He accepted it readily. We spoke some more and invited him to a baptism that would be happening in Brno on Saturday, and he was really excited to come and see that, to see how baptisms are done. That meeting went well, but we had to run from that one too to make it to another meeting on time.

Then on Saturday, the day that we were going to be going to the baptism, we found a train that would get us there in time leaving from Trebic at 12:39. We had told him that and he was counting on it. That morning he called us up half-way through personal study and told us that he wouldn't be able to come with us to the baptism that day because a problem arose in the family. I asked him what it was and if we could help with it in anyway way. For a while he wouldn't tell me what the problem was saying that he was nervous to tell me, but eventually told me. He said that his family was going to have to be without food for two days because they ran out of money. He reassured me that they were going to have money on Monday and that he was starting his job on Monday as well and would be payed every Friday. I could see right away that he wanted us to buy them food. That's against missionary rules, and I told him that. He then continued to tell me that past missionaries had done that, and I had to try and tell him in some way that we're not allowed to do that anyway, whether they did or not. We spoke on the phone for probably a good hour and a half. We even called President here in Trebic asking what we should do, and he told us that we should definitely not give him money because they've come to the church before asking for money and financial help. Oh great.

I didn't want to deal with this over the phone, so I told him that we'd be coming over to his place. He said thank you, and I think that he understood that as an, "okay, I give in, I'll buy you your groceries." When we got there, we sat down and began talking about how we can't do this. He acted like he knew that already, and he should because I had already told him probably twenty or thirty times. We began talking about how there is a way to figure out this problem and that if we pray, God would help us. He seemed really skeptical of this, and his girlfriend, who was also there, was definitely no help, she was more skeptical and sarcastic than he was. We couldn't resolve the problem by us buying them the groceries, so Elder Ingalls gave a proposal of them selling something so they would get a little money to buy their groceries. They immediately shot that down saying that they couldn't do that because no one would buy something from a gypsy on the street - people would just say they stole it. Extremely skeptical. We kept speaking with them, and you could see that they kept pushing for us to just buy them the food, whether they were asking directly or indirectly. I finally told them, we want to help, that's why we were there, but we can't help them in the way they want. We knew that if we prayed, we'd get an answer.

So we all knelt and prayed. We asked for guidance and a solution to this problem. Afterward, we sat in silence, all thinking, and I began talking, asking about where they would be able to sell something they would have. They said that on a Saturday, everything would be closed. That was true. I then turned to Elder Ingalls and, in English, spoke with him about what if we had them sell something to a member and then they could buy it back the next week. That way they wouldn't be borrowing money, there would be a little bit of sacrifice, and they wouldn't be doing it through us as missionaries. Elder Ingalls said that it was the most in line way of doing it he could think of. Then we thought of a member who lives pretty close to them. We told them that we would return and tell them whether our idea would work.

We ran over to the sister's home and spoke with her about it. She was very helpful and agreed to help, so we ran back to Martin's house, picked him up and brought him to her house. We had told them, before we went to Sister Červeňova's home, to look for something to sell that would cover what they would need for groceries. When we got to her house, he presented her with his ring and bracelet. She, being a little bit of a joker and liking to tease people, acted like she was really thinking about whether it was a good deal or not, when I know it didn't matter to her. After a little while, she agreed and gave me the money (so that he wouldn't take it and spend it on alcohol or cigarettes), and we went and bought the groceries.

After we finished, we took the groceries to their home, and then we had to run for the train station to make it on time for the second train that left for Brno, that would get us there just a little late for the baptism, but we figured better late than not at all. We ran there ahead of them so that we could buy the train ticket. Elder Ingalls and I got there just a minute or two before the train left and then Martin and another little girl who lives at the same residence, who also wanted to come, got there about twenty minutes after the train left. Martin then started throwing a little hissy fit because they weren't going to be able to get to Brno and meet the girl's sister and get 1000Kč so he could pay off the debt. I asked him why he was throwing his hissy fit, and then he started giving me a whole bunch of different dumb answers.

It just seemed like at every corner he would give us a different bit of information that led me to believe that he's just using us. I would rather believe that he's not, but that's the way that it's looking right now. We'll see. He still has a baptismal date right now, but we'll see. He's sitting on a short leash right now and we'll see if he's being sincere or not.

That's the story for this week. It's cool to see that when we pray we really get answers, and also, there's always a way to solve the problem that fit within the rules, even when it doesn't seem like there is one - it's just not the easy way out.

I love you all, and I'm sorry that I'm not writing person emails to all of you that wrote me this week, this story got kind of long, so next week I'll write those.

Love you all and hope that everything is going well for you in your various activities.

Starší Monk