Yes, another week is gone and it seems shorter and shorter each week. I remember something that Elder Price told me the end of my first transfer. I think that it was either the last or second to last p-day that we had. We were walking around Zlin and he looked at me and said, just as a kind of passing comment, that the mission just gets faster and faster with each passing transfer. I responded that this transfer was pretty fast for me and that the MTC even felt pretty quick. He just gave me this weird look and said that I might as well say goodbye to my mission now! How true that is. It's been way fast. Elder Vomocil and I this morning were talking about this being the very end of this transfer.
Anyway, that doesn't matter. This last week was week two of Awesome April, and yes, it was awesome. This last week was focused on giving the members their part. President prepared a little trifold with a few things that members can do, and then it was up to us to give it to them and speak about how they could do it, if they didn't know how they could fulfill a few of the points. Perhaps the hardest point was, "I can invite a friend to my home for family home evening and bring the missionaries." For some of us that may not sound too hard, but it was the hardest on the list, and many members are afraid of doing so. We gave them advice on how they could accomplish it and then committed them to doing it.
Elder Vomocil and I visited the Fejtovi, Kutilovi and the Červeňovi. Also we're going to meet President Pohořelický and his family and the Houzarovi on Tuesday because they didn't have time this last week. It was the first time that I had met with the Fejtovi in their home and I realized, I've been here for nearly four months and they don't really know that much about me. That showed me that I wasn't doing my best to friendship with the members. How could I expect to gain their trust, teach with them and have them give me referrals if I didn't know them? I can't. They're really quite open, but I just hadn't taken the time to go and talk to them that much. I'm going to fix that. They both served in Utah on missions, so they know how missionary work goes, but I think that they just need a little bit of support and encouragement to do missionary work here, because it doesn't yield as much results as Utah right now.
Then the Kutilovi: they live in a town that's about a thirty minute driving distance from Trebic, so we met with them after church. They're really sweet. There's a little calendar on the tri-fold and every time that they do one of the twelve things (there are twelve suggestions of things they can do) they're supposed to put that number down on the calendar. They just made a joke and said, "If we all do number one (pray every day for a missionary experience), can we put down seven ones?" (they have five kids). They're really cool and seem really determined to do all twelve of the things. They were brainstorming the entire time among themselves to see how they could do each of the points. They're even going to try and set up a time that we can meet with them again later this week.
Then we met with the Červeňovi (Jiři and Lenka). They're a newly wed couple and they're really awesome. We're pretty good friends. The entire time that we were giving the program to them, we were cracking little jokes, but keeping it very serious, if that at all makes any sense. They were keeping the mood light-hearted while seriously considering how they could fulfill the twelve points as well. Jiři served a mission here in the czech republic about five years ago and so he knows how the work is here and how he should be doing his part as a member. Lenka has been a member for about four years now, but is really solid. We had a really great time with them, then they fed us dinner and then we played some chess. I've become alot better at chess this transfer because that's what Elder Vomocil and I have turned to do when we're bored and have nothing else to do on p-days. We were there for a quite a while, but it was okay because it was after call-ins on Sunday, so there wasn't a whole lot that we could do other than that. Otherwise we would be at home staring at the ceiling or something.
We're really looking forward to this next week. It's going to be the full finding day on Wednesday. We'll see how that goes.
I hope that you're all doing great and you're all in good health. I love you all,
Starší Monk