Thanksgiving and Hoang

Dear Family,

What can I say to you since I wrote last Thursday? There's not really a whole lot, but we did have a Thanksgiving and another meeting with Hoang. So, I guess I'll tell you about those.

Last week at church, we spoke to one of the members here in Plzen who is from Britain and we kind of invited ourselves out to his house for Thanksgiving dinner, because last time that we were there for service, he kind of half-intentionally invited us, so we jumped on the opportunity and invited ourselves. He was okay with it and we planned to go over to his place back in the country and do some more service for him in exchange for the dinner. So, on Friday, he came past the other elders' place to pick us all up and then drove us out to his house (which is about an hour outside of Plzen by car). When we got there, we got right to work. Elder McGowan and I cleaned up some of his rooms, where he's had the heaters replaced, and in turn, some of the walls had to be cut and other such stuff, so we were vacuuming up sheetrock and other stuff, and then putting the rooms back into order. After that we went and cleaned windows! Yay. Elder Rhodes cleaned all the snow off the driveway with a little John Deere with a hand operated plow, and Brother Smith and Elder Horvath prepared the food. At one point Brother Smith had to go do another chore for a while and was going to return to put some food on to cook so that it would be ready in time to eat, but Elder Horvath put it on to cook before he was supposed to. When Brother Smith came back and found that the brussel sprouts were on the stove, he started freaking out and saying things like, "He ruined my dinner!" He was pretty angry for a while, and we didn't know what was going to happen. The best part of it was, was that Elder Horvath, after he had done that, went into the other room and started playing piano, so while Brother Smith was freaking out, Elder Horvath was being completely oblivious, playing on the piano. Oh gosh. The food turned out fine, Brother Smith cooled off and Elder Horvath didn't die. :) Dinner was amazing and there was more than plenty to eat. I sincerely thought that I was going to die from over-eating. Probably the liter or so that I drank of ginger ale didn't help much. That was amazing.

Then on Saturday, we had a meeting with Hoang. The meeting before, we gave him the pamphlet about the Plan of Salvation and asked him to read it and think about it, and that we would begin talking about it at the next meeting. When we all got together, we asked him if he read the pamphlet, and he said that he read it several times. Once we started talking about it, it was apparent that he had and that he knew what was in it. We ended up talking about the pre-Earth life, Earth life and Spirit World. We actually got quite deep into the pre-Earth life and talked a little about the war in heaven and how Satan was a son of God who rebelled against God and the Plan of Salvation. We talked about how on Earth, we were going to be tested and how God gives us commandments so we don't follow the temptations of Satan. We also talked about how God helps us when we follow the commandments by giving us blessings. We then talked about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. We printed out the entire section in Preach My Gospel about commandments and we had him read the section on the Sabbath day. After he read it, he said that he understood and that he agreed with it. We asked him if he worked on Sundays, and he said that sometimes he does. Then we committed him to try and arrange his work schedule so that he won't have to work Sundays, and he said that he would. I then told him that keeping the Sabbath Day holy means to come to church every single Sunday for the rest of his life, and I actually even said to him, even until death. He said that he understood that. Then we committed him to live that commandment and he began to say that he would, but then changed and said that he must/has to. He then came to church the next day and he actually got there before just about all the members! He sat there patiently and had all the members greet him as they came in. I told a few of the key members that he has a baptismal date, and one in particular went over and said a really hearty hello, and after church went and said goodbye to him when Hoang said that he was leaving. I think that Hoang is really liking church, and Elder Rhodes has been sitting with him and leading him through the meetings and says that he's understanding and loving it all. We're going to try and get a lesson with President Holub (president of the branch here) this next week so he can see if he thinks that Hoang is ready or not, and see what his say is on it. Other than that, the only problems that I'm seeing with Hoang are: one, that there's still the language barrier, and I don't know how much of the information he's actually getting (I completely believe that he is accepting everything that we're telling him and that he will continue to believe) and two, that there won't be enough time to teach him everything before his baptismal date. We're sitting here at two weeks to his date, and we still have so much information to cover. It's just such a problem that he has so little time, and he's giving it to us when he has it, but it's not looking like enough. We're going to need a miracle, but we'll just keep working as hard as we can for him.

Other than that, there's not really much that's happened. Today I had to go to Prague to get my visa renewed and that was a scary thing because that means that I've been on the mission for a year, and I've heard that the second half goes faster than the first. I'm not sure if I'm ready to come home. Gah, there's just so much I still want to do, and it seems like there's just no time. However, the work goes on, and as Alma says in Alma 29, why should I wish to do more than the Lord has alotted me? I am content, and I will do what He commands me.

I love you all, and pray for you to all be warm this Christmas season. Looks like we'll be having a white Christmas here in Plzen,
Starší Monk

Just So Much Amazing!

Dear Family,

Sorry that I did not write this last Monday, but our P-day was changed to today, because President Irwin felt that it would be good for all of us to have Thanksgiving off instead of having to work through a holiday that we are all so familiar with.

So, this last week and a half have been amazing. First off, last Monday, we got back in contact with Hoang, our baptismal date. He went to Poland again (he just got back from being there for a month to renew his visa) so that he could buy products for his little store. When he got back he texted us and told us that he was in Poland again and we were very confused because we did not know where he had gone and we, to tell the truth, were thinking that he just disappeared. There are many stories of missionaries giving people baptismal commitments and it going very well, but then the person disappears and they have no more contact with them. However, with Hoang, he came back and gave us a call and told us that he wanted to meet the next day, and we were very happy to oblige. At the meeting, we started with whether he still wanted to be baptized or not, and he said yes and actually asked if he could be baptized sooner. That threw both of us off. I found myself second guessing myself on what the definition of the word "dřive" means in Czech, but surely enough, it does mean "sooner." We had a really good lesson and we learned that he has read the restoration pamphlet many times, and it is really easy to see. The book is a little worn out. We teach him from the pamphlets because we have them in Vietnamese and we have a pretty good language barrier between us even though he does speak Czech. We then pulled out a baptismal calendar, which we made that day, and showed him that he had to be to church at least three times before he could be baptized, and that just put his date one week closer. He understood that and now he has a real desire to come to church. We asked him if he believed that President Thomas S. Monson is a Prophet, and he said yes after a little bit of thinking. I am finding so much of these things with Hoang to be very similar with Denisa - just lay out the doctrine and they believe it because they trust in the things that we tell them so whole-heartedly. Also, this time, there is a language barrier like last time! Yay.

Then Hoang came to church that Sunday. Even though he was a little late, he came in and sat with Elder Rhodes, and stayed for both hours (we only have two hours - sacrament and then an alternating hour between Sunday School and Relief Society/Priesthood) and tried really hard to understand what was going on and follow the lessons in the scriptures. We have a Vietnamese Bible and Book of Mormon at the building, so he used those. He loved it, but unfortunately he said that he had to leave right after.

Later we had another lesson with him and we met him at his house. There we really focused on how he feels when he prays. He told us that he feels good and he has a hope that everything will be better. He also said that he feels the same way when he reads the scriptures and comes to church. He said that he feels good and knows that everything will be better. He said that a few times. Later, after the lesson, we asked him to pray twice a day, once in the morning and once at night and he said immediately, "I have to. I have to." We just love this man so much. When you see a brother or sister start to take the steps toward following our savior, there is nothing more rewarding.

Then another blessing that we saw was a lesson we set up for Monday (this last Monday) at 11:00 am, which happens to be our study time, but we decided that a lesson is more important. We set up to wait at a tram stop that is near our apartment and then walk to some place to talk. So, we show up to the tram stop about ten minutes early and we began waiting. A while into our wait, a tram pulled up and people loaded off as usual, and one man in particular was looking at us very closely while he passed us. I said hello, and then he looked very closely at my badge and said, "Starší Monk," and then looked at Elder Rhodes and read his badge too. We said yes and asked for his name as well. He told us his name and then said that he was a member. That is not something that you hear too often. He was an older man, and we asked just a little about him, and found out that he was the former branch president here in Plzen. That blew us away. Well, we got his name and where he lived and we told him that we would stop by his place some day during the week. This Thursday, we went and met him. Turns out that he joined the church just thirteen years ago and was president for six to seven years after that. He then became the branch clerk, but stopped coming to church because he has problems with his prostate and wet himself during church one week and, as you can expect, embarrassed him and the members quite a bit. We were very surprised to see that he is extremely strong in the church still and keeps up on all the news about new members and other things. We are going to bring him sacrament this week and will probably start doing that once every two weeks. The lesson that we were waiting for that morning, did show up and turned out to be very good too, but we had to call him after 11:00 and found out that he had slept in. It is just so cool to see that the Lord puts people in our paths, investigators or less actives. The Lord knows his people and watches out for them.

One last little thing. About two weeks ago, I was on a small exchange with Elder McGowan and we found a really awesome lady named Petra. She said that she did not have time at the moment but would have time the next week on Tuesday. We told her that we would call her on Monday to set up and she said okay. So when I called her on Monday, she did not pick up, but afterward, I got the feeling that I should send her a text. A few minutes after I did, we got a text back from her, and she said that she would not be able to meet with us on Tuesday, because she was in the hospital and was waiting for surgery. I immediately responded and asked if anything was wrong and what the operation would be for. She wrote back and said that she was getting a kidney transplant and that she wanted us to pray for her. We told her that we would and we would be looking forward to meeting with her after she got better. We have not heard from her since after the operation, but I am sure that she is fine and that we will be meeting in the near future.

The Lord is with us. How can we forget that? Coming on the mission has really opened my eyes and helped me realize that the Lord DOES know his people and he does love every single one of us. I cannot even imagine trying to do this work alone. The Lord really does lead us and show us what we need to be doing, IF we will listen, be faithful and do what he commands of us.

I love you all and pray for your safety,

Starší Monk

Patience and Hope

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

Elder Monk in Olomouc

Time Goes On (Čas Pokračuje)

Dear Family,

Right now, I cannot really remember anything from this past week. That is a little sad, but also it may be due to the fact that the computers here at this Internet cafe are driving me nuts and we just did service almost all day on about five hours of sleep.

The service was really fun. There is a man here in our branch who is from England and lives here. His wife is Czech and she has been following him around for the past howevermany years, and now she says that it is his turn to follow her around - so they live in a town about an hour and a half out of Plzen, but Plzen is the closest branch that they can come to. Anyway, he has served in the church before for some time and as part of his callings he has been ordained a high priest - one of the four in the Czech Republic. So, he has been talking to the missionaries for some time now about coming out to his house to do some service, which included digging up large areas for a garden (he has 10) and putting in manure for fertilizing. While Elder McGowan and Elder Rhodes worked on that, Elder Horvath and I went and worked on some other chores. We got to move a rock pile behind his garage so we could move some wood into that place so that we could rip up the brick pathway next to his house so he could have some people come in and use a trench digger to put in a pipe for something (not really sure what the pipe was for). Elder Horvath and I got those jobs done in about an hour and a half and then for the next few hours we went and worked on the garden with the other elders. By the end, my arms were feeling really weak. It is not that I was feeling tired or fatigued, but instead that I just could not pull the shovel out of the ground sometimes. It probably did not help that the ground was wet and damp because the past few days it has been raining and murky. Despite that, we were all really glad that we could get out and do some service finally! It just seems that no one wants help here. It is really strange sometimes that we do not have opportunities to serve, but I am really glad that we got to this day.

Also another thing this last week that was really cool was that we had a lesson with a lady named Beckova before our English class on Tuesday. She has been meeting with the missionaries for a while but it was my first time meeting her. So this time, I felt that the lesson went really well and that I really got to know where she stands as far as being baptized. I had been told that she already lives all the commandments that we tell her and she had already been living them even before we met her. For example: she hates drinking. She says that it is poison and that people here make up excuses to drink even though they know that it is bad for them. Half way through the meeting with her, Elder Rhodes had to go and take another meeting that we had, and so I stayed with Beckova and spoke with her some more. It seemed to go really well and I didn't feel that there was anything really special about it - except for the fact that she does not want to be baptized into our church even though she already knows that it is true. She loves our church and hates the Catholic church (the one that she is baptized in) - she just wants more time to know that it is the thing that she needs to do. That seems pretty understandable. Then at the end of the lesson she ran off to the tram just ten minutes before English class started. She said that she would be back. I went in and helped Elder Rhodes with the other lesson for a little bit and then after we finished with that one, Elder Rhodes told me that that lesson was probably the first time that Beckova had been completely understood in a long time because past missionaries who have met with her did not have the greatest language abilities. That was really cool. I told Elder Rhodes about the things that I learned and he said that he did not know those things, even though it seemed to me that she had already told the missionaries quite a few times.

Anyway, when she returned, she came back with two daughters of her good friend (they called her grandma) and left them there for English. The girls are right about our ages, 20 and 22, and Beckova talked about them - that they were very good girls and that they do not drink and other things that she knows are bad. I was in the other English class, so I did not get to know them very well, but they seemed very nice. I said "hi" after class, and got to know them a little bit. However, I think that Beckova was telling them strange things, like we are nice boys from America and that they should try and do something fun with us. So after English they invited us to a movie and were very disappointed when we told them that we could not go but that we would love to see them again at some of our other activities, like game night, and even "a private meeting with them where we would talk about Jesus Christ and our message of Him." They agreed to both, but we still have not met with them privately yet, but we will this week!

I am sorry that I do not really have any great stories this week, and I wish that I could at least remember some more but I left my planner at home, so I can not even look through that to see what we did! However, this last Sunday was amazing because I really came into the fast with a specific want of feeling the Holy Ghost and hearing his guidance more in my life and during the work. At Sacrament meeting, I really did feel that comfort and understanding that I did have that companionship of the Holy Ghost and I know that my fast was answered. I think what was different about this prayer from others was that I went in and I had an out loud prayer beforehand. Out loud prayers make all of the difference to me. When I pray quietly, I get distracted and I lose concentration, but when I pray out loud, I can hear the direction of the Holy Ghost so I can know what I need to pray for, and then as I say what he dictates to me, I can really make sure for me the blessings that God already is willing to give (Bible Dictionary "Prayer" p. 547? - I suggest reading this part on prayer because it has completely changed how I pray). God hears prayers, but when they are not answered, it is because we are praying out of the selfishness of our hearts and not to do the will of the Father but try to change the will of the Father. This is not possible! We must pray with the direction of the Holy Ghost for prayer to be the most effective. I have learned this after praying to the wall far too many times.

I love you all and challenge you to try praying with the direction of the Holy Ghost and I know that things will be different and that you will see a difference almost immediately,

Starší Monk

First Half Week in Plzeň

Dear Family,

This week, even though I got here on Wednesday, has been amazing. On Wednesday night, we went out contacting people on the town square, and we found a guy named Vladmir. He's a man from Ukraine and he's just so humble. He can only speak Ukrainian and I can only speak Czech, so there is a little bit of a language barrier, but between the two of us we understand enough that we can communicate well. We found out that he's here working away from his family and that he's from a little more humble circumstances - we don't think that he's living very comfortably. We got his number and told him that we'd like to meet with him later and give him a Book of Mormon in Ukrainian. He said that it didn't matter because he can read and understand just about anything Slavik, but we thought it would be best to give him a Ukrainian Book of Mormon. We called him later and set up a meeting with him on the town square where we met after he finished work on Friday. When he came, we asked him if we could go to our building which was a couple stops down the tram, or we could go into a cafe. He denied both of them and just said that we could sit down on a bench on the town square. I could see that he was going to get cold quickly because he didn't have a very good coat on, so we decided to give him a quick lesson. We gave him the Book of Mormon and told him about the background and a little about Joseph Smith and that we would talk more about him. At the end we spoke a little about prayer and asked him if he could try that and come to church the next day. Arranging for him to come to church was a little difficult because of the language barrier, but he said that he would come. He didn't end up coming to church, but we have another meeting set up with him today at the same place and at about the same time. This man is so prepared and so humble. I know that we're going to be hearing more about Vladmir.

When I came into the area, Elder Rhodes told me about each of their investigators and potentials. He told me about one man named Hoang, a Vietnamese man, who was in Poland renewing his visa for the Czech Republic. Elder Rhodes also told me that he was in Poland for three times longer than he had promised but Hoang was still making weekly calls telling them about him staying longer and keeping them updated on the situation. While we were at a Halloween Party (that we organized and put together on Thursday) Hoang called. I picked up and he told me something but I couldn't really understand him. Basically what I got was that he'd be in Poland some time longer and that he didn't know when he'd get back. Then on Saturday, we saw Hoang on the town square! He came up to us and asked us if we could meet the next day (Sunday). We said definitely and set up for the evening. Then next day when we were coming back into town after studies, he called us and said that he had something to do later that evening and was wondering if we could come and meet him right away at the building. So we ran over there and he got there just a few minutes before we did. Luckily the other elders were at the building and they let him in and spoke with him for a little while. When we finally got there and settled, he pulled out a restoration pamphlet and started asking a question about one of the terms/definitions at the back. I didn't know how to answer because he didn't know what it was and I certainly didn't know what it was because it was written in Vietnamese. I said that we'd clear that up, but we'd like to start with a prayer first. After the prayer, we asked him about his reading and praying and made sure there weren't any questions about anything besides the definitions. He didn't understand my question when I asked him that, and from that point, I knew that I would have to speak Czech slowly and very simply. I had never had to speak Czech slowly. That was a new challenge. After that, we didn't blow off his question about the definitions, but said that we'd come back to it. Then we went into the lesson about how we can fulfill our purpose here in life better by following Jesus Christ through baptism. He didn't have his Vietnamese Book of Mormon with him, but luckily we had one at the building, so we got that for him. We started by reading Alma 34:32 - about the purpose in life, and that people have a "work" to perform while alive. We asked him what kinds of works he things those are. He didn't know, so we opened to 2 Nephi 31:4-9 - this part speaks about Jesus Christ being baptized and that all people need to do it. We then started talking about the importance of Jesus Christ being baptized and that it is important for every one of us to be baptized as well. Then we went into the way that we need to be baptized. We opened up to 3 Nephi 11:23-26 - Here Jesus Christ himself explains how we need to be baptized. After Hoang read this, he pointed to verse 26 and said, "This, this is it. When can I do this?" That was one of the most amazing times of my mission. We immediately told him that we wanted, and the Lord wanted, him to be baptized on the 18th of December. Without even hesitating, he accepted and then we began to bear more testimony about it. He even told us that it is important to go under the water and then come back up out of the water. Then we told him that we'd like him to come to church on Sunday and told him that it would be at 9:30. He asked if we were still going to have one that evening, and unfortunately we had to tell him that it would be the next week in the morning. He agreed that we could meet a few times during the week and that he really wants to come to church next week. This man is so prepared and I just hope that the language barrier doesn't create too much of a problem.

Other than these, there have been other miracles, like seeing investigators who don't have (working) phones and jumping off the tram to go and set up with them. It just seems that everything here in Plzeň just seems to work. Elder Rhodes and I are getting along very well and I cannot see any foreseeable problems.

I love you all. Sometimes the Lord seeth it fit to try our patience. If you are having a tough time, keep praying, reading the scriptures, attending church and be faithful in hope and patience and the Lord will answer and help us. I read the Joseph Smith History yesterday and I noticed that it was right at the moment when Joseph was about to give in to the evil power that overwhelmed him that he was saved from that power. Just push that little bit further and hold on that little bit longer and the Lord will consecrate our performances for our good.

Lots of Love and Prayers,

Starší Monk

The stuff that I got from the guy who took my pen.

At the train station right before I got on the train to Prague. I was tired. That may explain the strange face that I have on.