It Comes to a Close

Dear Family,

I apologize for the delay for this last email, but I have completed my mission, come home, been released from my calling as a missionary and have been trying to acclimate to normal, every day life for the past week.

My last week in the mission field was very special and surreal, because I was able to look back on all the work that I had done throughout the two years that I have been on a mission, to recollect what I have done, to recap on the lives that I've touched, but perhaps most importantly, to reflect on the change that has been wrought on me through the example of Christ and the way that He has changed me through my willing service, as I gave my life into His hands, and how he lovingly but sometimes even forcefully pushed me in the direction that I was to take.  I believe that I, being the unmotivated person that I am, need that kind of drive.  The Lord knows all of us perfectly and I'm glad that He loves me enough that He is willing to do that to me, even though it's hard for me.  He can see all that I can be, even though I can't.

So what happened with transfers: Elder Bailey (one of the zone leaders) got sent to Zlin to follow-up train, Elder Uremovich (our district leader) got sent to Pardubice to be a zone leader, Elder Dietrich (Elder Uremovich's companion) got sent to Ostrava to follow-up train, Elder Gabrielsen got sent to Ostrava to be follow-up trained (by Elder Dietrich, so they're reopening my old area that was closed), Sister Bartholemew got sent to Prague, Sister Smith stayed in Brno and got a greenie and Elder Pearson (whom I follow-up trained in Olomouc way back when) stayed in Brno as a zone leader.  So basically, my area got closed and the district leader's area got blinded.  There were some outstanding necessities and that's why transfers were so crazy this time.

As for me, I had to come into Prague Saturday morning so that I could be to the building by noon, so I ended up leaving Brno at nine in the morning.  I then waited in Prague for a little while, mingling with other elders and sisters and eventually, President kicked us out of the building saying, "Go have a tour of Prague.  Just make sure to be back by six o'clock."  That was really weird.  These entire past two years people have been teaching me and helping me have a structured schedule for every hour and every moment of the day, and here's President at the very end telling us that we could go and do whatever we wanted.  It just felt really weird and we ran out of things to do very quickly.  We mainly just stayed at the building (returning after about a couple hours in the city), talking and playing the violin.  It was just Elder Vivona, Elder Butler and me.  It was actually a little bit of torture to have to waste time, because we had no idea what to do.  Then Sunday was basically the same.  We spent sacrament meeting with the Prague branch, and that was really strange.  It was different from any other sacrament meeting I had been at because literally half of the meeting was English and the other half Czech because there is a significant portion of the branch that isn't Czech-speaking and they have to translate everything.  After that, we were told to go take a stroll of Prague, after having lunch with President.  We went and saw all the touristy spots and made our way back just in time for our interviews.  Then on Monday morning, we got on our planes and made our way home.  The three of us flew to London together, but from there had different connections.  I had one straight to JFK, which is fortunate, but the other two had at least two more flights.  Poor Elder Butler had to go from Prague to London, London to Dallas, Dallas to Salt Lake City, and from Salt Lake City to Casper, Wyoming.  He figured it out that he would be traveling home for more than twenty-four hours, but it would all be on Monday, due to time changes.  Poor guy.  I made it home a little before four o'clock and met up with my family waiting for me there and they took me home.

Later that evening I had a meeting with President Potter who had my homecoming interview and then had a talk with me and the family about this time in my life and how I need to take habits from my mission and apply them to my life.  I'm definitely going to do that.  I've learned too much not to!  Then I was released as a missionary and he asked me to take my tags off.  That was really weird and hard, but I couldn't make a big deal about it, first off because I knew it was coming, but also because my family was there and I didn't want to be silly at such a serious time.

Readjusting to normal life has been okay, but I find myself bored a lot of the time.  I always find something to do, but I get to the end of the day most days and think, "What have I done today?"  I can't come home and look at my planner and see all the things that I've done, because I don't have that many things to do, and the things that I am doing aren't really even note-worthy.  Other than that, life is going okay.  I'm finding it a little difficult to keep some of the habits that I'm supposed to be doing, but I'm managing them, and I think a large part of the readjustment is learning how to incorporate the missionary mentality with the mentality and life of a normal person.  I believe that I've been thoroughly changed by my mission, and I will keep these impressions as long as possible.  I know that the Lord is going to continue putting so many opportunities in my way, and thanks to my mission, I will be capable of handling and facing them when they come.  Perhaps one of the things that I've learned the most on my mission is that you can not conquer the world, because it's just too much, but with the help of the Almighty Creator of Earth and Heaven, we can.  We are lesser than the dusts of the Earth, but He loves us, and He wants us to be even as He is, so all we have to do is humble ourselves and recognize who we are and reach out for His mighty hand when he offers it, and that is always.

I love you all very much and hope you can have the blessings of the Lord with you as you strive to live by His principles and doctrines,

Andy Monk

PS - p314: Elder Dietrich and Elder Gabrielsen

p315: Elder Gabrielsen and me right before going to the bus station

A Turn to the Better

Dear Family,

I heard that there was a hurricane on the East Coast, but Suzie told me that you're all well and fine.  I'm glad of that.  I remembered hearing from people around town telling me that there was a hurricane heading for the Northeast and telling me that it would hit New York.  I didn't know whether to believe them or to not let it bother me.  I decided to leave it in the Lord's hands.  It seems that it's turned out for the best.

So, a little about this last week.  This has been the miracle week of my mission.  It seemed that finally, when at the beginning of the transfer that everything that could go wrong did go wrong, now everything that could go right did go right.  It was a truly amazing week.  First off, we had something that has only happened a few times in my mission: we had at least one lesson every single day of the week and more than half of the week we had at least two (we totaled up at the end of the week at twelve).

So, a kind of crazy story about something that happened this week.  Almost two weeks ago now, we contacted this couple on the street close to the town square  We spoke for just a few minutes but they didn't really seem to have any interest.  They then told us that they were going to catch a bus, and we told them that we were too (and we actually were - we were just contacting on the way) and found out they were going to the same place, so, perhaps against their will, we followed them and continued to speak with them.  The girl was really quiet, but I tried to get her involved as well.  They really didn't seem to have any interest, but kept asking questions because they didn't want to make a scene and tell us to go away, so perhaps they were asking the questions just keep a friendly conversation.  At the end when we parted from each other, we gave them both contact cards and thought that was that, however, a few days later we got a really random text.  It was from an unknown number and all it was was a smiley face ":)".  That really confused us because were off to a meeting and we didn't have time to reply, so we left it for a little later.  When I finally got around to texting back, I sent something to the effect of: "Hi.  How are you?  Who are you?"  I got back that it was "Aneta" and that we had met the previous Friday.  I didn't remember any Aneta and so I just played along and asked if she'd like to meet with us.  She said yes, and so we set something up and we didn't really know what to think.  So, come the meeting, we get to the place (meetings where you don't know who you're meeting with are the worst because you just stand there looking at everyone really strangely/friendly in such a way to say, "are you my friend that I'm waiting for?") and start waiting, but we didn't wait long before this girl starts walking up to us.  Then I recognized her, though I still didn't remember where we'd met.  But recognized her.  We took her over and sat down and had a decent lesson.  She's way quiet, still, but said that she wanted to meet because she was curious in learning more.  Okay, I can deal with that.  So we taught her and gave her a Book of Mormon, and set up for another lesson.  She came to the next meeting too.  That lesson went better, but still way quiet.  Then we invited her to come to family home evening (an activity put on by the senior couple for young adults) and she agreed to come to that.  Elder Gabrielsen reminded me after the first lesson that she was the girl with the guy that we contacted on that road, and it blew my mind.  I really didn't think that anything came of that conversation, but I guess something did!

Also, with Laďa, he's still doing well and going strong to baptism.  He prayed the other day in a lesson with us and in his prayer, said that he's looking forward and is excited for his baptism.  He also came with us to a baptism that happened in Třebíč!  Yes, there was one there.  Laďa really liked it and knows a little more for sure what he's getting himself into, but really he's so set on it that I doubt anything is going to keep him back from it.

Anyway, back to that baptism in Třebíč: Ari Kanitrova got baptized!  She's the Mongolian lady that I taught back then.  She was so happy to see me.  They asked me to play a small musical number at the baptism and I said that it wouldn't be a problem, but the night before, on the way home, I remembered that I had left the violin at the church building, so that meant that we'd have to get up early, go to the building, pick up the violin, come back the way we came to the train station, buy the tickets, and then get on the train.  From our house to the building can be a good forty minute excursion if you catch the trams just right, so we had to get up quite early because our train was at 7:45.  Anyway, we made that just fine and made out train just fine.  We got to Třebíč, and then, when we were down in the valley (the train station is up on the hill above Třebíč) Elder Bracken asked, "Where's the violin?"  I had left the violin on the train.  Elder Gabrielsen and I ran back up the hill (it was a four to six minute run straight up hill) to train station to find that the train had already left.  We had been gone for a good ten minutes, so it didn't surprise me.  We got in contact with some people there and they contacted the train and found the violin and put it on the next train back to Třebíč, but it was going to be after we had to be at the baptism, so we had the baptism without my musical number, but instead we missionaries sang it.  The baptism was beautiful.  I'll add a picture.  Afterward, I went and picked up the violin and went and saw Dana again.  She's doing fine, but she's got a whole new pile of problems.

That was a fun little excursion in Třebíč.  That's only the second convert baptism in Třebíč in five years.  I can gladly say that I am really happy for them.

Yesterday we had a conference here in Brno, so that's why we didn't get to have p-day or emailing, and thus I'm writing today.  We went on a vylet (small trip) to a castle near by named Pernštýn.  It was pretty cool, but, what can I say, it was a pretty typical castle, but probably better than the castle was being with the district just to hang out.  That was what I really liked.

I can't believe that it's already my last p-day and that I'll be seeing you all in a week, but it's true.  I'll just work as hard as I can now, and be glad to see you when I get there.  I'll be satisfied that I have done everything that I could have.  I love you all.  Here are some pictures.

Love, 

Starší Monk

PS - P 0890 is Ari and Elder Bracken

P 0875 is where the baptism was outside of Třebíč

p 0301 is our district, Bara, Lad'a and Kaja

p 0308 is me in the dungeon of Pernštýn

Finally, Something Different!

Dear Family,

This week has been wonderful!  It's a little scary because Elder Bown went home this last week, and that's really brought some realization to me of how fast the end is coming.  So, the trend in our area this transfer has been that we set up tons of meetings, and then no one comes, but this week has been different!  It's great.

So, at the beginning of this transfer, Elder Bown had set up a meeting with some guy that he didn't know, because he was just a potential in the phone (his name's Vladimir), and when we came to the place where we had arranged to meet, this man walked up to us kind of weird and greeted us, and so we took it to be him.  Kinda strange, but whatever.  We took him to a cafe and sat down and spoke with him.  We tried to talk about the Book of Mormon and prayer, but the conversation got kind of taken over by him trying to let us know what he believes too.  It was a really strange meeting, where nothing really happened, so we didn't call him back.  Then a month later, Elder Bown accidentally called him again, and set up with him again.  So we took him somewhere else, so we didn't have the distractions of a cafe, and used the restoration pamphlet so that we could keep some control on the lesson.  It went fairly well, and he thumbed through the pamphlet many times and glanced at things.  Then I asked him what he'd be doing on Sunday (I thought, "why not.").  He put his hand on my shoulder and shook me a little bit, in a good way, and said, "aha, I already know what you're hinting at."  He then told us that he can't promise anything.  Then he continued to try and teach us the things that he believes.  However, Sunday rolls around, and fifteen minutes before church starts, we get a text from him saying, "Hey, I'm going to be a little late, but I'm coming."  That threw us all for a loop.  He walked in about ten minutes after it started and Elder Gabrielsen sat with him and walked him through everything.  He ended up staying for all three hours.  After second hour, he told me that he knew one of the members here, but he didn't remember from where.  He then went up and spoke with him and they remembered that they had worked at the same firm seventeen years ago.  This particular member has been a member his entire life and he was one of the ones that kept the church alive here in the Czech Republic during communism.  Then later, after third hour, he told me that he recognized another member!  They spoke for a while and they couldn't remember from where, but they both agreed that they knew each other.  Then this last week, we had another meeting with him, I wasn't there because I was on an exchange with Elder Dietrich, but Elder Gabrielsen was at the meeting.  There they spoke about baptism and committed him.  He accepted, and then he was quiet.  Elder Uremovich told me that he thought he was having doubts about what he said, so he began to explain more about it to try and ease his mind about it, but he butted in and said, "I already said yes, don't worry about it."  So that was very surprising.  He also came again to church this week.  He said that he didn't know if he'd be in town, but if he was he'd come, and he came!  Once again, he came in just a little late, and we weren't expecting him, so neither of us were waiting for him, but he came in and sat down by himself and loved it once again.  He stayed for all three hours and at the end of the third hour, he told me that he knew the teacher who taught third hour too (this week it was another teacher).  He then told me that when he had come to church last week, he knew so many people that he took it as a sign from God that this is the church he's supposed to be a part of.  That's way cool.  We're going to meet with him twice this next week and really try and get him going strong.

Then also, there's this kid that Elder Gabrielsen spoke with alone while he was on another exchange with Elder Bailey, and he got his number and we finally got a meeting set up with him.  The lesson was actually on the same day that Elder Uremovich and Gabrielsen gave Vladimir his date, and they gave this kid a date too!  His name is Patrik.  He seems really cool.  Elder Gabrielsen is really excited for him and I'm really excited to meet him.  Yesterday, Elder Gabrielsen sent him a text asking if he'd have any time this week.  Then he texted us a little later (at 9:00pm) and said he was sorry that he's texting so late, but he just back from a trip to Austria.  He then asked if we could meet "tomorrow" which is today.  We said yes, and then he started apologizing because he remembered that it was our free day.  I don't know how he knows it's our free day, but that's okay.  We got the meeting set up with him anyway, so I'm finally going to be able to meet him!

Also, this last week, there was a wedding here in Brno.  It was between a member from Bratislava (capital of Slovakia) and a member from Prague.  They're going to be living here so that they can go to school.  I was at the building quite a bit to help prepare the building, and they also asked me to do some music for the wedding, so I was there all day on Saturday.  The wedding was really fun, and some of the traditions afterward were pretty funny.  One of them, they put a horse yoke around each of their necks, and then tied them together with something that looked like dental floss and then gave some symbolic explanation of it all, but I couldn't hear it.  And once they took those off, one member began congratulating them and then took a dish and threw it on the ground.  Then someone behind the couple handed them a dustpan and they had to clean it up.  Then once they were nearly done cleaning, a member from Slovakia (who also just got married a few months ago) ran in and broke another dish and ran out laughing/giggling.  Someone was saying, "You can't do that!" but she just said, "Oh, c'mon, they do that in Slovakia."  And once they were nearly done cleaning that one, a member from Olomouc ran in and broke another one.  It was pretty funny because each "extra" time was not supposed to happen.  Someone explained to me afterward that the more shards there are, the more happiness they're going to have in their marriage and also them cleaning it up together is them learning to work together.

I can't believe how time is flying.  Things are finally turning up and I'm going to try and keep pushing it right up to the end.  I love you all and hope you're doing wonderfultastic!

Much love, and see you all soon,

Starší Monk

Areas Served

Even More of the Same

Dear Family,

It seems that the longer that I'm on the mission, the more that everything becomes the same.  Don't you feel that way sometimes with everyday life?  It's kind of weird.  I remember once before the mission, or at the beginning of the mission, that I heard, "You spend the first year learning the language, and then the second year on how to be a missionary... and then you go home once you have it all figured out."  Yeah, feeling kind of like that right now.  The other day we were at a member's home and we were showing her our pictures, and I realized that it had been a long time since I had looked through my pictures.  When we did, I felt really weird.  You know when you look at someone else's pictures and you don't feel like you really have any attachment to the people you're looking at?  I had a strange degree of the same feeling.  I still knew everyone, but I just felt like they were friends that I hadn't seen in a long time and didn't really have any contact with.  Weird.  I know that's going to change really fast, but that's how it is for the time being.

Anyway, we had kind of a fun experience with an old lady this last week.  Elder Gabrielsen, about two weeks ago, contacted an older lady on a tram when we were going somewhere, and she told him that she had already met with missionaries in the past and she immediately gave him her number, full name and where she lives.  That was strange.  Then she told him that she'd love for us to come over some time.  So I called her and she was very nice, and we arranged to come over for lunch.  So, when we arrived at her home, which is on the complete other side of Brno from where we live, which took about forty minutes to get to by tram, she let us in and we found out that she had her sister-in-law there with her.  They made it sound like they're always together.  Anyway, before we began eating, they said that they like to pray beforehand, so they taught us the prayer that they were going to say, but they said that you don't just say it; it needs to be sung.  So they told us the words, and then they sang the prayer.  It was really funny and cute.  Then they brought out the soup and we at it, then she brought out the goulaš and we ate it, and then she brought out the dessert and we ate it, and we thought that was the end.  Then she brought out some more of the dessert and when we finished it, she brought out another tray/dish of it and told us to eat it all.  My word.  It was a lot.  Anyway, back to them and not the food.  They're both evangelical and they're just the sweetest old ladies.  They told us that they had met with sister missionaries in the past, about five or six years ago, and that whenever they'd come over, they would always have a message to give, and then they'd write down an assignment to read from the Book of Mormon down on a piece of paper for them to read, and then they'd be quizzed on it the next time that they came over.  It was really cute, because at the end, she pointed at Elder Gabrielsen and told him that he has to give her an assignment from the Book of Mormon and that he had to write it down on a piece of paper, just like the sisters did before.  They also wanted to take us on a walk through the woods to see some wild pigs that they have.  She said that they're just small ones, but we just didn't have the time for it.  I think that they wanted to keep us for at least a few hours.  My word, these women just liked to talk and reminisce about when the missionaries would visit them.  We didn't get a message in, so I told them that next time we would have a small message that we would like to give them next time, and they agreed to that.

Also, this last week we had a strange little exchange between the three elders' areas this last week, because we're all having a little bit of a hard time finding new investigators, so we decided to shake it up and get some new enthusiasm among eachother.  I went off with Elder Pearson, the one that I follow-up trained in Olomouc (he's my zone leader now here in Brno), and we had a really great time.  We met this one man in a park next to a cathedral named Martin.  He's going through a lot of hard stuff right now, and he's just really doubtful about what can and can't be, but he really sat and listened to what we had to say, and it was probably the best bench lesson that I've had in a long time.  I could feel my love for this man growing and I just wanted so badly to give him the assurance of the gospel.  We gave him the reason to meet with us, we promised blessings, told him a piece of the message, and told him how, even though we have hard times, we can make it through happily thanks to the gospel.  He made it sound, with his inflections, like it was too good to be true and that he didn't really believe it, but we challenged him to meet with us again and he can begin trying it out for himself.  He accepted it and I'm really excited to see what goes on with him.  He's not going to be in my area, because I was working for the zone leader area at the time, but I should see him around.

Other than that, it's been a lot of the same.  We're still setting up between fifteen to eighteen lessons a week, and if they would all come, they'd almost all be new investigators.  However, only between two to five of them actually come.  It's really disappointing, but we're doing what we can and that's all that the Lord is expecting of us.

I love you all and I'm happy to hear that things are going well.  Rely on the Lord, there's no better way.  Love,
Starší Monk

Things Are Starting to Wrap Up

Dear Family,

So, as most of you already know, I'm going to be coming home early from my mission.  Ricky's going on his mission in October and if I stayed until the end of my mission, I would be coming home at the beginning of November.  My mission here is actually a twenty-five month mission so I would have missed him by one month.  That would have been a bit of a bummer.  However, if my mission wasn't a twenty-five month mission, then I would be coming home the fourteenth of October and would have missed him by like one week.  That would be more disappointing.  Anyway, I say this because time is finally starting to creep up on me.  It's been strange working through the mission.  At the beginning you look at it and say, "I have my entire mission ahead of me," and then the entire time you're in the middle, you say, "I've still got time," and then it seems that the end just creeps up on you and it's there before you even know it!

The work is going the same here.  Every week we're setting up between fifteen to twenty different lessons, and all of them would become new investigators if they'd come, but we get between one and five people who actually come to their meetings.  So, it's being a little bit of a bummer right now.  We don't have much of a teaching pool to work with, but we're doing well.

One cool thing that happened this last week is that we've been meeting with this one man named Vit, who comes to meetings and just talks the entire time-- not really saying much about the gospel or really letting us get a few words so that we can try and at least teach something about the gospel.  Anyway, our second-to-last meeting we gave him the commitment to talk to someone that he knows about us and see if they'd have interest in meeting with us as well.  Well, he came to his meeting this last week and we talked about the normal stuff for a while and to be truthful, I wasn't really paying much attention, even though I should have been.  Then he started talking about how he did his "homework."  He said that he had five or six families in mind that he wants to invite to visit with us.  He said that two really would be promising so he went and talked to them, and they said that they would be interested in speaking with us.  As for the other four, he may speak to them.  Hopefully.  Also, before that meeting, he and his wife had some free time-- the kids were off somewhere-- so he threw in the Restoration video and watched it with her.  He said that she really liked it and that she reacted well to it.  My thoughts are that he's not making progress now because he wants to wait until his wife is on board with him to really start taking what we have seriously.  I can't really complain about that too much.  He kept saying that he has to win lots of small battles until he can start winning the war.  He said that his wife had some bad experiences with religion in the past, so now she has prejudices against any religion and doesn't really want to take or try anything.

Also this last week we met with a guy named Stanislav.  He's a really funny old guy.  Elder Bown met him on a tram one night while we were going home and they started talking a lot. When they got off the tram, they kept talking for a while and since that day, about two weeks ago, he would take that same tram home trying to see Elder Bown again.  Finally, this last week, they met again and we got a meeting set up with him.  The meeting was really funny and actually really good at the same time.  He came to the building and we took him in and showed him around.  He really liked it and said that it's modern, but mainly that it was clean.  He liked that.  Then we sat down and he kept telling us stories about his life, but then whenever we'd butt in and start talking about the gospel, he'd stop and listen very closely.  We gave him a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet.  The entire time he was treating us like we were his grandkids: patting us on the knee, patting our face when ever he'd make a joke atd.  He said that he'd come to church, but he didn't come for some reason.  He also doesn't have a phone, so we can't call him and see what's up, but we have his address, so we're going to have to try and find it some time.  He's a really sweet old man.  I hope that we find him.

Other than that, there were a few other little things that were cool, but it would take too long to write them all out.  So, as for the "starting to wrap up" comment, there are things that are going to be happening very soon and they're just making me think again about how little time I really have.  (Perhaps one, glancing at the blog and seeing a countdown timer.  Thanks dad. :P)  Things are going well, and I just hope that I'm going to be able to sprint all the way to the end of my mission.

I love you all very much, hope everything's going fine.

Starší Monk

PS - These are my beautiful companions (left - Elder Gabrielsen; right - Elder Bown).

Branching Out

Dear Family,

This week has had some pretty cool little blessings.  About a week and a half ago, we spoke with Brother Čaňo (the second councilor in the branch presidency) about meeting with him and his family (him, his son and his less active daughter) so that we could teach them the lessons, because we're not teaching very much.  He agreed but said that probably not the week that I asked him because his kids would be off at some camp or something, but he would love to have us over the next week.  So we called him this last week and set something up on Friday.  Elder Bown ran off with Elder Uremovich to go to a lesson because Elder Dietrich was sick, so Elder Gabrielsen and I went off alone.  Just he and his son were there.  He said that his daughter had ran off to grandma's house before he even came home.  No matter.  We asked them to act like they were investigators and that they didn't know about our message, and we taught the first lesson.  It was a very good first lesson in which Elder Gabrielsen took a big part.  He taught "God is our Loving Heavenly Father," "Gospel Blesses Families," and then some of Dispensations and then handed it off to me and then later he quoted the first vision and taught a large chunk of the restoration.  Brother Čaňo was asking lots of questions like he was an investigator, and it was really good for our practice.  I even made Elder Gabrielsen answer many of the questions.  After the lesson/practice, Brother Čaňo said that he really liked it and that he'd really like for us to come over again some time.  He also said that he would invite his mother over and we could teach her exactly the way that we just taught them.  She's not a member, and he said that she hasn't ever met with the missionaries.  He did say, however, that he wouldn't be able to set up that meeting or have us over for three or four weeks because he's going to Sweden either yesterday evening or today.  Then we asked him if he knew any other members who he thought could benefit from hearing the lessons, like we shared with him.  He thought about it for a second, and referred us to a member who's been a little less active, and who's wife is not a member, but is perfectly fine with listening to gospel topics whenever he goes over and speaks with them.  It was just such a cool thing to see that we went over, had him pretend to be an investigator, taught the lesson and then afterward, he could see that we wanted to help him.  Yes, we came over to practice teaching, but we also came to strengthen him, and he saw that.  We didn't really even ask for referrals, but instead, he saw that it was a good thing and that he recognized people that he wanted to share it with.  This was probably the best member visit that I've had, perhaps because we also told him that we wanted to come and teach, not eat dinner.  That always helps.  I got to know Brother Čaňo a lot better as well.  I heard about his conversion story, and how when he read the Book of Mormon, he said that it was what he was looking for.  That sparked a question in me.  I asked him then, "When you first met the missionaries, did you know that you were looking for something?"  He told me that he didn't and that he was grateful that the missionaries had started meeting with him and that they gave him the Book of Mormon.  I'm really excited to keep meeting with other members, because I know that members have much more potential than they know as far as it comes to missionary work.

Another thing this last that was a little out of the ordinary was that on Tuesday, Elder Bown got a call from President Irwin during district meeting, so he left the room to answer it, but soon came back and handed me the phone.  So, I left the room and started speaking with President.  He started by asking me what I was doing a little bit later in the day, and I said not much.  He said, "Great, then I'd like you to be at the building to do some translating work for us."  Well.  It turned out that they're trying to institute a new program here in the Czech Republic and they had a meeting consisting President Irwin, two officials from the church, a senior couple from Jihlava, the first councilor in the branch presidency of Brno, and me.  Basically I was there for the councilor, because he was the only Czech at the meeting.  President told me that he speaks English and understands quite well, but just in case he doesn't catch something or he doesn't know how to say something, I'd be there to do that translating.  The meeting turned out to be about an hour and a half, and through the entire meeting, I had to translate two questions from Czech into English.  He understood the rest and could express himself how he wanted.  I came out of it with a little bit of a headache because the entire time I was translating everything into Czech in my head just to keep up in case he asked me what something meant.  He didn't, but I was prepared.  I actually learned a few new words, but I'm not really sure how often I'll use them.

Other than that, it's been the same old work.  I love it and we're doing great.  We actually came up with a game this last week for contacting people on public transportation - which by the way is really hard.  We call it "futbal," or in English, "football."  Basically, while we're waiting for the tram or bus to come, we decide who's going to be pointing out someone for the other to contact.  That way we're not picking our own person to talk to.  When the tram or bus comes up, then we all pick someone for the other and then we get on.  So that it's a game where we're working together instead of against each other, we only get the point if all of us talk to our designated person.  That also motivates us to talk to our person because we don't want to be the one responsible for being the one that didn't do it.  Then we decided that we could get an extra point if one of us talks to another person on top of the one that was pointed out for them.  It's the little things that keep us focused on the bigger picture.

This week has been really rewarding, even though we don't see a whole lot of outward results all the time.  I love my companions.  They're both fantastic.  I love you all and hope that everything is going well for you and that you're keeping up on your reading and praying!  It's important.

Love you all,

Starší Monk

More of the Same

Dear Family,

This week has been a lot of the same old jazz.  Lots of finding, standing at meetings that don't come, atd (a tak dale - Czech for 'etc.').  We actually had a conference this last week and it was really weird to see another one of my companions give his last testimony.  (When it's a missionary's last conference, they have the opportunity to give their testimony in front of everyone.  We call it a missionary's dying testimony, but I still have another conference, so I'll give mine then.)  Elder Bown gave a really good one and it really made me think about how and why I'm doing missionary work.  I've found it's good to ponder, but it's also good to just go and do.  Sometimes when we think too long, we lose the opportunity to do something really meaningful.  Anyway, that was one of my epiphanies this last week.

Other than that, we're still working hard.  Seeing all the little successes along the way.  Elder Gabrielsen is doing amazing with the language, and with the work.  He's really gung-ho and it's really crazy trying to keep up with him.  I thought, for just a small moment, that I was the trainer, but I feel like I'm just the language coach and he's really showing me the ropes.  It's nuts, but I love it.

I don't really have a whole lot to share, but I'd like to share one of the scriptures that I like to read when I starts slowing down:

Doctrine and Covenants 6:33-37

"Fear not to do good, my sons, for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow good ye shall also reap good for your reward.

Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.

Behold, I do not condemn you; go your ways and sin no more; perform with soberness the work which I have commanded you.

Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.

Behold the wounds which pierced my side, and also the prints of the nails in my hands and feet; be faithful, keep my commandments, and ye shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Amen."

I've read this scripture many times and every single time, I learn or just feel something little that helps me along.  I love how it says, "...fear not, little flock..."  I'm not completely sure why, but it always gives me the assurance that, even though I'm just a stupid little sheep, he doesn't forget about me and I have nothing to fear.

I love you all and hope you're all doing amazingly well!

Love,

Starší Monk

Missionary Success

Dear Family,

This week has been really cool because we've been doing everything that's been in our power, and we've been seeing a lot of... different blessings.  I guess sometimes we just need to remember what "success" is while we're on the mission.  It's not the number of people we find to teach, it's not the number of people who are "progressing" and it's not even the number of people that we baptize.  Yeah, those things would be nice, however, they're not what define a successful missionary.  I remember studying, not this week but some time else, in chapter one of "Preach My Gospel" about what a successful missionary is.  It's funny, that when you read it, not a single point under that section talks anything about what other people do; every single point is about you, about what you do, about how you feel the Holy Ghost and about how you follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

So, with that in mind, we had a really successful week.  We taught very few lessons, however, we were out working every day, very hard.  I felt that we were doing well in following the Holy Ghost, and we did something really impressive: we set up around sixteen lessons, and almost all of them would have been new investigators.  Sadly, all of them except for two ended up not coming.  That's a bit of a bummer, but Elder Gabrielsen is taking it really well.  In fact, he's really excited every day to go out and find.  It's really cool to see the enthusiasm that he has and how he wants to go straight at it every single day.  I really like the way that he contacts: he sees someone he wants to talk to, he walks right at them and then he stands in the way.  It's a little intrusive, but our message is intrusive: we've here to call people to repentance.  Isn't that intrusive?  Isn't that bold?  I really love this kid.  He's doing really well.

One of the meetings that did go through was with a guy named Petr Lefky.  Elder Bown found him last transfer and they had been having a bad day, but Elder Bown was determined to get one person before they turned in to go home.  It was a Saturday night, and there weren't a whole lot of people out, but they ended up talking to Petr and they got his number, but according to Elder Bown, he didn't seem too promising.  Nonetheless, he invited him to church and said that he'd call him Sunday morning to remind him.  Come Sunday morning, Elder Bown calls and he doesn't pick up, so they just went to the building and basically said that's that.  However, a little before church starts, a guy walks in and shakes Elder Bown's hand, and Elder Bown didn't remember him for a second, but soon realized that it was Petr.  Petr stayed for all three hours, loved it and actually asked for a Book of Mormon.  Since then, Elder Bown's been trying to get meetings set up with him, but he's been down on himself saying that it's not worth it with him because he's an alcoholic.  Elder Bown fought through that and said that it is worth it.  Recently, he texted us after he didn't come to a meeting saying that he was sorry, but that he couldn't come because he was in the hospital.  We told him that we could come and visit him, so he sent us the place that he was staying at in the hospital and we went and visited him yesterday.  He's in the hospital for rehab.  He's been there before, and the time when Elder Bown contacted him, he had been out for less than a week.  We found out that he was in there because he had drunk seventeen shots of vodka and just about killed himself.  The meeting was really great with him.  He's just such a golden humble guy.  He told us that he loves the Book of Mormon and that he's already read up through Omni.  We shared things from the Book of Mormon with him about how he can conquer the problems that he has right now, but he needs to pray to get over them.  Then he said, he doesn't know how to pray.  So we taught him that and he actually gave a prayer at the end of the lesson.  It was an amazing prayer and he did it completely correctly.  Way amazing guy.  At the end of the lesson, Elder Bown left a Book of Mormon with him, because his copy was at his apartment, and he couldn't leave the hospital.  He also left there a restoration pamphlet and said that we'd talk about it next time.  Then Petr asked about the book that we had read from at church , because he really liked it because it was really clear and straight forward.  It was a Gospel Principles.  Luckily I had mine with me because we had been at church earlier, so I left my copy with him.  I also marked the chapter on the Word of Wisdom.  The man just looked so incredibly happy to have us there.  The entire time we were there, I had the feeling that he didn't have anyone coming to visit him, so I asked if he had a family or if he was alone.  He kind of squirmed like it was a hard question, so I rephrased it and he gave me a weak, "Yeah I have family."  I felt that something with that was wrong, so I just said, "Well, it's okay.  We'll be your family."  He looked really relieved when I said that.  When we left, Elder Bown told me that he had a wife and a ten year old daughter, but they walked out on him, and that was probably the reason that he started drinking again (he had been sober at one point for three and a half years).  Well, I guess I had said the right things, even though I didn't know why.

We're having miracles and success, but it's not always the way that we want.  Sometimes we just need to step back and have the humility to know that we can't do anything, that our success shouldn't be based on results, but based on what we put into it - that's all God is taking notes on.

I love you all alot, and I hope that everything is going amazing with you all!

Much Love,

Starší Monk

Half Week in Brno

Dear Family,

There's not a whole lot to say from this last Wednesday when I wrote last.  I'm really enjoying Brno.  It's kind of weird being in a larger town.  Ostrava was the same size, roughly, in terms of area, but there are far more people here, so that's pretty refreshing when it comes to finding, and we have lots of that.  So far these past few days we've been doing mainly finding, with a few lessons that were found just the day before.

Coming into this area, there's not a whole lot to work with, and Elder Bown agrees with that.  He knows it, but it's looking very promising right now because our finding has been really good.  We've been averaging about three numbers a day these past few days, and we've already got two new investigators.  It's also really strange being in such a large district.  Here there are ten missionaries (the zone leaders, district leader and his companion, our threesome, and a sister threesome) and two senior missionaries.

Right now, Elder Bown and I have a little bit of a joke.  During all of our finding time, Elder Bown has been having all the "success" because he's the one that always comes back with a few numbers and sometimes one or two set up meetings.  I, on the other hand, keep coming back empty handed with a story or two about someone who wants to either convert us or just talk about whatever.  Elder Gabrielsen has been switching off between me and Elder Bown.  He's doing really well, and I think that he's really liking missoinary work.  Perhaps this transfer, so far, has been the transfer that I've worked the hardest and, perhaps, the most satisfied with the work that I'm doing.

I can already see that this transfer is going to be full of miracles, growing and tough times, but it's going to be well more than worth it.  Sorry that I don't have a whole lot to say, but there's just not much to say, right now.

I hope that you're all doing well.  Love you lots,

Starší Monk

PS - here's a picture of Elder Gabrielsen and me.

Transfer to Brno

Moved Again?!

 

 

Dear Family,

So, I'll start with some things that happened this last week and then I'll tell you about what the subject means, even though you can probably already guess what it means.

This last week has been really awesome because of a few new people we're working with.  One is a lady named Věra and the other is František.

I'll start with Věra.  She's a lady that we contacted about a month ago and we've been trying really hard to get in contact with her because whenever we called, she'd be really depressed, but would sound like she really wanted to meet with us.  So, we kept trying.  When we contacted her, she tried to just push by, saying that she was running somewhere, but I kept at it, for whatever reason, and said that we didn't want to intrude, but that we wanted to help her by sharing our message with her and if she would be interested in meeting some other time.  She finally stopped for a second and gave us her phone number and we contacted her later.  We set up a meeting with her and she ended up not coming.  I called her asking where she was, but she said that she had just forgot.  Then we set up again another time, and she didn't come again.  When I called she took a deep breath and told me about how one of the boys that she takes care of through charity programs was mugged and beaten up really badly.  She said that they even broke a few of his bones.  It was that bad.  She was really stressed about that, but she said that we'd just have to hold it off to another day sometime.  So finally this last week, we got a meeting set up by me just being pushy saying that we had time right now and that we want to come to their place.  They said not right now because they've got some problems going on, but when I told them that we wouldn't have any other time, they said that we could come over.  We actually found the address fairly easy.  I was expecting it to be harder, but it wasn't!  Yipee.  Anyway, we had a really good meeting.  We were expecting to just go in and talk and then perhaps talking about prayer because they did have a lot on their plate, so we didn't want to add too much to it right now, however, when we went in, one of her first questions was "What are you doing here as missionaries?"  That opened up the can of worms.  We ended up teaching them the Book of Mormon, prayer and committing them to both (them as in her, her boyfriend who lives there with her and one of her "sons" through charity work).  All three of them were really excited to read and I think that they're going to be really awesome.  Every time that we've called since then, they keep asking, "When are you going to come again?"  I hope that they progress and have time to meet.

The other, František, was a guy that was referred by his son when we were actually meeting some other people.  We didn't really know why we were visiting them, because it was really a big waste of time.  When the boy came in, he said, "You need to come meet my dad."  I told you about it last week.  He was the one who wanted the "Mormon Bible."  Well we met with him and it was really good.  We explained the Book of Mormon and prayer, and he wants to do them.  He was really really open and accepting to the things that we were saying.  He seemed to just accept anything that I would say.  Then he came to church on Sunday and loved it.  He could only stay for the first hour because his son had a pretty good bump on the head from soccer the day before, so they took him home to recover.  Then we met with him again through the next week and taught him the first lesson (the Restoration) and he loved it.  He kept talking about random things, but all in all, it was really good and at the end we challenged him to be baptized.  He accepted.  We said that we'd talk more about it next time.  Then came around Sunday, and we had asked him to come, but once Sunday came around, he didn't.  We were really baffled what happened, so later in the week we went by and visited him, but he wasn't there.  His wife was there, so we left a note with her saying that they could come to "family home evening" held by the missionaries the first monday of every month.  We said that the entire family could come too.  Come that evening, they all came.  Frantisek apologized that he didn't come to church on Sunday, because he was really sick and could barely even sit up!  We understood that, so we taught him after family home evening, which, by the way, was amazing; there were like twenty-two people.  Afterward, we had a lesson with him and a FOUR members.  We asked Rosťa to come and then Sister Renata asked to come because she has two girls visiting from Bountiful UT, one of whom is going to be going on a mission soon, so she's trying to get her to do as much missionary stuff here as she can.  So there were four members, but Frantisek didn't really mind.  He actually liked it.  The entire meeting was quite different.  Perhaps, for one, it was at the building instead of at his home where there are plenty of distractions, and two he was really focused.  He came in and started asking questions about his baptism.  It was a really good meeting.  We talked about how we do baptism, by what power it has to be done, and then why we need baptism.  It was a really awesome lesson.

Renata has been sick the past week and a half, but we finally met with her on Tuesday (yesterday).  She's doing fine.  We didn't really have much time to talk because we were going to have English class in just a bit.

So, now about the title.  We got a call on Monday evening and when I picked up, President was on the other end and said, "Elder Monk!  I know that we've been moving you around quite a bit."  At this point I started freaking out a little bit, and he continued, "We're going to send you to Brno.  However, before you go there, we'd like you to stop here in Prague and pick up a greenie."  Oh gosh.  He also went on to tell me that I'd be serving with Elder Bown, who's a missionary who's going home a little early (just three weeks) so that he can start school right away.  That's pretty crazy.  Even crazier than that, after he spoke with me, he asked to speak to Elder Betts.  Elder Betts was asked to move to Jičín with Elder Horváth.  Yes, that means our area is getting closed, for the time being.  There's so many missoinaries leaving this transfer (tomorrow) and during the course of this transfer (six weeks in) that the greenies that just came in aren't enough to fill them all, so our area got closed down, but we're keeping the apartment, so it's probably going to be opened back up in a little bit.  It was weird having to divy-up our investigators between the sisters and the other elders.  My greenie's name is Elder Gabrielsen and then I'm also with Elder Bown.

Things are crazy and unexpected, but so is life.  I've really learned that it's just up to us to make the best of what the Lord throws at us because he's only going to let us encounter the things that are going to be for our best.  Anyway, I haven't got a ton of time, but I'm happy to be here in Brno.  We got here safely and fairly easily.  Love you all lots and hope that things are going well.

Much Love,
Starší Monk

PS - there was a baptism of Honzík Hires and Berunka Šlezarová in Olomouc.  They're children of members there.  That was way awesome.  Honzík has been waiting a long time for this day.

Ever Member a Missionary (and vice versa)

Dear Family,

This week has been a little interesting.  Last Sunday after call-ins with Elder Thompson, we got a call from the zone leaders, and there was Elder Rigby.  He started, "Hey guys, can you guess why I'm calling?"  Basically it turned out that they weren't terribly happy that we haven't had very many member lessons the past couple weeks.  Actually, I think that the entire transfer, we've had like three or four.  We made a goal to get two member lessons this week, and it's been good, we even got one, but I think more than actually teaching with members, I learned how important it is and how much we need to be working with them.  Really, to the Czech people, we're just a bunch of crazy Americans who want to convert people.  While that's true, they don't realize why we're doing it.  On the other hand, if one of their friends comes up and talks to them about it, they're far more likely to accept, because they already know and respect the person that they're receiving it from.  Random aside not about missionary work.

So, one crazy thing that happened actually last week, is that we had to go visit this one family who are gypsies because they saw us on the namesti and were angry that we haven't visited them in so long (the missionaries visited them about half a year ago), and so we set up and went to visit them.  When we got there, they said that we're actually going to go to their children's house, and so we follow them and get to this really small place that, to be nice, isn't very pleasant.  We stood there trying to teach something or anything, while kids run in and out of the one room place, baby fussing, no one paying attention but just wanting to show us their this picture of someone's wedding.  On and on.  Then one of the boys that had been coming in and out, probably about fourteen years old, comes in and says that we have to go and meet his dad.  Oh boy.  Wasn't terribly enthused about this one, but we decided to go anyway.  We walk down the hall a little way and get to another room that's exactly like the last one, but much better kept up.  There we met František (frawn-tea-shek).  He told us a little about himself, but we didn't have a ton of time so we had to push our way out.  He seemed really cool and said that the "Mormon Bible" is the only Bible that he hasn't completely read, so he wanted us to come back some time so that we could give him one and we could talk some more.  Great, so we set up for Tuesday.

When we came back, they had kind of forgotten and were finishing up lunch, but they finished fast and cleaned up.  We had a good long chat about the Book of Mormon, his spiritual experiences while he was in jail and how he basically converted all the inmates when he cast out a devil from a man and no one saw it except for him and the other man and so on.  He's a little strange, but he's really a good listener and he accepts everything that we say because he says that he's already asked the same questions and that our answers are what he believes.  At the end we left the Book of Mormon there and asked him to come to church.  He seemed really interested in that too.  Since he kind of forgot about our meeting, we decided to stop in at his place on Saturday and remind him of that.  He wasn't home, but his wife was, so we wrote down where and when we were going to meet before church and left it with her.  Come the next day, he came!  He also brought his son Kevin with him, and they both stayed for the first hour.  They had to go after that because the boy needed to recuperate from the day before of soccer because he got kicked really hard in the face, and supposedly so hard that he doesn't remember it at all!  He has a little rug-burn looking rash on his face.  Poor kid.  He already read thirty-two pages from the Book of Mormon and said that he knew that there was stuff missing from Bible and that there had to be more prophets than those just in Jerusalem, so it made sense that there would be more people and more scripture.  Elder Betts said to me that he seems a little too perfect, so we're going to keep teaching him, but with just a little bit of a careful eye.

Then we taught Renata this week.  She's doing wonderfully.  We spoke about obedience with a member and it went really well.  She seems to be having troubles right now with commandments and the need for a church, but hopefully with her new understanding of obedience to commandments, she should be able to swallow them a little easier.  Elder Betts used a really good analogy that struck a good chord with her.  Commandments are like a string that holds a kite up in the air.  Sometimes they seem to bind and restrict us, but as soon as we cut that string, we go up for a little while, but soon are drug to the ground by the air.  Also, when the string is secure to the kite, there is resistance on the kite, that can be our trials or hardships, but we know that only because of that wind or resistance, the kite can keep flying and see the great view.  We kept referring back to that analogy because it just worked so well.  She also seemed to understand better because of it as well.  She's not going to make her baptismal date for this Saturday, but we're hoping to give her a new one for the thirtieth of July.

On Friday we had a wonderful conference with Elder Kerr of the fourth (I think) quorum of the Seventy.  He explained what being a Seventy is and how the different quorums of the seventy work.  He explained that there are eight quorums of the Seventy, but each one does not have Seventy people.  Basically you have full time Seventies (the first through third) who serve as such until they're seventy years old.  Then the other quorums of the seventy are just part time, basically they squeeze any time that they can and give it to church service, and they serve for three to five years.  Let me just tell you, this guy was amazing.  He was so enthusiastic it was infectious and I hope that even a little bit of it stayed with me.  He's from Scotland, so he had a great accent to go along with it.  He really wanted to let us know that we're only going to learn the most when we're all working together, so really it wasn't so much of him lecturing us, but we had an open floor so that everyone could speak and we could all learn together.  Through that conference, I learned a ton about the importance of good members and using the members in missionary work.  One thing that he said to us, that stood out in my mind, is that "every member [is] a missionary, but also, every missionary [is] a member.  We, as missionaries, need to be kingdom builders!"  I had never thought of it that way before.  I need to be a kingdom builder?  That's a pretty big commitment, but then again so is coming on a mission for two years of my life.  Pretty crazy.

I can't say how much I love being here and how confused (sad and happy) I am about coming home in just a few months.  Elder Thompson and Vomocil (both people I've served with) gave their final testimonies at the conference on Friday, and it scares me a little bit to know that I'm the next one up!  Where does the time go!  It's weird how many things I've learned this last transfer that I wish I had known at the beginning of my mission.  I would have been so much better a missionary if I had known them.  Oh well.  All things are in the Lord's hands and if He had wanted me to know them earlier, He would have let me know.  It's just up to me now to do what I can with the knowledge and time that I have.

I love you all a ton and hope that everything's going fantastically.

Starší Monk

PS - Mom, I'm eating fine.  This last week we were fed at a member's home on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.  that's probably the most number of lunch appointments I've had in one week on my entire mission!  Also, at each one, they basically shoved food down our throats.  Yeah, I'm not feeling too good now, but I'll get over it.  I have to. :P

Pretty Busy Week

 

 

Dear Family,

This week was fairly busy, but we just had a lot of little things.  Perhaps first off, the APs made a challenge for the entire mission to speak at least one hundred hours of Czech/Slovak.  Well, given that we're only awake for one hundred twelve hours, we had to speak a lot of Czech.  Elder Betts and I didn't make it, but we did get ninety six.  Our Czech has really made some improvement.  At least for me, it's feeling a lot more fluid, even though before, it was pretty easy to just speak.  The things that got us the most were when we were around the other missionaries and when we taught investigators that like to speak English with us.  Those were our weak points.

Other than that, we had some miracles!  We finally set up with one lady that was contacted last transfer by Elder Peterson (a missionary who's now in Plzen, whom I replaced) named Margit.  No, that's not a typical Czech name.  Not really sure where it's from.  We didn't have a terribly long time with her because we had another meeting afterward a little ways from where we were (at the building and we were on the namesti).  Elder Betts didn't know what she looked like, and neither did I so we just went to the place we had arranged to meet at and hoped that someone would come up to us and introduce themselves.  Well, we got there and two ladies came up to us and one introduced herself as Margit and the other was her friend who's also interested in this kind of stuff, named Marcela!  We had a really pretty good chat, in which we set expectations from our meetings.  They told us that it would be better if we could just sit down for four hours and talk about everything, because it's hard for them to find time, but they seemed like they were really excited to meet up with us again.  Margit works as a secretary in a law firm, and Marcela works as a lunch lady (here it's a really big job because Czechs have bigger lunches than dinners, and lunches actually have to be cooked from scratch here and every day it has to be something different - pretty serious job).  We're pretty excited to meet with them again.

Then we had a meeting later on in the week with Jiri, the guy who told us that we can just meet over drinks or something - we're still not completely sure what's happened, but the meeting really reassured us that he's not been "anti'd" or anything, but that he's just getting a lot of pressure from home, perhaps from his wife, about getting baptized/meeting with us.  We're not quite sure what it is, but we were really straight up with him and asked if he'd still like to meet with us, and in kind of a round about way, he said yes, because he really likes when we pray and talk about this kind of stuff.  It still interests him.  So that's good.

Then on Friday, we had a about three hours of finding, and I wasn't feeling good that day.  Like, I just didn't feel right about missionary work for some reason that day.  I wanted to work and I wanted to be really enthusiastic about it, but it felt really forced and I knew that it wouldn't seem sincere if I were to force it, so I just kept praying that something would change.  Later we saw this one kid on the street; he was asking for donations on behalf of a charity for training seeing-eye dogs.  We started chatting with him and eventually he told us that he had a break and that we could sit down with him for a little bit and talk about God and religion.  He's a believer, and he believes in Christianity.  He seemed to really like the things that we were talking about, but he liked to talk more than listen to us, and I'm not the kind of person to butt in and cut someone off, so I let him talk.  While he was talking to us, this old man came up and stood right in front of me, and stared at my name tag really closely, so I turned it so that he could see better, and then he looked at me and said, "Are you the Mormons?"  I said, yes we are.  He then went in to tell me about how we're good people and that there need to be more people like us in the world.  He was just complimenting us over and over.  Elder Betts kept conversation with David, the kid we had been talking with, and I spoke with the old man.  He said that he likes talking about philosophy with people, but almost everything that he was saying was in accordance with what we believe and teach.  He already knew us because there used to be missionaries in his town, and he really seems to like us.  He said a few things that I had never thought before, that really seem to make sense and I agree with now.  I can't really think of what they are at the moment, but they were things said in such a way that it's changed the way that I think about a few things.  I felt that while I was talking with that man, God had answered my prayer to make me feel better.  All I needed was a person to be grateful for what we're doing, a person who really valued who we are.  I knew that God heard me and wanted to help me, so he sent that man.  Too bad that when I asked him for his phone number, he said that he doesn't have a phone; when I asked him for his address so that we could visit him, he told me that he's homeless (which he didn't look like); so I gave him a pamphlet and told him that he's welcome to come to our church meeting when he's here next.  He agreed with that and said that he would.

Today, we went out to one of our investigators' cottage and had lunch and spent some time in their cherry tree, picking cherries (thus the pictures)!  So we have fresh cherries.

Everything's going great here.  Elder Betts and I don't see eye to eye all the time, but we're both trying and we solve things and get things done.  One of the biggest things that I've learned from the mission is that I'm not always going to get along with everyone perfectly, but despite that, I can work with anyone and be happy.

I love you all and hope that you're doing fantastic.  I also hope that the weather's doing better.  It's gotten a little rainy here, but it's not too bad.

Much Love,

Starší Monk

Bezva! (Groovy)

Dear Family,

So this last week, I was on exchanges with Elder Thomspon.  It was really weird, but really satisfying and cool to work with him again.  We had another lesson with Marta while we were on the exchange, and Elder Thompson, always knowing what to do, spoke very minimally during that lesson, just so that I would have to get over being intimidated in front of her.  I wouldn't call it very nice, but the lesson went fairly well.  We spoke about praying and reading as how we talk to God and how we hear what He has to say to us.  She understood it really well, and at one point I asked, "What kind of relationship do you have with God," and she thought about it for a long time and then after thinking, she said, "Probably none."  It was cool to see that she knew that she had a reason to try these things and that we were just there to give them to her.  I finished the lesson in about five to ten minutes, because I didn't know what to say, so I guess I just said things very consicely and quickly.  She didn't have a backpack with her at the time, so we didn't give her the Book of Mormon then, but we set up a little time the next day so that we could just meet up and give it to her.

Also, we had a great lesson with Renata.  We finally got a member lesson with her!  It's not that members aren't ready to help and that it's hard to schedule with her, but it's just that we couldn't think of whom we wanted to teach with.  Renata's around our age and there's just not that many people in the branch who are around that age as well, so we've been having a little hard time thinking of who, but eventually we decided to teach with one of the older ladies in the branch, who's named Sister Renata, funny enough.  Sister Renata is really upbeat and energetic, which we think Renata really liked, and Sister Renata really liked that Renata is humble and willing to listen to the things that we speak about.  We had a really good lesson about the Holy Ghost and how we're supposed to learn to recognize how he speaks with us and what we should expect.  Everything just seemed to work in that lesson: Renata learned about how she's supposed to expect answers, Sister Renata learned more about how the Holy Ghost worked, and a great friendship was made.  After the lesson, we got a text from Renata asking for Sister Renata's number, because she felt that they had a lot of the same interests and that Sister Renata would be able to help her out.

This Saturday, we also had two more baptisms!  One is named Jirka, from the sisters' area.  He's nineteen years old and super solid.  He's thinking about going on a mission, and that would be fantastic!  The other is Kristyna, from the other elders' area.  She was dating a member here in Ostrava, Ondra Tomsik, who has just recently left to go on his own mission.  Kristyna didn't tell Ondra that she was getting or even got baptized.  She wanted to send him a letter with a picture and suprise him.  I'm sure that it will!  Jirka asked for Elder Blair, one of our zone leaders from Olomouc, to come and baptize him (they met while the zone leaders were here on during the interviews and street display - in which Jirka participated by contacting with us) and Kristyna asked for Elder Thompson to baptize her.

This last week has definitely had it's ups and downs, and we actually just had an investigator drop us today through texting because he asked a really weird question.  He asked, "I found Jehovah under the J's in the index in the Book of Mormon.  Can you tell me what kind of connection you have with this religion?"  I texted back and told him that Jehovah is just Jesus Christ from the Old and New Testaments and that, if I understood the question right, we have nothing in common with the Jehovah's Witnesses.  He wrote back a little while later and said that if that's Jesus Christ, he wants nothing to do with us, that he's sorry that he wasted our precious time, he doesn't want to get baptized, he's going to go back to having sex, and that he's erasing our number right after he sends that text.  I was sorely confused.

Other than that, I don't think there's a whole lot of other big things going on.  Things are interesting, as always.  Life as a missionary is never boring, and if it is, I know that I'm doing something wrong.  Love you all lots and hope that everything is going well for you as well.

Tons of Love,

Starší Monk

Overall, A Satisfying Week

Dear Family,

This last week has been a pretty good one.  We had a mission conference on Tuesday because Elder Pearson (of the Seventy) came to pick up his son, Elder Pearson (the older Elder Pearson that I served with for a little while in Olomouc as a threesome), because Elder Pearson (the Seventy) is being moved to New Zealand for three years and it would have meant that Elder Pearson (the missionary) wouldn't see his parents for five years.  So he's going home early and as part of such, he (the Seventy) gave us a mission conference as well.  It was fantastic.  There were some really amazing things said, but probably even more importantly, the Spirit slapped me in the face and I really realized some things that I probably should have known from the very beginning of my mission, but there's not really much I can do about that now.  Now I know, and now it's my responsibility to change because of it.  Because of the travel to and from Prague (which is four hours by train), our Tuesday was kind of shot, but we made the best of what we could.

So, a little bit of a continuation from last week, where Elder Betts was feeling like the area is dying, we lost another baptismal date, because we told him that making the baptismal covenant means keeping ALL of God's commandments.  He then told us, "Okay, then we can call off the baptism, because I will never live according to the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity."  That was a really disappointing outcome from that lesson, but we came away feeling good because we had done what the Lord wanted us to, and we felt that we were doing our part.  Elder Pearson said (the Seventy) at the conference that we should be disappointed every single day, but never discouraged.  We were very disappointed.

We had some really good finding where we found some people that should get moving this next week.  I'm not going to write about them, because we're in Prague right now getting Elder Betts' visa renewed.

Renata, our baptismal date, is still going really strong.  This last week we met with her and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ more in depth, but also had her lay things out so that we could see how much she's really getting and what it really means for her.  I was really surprised with how much she really got what we were talking about.  She said that she had some questions about what "faith in Jesus Christ" is versus just "faith" and also what "enduring to the end" is, so we went about the lesson by reading from Preach My Gospel, and I just love the way that things are laid out there - it's just so clear and easy to understand, and so I think that it really helped her to really understand how the things all fit together.  Later I was looking at her record, and it's really funny to see the kind of progress that she's made.  When they began teaching her, she would pray to the universe, and she told the missionaries flat out that she wouldn't ever join our church, and here she is, making really good progress toward it.  We had another lesson where we just answered her questions and she wanted to just go over the baptismal questions again, in more depth.  As we went through the questions there were some strange like, she doesn't believe that Jesus was born from a virgin, because it just doesn't make sense.  It's a good concern, but not terribly pressing for the time being.  Then we ended up talking about the Law of Chastity for the majority of the lesson.  She understands all the things that we say and she understand where we're coming from, but she doesn't agree with it.  She lives according to it, but she doesn't agree with it right now.  The way that we see it is that she's on the fence about it and she doesn't agree with us about it because she doesn't see the reason to come to the other side because she's grown up with the other ideas her whole life.  It's kind of a strange situation, but otherwise, she's doing really well.

Another interesting that happened this week is that we began teaching this one girl who's about our age as well.  Her name is Marta.  They found her before I got to the area, but something interesting is: she's a violinist!  She told me that she's been playing since she was five years old; her mother's a violinist, she's studying at the university here for violin and she lived in New York City for a while when she was younger.  It's probably one of the only instances where I was intimidated by the person that we were speaking with.  I don't really know why, but I was.  I found myself just staring at Elder Betts because I couldn't talk, so he did most of the lesson.  Toward the end, I was doing better, and I participated as well.  It was really strange.  We didn't have a whole ton of time with her, but we've got another lesson set up for this Wednesday, so I'm excited to meet with her again.  Let's just hope that I can speak.  Oh, she also said that she'd lend me some music so that I can play something other than just Bach whenever I have time to play.

Not a whole lot else to say, or really that much time, but I hope that everything is going well for you all in whatever you're doing.

Love you all,

Starsi Monk

Happy Birthday?

Čestmír's baptism.  He is on the left and Rosťa is on the right.

Elder Betts and me on a hill overlooking Ostrava

Dear Family,

I'll just start by saying that today my district sang happy birthday to me, before we went on our výlet (small sight-seeing trip).  Also, President Irwin called me this morning.  I picked up and said hi, and he said, "Elder Monk!" and then continued to sing "Happy Birthday" to me almost without pause to let me think what was going on.  After that, he wished me a wonderful day and ended the call.  He has enough to do, but it was nice of him to call and sing to me.

So, a few things have happened this week: some good and some not so good.  All-in-all, it's been a hard week, but I've had harder.  I'll start with Renata.  She's still doing awesome.  We met with her this last week and finished up the Plan of Salvation.  She really seems to love learning from us about things.  We had assigned her Alma 40-42 to read, and when she came, she had notes and questions written down.  Instead of going through all her questions, we just taught her the rest of the Plan of Salvation and afterward she looked at her notes and said, "Oh, you already answered all of them."  We were teaching her outside and she was taking notes on a paper that I had drawn the outline for the Plan of Salvation on, and every now and then when she didn't know where it is, she'd say, "Kde je můj Boží plán?" (Where's my God's plan?)  She'd always find it.  One thing that she told us, however, is that whenever she reads the Book of Mormon, it seems very strict, hard and mean, but when we explain it to her, she feels that it's not mean at all but that it's nice and merciful.  She was also a little surprised that she doesn't get out of the chapters what we tell her.  She says that it makes sense afterward when we explain it to her, but while she's reading she doesn't understand it that way.  We told her that's why we're here.  She's doing really well right now.  I think that giving her the baptismal date has really changed her around, and also that she can see that we're her friends and that we want only what's best for her.

We also met with Jiri this past week.  When we met, we found out that the reason that his ideas about baptism have changed are because his wife, even though she had told him that she doesn't have a problem with it, he can tell that she does, so he doesn't think that it's the best idea to get baptized right now, because it may disrupt their marriage.  It's already his second marriage so he really wants to make this one work.  So, we pushed back his baptismal date to the second of July.  We then spoke with him about how he could speak to his wife about meeting with us so that she can ask us questions instead of looking on the internet, which she's already done and found anti-Mormon material.  We brainstormed and then had him practice.  He didn't do badly, but he was beating around the bush, so I gave an example, and then asked him to do it again.  The second time he did alot better and he was feeling like he could really make it happen.  Sadly, later in the week, we got a text from him saying that he and his wife aren't the kinds of people to think about religion.  Basically he dropped us.  It was really strange, because it didn't sound like him in the text.  Elder Betts was saying how it looked like his wife took his phone and wrote us that message just to get us to leave him alone.  He said in the text that he and his wife can't really even speak about normal things without getting into an argument, so perhaps he's thinking that this is causing problems that don't need to be there.  We haven't been able to meet with him since then, but he said that he'd be open for meeting and talking, but not about religion.  We're going to meet alright, but we're going to ask him what's going on.

Then on Thursday we met with a kid named Lukaš, who hasn't met with the missionaries in like four five weeks.  When they first met him, he was out of work, worrying about what he was going to do.  He didn't have time then because he was looking for a job, but now, he has a job and he doesn't have time because of it.  Strange predicament.  Anyway, according to Elder Betts, when they met with him before, he didn't seem to have much interest, but this time, he was really open to hearing what we had to say, and actaully, he told us that he wanted to learn more because he thinks that it's a bad thing to live in ignorance.  Good way to live.  The lesson that we had with him went really well.  We asked him if he had prayed at all.  He said no and felt pretty bad about it.  Then we asked him if he had read from the Book of Mormon.  Then he felt really bad and said no again.  He told us that he wants to read the Book of Mormon as soon as he as more time, but I suggested that he reads just a chapter a day and then think about it.  He really liked that and said that he'd do it.  Then at the end, I asked him to pray, and he said that he doesn't know what he'd say, so we walked through a couple things that he would say, and he was still a little shy to try, so we told him to try and practice a few times on his own and then he could do it the next time that we meet.  He agreed to that.  Basically, from my point of view, it was a golden lesson.  He was really open, felt bad for not keeping commitments, friendly, willing to share concerns with us, and he committed to trying things!  When I asked him if we could meet again the next week, he said that he'd definitely be able to find a small moment when he could sit down and talk to us.  So, I'm really excited for this guy!

Then on Friday we had six lessons on plan, with a possible seven, and two of them were member lessons, but as the day went on, lesson after lesson fell through.  One of the lessons was with Patricia (I don't know if I've talked to you about her; I'm sure that I have).  She sent us a text saying that she wouldn't be coming, and that she wouldn't be coming to any more meetings with us anymore.  She dropped us too!  She said that it was really hard for her to say, and you could tell that she really likes us, but something else is there.  We're not sure what it is.  She sent another text later saying that she can't talk to us right now because she's really sad, but perhaps she just needs a pause, so maybe she'll pick up later again.  I certainly hope so, she's really awesome.

Then on Saturday, the sisters' area had a baptism!  His name is Čestmír.  He's an older man and he's been meeting with the missionaries for a while now.  Elder Vomocil had taught him when he was here in Ostrava, which was over a year ago.  Čestmír has had a rough time personally and in the church.  He's already gotten offended once by a member in Plzen, and it was right after his wife had divorced him, after he moved to Plzen for work and the work was a scam (basically the business is "new" and they work everyone for a month and right before they're supposed to give out paychecks, the business suddenly liquifies and isn't to be found).  However, inspite of these things, he was baptized this last Saturday by a newly converted member named Rosťa.  It was a really cool experience.  The only thing that could have made it better is if Jiri had made it!

This last week was really hard on Elder Betts.  Many times he would turn to me and say that this week sucked and would complain that our numbers were bad.  I can understand that it's hard for him.  It has been hard, but I think that he could look on the bright side: we still have some really cool investigators who, I believe, are really going to make it.  I know that life can sometimes be like this.  We get caught up on the bad that we forget about the blessings we do have.

This week has been crazy, ups and downs.  Oh, and one other thing to add to the ups: Hoang (our investigator from Plzen) wrote me and said that he just got baptized in Vietnam!  No effort is ever wasted!  The Lord knows everything, and as long as we're keeping our covenants and trying to be a good person, he will never lead us astray; our efforts will always be toward a larger purpose.

I love you all so very much and hope that you're very successful in all of your ventures.  I know that I am here in this part of the world.  I just hope that I could write more in depth everything that happens here so that you can get the whole scope of missionary life here, but it's just not possible; this'll just have to do.

Much love,

Starší Monk