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

Another Busy Week in Ostrava

Dear Family,

This week has been one of those when you say that the days feel weeks and the weeks feel like days.  Right now I'm thinking about the week that just passed and some of the things that were at the beginning of the week feel like they were forever ago, but the week seemed to pass so quickly.

On Wednesday, I was on an exchange with Elder Engstrom (Elder Thompson's greenie) and we had a pretty enjoyable day of contacting.  While we were on the exchange, Elder Betts and Elder Thompson gave a baptismal date to one of our investigators: Patricia.  She's a really cool lady, but we think that she's afraid to make and keep larger commitments than read and pray because her husband is pretty anti-religion.  We met her at a grocery store the other day and we saw her husband; he's a big guy, not to say that that's why she's afraid of him, but that's why I'm afraid of him.  She always feels good when she meets with us, and she agrees and accepts everything that we speak about, but when it comes to larger commitments, she doesn't really feel like she can.  So when they gave her the baptismal commitment, they said the second of July, and she laughed and said, "That's funny, that's my son's birthday."  They all giggled about it a little and then they recommitted her to the nineth, and according to Elder Thompson, she said yes, but it wasn't a definite "yes I will do it," so we're going to follow up with her and make sure that she's really looking toward that date as her baptismal date and that it will happen.  We bump into her every now and then, and she just looks so happy when she sees us.  We actually saw her today, and she said that she needed to boast of herself, that on Friday and Saturday, she found two hours to read the Book of Mormon.  She couldn't remember exactly where she is in 1 Nephi right off the top of her head, but we were happy to hear that she had read so much.

Then the next day, we met with a boy named Honza who has had a baptismal date before, but the date fell through because he couldn't do it on that day due to work, so we met and gave him another date for the twenty-fifth of June, and he told us that he'd have to check and see if it would work out with his work, but then later we asked him and he said that he didn't check, but if a problem does come up, he'd change his work or find a way that it would work.  At that lesson we spoke more about the Apostasy and the Restoration and the need for that Restoration.  He ended up telling us that he didn't think that it's too important which church is right, because they all lead us closer to God, but he said that he chose the "Mormon Church" because it's where he's felt the best.  He said that whenever he's around us, or around members, he just feels like they care about him and that he's wanted.  He's a really open-minded kid who is really one of the people who "don't know where to find it."  Last week we spoke to him about the Word of Wisdom and he told us that he would try it.  We committed him to living it for one week, and he accepted because we told him that we have it so that we can be free from addictions.  He was really curious whether or not he is addicted to cigars or not (he says that he smokes because it gives him instant relaxation when he's at work and because he likes the taste), so he's doing this as a sort of experiment but as we know from Alma 32, experiments aren't bad.  He started that week challenge on Thursday.  On Saturday at sports day, he told me that he was at his grandmother's house (he visits her two or three times a week) and whenever he goes there they have coffee and smoke a couple cigarettes.  He said that when he was there, his grandmother offered him some coffee and he said, "No, I don't want any," and she said, "What?  Are you sick?"  he said, "No, I just don't want any."  He said that he had to refuse three times before she'd leave him alone.  He then told me that he was going to be going there again on Sunday and that she would probably ask, "Are you still sick?"  As for the smoking at work, he said that it's a lot harder than he thought it would be.  At one point he got in the truck at work and someone who was smoking got in with him, and he was breathing really deeply trying to get as much as he could.  I think that he saw from this that he doesn't smoke just for the taste.  He's still hanging in there strong and I think that we're going to be able to commit him to living it more after this week is over.  He's going to be doing well.

Another person who has really started picking up this last week is named Renata.  She's a pretty awesome girl about nineteen or twenty years old, who actually contacted the missionaries.  Before, her meetings were really just meet and speak about what we believe, and then she'd distance herself a little by saying what she believes.  She'd always keep that bit of wall.  She's really willing to listen and understands what we're saying really well, but she would always just keep that bit of wall up.  This last week she finished school, but the way that it works here when people graduate is that they have their last day of school, have an entire week off, and then they have all their finals.  This last week she was in her week off, so she had time to meet with us, and we helped her study for her English exams, only after we had a lesson with her.  The first time that we met with her this week, we spoke about how there's only one way that leads back to our Heavenly Father, and she listened really intently, but she still felt that she could get to Him her own way, but she accepted to read 2 Nephi 31-33.  We spoke about baptism and that we know that the only way is through that baptism, through the gate.  When she came to the next meeting, she sat down and opened up the Book of Mormon and said, "This Nephi guy is saying that there's only one way to God.  He's really hard and strict."  We bore testimony of what Nephi was saying, and told her that Nephi was only being so hard because he knew that there's only one way of perfection, there's only one way to be the best: God's way.  We told her that we're her friends and that we want only what's the best for her, and that seemed to really strike home with her.  We then extended a baptismal commitment to her and she said no at first, but then we spoke some more about it and how she can be ready by that day, and then we extended it again and she accepted it.  Since then, we've been seeing that the wall that she's been keeping up between what we believe and what she believes has been minimal, if not gone.  She's been much more willing to accept things that we've been teaching.  She has as her baptismal date, as of now, the second of July.  She's really awesome and we're confident that she's going to make it.

With another one of our baptismal dates, Jiři, is supposed to get baptized this Saturday.  In preparation for that we tried to meet with him at least three times.  We met with him twice and they both went pretty well.  The situation with Jiri is that his wife isn't very supportive, and recently she didn't even know that he was meeting with us, let alone that he would be getting baptized.  Our first meeting with him this week we spoke about the Word of Wisdom and he said that he has nothing to quit besides coffee.  He said that wouldn't be a problem, so he committed to living it.  Then our next meeting we spoke about the Sabbath Day and fasting and fast offerings.  He seemed to agree with everything, and he agreed to live according to it.  He was getting really excited about his baptism and it seemed like he was really going to get to it.  Then on Sunday we got a text from him saying that he had a talk (with whom we don't know - I'm assuming his wife) and said that some of his ideas about baptism have changed.  He said that we could still meet with him, so we're set up to meet him on Tuesday, and we're going to try and find out what's wrong, and if possible keep him on track toward baptism.

Last of all, we were waiting on the namesti for a lesson to come (actually it was Renata), and Elder Betts and I were just talking between ourselves and there was this guy who really kind of stood out, but I didn't take much notice, was standing pretty close to us and seemed like he was just listening.  It happens all the time so I don't care anymore.  Then the guy turned to us and said, "I don't speak Spanish?" but he put emphasis on the "Spanish" and he was having a really hard time saying even that simple of a sentence, so I thought he was asking a gramatical question, if "Spanish" was the correct form that he wanted to be using, so I said, "Yes, Spanish."  The guy's eyes then widened and got really happy and started speaking in Spanish really fast and just kept talking.  It really took us by surprise and I had to stop the guy and say, "No.  We don't speak Spanish."  He then got a little sad again, and we tried to communicate in english.  We found out that the guy was from Brazil and that he didn't speak English or Czech.  When I told him that we were Mormons, he said, "Oh!  San Paulo."  I said that I had a friend there and that my brother was going to Brazil.  I think he understood that I was going to Brazil, but then I told him that I'm staying here.  Poor guy, we couldn't really help him because he didn't speak enough English, and we certainly don't speak enough Spanish or Portuguese.  When we were sitting on a different namesti with Renata, we saw him again and he came up and was trying to tell us what his problem was.  I guess we were the only people that could even close to help him.  As he tried to tell us what the problem was, I came to two conclusions, based on what he was saying.  One, he was part of a tour group and he lost his group; that they were on a side street and that now they aren't.  Or two, that he needs to find a bank and send money to his brother who lives in Florence.  I have no idea how the two of those connect, but he was talking about both.  The poor guy, we had to turn him away again, because we just couldn't do anything.  Other than that, he was a really cool kid.  Probably around twenty or twenty-one years old.

I don't have much else to say.  Well, yes I do, but I don't have any more time.  I love you all and hope that you're doing well.  We had district conference (all of Moravia and Slovakia) in Brno on Sunday.  I realized that that was probably the last time that I would be seeing alot of those members.  That was a sad thought, but it was also cool to speak with a lot of them and see how much I can speak and understand now, especially those from Zlin.

Love you all a lot, but I have to go.

Starší Monk

Missionary Work and Transformers?

Dear Family,

 

Week two in Ostrava and still loving it!  This place is great.  I was a little hesitant to come to a larger city because I didn't know what it would be like, but basically it's the same as a little cities, except for the fact that it takes twenty to thirty minutes to get home compared to the five it did in my other towns.  I guess that Plzen was a little similar, but it was only like eight minutes after you got on the tram.  Anyway, this last week we had a lot of lessons and a little bit of finding.  We found a couple cool people and they're now new investigators.  Sadly, this last week, we lost two of our baptismal dates, not the people but just the dates, because they're not going to be able to make it for whatever reason; one has his wife's birthday the day after we had scheduled his baptism, and the other is going to be having work and can't get out of it.  The good thing, however, is that they both still want to be baptized, they just have to get new dates.  That shouldn't be too bad.  Just meet with them and give them a new one.

 

First off, our one baptismal date that is still on track.  His name is Jiri (George in english).  He's really awesome.  We taught him the law of tithing the other day and he understood it all and said that it makes sense why we need to pay tithing.  When we asked him if he would pay tithing after his baptism, he squirmed around a little and then said, "Well, my wife might think it would be kind of weird if just part of our salary was just disappearing."  Jiri has been meeting with the missionaries for a little while, probably two months, and wasn't really solid until he got his baptismal date.  Now he's just on fire, and I think the only real thing that's keeping him back is the fact that his wife doesn't completely know that he's meeting with us, that he wants to be baptized, and I don't really know if she is very keen on spiritual matters.  Well, tithing would be a very hard thing to hide from a wife, so we told him that he needs to tell her.  I suggested that he could invite her to one of our meetings so that she can ask questions and she can get to know us as well.  I also think that it would be a great opportunity for her to start investigating the gospel, too.  He thought about it, and he looked like he would try that, or that he would at least start talking to her about it.  Then I asked him the question again, and he said that he would.  He's only got two weeks before his baptism, but we believe that he's going to make it.  All that he needs to do is meet with us three times each week.  Four of those meetings will be us teaching him, one will be a meeting with the branch president (he likes to meet investigators before they get baptized), and a meeting with Elder Thompson for his baptismal interview.  I really think that he's going to make it.  The best part is, he's solid and normal!  It's awesome to see anyone get baptized, but, a little sorry to say, really awesome to see someone normal get baptized.  There are just so many times that missionaries baptized the weird people that have nothing else to do other than listen to the missionaries and are probably going to be more of a burden on the branch rather than a help.  So I'm really excited for Jiri.

 

We had other meetings with other investigators, and they were really good too, but it would take too long for me to write about each one of them, so I'm just going to talk about a few people that we found this week.  First one, we were out talking to people and there was a guy just sitting on a bench, basically sun bathing his face, eyes closed and just facing the sun, and we saw him and Elder Betts made a comment about him, but we didn't contact him.  We went on and then as we came around again, he was still there and we just contacted him.  It was probably a pretty bad start to a conversation.  I just said, "Hi, have you ever talked to us before?  Do you know who we are?"  The guy had no clue who we were, but we somehow got into conversation about it, and found out that he had just lost his job, whether it was that day or the week before or sometime a while ago we don't know, but one way or another, he had time.  We sat down with him and began talking, or he began talking.  He really likes to talk.  He's also slovak, but speaks czech enough that we can understand.  I think that Elder Betts doesn't understand much of what he says because of his accent and the fact that he uses many slovak words.  I understand him just fine, but I've been around a while longer so I guess I have a larger slovak word vocabulary than Elder Betts, but we make do.  We kind of worked our way into conversation and told him that we have a book for him, and that the book, if he reads it and tries the things that are in it, will help him, even help him find work if that's what the Lord wants.  He's already a believer, so that helps.  We set up with him the next day at 2:00pm and when we showed up for finding at 1:30pm, he was already there.  We figured that it would be better to go over and start our meeting with him rather than contact around him and have him feel like we didn't want to talk to him.  He saw us from a distance and stood up to greet us, and when we got there he said, "So, I'll take you to my house.  There we can talk better."  So we followed him.  He lives right off the namesti, so it was easy and quick to get there.  Well, may I say that it was a good thing that we didn't have any meetings after him, because he pulled out about eight or nine photo albums of when he went to Egypt and various places so that he could show us.  We stayed and talked and looked at his photos, and at the end, probably an hour and fifteen minutes later, we worked our way in.  I told him that when we meet, we want to share a message with people, that we would be sharing a message with him and will probably last about fifteen to twenty minutes, so after the message we can talk about whatever we'd like.  He agreed to that.  Then we gave him the Book of Mormon and gave an introduction about it and asked him to read it.  He agreed.   This guy's name is Štefan.  He's really cool.  We should be meeting with him again this week.  Don't know when yet, but we'll set up soon.

 

Another person that we found is named Daniel.  I think that his family is from Spain, because his last name is Crus, which is not at all czech.  Anyway, we were talking to one lady on a bench on the namesti and she wasn't really going anywhere, but we kept talking to her none-the-less.  While we were talking to her, I noticed a guy behind us kind of just hovering around, but I figured that he was just waiting for someone, but all of a sudden he comes up and starts talking to us and the lady.  He started by saying, "I heard your question.  Very interesting." and then looking at the lady, "What do you think?"  He continued to question her and we just figured that they knew eachother, but after a little while, it was pretty noticeable that they did not know eachother at all.  This guy was asking her questions that we usually ask people and when she'd ask them back at him, he would answer basically golden answers.  Then he looked at us and asked, "I have a very philisophical question for you.  Who made God?"  I tried to give him an answer that wouldn't freak him out, so I just told him that the answer to that question requires lots of basic knowledge that he doesn't have yet.  With that said, we said goodbye to the lady and we walked away to speak to him somewhere else.  He then started asking us what we believed as far as how people were created.  He wouldn't take, "God created us.  We're his spirit children."  He just kept asking, how, physically, materialistically.  I couldn't give him a solid answer and he kept claiming to know how we were created.  So we sat down and Elder Betts asked him, "So, according to you, how were people created."  He smiled and looked around and asked if we knew the Transformers movies, parts one and two.  Elder Betts said yes, and I said just part one.  With that, he went into telling us that transformers really do exist and that other races from outer space come and visit the earth all the time and that the transformers have to be here to protect us.  He said that transformers are the epitomy of perfection, and that all we would have to do is look at them and we would agree.  He then continued that the transformers wanted to create something so they began process on planning the "human."  He said that only something as perfect as a transformer could think up all the genes and every little detail of a human and then, they created little pockets of information that contain all the information of what a human is.  The transformers then created six pockets of human: white male and female, black male and female and asian male and female.  Then with these little pockets of information, the transformers put them into printers and the printers took the information and transformed into the first six people.  Elder Betts and I were both really confused by this all, but whatever.  He kept repeating that people came from printers as if it was a breakthrough in reality.  We both just looked at him like he was crazy.  Then I just had to ask, "And how does God have anything to do with this?"  Then he kind of ate his words and said that God created the transformers.  Elder Betts looked at me and said, "Why not just cut out the transformers part?  Then he'd be right.  God created humans."  At this point we had to run to get to a lesson, but I asked for his number and he gave it to us.  I figured that it would be worth at least a meeting or two with him, crazy or not.  We met with him the next day and the lesson was less than spiritual.  He's really gross and crude.  Basically the entire time he was trying to tell us how sex is the best thing in the world, and we could barely get a lesson in.  That's either his last meeting, or we might give him another chance.  We'll see.

 

Other than that, this week has been really good, but I can't write about everything or else this would be way too long and you wouldn't want to read the entire thing, and I would have to break the rules so that I could type it all out.  I don't want either of those.  I hope that you're all doing well.  I'm doing fantasic.  President was down here for Branch Conference on Sunday, and I had to translate the entire meeting for Sister Irwin, and it really surprised me how well I did.  I even translated a fairytale that I've never heard before.  It was kind of crazy and I didn't really even know what was going on, but I translated on!  It made sense about half way through.  It's fun to see how progress happens even though we can't tell that it's happening.  I know that is exactly what's happening to me now on the mission, and I know that it can happen to every single one of us.  Just as they said at general conference, just because we don't have huge revelations doesn't mean that we aren't becoming more and more converted to the truth every single day.  I love you all very much and hope that you're all in good health, spiritally and physically.

 

Love you all muches,

Starší Monk

Transfer to Ostrava

What? Missionaries TEACH?!

Dear Family,

Sorry that I didn't send an email this last week.  It was transfers and then we had emailing on Wednesday, but I guess I didn't hit "send" on the email I wrote, so I sent it just now, so you can read what happened the week before.

Let me start by talking a little about what I found out from last week.  Hoang (yeah, that Vietnamese guy that Elder Rhodes and I taught back in Plzen) is still in Vietnam, even though he said that he'd only be staying for about two months.  A while after he had left, I got an email from him saying that he's doing well and that he's still praying and reading the Book of Mormon.  He also said that he found the church building in Hanoi but couldn't get in contact with missionaries but that he trusts that everything will be okay.  Just this last week, I got a couple of emails from the senior couple in Hanoi (missionaries aren't allowed to be there for proselyting because it's still communist, but senior couples are allowed) asking for information about Hoang because he had been to church three out of the four previous weeks and that they wanted to know what he had been taught.  I sent an email back answering their questions, talking about how we had taught him everything and how he had accepted every single one of our commitments whole-heartedly.  He wrote back a response very quickly saying thank you and that he was doing very well.  He told me that they had a few meetings with him and his family and that the missionaries (APs from Cambodia) came over and had a golden lesson with them.  They committed Hoang to be baptized, then to receive the priesthood and baptize his family shortly after!  I called and told Elder Rhodes all of this and the two of us were just beside ourselves.  Elder Rhodes was actually talking about getting permission from President to go down to Vietnam to be at his baptism.  He must have been joking, but that would still be really awesome.

So, as you can probably tell from the subject, I've had quite a change coming from Trebic and the other places on my mission to here.  It's not that I disliked those places that I've been, it's just I haven't really had a teaching pool since... Zlin?  Yeah.  That's nuts.  Well, coming here has been kind of like walking into the land of milk and honey.  All around the mission, Ostrava for the past few transfers has been known as the town that's really been on fire.  Well, coming in, I found myself walking into an area with about twenty investigators, four baptismal dates and almost all of them are really quite solid.  I'm super stoked.

On Thursday, we had three lessons scheduled.  One of them couldn't come, but that's okay, we just set up for some other time, but the others were fantastic.  We met with a guy named Jaroslav, and he has a baptismal date for the eleventh of June and seems to be going pretty strong toward that.  The only thing that's really keeping him back is that he smokes, and quite a bit.  He works as a puppet maker (like marionettes) and he says that when he's just thinking, he smokes and it helps him concentrate.  He knows that it's a bad habit and he wants to stop, but now his entire workshop smells like smoke and he's just trapped around it whenever he works.  So, we taught the word of wisdom and he read the entire thing and I think that he agrees with it.  The trick is just getting him to quit smoking.  I believe that he can and will do it.

Then we had game night, and it's amazing that people actually showed up!  Elder Betts said that on a bad week, only seven to ten people show up, but the most that's ever showed up was around thirty.  Nuts!

After that we had a meeting with one of our other investigators.  He's such a cool guy.  He reminds me a lot of one of my buddies back from BYU.  I'll send a picture one of these days.  Basically everything about him!  Way he looks, acts, interacts... basically all the same.  He's also really into Korea.  He wants to go to Korea and study Korean, so he was really excited when he heard that I, a half Korean, was coming to Ostrava.  He was a little put out when he found out that I don't speak Korean, but I think that he likes me all the same.  His name is Honza.  We had just a short meeting about what we want to do as missionaries and if he would be willing to just try the things that we'll ask him.  We went so cautiously because he had investigated a while ago and when he saw that the missionaries were asking lots of things, he disappeared.

Then the next day we met with another one of our baptismal dates and went through the baptismal interview questions, and there were a few things that he didn't know about yet, but as for the things that he does know about, he was very solid and quite golden.  His name is Jiři and is going to be getting baptized on the 28th of this month.  He had some little concerns about the Plan of Salvation and about Thomas S. Monson (namely accepting him as a prophet if he doesn't know anything about him), but we'll resolve those quickly.  Elder Betts said that he was a potential that got kind of pushed off to the side and a little forgotten about, and even after they started meeting with him, he didn't seem terribly promising until they challenged him to baptism, and then he really started thinking and became the cool investigator that he is.

Later, we met with another investigator.  According to Elder Betts, she wasn't terribly focused or making a whole lot of progress, but we were really straight forward and bold with her, and Elder Betts said that she was completely different that meeting.  She got the feeling that she needs to read the Book of Mormon and she told us herself, that she feels that she needs to be praying more than she is.  One really cool thing about that meeting, however, is the entire time she was telling us about how sometimes God doesn't answer in the ways or the time that we want.  We told her that's exactly how it is.  Her name is Renata.  I think that she's going to start moving.  She also baked us some cake thing.  It was really good.  She said that she bakes because she wants to learn how and that we're good critics.

Then later we met another one of our baptismal dates, who's named Honza (yes another one) and we read through the baptismal interview questions with him as well.  It was fun to do that with him becaus he's really open with us, but he's really polite about it as well.  When he read the first question if he believes in God the Eternal Father and Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world, he said, "I don't want to offend you, but this question is kind of ridiculous because if I'm planning on getting baptized, shouldn't I already believe this?"  It was really funny and we said that the questions are really basic and they're just there to see if he'll be ready and willing to keep the things that are entailed by baptism.  As we read on, we found out that he has some chastity and Word of Wisdom problems, but I think that as soon as we have some meetings with him, we'll be able to fix those.

On Sunday, I got to meet the branch.  They're wonderful.  It's the largest branch that I've been in so far on my mission.  This Sunday there were probably around thirty to forty people at church, but last week (the week before I got here) there were almost sixty people!  I had to get up and introduce myself to the branch, and I was pretty nervous because I haven't spoken in front of so many people in a long time.  I managed though, and I got lots of compliments saying that I speak Czech really well.  Sometimes I don't think so, but if they say so, I won't argue.  I must say, I love being here in Ostrava.  It's a great place.  The city doesn't die after six o'clock and we actually have a teaching pool and people that are progressing!  I'm really excited to see what this next week has in store for us, and I know that we're going to be busy at the least.

Love you all a lot.
Starší Monk

Awesome April - Week Four

Dear Family,

This last week has been really great.  It didn't seem like a whole lot happened, but we felt like we did our part and things just kind of fell into place.

On Wednesday, we were out around Trebic talking to people and trying to find that person that's ready to listen to our message.  We were probably out for three or four hours and no one had spoken to us yet, but Elder Vomocil pointed out that there was this one girl that he had been seeing around town that day and that he felt like he should speak to her, so he said that if he saw her again, he would speak with her.  Well, about five minutes later, there she was, so we pushed our way through a crowd and kind of cut so that we could get in front of her and start talking.  It was a little strange, but we didn't let it bother anyone.  We started talking and we asked her if she had some time that we could sit down and talk for a bit.  She said that she did and so we went over a little way and sat on a bench.  She only had about ten minutes before she had to be at a different meeting, but we sat and spoke about what we're doing, what the basics of our message is, and about how we help people come closer to Christ.  She said that she wasn't really a believer, but that she knows lots of people around her who are believers, but she didn't know for herself.  We exchanged numbers and went on our way, but we felt that we had found our person.  Over the next few days, we kept seeing her around, and we'd stop and talk just for a bit.  We'd just talk about whatever, but probably the coolest thing is that she wants to meet with us and talk more about our message.  She's actually interested!  It's also great to see someone who doesn't just see us as a suit.  Her name is Lucie.

Then on Friday, we had a pingpong tournament and grill with the branch.  Everyone kept warning us about Brother Kutil, and that he wins every year.  Now, if you knew Brother Kutil, you would be a little confused as well.  He's a really reserved, soft-spoken guy, but very solid in the church, so to hear that he wins the pingpong tournament every year, was a little crazy.  Well, they made the bracket, and I worked my way through and got up to the top three.  It was between me, Lenka Červeňová and Brother Kutil.  I beat Lenka, and then I played Brother Kutil.  Oh my word.  He is very good, but he would come down to your level and then step it up just one notch so that you would get beat at your own level.  I nearly won one set, but it got to a deuce and then he won that.  The prize for winning was a home baked cake by Sister Koutková, but every year Brother Kutil just shares his winning cake with everyone.

Then on Saturday we had the baptism!  It was just so cool to see an entire family get baptized, parents and two children.  There's not a whole lot to say.  I got to baptize the mother.  I had taught them twice before while I was on exchanges, so I guess they liked me at least a little.  A different missionary baptized each member of the family.  It was a special experience for President Svoboda (president of the branch in Jihlava) because he was baptized in the same place almost exactly twenty years ago, so he said that he'd never forget the Gunarovi family.

Later Saturday, I did some calling and called some of our investigators to see if they could come to church, even though we hadn't had any meetings with them that week, because they all had pretty legitimate excuses.  They were all pretty sure that I would be leaving and so they were really keen on coming to church to at least see me for the last time, so it turned out that we had three people to church without having any lessons during the week.  Interesting.  We then met with Ari (bet you haven't heard about her in a while) after a long time because she's been taking care of Bayar who had a stroke, and gave her a baptismal date again!  She accepted and really wants to go through with it.

Now, we just had transfers.  Yes, I did get transfered.  I got transfered to Ostrava.  My train was supposed to go from Trebic to Brno, and then I would get on a different train from Brno straight to Ostrava, but this morning when I got on my train, the train conductor came around and told me that we would be changing and getting onto a bus in a while that would take us to Brno.  Why?  I don't know.  Well, luckily, the bus got there early and I made my transfer to my next train.  Once I got on the train, the conductress came around and told me that we would be transfering to a bus that would only go a little way, and then we'd have to get on a train again, and then that would take us all the way to Ostrava.  Oh my word.  I have about 150-160 lbs of stuff, and it was not easy to carry around.  Luckily enough for me, there was a guy in Brno who was nice enough to help me.  We found out quickly that he was going to Ostrava as well, so every time that we changed, he helped me with the lighter of the two bags.  I got here on time, but man was it annoying.  I was expecting to sleep a little and rest up, but no.  Oh well.  I made it and I'm alive.

There are some really cool things that look like they're going to go through here in Ostrava.  Right now Ostrava seems like the land of milk and honey, so this will be quite the change from other towns that I've been in.  I'm really excited.

I love you all a lot and hope that things are going well for you all.
Starší Monk