Dear Family,
There's not really a whole lot that I can write about this last week. We didn't really have a lot of time that we could work in our area because on Tuesday we were pretty sick and were told by President and his wife to stay home and get better. President even described it as an assignment. So we stayed home that day and got better and then on Thursday we were in Brno for zone conference.
It's kind of funny, but we were told by President that we wouldn't have zone conferences as often because it's part of the new way that they're going to be running things (zone conferences were supposed to be once every three months or so) but for one reason or another, we've had one every month that President Irwin's been here in the country. I think that's a better rate than we had with President Slovacek - with him we'd have them about four or five times every six months.
This last zone conference we had Elder Teixiera from the First Quorum of the Seventy come and he spoke for nearly the whole time. He's also the president of the Central European missions, possibly Central and Eastern both - I'm not quite sure. Anyway, there was something he said that was really interesting. He said that the most important thing that we're doing as missionaries is teaching; then our second most important job is to get people to church - without that, no one will be baptized. He then went on about the importance of people coming to church and how we're supposed to get them to do that and it basically came down to the fact that missionaries have forgotten the important responsibility to bring people to church - like going out and get them Sunday morning and walk them to church if necessary. He said without that, even some of the elect will not come. Everything that he said made perfect sense and we're working very hard to conform to his vision. If we got it working that way, it would be amazing. He also spoke about referrals and how we can basically get an exponential effect going when we get one really good progressing investigator and then ask them to pray for their families and friends and then get them going and continue to have each of those do the same. He promised that within one month we would have more lessons than we could teach alone and that we'd be calling the branch mission leader for help to teach all the lessons. I'm especially excited for that one.
Other than that, we had some pretty "bipolar" finding this week. Sometimes we'd go out and teach four lessons in one day, and other days we'd go and see nothing. Let me tell you about one really cool contact that we did have this week.
On Friday, we had a pretty good day of finding and it was the day right after zone conference, so we were both fired up and ready to explode on the area and make some things happen. So we went out and worked really hard all day. The first hour of finding, we taught a lesson to a man on a bench but at the end, he said that he didn't really have any interest and that he didn't even want the Book of Mormon. Then the second hour, we had about the same except he accepted the Book of Mormon but also said that he didn't want to set up a follow-up appointment. These two didn't put us down so we kept going and during the next hour, in a rather obscure park, we found a girl and taught her a lesson too but she didn't want to give us her number or a follow-up appointment or a Book of Mormon, but she did take our card, and she said that she'd drop in on church meeting sometime; let's hope that that happens sometime, however we're not getting our hopes up about it too much. So, at this point we were getting a little fed up with teaching people who don't want to do anything! We then sat down and prayed, asking where we needed to go and we decided that we needed to go to a particular park, so we headed in that direction. Right as we entered the park, we approached the first lady that was sitting alone on a bench and began talking to her. She was really nice and we introduced her to the Book of Mormon, read a lot with her and spoke about how the Book of Mormon supports doctrines that we learn from the Bible. She was already Catholic but she said that everything she was reading in the Book of Mormon agreed with her beliefs. We read the entire introduction, 2 Nephi 31 and Moroni 10:3-5 with her. She just seemed to be eating everything up! She was the lesson and the person that we had been waiting for. I also remembered the prompting of Elder Teixiera about being brave and exercising our faith to ask people for referrals instead of closing them off and putting them on a pedestal to protect them from any bad influences that could drive them away from us, so I asked her if she knew anyone that would also be interested in these kinds of things or in the Book of Mormon. She said that she didn't really know anyone, however, as conversation continued, she mentioned that she was married and so I asked her about her husband. She said that he wasn't really a believer but he was looking. So I promised her blessings if she would read the things that she had read with us with him and that he would come to find faith and how they could be stronger because of that faith. She really seemed to like the sound of that, so we got her number and we challenged her to talk to her husband about these things and told her that it would be better if we met with her and her husband together and she agreed right off the bat. She said that she'd talk to her husband on Saturday (the next day) because he was at work all day Friday and then she'd send us a text to see if we could meet on Sunday. It almost seemed too perfect.
Then on Saturday, probably in the afternoon sometime, we sent Alexandra (that's her name) a text asking her if she had read that chapter with her husband. We didn't get anything back. Then Sunday morning we got a text back from her saying that her husband didn't really have any interest in religion and that he doesn't have any time for the things we were talking about. We thought that was okay, and that we'd just keep her going. So we sent her a text recommending Alma 5 to read and we gave a little bit of background and said that we could meet to talk a little bit about it afterward. Then she sent another text saying that her husband didn't want us meeting with her and that she'd just have to perfect her faith on her own at home and the cathedrals. GAH! So, we're a little stumped with this situation but we'll figure something out.
After this had happened, we figured that we had to go and find someone else that was ready to be our hope and dream for the next week. We only had about thirty minutes left to work and so Elder Pearson said that we needed to sit down and pray about where we needed to go. So we sat down, made a few goals about how we could work better (basically Christ-like attributes) and then I told Elder Pearson to pick a place to go and then we'd pray about it. He said that he wanted to go to the town square, so we prayed and didn't feel anything in particular, so we headed off.
On the way, right before we entered the town square, I stopped this one girl who I probably wouldn't have stopped at any other time and we started talking with her. It turns out that she had just barely came into Olomouc but she's going to be studying here. She said that she didn't know anyone and barely knew the city so she said she wasn't running anywhere, so she stood and talked with us for about twenty minutes. That was quite refreshing. So we spoke and talked about the Book of Mormon. We bore really good testimony and promised blessings that she could find things out and that she could find out if God existed. She seemed really open and she said that we could meet sometime when she gets her bearings around the city and her new schedule. Her name is Kristina, and she's kind of our new hope.
That's how things are standing in Olomouc South here in the Czech Republic, but things are really taking a turn and we're feeling that things are going to be great this upcoming week! One thing that we've done is we're really focusing on turning ourselves over to the Lord and being his disciples instead of being people that go around talking about Jesus Christ. We're striving harder to be led, instead of wandering; we're trying harder to testify of Christ, instead of telling people about Christ; and we're trying to live more like Christ, instead of just being here with his name on our suits. I think that this has really made the difference. When we give ourselves completely over to the Lord, He gives us an image of Himself back in return for it. It's only after we make the sacrifice of ourselves, that the Lord can make us more like Him.
I love you all and pray for you. I know that the Lord is among us, but we just need to be faithful and hopeful enough to see His mighty hand in our lives.
Starší Monk
Monday, September 20, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Push and Pull
Dear Family,
This week has been quite interesting - to say the least. We finally had a week where we could just stay and work in Olomouc all week and we were very excited and very sure that some awesome things were going to happen. Well... they did, but as we say in physics - for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Seems that that applies with spiritual things as well.
On Monday and Tuesday, we didn't really see anything as far as key indicators, but we continued to work hard. Then on Wednesday morning, I got the feeling that we needed to have companionship blessings so that we could get ourselves boosted and ready for the work, so after studies we gave each other blessings and it was a really strong and powerful experience. After that we went out and hit the town hard - we got three bench lessons that day and every one of them accepted a Book of Mormon and a follow up appointment - and that means that we had three new investigators that day. Not too shabby. Actually, that's really awesome.
One of the people that we sat down with was named Filip and he was an interesting contact. We were on the town square and I got the feeling that we needed to go to the wall park (one of the parks in Olomouc - many of the sides are surrounded by the old battlements) and Elder Pearson said that he was getting the same kind of feeling. We realized that it had been a little while since we had been at that park so we figured that it would be a good idea to go and hit it. So we walked to the park and contacted the first guy that was walking out of the park toward us and he didn't really have much interest. Elder Pearson, almost immediately, pointed out a guy who was a little way off on a different path sitting on a bench, and I agreed. As we started getting closer, I said, "I think I've spoken to him before," and I was going to pass, but I thought, "what the heck, I'll go ahead and talk to him." One of the first things that I asked him was if he had spoken with us before, and he said that he hadn't. So we sat down with him and started talking; about why we're here as missionaries, how we can come to find God better in our lives, and the importance of the Book of Mormon. He told us that he was a Catholic but that he didn't feel that his faith in Christ was strong enough and that it wasn't going very well for him. So we promised him that he could find a better connection with God and a better understanding of the way that we need to follow Christ in our lives through the Book of Mormon. He seemed pretty excited to take a Book of Mormon and we had him read just a little bit of the introduction. That turned out really well, and you could almost see a visible change in him as he read it. We then reccomended 2 Nephi 31 to him, prayed and set up for the next day.
The next day, he came and we took him up to the building (might I say that I was ecstatic that he came - we get stood up about 80% of the time) and we taught him a lesson. The lesson was less than perfect and most of the time it felt like we were trying to strong arm our way into his life. For some reason it just didn't have the same impact and meaning as it did the day before. However, when we had him read a little out of 3 Nephi 11 pertaining to baptism, there was a great influence of the Spirit, and sadly, we didn't jump on the opportunity to commit him to baptism because we were afraid of committing him to baptism only fifteen minutes into the lesson. So instead we continued with the lesson and we could tell that the spirit didn't stay that long. We had kind of missed our chance. However, we continued with the lesson and extended him a baptismal commitment at the end and he seemed quite reluctant to the idea. I tried getting him to state his concerns but he was being a little timid and closed off. We tried to end it well, so I asked if he would like to pray - hoping that he'd feel something through praying for himself. Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn't.
Then later that day and also a few times through the next day, we kept seeing him around (turns out he's waiting for his school to start). One time, the day after our meeting at the building, we saw him in the park and felt like we should go and talk to him. So we went up and started talking, just trying to show him that we're normal people and that we're just trying to help him out, instead of being people looking for more baptisms. Then about three minutes into the conversation at an awkward pause, he said, "I've been giving that baptism thing some thought, and I think that it should be a personal thing and I don't think that I'm quite ready yet." We completely agreed with him, and told him that we ask people to be baptized so early because we know how important it is for every one of us and we want people to know our expectations. So now it seems like we're getting off pretty well and things are going okay. We have yet to set up our next meeting and see how things continue, but at least we know that he really thinks about the things we ask him. That's refreshing. Also, when we met with him we found out that he had read 2 Nephi 31, the entire introduction, the three witnesses, the eight witnesses, the Joseph Smith testimony and the first four chapters of 1 Nephi. I think he's looking for something. I really hope that he goes somewhere and that we get something set up with him.
Other than that, we had a really cool bench lesson with a guy on Wednesday - turns out he's a father so we tied the Book of Mormon to him by saying that we can grow closer to our family members through the teachings of Jesus Christ, which we can find in the Book of Mormon. He seemed really interested in improving his family and helping them in any way that he could and we promised him that he could. We had the lesson, set up the next meeting (which was going to be the branch family home evening - we even invited President and his family to come), but he didn't end up coming. Sad thing was, neither did President. Turns out that he was in Brno for "School of the Prophets," so he couldn't make it.
This entire week, I've been having a really hard time concentrating because some time this last week, AP Elder Anderson sent me a text saying that it was time to renew my visa! I just got here, how can it be time to renew it?! So yes, that's bothering me a little, among other things. It seems like I have a lot more on my mind than I should and a lot more than is really needed to get lost in the work. So... that is among my foremost thoughts right now.
Today, Wlastik (Vlastik) took us on a trip to one of the really big cathedrals and it was really cool, however afterward we walked through the hills/mountains/forests for thirty to forty minutes to get to the place where he wanted to have lunch and then we had an hour wait until the bus came to take us back to Olomouc. So, we decided to walk to get to another bus stop. At the next stop we missed by three minutes and would have had to wait for a long time before the next one came, so we ended up walking down the highway for about forty minutes before we got to another bus stop and finally that one came after thirteen minutes. I really think that today we walked a good seven to ten kilometers. Yes, that's a lot. So, our four hour trip (how long Wlastik promised us) ended up being about five or five and a half.
We're going to have zone conference this week, and I'm looking forward to it.
Anyway, interesting week. Hope that all of you are doing well and I hope and pray all the best for you all.
Starší Monk
This week has been quite interesting - to say the least. We finally had a week where we could just stay and work in Olomouc all week and we were very excited and very sure that some awesome things were going to happen. Well... they did, but as we say in physics - for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Seems that that applies with spiritual things as well.
On Monday and Tuesday, we didn't really see anything as far as key indicators, but we continued to work hard. Then on Wednesday morning, I got the feeling that we needed to have companionship blessings so that we could get ourselves boosted and ready for the work, so after studies we gave each other blessings and it was a really strong and powerful experience. After that we went out and hit the town hard - we got three bench lessons that day and every one of them accepted a Book of Mormon and a follow up appointment - and that means that we had three new investigators that day. Not too shabby. Actually, that's really awesome.
One of the people that we sat down with was named Filip and he was an interesting contact. We were on the town square and I got the feeling that we needed to go to the wall park (one of the parks in Olomouc - many of the sides are surrounded by the old battlements) and Elder Pearson said that he was getting the same kind of feeling. We realized that it had been a little while since we had been at that park so we figured that it would be a good idea to go and hit it. So we walked to the park and contacted the first guy that was walking out of the park toward us and he didn't really have much interest. Elder Pearson, almost immediately, pointed out a guy who was a little way off on a different path sitting on a bench, and I agreed. As we started getting closer, I said, "I think I've spoken to him before," and I was going to pass, but I thought, "what the heck, I'll go ahead and talk to him." One of the first things that I asked him was if he had spoken with us before, and he said that he hadn't. So we sat down with him and started talking; about why we're here as missionaries, how we can come to find God better in our lives, and the importance of the Book of Mormon. He told us that he was a Catholic but that he didn't feel that his faith in Christ was strong enough and that it wasn't going very well for him. So we promised him that he could find a better connection with God and a better understanding of the way that we need to follow Christ in our lives through the Book of Mormon. He seemed pretty excited to take a Book of Mormon and we had him read just a little bit of the introduction. That turned out really well, and you could almost see a visible change in him as he read it. We then reccomended 2 Nephi 31 to him, prayed and set up for the next day.
The next day, he came and we took him up to the building (might I say that I was ecstatic that he came - we get stood up about 80% of the time) and we taught him a lesson. The lesson was less than perfect and most of the time it felt like we were trying to strong arm our way into his life. For some reason it just didn't have the same impact and meaning as it did the day before. However, when we had him read a little out of 3 Nephi 11 pertaining to baptism, there was a great influence of the Spirit, and sadly, we didn't jump on the opportunity to commit him to baptism because we were afraid of committing him to baptism only fifteen minutes into the lesson. So instead we continued with the lesson and we could tell that the spirit didn't stay that long. We had kind of missed our chance. However, we continued with the lesson and extended him a baptismal commitment at the end and he seemed quite reluctant to the idea. I tried getting him to state his concerns but he was being a little timid and closed off. We tried to end it well, so I asked if he would like to pray - hoping that he'd feel something through praying for himself. Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn't.
Then later that day and also a few times through the next day, we kept seeing him around (turns out he's waiting for his school to start). One time, the day after our meeting at the building, we saw him in the park and felt like we should go and talk to him. So we went up and started talking, just trying to show him that we're normal people and that we're just trying to help him out, instead of being people looking for more baptisms. Then about three minutes into the conversation at an awkward pause, he said, "I've been giving that baptism thing some thought, and I think that it should be a personal thing and I don't think that I'm quite ready yet." We completely agreed with him, and told him that we ask people to be baptized so early because we know how important it is for every one of us and we want people to know our expectations. So now it seems like we're getting off pretty well and things are going okay. We have yet to set up our next meeting and see how things continue, but at least we know that he really thinks about the things we ask him. That's refreshing. Also, when we met with him we found out that he had read 2 Nephi 31, the entire introduction, the three witnesses, the eight witnesses, the Joseph Smith testimony and the first four chapters of 1 Nephi. I think he's looking for something. I really hope that he goes somewhere and that we get something set up with him.
Other than that, we had a really cool bench lesson with a guy on Wednesday - turns out he's a father so we tied the Book of Mormon to him by saying that we can grow closer to our family members through the teachings of Jesus Christ, which we can find in the Book of Mormon. He seemed really interested in improving his family and helping them in any way that he could and we promised him that he could. We had the lesson, set up the next meeting (which was going to be the branch family home evening - we even invited President and his family to come), but he didn't end up coming. Sad thing was, neither did President. Turns out that he was in Brno for "School of the Prophets," so he couldn't make it.
This entire week, I've been having a really hard time concentrating because some time this last week, AP Elder Anderson sent me a text saying that it was time to renew my visa! I just got here, how can it be time to renew it?! So yes, that's bothering me a little, among other things. It seems like I have a lot more on my mind than I should and a lot more than is really needed to get lost in the work. So... that is among my foremost thoughts right now.
Today, Wlastik (Vlastik) took us on a trip to one of the really big cathedrals and it was really cool, however afterward we walked through the hills/mountains/forests for thirty to forty minutes to get to the place where he wanted to have lunch and then we had an hour wait until the bus came to take us back to Olomouc. So, we decided to walk to get to another bus stop. At the next stop we missed by three minutes and would have had to wait for a long time before the next one came, so we ended up walking down the highway for about forty minutes before we got to another bus stop and finally that one came after thirteen minutes. I really think that today we walked a good seven to ten kilometers. Yes, that's a lot. So, our four hour trip (how long Wlastik promised us) ended up being about five or five and a half.
We're going to have zone conference this week, and I'm looking forward to it.
Anyway, interesting week. Hope that all of you are doing well and I hope and pray all the best for you all.
Starší Monk
Svatý Kopečk - the cathedral that we visited with Wlastik
Here I am out front of this massive things,
but inside it's not as large as it looks.
An interesting sign that I saw on the highway back to Olomouc.
"Pozor" means "Caution/Danger" and then it has an upside down car.
What's it warning against? Flipping cars?
Monday, September 6, 2010
Slovenský Týden! (Slovak Week)
Dear Family,
Like I said last week, I was in Slovakia this last week. We left last Monday, even before we finished our P-day, and we went and got on the train to Břeclav which is right on the Czech and Slovak border. Then we got on the train with the elders from Brno and went all the way to Bratislava. I don't know what we were expecting when we got into Bratislava, but we were all really excited to go there because Czech Missionaries just about never get to go to Slovakia - there's just no need. However, surprise surprise, it's about the same as the Czech Republic, except everyone speaks Slovak we all felt like a bunch of second or third transfer missionaries who don't really understand anything and don't know how much people understand us. So that was fun.
We all got split up into different missionary appartments around Bratislava and then we found something to do for dinner and got to bed so we could be at conference the next day by 9:30. There were about five missionaries from the Olomouc Zone (three of us from Olomouc), four from the Brno Zone and I think another five from the Slovakia Zone. So the conference was about 18 people (fourteen leaders and the two aps and President and his wife). We had three places to stay and we were stuck working with only the people in our apartment the entire week so we could keep our things separate.
The first full day that we were there, we had conference until about 4:00 o'clock and then we went out and worked. However, before we went out, we were told that the night before, seven or eight people had been shot and killed near Bratislava, so President wanted to make sure that we wouldn't go out working around there - we weren't going to be anywhere near that. So, the weather was terrible: really cold, strong winds, lots of rain... the whole shabam, so everyone decided to go tracting. I was working with a Slovak elder named Butler and we got along really well. We had some really good doors, but we weren't getting let in at all. Then as we were about to go into another 'panelak,' we got a call from one of the other elders from our apartment. As he was talking on the phone, Elder Butler was getting more and more worried/concerned, asking where they were and telling them to get over to where we were. We got together with them and found out what happened. Basically Elder Rigby and Read were tracting together and as they were coming to the very last floor, they both got the weird feeling that they were going to be kicked out and they even said that to each other, but said it in a silly teasing way like, "wouldn't it be funny if we got kicked out right now?" Well, they knocked on either the second to last or the last door, and a girl came and answered. They were having a good conversation with her and then all of a sudden, a guy walks around the corner and immediately starts yelling at them, telling them to get out. Both Elder Read and Rigby were confused, and started moving away and they got to the door leading outside and it was locked, so the guy who was yelling came over and opened it for them, but continued to be yelling at them. Elder Rigby didn't really understand, but Elder Read said that the guy was saying that he had better never see them again or else he'd shoot them just like the guys who died the day before. We were all really nervous about going anywhere near that area that night as we were going home. Elder Read and Rigby were both pretty shaken up by that.
Then the next day after the conference we went out and worked again and I can't say that I saw anything really amazing, but I felt that I was working well. We had a lot better weather because everyone had prayed for it so we could have a street display, but the Slovak elders chickened out as they'd never done one before and they justified it because it was a holiday of some sort in Slovakia. So we all split up and did contacting again. But the third day, we actually went and did the street display, and I must say, it was probably the most successful street display I've been at. There were many people stopping just to watch and listen and there were always at least four missionaries out contacting people. We were on this really busy street that led to the main square, so there was lots of traffic. I finally got out and started talking with a few people and I even had some young slovak girls ask me to take them back to America with me. After I told them that I was here for two years, they got a little disheartened. That was kind of strange. They, however, were even more disheartened when I told them that I was an hour from New York - I guess they wanted to go there. Another odd thing at the street display was that there was a crazy woman who was screaming at the top of her lungs for like three or four minutes during our singing. The people didn't really seem to care because they had something else to listen to, but man, it was sure distracting. She screamed her lungs out and then left, and came back again a while later and did the same thing again. I also saw an old woman kiss a bronze statue of a girl sitting on the ground a few times... that was weird. I guess every city has their crazies, but that just goes to show you, opposition in all things - so the prepared must be here!
When we finally got back to Olomouc, we felt really fired up from the conference and were ready to go to work. I found myself talking to many more people than I would normally speak to and being much more bold with them as far as my calling is as a missionary - a representative of Jesus Christ.
Remember last transfer when we nearly flooded our house due to a broken toilet? Well, on Saturday during weekly planning, or maybe afterward, I saw Elder Pearson come into the room with a piece of toast and I thought to myself, "that looks good. I'll make myself one." So I went into the kitchen and put in some bread, but I noticed that the little lever wouldn't go down very smoothly- actually, not easily at all. I had to force it down. After I got it down, it occured to me that it woudln't come up easily either, so I just figured that I'd come back into the room and take it out manually after a minute or two. So I went back in the other room and sat down to start speaking with Elder Pearson. A few minutes later, I smelled something and Elder Pearson asked, "is something burning?" I immediately took off for the kitchen because I knew what it was. Yes, just as I had predicted, the toaster didn't pop up and the toast stayed in there, continuing to cook and cook and burn and burn. The whole house, except for the room where we were sitting, was completely filled with smoke and my toast was just a few completely black pieces of charcoal. Sad day. Anyhow, we found out that our smoke detector is not in the most logical place to detect smoke from the kitchen! It is in the back room with us so we're going to move it. So, yes... I nearly flooded that house, and now I've almost burned it down. What will I do next?
The missionary work continues and everything goes faster and faster. I can't believe that next month I will be hitting my one-year mark on the mission. Yes, many of my companions around the mission (especially Elder Page) like pointing out that I'm a really old missionary here in the mission. That's weird. Anyway, I love you all and hope that you enjoy this picture. It's a picture of Elder Page, Pearson (older Pearson) and me at President Šlezar's house.
Much love and prayers,
Starší Monk
Like I said last week, I was in Slovakia this last week. We left last Monday, even before we finished our P-day, and we went and got on the train to Břeclav which is right on the Czech and Slovak border. Then we got on the train with the elders from Brno and went all the way to Bratislava. I don't know what we were expecting when we got into Bratislava, but we were all really excited to go there because Czech Missionaries just about never get to go to Slovakia - there's just no need. However, surprise surprise, it's about the same as the Czech Republic, except everyone speaks Slovak we all felt like a bunch of second or third transfer missionaries who don't really understand anything and don't know how much people understand us. So that was fun.
We all got split up into different missionary appartments around Bratislava and then we found something to do for dinner and got to bed so we could be at conference the next day by 9:30. There were about five missionaries from the Olomouc Zone (three of us from Olomouc), four from the Brno Zone and I think another five from the Slovakia Zone. So the conference was about 18 people (fourteen leaders and the two aps and President and his wife). We had three places to stay and we were stuck working with only the people in our apartment the entire week so we could keep our things separate.
The first full day that we were there, we had conference until about 4:00 o'clock and then we went out and worked. However, before we went out, we were told that the night before, seven or eight people had been shot and killed near Bratislava, so President wanted to make sure that we wouldn't go out working around there - we weren't going to be anywhere near that. So, the weather was terrible: really cold, strong winds, lots of rain... the whole shabam, so everyone decided to go tracting. I was working with a Slovak elder named Butler and we got along really well. We had some really good doors, but we weren't getting let in at all. Then as we were about to go into another 'panelak,' we got a call from one of the other elders from our apartment. As he was talking on the phone, Elder Butler was getting more and more worried/concerned, asking where they were and telling them to get over to where we were. We got together with them and found out what happened. Basically Elder Rigby and Read were tracting together and as they were coming to the very last floor, they both got the weird feeling that they were going to be kicked out and they even said that to each other, but said it in a silly teasing way like, "wouldn't it be funny if we got kicked out right now?" Well, they knocked on either the second to last or the last door, and a girl came and answered. They were having a good conversation with her and then all of a sudden, a guy walks around the corner and immediately starts yelling at them, telling them to get out. Both Elder Read and Rigby were confused, and started moving away and they got to the door leading outside and it was locked, so the guy who was yelling came over and opened it for them, but continued to be yelling at them. Elder Rigby didn't really understand, but Elder Read said that the guy was saying that he had better never see them again or else he'd shoot them just like the guys who died the day before. We were all really nervous about going anywhere near that area that night as we were going home. Elder Read and Rigby were both pretty shaken up by that.
Then the next day after the conference we went out and worked again and I can't say that I saw anything really amazing, but I felt that I was working well. We had a lot better weather because everyone had prayed for it so we could have a street display, but the Slovak elders chickened out as they'd never done one before and they justified it because it was a holiday of some sort in Slovakia. So we all split up and did contacting again. But the third day, we actually went and did the street display, and I must say, it was probably the most successful street display I've been at. There were many people stopping just to watch and listen and there were always at least four missionaries out contacting people. We were on this really busy street that led to the main square, so there was lots of traffic. I finally got out and started talking with a few people and I even had some young slovak girls ask me to take them back to America with me. After I told them that I was here for two years, they got a little disheartened. That was kind of strange. They, however, were even more disheartened when I told them that I was an hour from New York - I guess they wanted to go there. Another odd thing at the street display was that there was a crazy woman who was screaming at the top of her lungs for like three or four minutes during our singing. The people didn't really seem to care because they had something else to listen to, but man, it was sure distracting. She screamed her lungs out and then left, and came back again a while later and did the same thing again. I also saw an old woman kiss a bronze statue of a girl sitting on the ground a few times... that was weird. I guess every city has their crazies, but that just goes to show you, opposition in all things - so the prepared must be here!
When we finally got back to Olomouc, we felt really fired up from the conference and were ready to go to work. I found myself talking to many more people than I would normally speak to and being much more bold with them as far as my calling is as a missionary - a representative of Jesus Christ.
Remember last transfer when we nearly flooded our house due to a broken toilet? Well, on Saturday during weekly planning, or maybe afterward, I saw Elder Pearson come into the room with a piece of toast and I thought to myself, "that looks good. I'll make myself one." So I went into the kitchen and put in some bread, but I noticed that the little lever wouldn't go down very smoothly- actually, not easily at all. I had to force it down. After I got it down, it occured to me that it woudln't come up easily either, so I just figured that I'd come back into the room and take it out manually after a minute or two. So I went back in the other room and sat down to start speaking with Elder Pearson. A few minutes later, I smelled something and Elder Pearson asked, "is something burning?" I immediately took off for the kitchen because I knew what it was. Yes, just as I had predicted, the toaster didn't pop up and the toast stayed in there, continuing to cook and cook and burn and burn. The whole house, except for the room where we were sitting, was completely filled with smoke and my toast was just a few completely black pieces of charcoal. Sad day. Anyhow, we found out that our smoke detector is not in the most logical place to detect smoke from the kitchen! It is in the back room with us so we're going to move it. So, yes... I nearly flooded that house, and now I've almost burned it down. What will I do next?
The missionary work continues and everything goes faster and faster. I can't believe that next month I will be hitting my one-year mark on the mission. Yes, many of my companions around the mission (especially Elder Page) like pointing out that I'm a really old missionary here in the mission. That's weird. Anyway, I love you all and hope that you enjoy this picture. It's a picture of Elder Page, Pearson (older Pearson) and me at President Šlezar's house.
Much love and prayers,
Starší Monk
Monday, August 30, 2010
District Leader Elder Monk?!
This week was the sad farewell for Elder Page: gone to Ostrava - land of the Škoda cars. I think that's where they originated, or at least had a plant there for a long time. Sometimes Czechs will say "Škoda škody" which means "Pity of a Škoda;" škoda means pity. We got a pretty good picture at the train station. I don't know if any of you have heard or even seen the movie (I don't know exactly what it is called in English because I've only seen the adds in Czech) called "Still Together, Still Alive" or something to that effect and has Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz - if you translate it exactly in Czech it means "In the Meanwhile Together, In the Meanwhile Alive" and that just sounds silly.
Anyway, we dropped off Page at the train station and said our goodbyes and then we waited for Elder Pearson to get in. So, looking at this transfer, we don't really have anyone making any real progress, so another huge finding trasnfer! We still have Saša and Ondra, his friend, but they're about it. So the the first day that Elder Pearson was here, yes, the day that he got in, we went out and did lots of finding and we saw some really cool things! We talked to lots of people, and I can already see that Elder Pearson is a contacting machine. During our evening of contacting, we got five numbers from people, three lessons set up for the next day, and one new investigator! That's incredible. The next day we went and the first guy we had set up with actually came and he listened to our message and then ran away because someone called him up and he had to go, but we set up again for the Tuesday (tomorrow).
Also, it's really weird being district leader. I'm not sure how much I like it. Both of the zone leaders now turn to me all the time and say, "okay, District Leader, what are we doing now?" I guess it's my responsibility now and they are my district so they have the right to say that to me. It's just so weird thinking that they're under my responsibility when I'm also under theirs. Get what I mean? It gets all weird and tangled up, but basically the way that it goes, is that I'm the leader of Olomouc and the zone leaders are only my leaders insofar as them being responsible for my area when they report to the APs and president. That's about it.
We had district meeting on Thursday and we all felt like it was really good. Basically, I assigned each one of us a little topic (repentance, exercising faith, bringing forth good works and praying always and how each ties into missionary work) and then I tied it all into Alma 26:22 and that if we do these things, we can get the blessings at the end. I suggest all of you read it - it's really good even for non-missionaries.
I can't say that there are any really big things that happened this week that make it really cool, but it's just the number of little cool experiences that we had - cool contacts, solid potentials, no one picking up our calls but after a while they call back and say that they can meet any time during the week, atd... There were many of those little things this week.
Now something cool, I think I said a few weeks ago that we were going to be having some big changes in the way that we will do missionary work, and the way that they're going to change over to this new way of working is by training people in the MTC with the new program. For the people who are already in the field, they're going to be having four day conferences where we learn all the new material and practice implementing it each night. Guess what? It's this week and only the leaders and trainers get to go. Since I've become a district leader, I get to go to this conference. Now, the really cool thing is that it's going to be in Bratislava! You can look all you want on the Czech map and you're not going to find it. That's right, I'm going to Slovakia! So, that's going to be really cool and I'm sure that I'll have tons to talk about next week. Elder Pearson is staying here and having another missionary whose companion is going to the training come up here for the four days. I really hope that I've showed Elder Pearson the city well enough so he doesn't get too lost.
I'm way excited for this next week and next transfer because amazing things are going to be happening! Everything is pointing in this direction and I am working my hardest to get there. I read a really cool chapter from the Book of Mormon the other day. To me, it's all about missionary work and what every missionary should desire. If you want to read that, it's Alma 29.
I love you all very much, and I desire the things that Alma desired, but sadly I cannot say that I have as much faith as he had, so I'm still working. :-)
Starší Monk
Monday, August 23, 2010
Už je Střídání? Jak to?
Dear Family,
How is everyone doing? It's been a while since I've heard from a few of you. I'd just like to say that this week was a ton better! We had member lessons for the first time this transfer, we had progressing investigators, and we had people to church! I know for some people in some other missions, these aren't hard things, but here they are. Anyway, million times better.
One of the really cool experiences this week was with a guy named Saša (Sasha). A couple of weeks ago, probably three or four, I was looking through the phone and was calling some people up, and there were two really strange entries that were entered as "P F __(name)__." Usually an entry starting with "P" means potential, but "F" means former. A potential former? What's that? I was curious, so I called. I was surprised to hear a guy pick up, but even more surpised to hear the guy say that he was Saša. I could have sworn that Saša was going to be a girl. Wasn't, but he seemed really cool and agreed to meet with us sometime, but he didn't know his schedule. Then a few days later, I called again, and he said that he could be at our place at 3:35. I was really confused to hear that because that's strangely specific, but I said okay and that gave us about an hour. The guy came and he was really awesome. Turns out that he's not Czech, but he lives and works here. He's originally from Bulgaria. The guy is such a computer nerd, kind of like me. He works making servers and server space for the Internet. Anyway, it turns out that he speaks really good English too. So we spoke with him in English, talked a little about our message, about ourselves and about why he stopped meeting with the missionaries before, to which he said that he didn't know. That made me curious, so I went and looked in the area book and saw that he had a record for one lesson, and then a drop saying that he's never in contact and that he can never meet. Well, that definitely isn't the case anymore. Turns out that he had gone to Bulgaria for a half year and that's why he was out of contact. Obviously he had forgotten to tell the missionaries. I also found out from the record that he had been found in April of last year, so it's been quite a while. Also, the last time he met with the missionaries, he brought his friend Ondra and he also had a progress record, but also only one entry/lesson. So it's really cool to see that the Lord brings people to you sometimes.
So we met with Saša this last week after he had a little vacation of two weeks in Bulgaria, and he brought Ondra to his lesson again! I was actually going to ask him about his friend Ondra and if he had any interest. Seems that the Lord already knows. Our lesson went really well and we taught them a lot, but probably the best thing is that we taught the lesson and it didn't seem to decrease how much they saw us as their friends. After the lesson, we went right back to talking about computer games, if they have girlfriends or not (which neither of them do) and other such random things. I just love that I can be a missionary and also be a friend to these people. That may be one of the most rewarding things I've felt on my mission so far, but they also did miss church even though they had said that they'd come. Oh well, they'll come next week.
Just a fun little experience that we three had this last week is one day we came out to the town square because Elder Pearson needed to prepare for a meeting with the branch mission leader, and we didn't want to be stuck at the building doing nothing so we'd rather be contacting people on the náměstí. While we were there, no one would listen; there just weren't that many people because it was a Saturday. Really, weekends die here. Completely backward from America, it seems. Anyway, so we came back to the place where Elder Pearson was sitting on the sloup (monument to the Trinity - around the bottom you can sit on the base of it) and found that there were some old people sitting rediculously close to him. Oh well. So, we started talking to Elder Pearson - just talking for the sake of talking - and I kept noticing out of the side of my eye that the old lady that was sitting right next to Pearson was glancing at me and then at my tag over and over. I thought this a little peculiar, so I turned and said, "Dobrý den," and they looked really surprised. They started talking with me but I didn't really understand them. They kept talking and I could tell that they were trying to figure out what languages I knew. They asked me in German if I know German; they asked me in Italian if I know Italian; and they continued with a few other langauges which I can't remember off the top of my head, but they basically asked me about four or five different languages and then they seemed to give up and just spoke Polish with me. Wow... that fried my brain. I could understand better when I zoned out than when I concentrated on what they were saying. Anyway, we started conversing and more and more of them kept showing up. There were probably three at the beginning, but after a moment, there were probably around ten or eleven of them, all of them speaking to me in Polish. I'm here trying to speak Czech and there were a few of them that tried hard enough to understand my Czech and keep a conversation with me in Polish. So, they were asking all sorts of questions like who we were, and we told them that we were the Mormons and they immediately reacted to that in a really friendly manner and were saying things like, "Oh! It's the Mormons! You guys are everywhere!" and then there was laughing and more talking. They would ask me about where I was from, if I had a girlfriend, if I was a virgin (that one was kind of weird to get as a question from a bunch of old pepole), if I was allowed to get a girl from the Czech Republic, if I was here looking for a girl, why I looked so weird... the questions just seemed to go on and on, but I loved it because I hadn't had anyone so intrigued and excited to speak to me in a long time. Turns out that they were tourists, and that was pretty apparent. Then one of them said, "I want to get a picture of you," and all of a sudden all the others wanted to as well! Then they started to want to get pictures WITH us and so we were probably taking pictures for a good three or four minutes with a bunch of them going the entire time. That was just kind of nuts, but it goes to show me, once you know one of the Slavik languages, you can probably pick up the others pretty easily.
As you probably can't tell from the title, it says "It's already transfers? How so?" Yes, it is transfers already. I'm freaking out. I called Elder Kreitzer about an hour ago just to speak to him about it a little and he pointed out to me that at the end of this next transfer, I will have been out on the mission for an entire year. Isn't that crazy? I have no idea where the time has gone. Anyway, as I said in my last email, transfers aren't going to be as crazy as they have been in the past because they want us to stay in the same place as long as possible so we can get the most done. Anyway, this transfer, they're doing a lot of really cool things: they're changing the whole zone leader/district leader thing - doing away with that and changing it back to pure zone leaders and having a different companionship be district leader, they're reopening the Brno zone, and we're opening up two new areas! The new areas will be Pardubice, which is a new city that hasn't had missionaries for about two to three years and the other is another area in Ostrava, which can actually handle having more missionaries. Anyway, here's the news, I'm staying in Olomouc and Elder Page is leaving me! He's going up to Ostrava to be in one of the old areas. He's going to be follow-up trained by Elder Blair, who's really awesome. Elder Page is going to have an awesome time with him. As I said, I'm staying here in Olomouc and I'm going to be follow-up training Elder Pearson from Elder Page's group. Elder Pearson (the one that's already here in Olomouc) is feeling intruded upon and feels that he needs to declare his dominance as the older/better Pearson. This should be interesting having two "Elder Pearsons" in the same area. Also, I'm going to be the district leader here in Olomouc now that they're splitting up the responsibility.
Anyway, that's about it for this week. Some of the members here said they were going to kill someone if I got transfered out. I'm not quite sure what I did to get them to like me so much, but I guess I did something right. Lucky for them (and for that un-named "someone"), I'm staying. So you will all still be hearing about the news here from Olomouc for at least two more months.
Love you all and I'm working hard for you,
Starší Monk
How is everyone doing? It's been a while since I've heard from a few of you. I'd just like to say that this week was a ton better! We had member lessons for the first time this transfer, we had progressing investigators, and we had people to church! I know for some people in some other missions, these aren't hard things, but here they are. Anyway, million times better.
One of the really cool experiences this week was with a guy named Saša (Sasha). A couple of weeks ago, probably three or four, I was looking through the phone and was calling some people up, and there were two really strange entries that were entered as "P F __(name)__." Usually an entry starting with "P" means potential, but "F" means former. A potential former? What's that? I was curious, so I called. I was surprised to hear a guy pick up, but even more surpised to hear the guy say that he was Saša. I could have sworn that Saša was going to be a girl. Wasn't, but he seemed really cool and agreed to meet with us sometime, but he didn't know his schedule. Then a few days later, I called again, and he said that he could be at our place at 3:35. I was really confused to hear that because that's strangely specific, but I said okay and that gave us about an hour. The guy came and he was really awesome. Turns out that he's not Czech, but he lives and works here. He's originally from Bulgaria. The guy is such a computer nerd, kind of like me. He works making servers and server space for the Internet. Anyway, it turns out that he speaks really good English too. So we spoke with him in English, talked a little about our message, about ourselves and about why he stopped meeting with the missionaries before, to which he said that he didn't know. That made me curious, so I went and looked in the area book and saw that he had a record for one lesson, and then a drop saying that he's never in contact and that he can never meet. Well, that definitely isn't the case anymore. Turns out that he had gone to Bulgaria for a half year and that's why he was out of contact. Obviously he had forgotten to tell the missionaries. I also found out from the record that he had been found in April of last year, so it's been quite a while. Also, the last time he met with the missionaries, he brought his friend Ondra and he also had a progress record, but also only one entry/lesson. So it's really cool to see that the Lord brings people to you sometimes.
So we met with Saša this last week after he had a little vacation of two weeks in Bulgaria, and he brought Ondra to his lesson again! I was actually going to ask him about his friend Ondra and if he had any interest. Seems that the Lord already knows. Our lesson went really well and we taught them a lot, but probably the best thing is that we taught the lesson and it didn't seem to decrease how much they saw us as their friends. After the lesson, we went right back to talking about computer games, if they have girlfriends or not (which neither of them do) and other such random things. I just love that I can be a missionary and also be a friend to these people. That may be one of the most rewarding things I've felt on my mission so far, but they also did miss church even though they had said that they'd come. Oh well, they'll come next week.
Just a fun little experience that we three had this last week is one day we came out to the town square because Elder Pearson needed to prepare for a meeting with the branch mission leader, and we didn't want to be stuck at the building doing nothing so we'd rather be contacting people on the náměstí. While we were there, no one would listen; there just weren't that many people because it was a Saturday. Really, weekends die here. Completely backward from America, it seems. Anyway, so we came back to the place where Elder Pearson was sitting on the sloup (monument to the Trinity - around the bottom you can sit on the base of it) and found that there were some old people sitting rediculously close to him. Oh well. So, we started talking to Elder Pearson - just talking for the sake of talking - and I kept noticing out of the side of my eye that the old lady that was sitting right next to Pearson was glancing at me and then at my tag over and over. I thought this a little peculiar, so I turned and said, "Dobrý den," and they looked really surprised. They started talking with me but I didn't really understand them. They kept talking and I could tell that they were trying to figure out what languages I knew. They asked me in German if I know German; they asked me in Italian if I know Italian; and they continued with a few other langauges which I can't remember off the top of my head, but they basically asked me about four or five different languages and then they seemed to give up and just spoke Polish with me. Wow... that fried my brain. I could understand better when I zoned out than when I concentrated on what they were saying. Anyway, we started conversing and more and more of them kept showing up. There were probably three at the beginning, but after a moment, there were probably around ten or eleven of them, all of them speaking to me in Polish. I'm here trying to speak Czech and there were a few of them that tried hard enough to understand my Czech and keep a conversation with me in Polish. So, they were asking all sorts of questions like who we were, and we told them that we were the Mormons and they immediately reacted to that in a really friendly manner and were saying things like, "Oh! It's the Mormons! You guys are everywhere!" and then there was laughing and more talking. They would ask me about where I was from, if I had a girlfriend, if I was a virgin (that one was kind of weird to get as a question from a bunch of old pepole), if I was allowed to get a girl from the Czech Republic, if I was here looking for a girl, why I looked so weird... the questions just seemed to go on and on, but I loved it because I hadn't had anyone so intrigued and excited to speak to me in a long time. Turns out that they were tourists, and that was pretty apparent. Then one of them said, "I want to get a picture of you," and all of a sudden all the others wanted to as well! Then they started to want to get pictures WITH us and so we were probably taking pictures for a good three or four minutes with a bunch of them going the entire time. That was just kind of nuts, but it goes to show me, once you know one of the Slavik languages, you can probably pick up the others pretty easily.
As you probably can't tell from the title, it says "It's already transfers? How so?" Yes, it is transfers already. I'm freaking out. I called Elder Kreitzer about an hour ago just to speak to him about it a little and he pointed out to me that at the end of this next transfer, I will have been out on the mission for an entire year. Isn't that crazy? I have no idea where the time has gone. Anyway, as I said in my last email, transfers aren't going to be as crazy as they have been in the past because they want us to stay in the same place as long as possible so we can get the most done. Anyway, this transfer, they're doing a lot of really cool things: they're changing the whole zone leader/district leader thing - doing away with that and changing it back to pure zone leaders and having a different companionship be district leader, they're reopening the Brno zone, and we're opening up two new areas! The new areas will be Pardubice, which is a new city that hasn't had missionaries for about two to three years and the other is another area in Ostrava, which can actually handle having more missionaries. Anyway, here's the news, I'm staying in Olomouc and Elder Page is leaving me! He's going up to Ostrava to be in one of the old areas. He's going to be follow-up trained by Elder Blair, who's really awesome. Elder Page is going to have an awesome time with him. As I said, I'm staying here in Olomouc and I'm going to be follow-up training Elder Pearson from Elder Page's group. Elder Pearson (the one that's already here in Olomouc) is feeling intruded upon and feels that he needs to declare his dominance as the older/better Pearson. This should be interesting having two "Elder Pearsons" in the same area. Also, I'm going to be the district leader here in Olomouc now that they're splitting up the responsibility.
Anyway, that's about it for this week. Some of the members here said they were going to kill someone if I got transfered out. I'm not quite sure what I did to get them to like me so much, but I guess I did something right. Lucky for them (and for that un-named "someone"), I'm staying. So you will all still be hearing about the news here from Olomouc for at least two more months.
Love you all and I'm working hard for you,
Starší Monk
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