May 28, 2012:
God knows where people are
Family and friends,
I can’t find my camera cord unfortunately, so no pictures this week. But stories I do have. This week was good, no one came to Church, but we worked. Last week we were at home doing something, and the phone beeped. A man called us. He said that he had met the Sisters a long time ago, and he'd been searching for the truth for over a year, and he'd kept reading the Book of Mormon on the Church website in Czech, and he had a really vivid dream one night where he was told that our Church was the true one, and he needed to join it and be baptized. He woke up, decided it was probably just him making it up, and kept on living life, but either the next night or a few nights later he had the exact same dream again, and it was so vivid that he woke up and realized that it couldn’t just be coincidence. So he decided to call us and talk about it. And while he was talking he said, "And I hope you don’t get mad, but I gave your number to my friend, and he might have interest." I asked him his friend’s name, and [he] was happy that his friend had called.
I don’t know if I told you that story, but last week we got a random text saying "I believe your Church is from God, when can we meet?" and that man lived in Liberec, so we gave him to the Elders to teach, and they should be teaching him this week. Anyway, isn’t that great?! And so we were excited, and this man who called last Monday, he was in Liberec, and so the Elders contacted him but didn’t meet with him yet, and he's returning to Mlada Boleslav, another city in our area, tomorrow, and we are teaching him. It's so great! I am so excited. And he called and said, "I'm sorry to ask you this, but can I receive my own copy of the Book of Mormon?" Aaaahahaaa, yes. Yes you absolutely can. And I had heard from the Elders that he has interest in the Doctrine and Covenants, so I asked him if he'd like that too, and he said ‘yes,’ so I called the Mission Home this morning and asked if we could buy one, and fortunately they come out of your mission funds, so that was nice, so yeah, we got one ordered, and we will pick it up at training this coming Wednesday. Cool cool cool. I am excited to meet this man! That Scripture about angels going before us and preparing people (somewhere in Alma) [Alma 13:24] is so true! And the best was too when the Elders in Liberec called and told him that they would do anything needed to visit him, and he said, "Listen Elders, you don’t have to convince me, I've received my answer." Aaaah, and yesterday when I talked to him on the phone he said, “Yeah, if we could meet this week that would be really good, and I would like to come to your Church on Sunday." Absolutely! Yahoo!! Keep this man in your prayers!
I'm so grateful to be working with Sister Dolinar. She is so easy to get along with, and we just talk so much, haha, it’s so fun. We just gotta start talking in Czech more, hahah, but the first week is always the most talkative, since you're getting to know each other and your backgrounds etc.! But she is so classy and kind, and I just love serving with someone so thoughtful and peaceful. The Spirit is with her all the time, and it's such a blessing to be around. Makes me want to work harder at having the Spirit with me that way and to be better! I'm very happy about it all. And Jičín is just the most magical place ever.
Our investigator pool is draining, unfortunately. Sigh. But we'll keep trying. But [one] is doing well. He really wants to be baptized, but doesn’t quite understand why yet or who the Savior is, so we focused on that, and we go over there with members every night, so it'll come. One night we had the “Finding Faith in Christ”-film, and he really liked that and afterwards explained to us who Christ is beautifully, and I told him that his faith and testimony of Christ are growing, and he was happy to hear that. Random miracle about [him] though: we were visiting an older member who had surgery and is now home, and afterwards we [talked to people in] her building. A lady opened a door holding a baby and said ‘no interest,’ but then I looked at the baby and was like what the?! “Do you know ____?” And she said, “Yes, he's my son.” Hahaha, I recognized it via the baby. So great, so she let us in, and for an hour she talked to us about how hard her life is, and boy, has it been! But anyway, this lady had a daughter die tragically at age 5, too, so we bore testimony about the Plan of Salvation, but she wasn’t ready yet. She kept telling us that we have the same God, so she didn’t want to hear our message. So we just listened. But it was a cool story, because we were led to his mother. God knows where people are though, and He really does lead us to them or them to us. We'll see what happens.
Yesterday I gave a talk in Church :), and I can say it was in PERFECT CZECH. Hahahaha, it's because I took it over to the Tmejs to translate it for me. My Czech is still really bad. It's a brutal language. But I'm studying. Anyway, it was on ‘my path to Christ,’ so I intermingled some personal experiences with doctrine and the missionary lessons, and it went well. At the beginning I got up and said, "Thanks to the Tmejs I have the gift of tongues today." And people thought that was funny. The lights were out in the building, because the person in charge forgot to pay the bill, and so it was kind of dark, but when I was giving my talk, everyone just kind of went quiet. All the Primary kids, everything. Dead silent except for me talking. And after I shared two of my favorite Scriptures, John 16:33 [=These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.] and D&C 68:6 [=Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come.], I looked up and started bearing testimony in my broken Czech. But the Spirit just.... I don’t know the word. Enveloped? Engulfed? It was the strongest I might have ever felt it so far out here, and I started tearing up while bearing testimony, and I think I've only cried once or twice on my mission. Once while being frustrated my second transfer, and then when Mappi died. But the tears came. And I felt so much like that little boy I mentioned from a few weeks ago who while bearing testimony started crying, and I felt that it was because the Spirit was testifying to him that what he was saying was true, and he didn’t really know what to do about it. And that's how I felt. I couldn’t help but cry, and I told these people how much I love them. I looked down, and many of the members were crying. Even brother Volf. And I could just FEEL this power inside of me. It was amazing. And it was an answer to my prayers, because I wanted to know if I was doing well in Heavenly Father's eyes, and I guess He sent his witness to me to help me realize that this gospel really is true, and that what I'm doing is a good thing, and I felt so honored to be His mouthpiece. I told these members that they really do so much, and that I will never forget them. That they have impacted my whole life, and that their testimonies will always be a part of me and a part of mine. It was a beautiful beautiful meeting, and the next two speakers also bore powerful testimony, and the sister who gave the prayer couldn’t speak she was crying so much. I thought about it afterwards and wondered if God perhaps sent us a little more of His light to make up for the lack of electrical light we had in the building that day :). My heart is full. My chest is about to explode. The gospel is true, and I love my Heavenly Father so much. And I'm so grateful for Christ. This is the BEST news in the world.
I love you all. Thank you for all you do. Have a wonderful week, work hard, God gives us more energy when we ask, and He will ALWAYS help us accomplish our righteous goals. We just gotta honestly work our hardest, sacrifice what is needed, and have the faith to give the rest to Him. Be good. I miss you.
Satu
God knows where people are
Family and friends,
I can’t find my camera cord unfortunately, so no pictures this week. But stories I do have. This week was good, no one came to Church, but we worked. Last week we were at home doing something, and the phone beeped. A man called us. He said that he had met the Sisters a long time ago, and he'd been searching for the truth for over a year, and he'd kept reading the Book of Mormon on the Church website in Czech, and he had a really vivid dream one night where he was told that our Church was the true one, and he needed to join it and be baptized. He woke up, decided it was probably just him making it up, and kept on living life, but either the next night or a few nights later he had the exact same dream again, and it was so vivid that he woke up and realized that it couldn’t just be coincidence. So he decided to call us and talk about it. And while he was talking he said, "And I hope you don’t get mad, but I gave your number to my friend, and he might have interest." I asked him his friend’s name, and [he] was happy that his friend had called.
I don’t know if I told you that story, but last week we got a random text saying "I believe your Church is from God, when can we meet?" and that man lived in Liberec, so we gave him to the Elders to teach, and they should be teaching him this week. Anyway, isn’t that great?! And so we were excited, and this man who called last Monday, he was in Liberec, and so the Elders contacted him but didn’t meet with him yet, and he's returning to Mlada Boleslav, another city in our area, tomorrow, and we are teaching him. It's so great! I am so excited. And he called and said, "I'm sorry to ask you this, but can I receive my own copy of the Book of Mormon?" Aaaahahaaa, yes. Yes you absolutely can. And I had heard from the Elders that he has interest in the Doctrine and Covenants, so I asked him if he'd like that too, and he said ‘yes,’ so I called the Mission Home this morning and asked if we could buy one, and fortunately they come out of your mission funds, so that was nice, so yeah, we got one ordered, and we will pick it up at training this coming Wednesday. Cool cool cool. I am excited to meet this man! That Scripture about angels going before us and preparing people (somewhere in Alma) [Alma 13:24] is so true! And the best was too when the Elders in Liberec called and told him that they would do anything needed to visit him, and he said, "Listen Elders, you don’t have to convince me, I've received my answer." Aaaah, and yesterday when I talked to him on the phone he said, “Yeah, if we could meet this week that would be really good, and I would like to come to your Church on Sunday." Absolutely! Yahoo!! Keep this man in your prayers!
I'm so grateful to be working with Sister Dolinar. She is so easy to get along with, and we just talk so much, haha, it’s so fun. We just gotta start talking in Czech more, hahah, but the first week is always the most talkative, since you're getting to know each other and your backgrounds etc.! But she is so classy and kind, and I just love serving with someone so thoughtful and peaceful. The Spirit is with her all the time, and it's such a blessing to be around. Makes me want to work harder at having the Spirit with me that way and to be better! I'm very happy about it all. And Jičín is just the most magical place ever.
Our investigator pool is draining, unfortunately. Sigh. But we'll keep trying. But [one] is doing well. He really wants to be baptized, but doesn’t quite understand why yet or who the Savior is, so we focused on that, and we go over there with members every night, so it'll come. One night we had the “Finding Faith in Christ”-film, and he really liked that and afterwards explained to us who Christ is beautifully, and I told him that his faith and testimony of Christ are growing, and he was happy to hear that. Random miracle about [him] though: we were visiting an older member who had surgery and is now home, and afterwards we [talked to people in] her building. A lady opened a door holding a baby and said ‘no interest,’ but then I looked at the baby and was like what the?! “Do you know ____?” And she said, “Yes, he's my son.” Hahaha, I recognized it via the baby. So great, so she let us in, and for an hour she talked to us about how hard her life is, and boy, has it been! But anyway, this lady had a daughter die tragically at age 5, too, so we bore testimony about the Plan of Salvation, but she wasn’t ready yet. She kept telling us that we have the same God, so she didn’t want to hear our message. So we just listened. But it was a cool story, because we were led to his mother. God knows where people are though, and He really does lead us to them or them to us. We'll see what happens.
Yesterday I gave a talk in Church :), and I can say it was in PERFECT CZECH. Hahahaha, it's because I took it over to the Tmejs to translate it for me. My Czech is still really bad. It's a brutal language. But I'm studying. Anyway, it was on ‘my path to Christ,’ so I intermingled some personal experiences with doctrine and the missionary lessons, and it went well. At the beginning I got up and said, "Thanks to the Tmejs I have the gift of tongues today." And people thought that was funny. The lights were out in the building, because the person in charge forgot to pay the bill, and so it was kind of dark, but when I was giving my talk, everyone just kind of went quiet. All the Primary kids, everything. Dead silent except for me talking. And after I shared two of my favorite Scriptures, John 16:33 [=These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.] and D&C 68:6 [=Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come.], I looked up and started bearing testimony in my broken Czech. But the Spirit just.... I don’t know the word. Enveloped? Engulfed? It was the strongest I might have ever felt it so far out here, and I started tearing up while bearing testimony, and I think I've only cried once or twice on my mission. Once while being frustrated my second transfer, and then when Mappi died. But the tears came. And I felt so much like that little boy I mentioned from a few weeks ago who while bearing testimony started crying, and I felt that it was because the Spirit was testifying to him that what he was saying was true, and he didn’t really know what to do about it. And that's how I felt. I couldn’t help but cry, and I told these people how much I love them. I looked down, and many of the members were crying. Even brother Volf. And I could just FEEL this power inside of me. It was amazing. And it was an answer to my prayers, because I wanted to know if I was doing well in Heavenly Father's eyes, and I guess He sent his witness to me to help me realize that this gospel really is true, and that what I'm doing is a good thing, and I felt so honored to be His mouthpiece. I told these members that they really do so much, and that I will never forget them. That they have impacted my whole life, and that their testimonies will always be a part of me and a part of mine. It was a beautiful beautiful meeting, and the next two speakers also bore powerful testimony, and the sister who gave the prayer couldn’t speak she was crying so much. I thought about it afterwards and wondered if God perhaps sent us a little more of His light to make up for the lack of electrical light we had in the building that day :). My heart is full. My chest is about to explode. The gospel is true, and I love my Heavenly Father so much. And I'm so grateful for Christ. This is the BEST news in the world.
I love you all. Thank you for all you do. Have a wonderful week, work hard, God gives us more energy when we ask, and He will ALWAYS help us accomplish our righteous goals. We just gotta honestly work our hardest, sacrifice what is needed, and have the faith to give the rest to Him. Be good. I miss you.
Satu