Week 3 email in the Czech (September 19, 2011):
Heartbreak and miracles
Hi Everyone!
So another week has passed! Every morning I wake up just wishing it wasn't six-thirty yet, because I'm so exhausted, but then every night I am sad to call it a day and never want to go home! Being on this mission is wonderful. I am so lucky to be out here. Thank you again for your [letters] and for your support. I will read them, love them, and then respond as soon as I can. Thank you for your stories and for putting the time into writing me every week!
This week has been crazy. Lots and lots of heartbreak. But when there is heartbreak, God blesses us with happiness. Let me explain. So I told you last week about the man who texted us in the middle of the night telling us that he actually did indeed have interest in meeting with us. So we set up an appointment for Monday and were really excited and prepared for it… And we also had our other miracle story coming to our English class on Tuesday (Oh, I don’t know if I told you, but I teach the lower level English class, and the senior couples teach the higher level. Sister Smith has been teaching it for a while now because she's been here for so long, but last week I kind of took over, and I think we teach very differently... but that's ok! People are different. I made everyone laugh the whole time while showing them prepositions on the board using a cup and a ball that I'd draw. They loved it. At the end of the lesson they all told me that it was a "very funny and fun class" and I was happy that they enjoyed it. Afterwards we had a spiritual thought with two of the students and placed a Book of Mormon which was just fabulous. English is fun.) And we were excited about it! But come Saturday we were told that we were going to have a training [meeting] in Prague on Tuesday. Which was a bummer because we were going to miss English. So we cancelled with one of the miracle people, since he didn’t really want to go to English [class] unless we were there. Then we found out on Monday that we were going to have to take a train to Prague that night. So we cancelled with the other miracle that day. Which was such a bummer. And even though I've only been here three or so weeks, I have figured out that if you let people go for more than a day or two they forget the good feelings they felt and aren’t interested anymore. So I was really bummed, because I had a lot of hope for these investigators.
But alas, life goes on. So we went to Prague, and we stayed at the Sisters’ apartment. The next day we had training, and it was good to see all my MTC Elders again. I miss people so much once I love them! It's the worst! So it was nice to just be with familiar company, and we laughed all day at each other's stories. Elder Osterloh has already been smacked in the back of the head by an old lady while he was teaching. I am lucky that has not happened! haha.
Well anyway training was great, and it took all day, so on the way home we Brno missionaries shared a train cubby with a young man who was going to school. It was a two hour train ride, so we had time to talk a lot. It started out well because I whipped out my pictures, and I don't speak much, but I can say "goat, mine, love, happy, walks, family, animals, chickens, dogs, and I love the gospel." So it broke the ice, and he couldn’t stop laughing while I told him about how Matilda and Peanut are in love. I didn’t really catch on to much more after the "older" missionaries took over, but hey I did all I could do. Sister Smith would translate for me occasionally, and it was sad, because about an hour in he told us that marijuana is his religion. He talked about that for a good fifteen minutes, and it just made me sad how Satan has perverted everything. [The young man] says he feels the most spiritual when he is high, when really drugs dull spirituality. They take away agency, and make your mind turn off, but that is not being spiritual. Quite the opposite. In fact, when I am feeling the Spirit, I get so excited because thoughts start coming and everything starts piecing together, and life is just fabulous, but of course I couldn’t explain that in Czech, so I just sat and listened. You get to a point when you realize that you can bear testimony all the day long, but if people don’t want to hear it, they won’t let it touch them. So that was that.
Later on in the week we met with our one baptismal date, Vladimir. He has missed his date a few times already now though so we've had to postpone. I love him so much! And I just want him to pray about things! But something is holding him back. And I tell him to try and tell me what it is, but he can’t. Maybe he hasn’t quite figured it out himself yet, I don’t know. But he's having a hard time praying about things, because he just expects silence. So we talked about faith, but that didn’t help much, because he said it's not his time to know truth yet. Which makes me sad, and there are a million scriptures that say that every man should come unto Christ, and we shouldn’t delay our day of repentance! But we can only do so much. We have taught him everything.... but nothing is holding firm. I asked him if he believed that Christ is his Savior. And he said no. He has come for months, but he doesn’t believe it. And every time he stops seeing missionaries, another set of missionaries randomly contacts him within a few days. God wants him to have this. Sigh, I don’t know what to do. It's quite the pickle.
But the next day we extended a baptismal commitment to Aneta, our 15 year old. She accepted. I love her so much! She EATS the gospel. She loves it. She always asks the perfect questions and really listens to you, and she doesn’t laugh at my Czech like others do. She loves listening, and she listens with intent. Teaching her is so refreshing, but on Sunday she informed us that her parents have told her she cannot get baptized. AAAAH I was so sad. But we will keep working with her so that maybe a miracle will happen!
Then this week we've had about six men/young men text us back after we've set up appointments and tell us they were only interested in dating us and not God. Oh good golly! But success will come! I have faith. It's the best talking to everyone every day about what I believe and what I know to be true. I love it. I love just smiling at everyone and loving every person I talk to because I really do just love them! I want them all to be able to feel this gospel and feel how it helps them. The days that I am most prepared my Czech comes through. It's totally grammatically incorrect, but it comes, and Heavenly Father makes people understand what I'm trying to say, because those are the times they really listen, and I can feel my heart burning inside my chest. The world is peaceful when testimonies are being born.
Anyway, so this week was a little rough, and Sister Smith started getting really discouraged. [We have been setting goals to find] new investigators [every] week. God knows our goals. He watches us make them, and if we tell Him we've made them He will be with us while we set out to accomplish them. I had never thought of that before but I love it, and I can’t wait to implement it in school when I get home. I love goal making. I love praying about every little thing I do. It makes such a difference!
This week was rough, but yesterday we had a little miracle. Literally every appointment we had this week fell through, and we were a bit tired because it was the end of the week, but we went tracting. I tried to talk to this deaf lady with the little ASL [= American Sign Language] I know, and we got some conversation across, but not much. So we gave her a Book of Mormon, and she looked so happy when we told her it was hers for free. We ended up taking the tram longer than we'd wanted to, but we just got off and started tracting. LITERALLY the first door we knocked we taught a lesson. This young girl told us she had always mocked believers her whole life, but was now trying to find the right path. We showed her that Mormon message about prayer in the Czech Republic on our phone, and she loved it. We gave her a Book of Mormon, and she is going to read it! She is meeting with us again on Wednesday, and it was SUCH A MIRACLE.
Every door we knocked after that I smiled huge and proclaimed to the world that I am a missionary. I love it. People here answer their doors by sticking their heads out windows, so you always have to take a step back to make sure you see which window or door they are going to answer from. The upstairs windows are the best, because then I almost yell,"DOBRY DEN! MY SME MISSIONARSKY Z CIRKEV JEZISE KRISTA!" and then I talk about whatever comes to mind. Getting rejected doesn’t phase me at all. You can’t let it! You just gotta keep on truckin’. I love it. I gotta run. I will send my SD card home soon. I might have a few seconds to upload a few pictures. Thanks for ordering my mission plaque! I talked to [the Mission] President, and I will be coming home in December most likely so that I can go to school. More of that to come in about 9 months, when I talk to him about it again. But that's the newest.
I love you all!
Oh, this week I started reading a fresh Book of Mormon with the emphasis of highlighting everything I can about the Atonement [of Jesus Christ]. Our whole Zone is doing it, and I love it!!! I am reading through it and just soaking it in! You should try it.
Love you.
-Sister Izatt
Heartbreak and miracles
Hi Everyone!
So another week has passed! Every morning I wake up just wishing it wasn't six-thirty yet, because I'm so exhausted, but then every night I am sad to call it a day and never want to go home! Being on this mission is wonderful. I am so lucky to be out here. Thank you again for your [letters] and for your support. I will read them, love them, and then respond as soon as I can. Thank you for your stories and for putting the time into writing me every week!
This week has been crazy. Lots and lots of heartbreak. But when there is heartbreak, God blesses us with happiness. Let me explain. So I told you last week about the man who texted us in the middle of the night telling us that he actually did indeed have interest in meeting with us. So we set up an appointment for Monday and were really excited and prepared for it… And we also had our other miracle story coming to our English class on Tuesday (Oh, I don’t know if I told you, but I teach the lower level English class, and the senior couples teach the higher level. Sister Smith has been teaching it for a while now because she's been here for so long, but last week I kind of took over, and I think we teach very differently... but that's ok! People are different. I made everyone laugh the whole time while showing them prepositions on the board using a cup and a ball that I'd draw. They loved it. At the end of the lesson they all told me that it was a "very funny and fun class" and I was happy that they enjoyed it. Afterwards we had a spiritual thought with two of the students and placed a Book of Mormon which was just fabulous. English is fun.) And we were excited about it! But come Saturday we were told that we were going to have a training [meeting] in Prague on Tuesday. Which was a bummer because we were going to miss English. So we cancelled with one of the miracle people, since he didn’t really want to go to English [class] unless we were there. Then we found out on Monday that we were going to have to take a train to Prague that night. So we cancelled with the other miracle that day. Which was such a bummer. And even though I've only been here three or so weeks, I have figured out that if you let people go for more than a day or two they forget the good feelings they felt and aren’t interested anymore. So I was really bummed, because I had a lot of hope for these investigators.
But alas, life goes on. So we went to Prague, and we stayed at the Sisters’ apartment. The next day we had training, and it was good to see all my MTC Elders again. I miss people so much once I love them! It's the worst! So it was nice to just be with familiar company, and we laughed all day at each other's stories. Elder Osterloh has already been smacked in the back of the head by an old lady while he was teaching. I am lucky that has not happened! haha.
Well anyway training was great, and it took all day, so on the way home we Brno missionaries shared a train cubby with a young man who was going to school. It was a two hour train ride, so we had time to talk a lot. It started out well because I whipped out my pictures, and I don't speak much, but I can say "goat, mine, love, happy, walks, family, animals, chickens, dogs, and I love the gospel." So it broke the ice, and he couldn’t stop laughing while I told him about how Matilda and Peanut are in love. I didn’t really catch on to much more after the "older" missionaries took over, but hey I did all I could do. Sister Smith would translate for me occasionally, and it was sad, because about an hour in he told us that marijuana is his religion. He talked about that for a good fifteen minutes, and it just made me sad how Satan has perverted everything. [The young man] says he feels the most spiritual when he is high, when really drugs dull spirituality. They take away agency, and make your mind turn off, but that is not being spiritual. Quite the opposite. In fact, when I am feeling the Spirit, I get so excited because thoughts start coming and everything starts piecing together, and life is just fabulous, but of course I couldn’t explain that in Czech, so I just sat and listened. You get to a point when you realize that you can bear testimony all the day long, but if people don’t want to hear it, they won’t let it touch them. So that was that.
Later on in the week we met with our one baptismal date, Vladimir. He has missed his date a few times already now though so we've had to postpone. I love him so much! And I just want him to pray about things! But something is holding him back. And I tell him to try and tell me what it is, but he can’t. Maybe he hasn’t quite figured it out himself yet, I don’t know. But he's having a hard time praying about things, because he just expects silence. So we talked about faith, but that didn’t help much, because he said it's not his time to know truth yet. Which makes me sad, and there are a million scriptures that say that every man should come unto Christ, and we shouldn’t delay our day of repentance! But we can only do so much. We have taught him everything.... but nothing is holding firm. I asked him if he believed that Christ is his Savior. And he said no. He has come for months, but he doesn’t believe it. And every time he stops seeing missionaries, another set of missionaries randomly contacts him within a few days. God wants him to have this. Sigh, I don’t know what to do. It's quite the pickle.
But the next day we extended a baptismal commitment to Aneta, our 15 year old. She accepted. I love her so much! She EATS the gospel. She loves it. She always asks the perfect questions and really listens to you, and she doesn’t laugh at my Czech like others do. She loves listening, and she listens with intent. Teaching her is so refreshing, but on Sunday she informed us that her parents have told her she cannot get baptized. AAAAH I was so sad. But we will keep working with her so that maybe a miracle will happen!
Then this week we've had about six men/young men text us back after we've set up appointments and tell us they were only interested in dating us and not God. Oh good golly! But success will come! I have faith. It's the best talking to everyone every day about what I believe and what I know to be true. I love it. I love just smiling at everyone and loving every person I talk to because I really do just love them! I want them all to be able to feel this gospel and feel how it helps them. The days that I am most prepared my Czech comes through. It's totally grammatically incorrect, but it comes, and Heavenly Father makes people understand what I'm trying to say, because those are the times they really listen, and I can feel my heart burning inside my chest. The world is peaceful when testimonies are being born.
Anyway, so this week was a little rough, and Sister Smith started getting really discouraged. [We have been setting goals to find] new investigators [every] week. God knows our goals. He watches us make them, and if we tell Him we've made them He will be with us while we set out to accomplish them. I had never thought of that before but I love it, and I can’t wait to implement it in school when I get home. I love goal making. I love praying about every little thing I do. It makes such a difference!
This week was rough, but yesterday we had a little miracle. Literally every appointment we had this week fell through, and we were a bit tired because it was the end of the week, but we went tracting. I tried to talk to this deaf lady with the little ASL [= American Sign Language] I know, and we got some conversation across, but not much. So we gave her a Book of Mormon, and she looked so happy when we told her it was hers for free. We ended up taking the tram longer than we'd wanted to, but we just got off and started tracting. LITERALLY the first door we knocked we taught a lesson. This young girl told us she had always mocked believers her whole life, but was now trying to find the right path. We showed her that Mormon message about prayer in the Czech Republic on our phone, and she loved it. We gave her a Book of Mormon, and she is going to read it! She is meeting with us again on Wednesday, and it was SUCH A MIRACLE.
Every door we knocked after that I smiled huge and proclaimed to the world that I am a missionary. I love it. People here answer their doors by sticking their heads out windows, so you always have to take a step back to make sure you see which window or door they are going to answer from. The upstairs windows are the best, because then I almost yell,"DOBRY DEN! MY SME MISSIONARSKY Z CIRKEV JEZISE KRISTA!" and then I talk about whatever comes to mind. Getting rejected doesn’t phase me at all. You can’t let it! You just gotta keep on truckin’. I love it. I gotta run. I will send my SD card home soon. I might have a few seconds to upload a few pictures. Thanks for ordering my mission plaque! I talked to [the Mission] President, and I will be coming home in December most likely so that I can go to school. More of that to come in about 9 months, when I talk to him about it again. But that's the newest.
I love you all!
Oh, this week I started reading a fresh Book of Mormon with the emphasis of highlighting everything I can about the Atonement [of Jesus Christ]. Our whole Zone is doing it, and I love it!!! I am reading through it and just soaking it in! You should try it.
Love you.
-Sister Izatt