Never a Dull Moment

Moje Drahy Rodina,

Heyyyy! (In Czech one would say 'hela' instead of 'hey', but that sounds like cursing....so I won't. Today.)

GOOD NEWS! (Better than no nylons...by the way Ma, I would shave more than once a week if there were anything on my legs to shave off anymore. I think that cutting back on shaving before coming on the mission was a major blessing in disguise because now it hardly seems to grow... who cares how many gag-reflexes I may have triggered.)
The temple opened today! Finally! I almost forgot how different it feels there. I mean, always knew it was, but today I really FELT it again, which was just incredible. I wish I could have stayed there alllllll daaaaaayyyyyy. But instead I get to do laundry. That is something I may never fully appreciate. Maybe if they started to make laundry detergent a little more exciting--they way cereal is, with little shaped and colored surprises--then maybe it'd be more interesting and less stifling. They could even offer little toys if you collect enough Tide box tops. Jejda! Anyways, the temple was SO good and SO enlightening that I forgot to zip up my skirt when I came out of the dressing room! I had no idea all throughout breakfast (we ate in the cafeteria there) until one of the Elders got all nervous and started whispering "Sister Dean! Sister Dean!" The poor poor missionary--a few weeks ago my companion accidentally tucked her skirt into her garments while in the bathroom...and then she bent over to try and stretch her back...and it was this very same missionary who happened to notice her entire back side. AH! I may have a hernia if I laugh much more here--the MTC is just too much fun.

This week marks the end of week number FIVE! Whoa! It's weird--suddenly all these individuals I've become friends with are leaving the MTC and I'm starting to realize how fleeting this time is here. Some missionaries seem so anxious to leave the MTC, but I've been so blessed here. I might cry myself to sleep the first night I don't get to stare up at Sestra Stratton's saggy mattress and know that, whatever happens, she's sleeping above me.
This week we are teaching the 1st discussion in CZECH--that's right! No more English at the TRC/TE/whatever it's called. This means that Sestra Stratton and I aren't teaching together anymore--that I'm teaching with an Elder now (Elder Bracken, if you want to find him in the pictures--AKA: Neville Longbottom). It's a little different, but he's a good missionary and he's very determined to learn the language, so I think it'll go well.
Lately I've been very impressed with the Lord's willingness to help us. Over and over again, I find myself reading of His promises to grant us whatever it is that we ask for that is right. I love how in 2 Nephi 33:3-4 Nephi bears his testimony that the Lord will not only help us, but he will consecrate our prayers for the well being of those we pray for. Woo! We're so so loved and watched out for! Thus, your prayers really mean a lot to me--to all of us missionaries here. We need them and so do investigators.
Speaking of investigators--the -------- family! I wish you could be here, learning the things that I'm learning about helping others come unto Christ. What it all comes down to is that you need to first figure out what is important to them/what their needs are, then you must show how the gospel will help that specific aspect of their lives and then testify of how it's blessed you and promise them blessings if they take actions. It sounds so easy, but it definitely takes a lot of listening and making yourself receptive to the Lord.
AH! I'm almost out of time! Sorry--Dekuji vas moc!

Sestra Dean

I Love the MTC!

Another p day is nearly gone! It's so weird how quickly each week goes by--I know this is only the preparation for the real thing, but it already seems as though there will never be anything else.

Can I just say that I love the MTC? (Everyone makes fun of me here because apparently I use the phrase "can I just say..." a LOT. Did I say that before?! Once I caught myself saying it in a personal prayer...maybe that's when I know it's gone too far.) One of my favorite things about the MTC is Thursdays. For a few reasons. 1) Thursday means that GYM time is right after breakfast, so Sestra Stratton and I can get really sweaty all at once in the morning and we don't have to spend all of GYM time making sure our internal body temperatures are low enough to keep us from sweating. We're pretty dedicated about running every morning. Somehow I've become the health/nutrition guru of our district. Probably because everyone else just eats doughnuts all the time and I don't. 2) Thursdays involve Large Group Meetings, which we attend with many other districts (hence, we become a LARGE GROUP). These are always taught by former missionaries and they do a great job of refocusing me--they help me realize that the MTC isn't about learning a new language or about memorizing scriptures, but it's about teaching individuals the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It's about finding and teaching these individuals. I love it. 4) TE!! Woo! I LOVE this place! The TE stands for "Teaching Experience"...or something. This name is actually in the process of being changed, so it's known by many names. But each week we're given tasks that involve learning how to do different things in our language. Then we come to the TE and RMs from our missions will speak to us and pretend to be investigators while we teach them important principles, ask them if they kept commitments, etc. It's great because it's then that I realize how much I've learned. It's SO exciting to suddenly realize that I can carry on a sort of conversation in this crazy language! Last TE, we were supposed to follow up with a commitment regarding reading the Book of Mormon with our "investigators", however my clever little guys began asking me about baptism and why it was important...I'm sure they were laughing their heads off inside. It went over pretty well, until they asked me if sprinkling was okay to do, and I had no idea how to say 'immersion'....so I settled for body (telo), everything (vsechno) and water (voda). They got the basic idea. Then, after we speak in Czech, we get to teach the fake investigators one of the lessons. This week will be our last time to practice teaching in English. I find myself very very envious of those missionaries who only speak English. I feel like that would be wonderful. I love teaching with Sister Stratton--we make a pretty good team and we've learned the importance of following the spirit together. After this week, however, we will begin teaching the first lesson in our respective languages, which means that she will be teaching in Croatian and I will be stuck teaching with a BOY. Ack. Just kidding, they're great. But I'll miss teaching with her strength at my side. All the while we're teaching, our teachers get to watch us on video. AFterwards, they tell us all the things we did well and give us prods in the right direction. It's pretty fun.
And THAT is why I love Thursdays.

Are Thursdays very exciting for you? I heard about Dad's car accident....was that on a Thursday? And about work being slow . . . it kind of makes me wonder what you've been praying for though...I've definitely learned here that, when you pray and ask God for help in developing a certain trait (i.e. charity, patience, humility, etc.), He has this way of ALWAYS giving you trying experiences in which you can practice exercising what little of that trait you already do have. And this is how it grows. For example: there is an elder in my class that I've been struggling to love. I mean, I DO love him, but we always tend to disagree about EVERYTHING. And of course I'm always the one in the right, so he's the one that needs to change. (Kidding.) But he tends to pick on the other Elders and then my mother bear instincts kick in and I end up verbally kicking him. Which is not very Christlike. So I've been praying for help. And lo and behold, what should the Lord do except inspire my teachers to rearrange our desks so that I am sitting RIGHT NEXT to him. ALWAYS. For 11 hours of class time nearly every day of the week. What can we do but laugh, right? God knows what's up. Hopefully you've been able to see good come out of all this mess. I'm always praying for you.

And I'm praying for the --------- family! Woo! Way to go fam! And ward! One thing I've learned here: people's testimonies only grow when they use their agency to do something to bring them closer to God--choosing to read, pray, attend church, etc. If there's anything you can do for them, help them help themselves. I'm glad that you're back in the missionary work Dad--I want to hear all about that video you're thinking of making! It's bound to touch people in the ward and help them touch those around them. Man, missionary work is the greatest, isn't it?

Also--GREAT news! They've nixed pantyhose for sister missionaries! For real! Well, they're no longer required. But they stressed still looking professional, so I decided that I would sacrifice and shave my legs at least once a week. For the Lord. (I wouldn't shave for any other reason). But it's incredible what bare legs will do for a person after wearing pantyhose every day for so long. I automatically feel younger, hotter, slimmer, stronger, happier. Take that, 20th century! Your pantyhose are a thing of the past! (Except for on Sundays and at devotionals). This is the most exciting thing since sliced bread. Except sliced bread means it's processed bread, usually. Anyway.

Miluje vam HODNE! Really!

Sestra Dean

God Loves His Children

Whoa. I have sold my soul to the Son of Man and given away my belongings in the process. It is Monday morning (early--maybe around 3 or 4 a.m) and I am writing a rough draft of this email in my journal. I am doing this because I have a story for you. I can't not tell you (we just learned about double negatives in Czech--sorry, I guess it's going to my head) because I feel compelled to. There's a big balloony feeling in my chest that's wonderful, and just uncomfortable enough that I must do something about it. So, here I am, just doing . . .

There is another Sister living in my room. Her name is Sister ------. She is going to the Utah St. George mission. She should have left last week with the rest of her group, but she is having some difficulties I don't know much about. She is something of an odd ball. As we were creating our Harry Potter world, Sister Stratton and I named her Moaning Myrtle (this is very unChristlike, I am all too aware). She sometimes likes to be a martyr. Once she watched us play volleyball from a balcony above during gym. We caught her eye and invited her to come play (well, this was mostly Sister Stratton--she's great), quite enthusiastically, if I do say so myself. Sister ------ declined and remained up there alone. Later she told us she didn't want to play because she was feeling lonely. Go figure.
Sister ------- is a convert--was baptized in April of 2007. She's not particularly attractive or amiable. She doesn't seem like she would make much of a missionary because she is always napping. She tends to disclose very personal facts very openly. But I know the Lord loves her. The is how I know:
On Wednesday, Sister Stratton and I found ourselves in some sort of funk. We didn't quite feel like representatives of Christ. Largely because we were too caught up in ourselves. This we openly admitted. I found myself, I am ashamed to say, enjoying being the "trendy" Sister missionary. I wore both the sweater you sent me and the shirt Beks gave me and had little room in me for much other than vain thoughts when I did. Sis Stratton had similar feelings about things. But this was not why we came to be missionaries!
Sister Stratton talked of the Anti-Nephi-Lehis and how they buried the things that were keeping them from the Lord. We decided to do the same, or something similar. So we found a box and put some of our "great and spacious building" possessions in it. She put in her eyeshadow. I put in some headbands and a hair clip that seemed to attract too much attention from other Sister missionaries (the Elders never care, of course). I felt okay about this.
Later that night, as I prayed, I knew it wasn't enough. I fought an inner battle with my own vanity and finally put that birthday sweater in the box. I tried to do this discreetly so I wouldn't have to explain myself to anyone. I prayed longer and felt that I should add Bekah's gift(a shirt)to the box too. This I fought for a while--it seemed so stupid! Other missionaries were just fine with their own cute clothes--the branch president's wife had even told me she liked it! It was definitely not against the rules.
Suddenly I realized my own ridiculous vanity and pride. When the lights went out, I quickly grabbed the shirt and threw it on top of the dresser where we'd stowed the box before I could think about it much longer. I didn't feel great yet. I kind of felt that I wouldn't be completely over it unless I gave it all away somehow. This was an unappealing idea, to say the least. The thought crossed my mind to give them to Sister -------. It was a stupid idea--they wouldn't fit her anyway.
The next day began my and Sister Stratton's Book of Mormon challenge. Because of a very inspirational Large Group Meeting, we decided that reading the Book of Mormon all the way through before we left the MTC would really help us become the representatives of Christ we wanted to be. This has been going on for several days now.
Saturday night I felt myself getting sick. Blech. I didn't sleep so well that night. Lack of sleep and sickness put me in what I'd like to call a "fragile state". Fragile to emotions and fragile to the Spirit. The cold was annoying, but only hindered the day mildly. The Spirit was there. It was Sunday. Good feelings grew and culminated throughout to a very grand high during a fireside by the celebrated violinist Jenny Oaks Baker (Dallin H. Oaks' daughter). We stayed afterward for a film they were showing. It's peculiar, because before the fireside a screen displayed the four films one could attend at various locations afterward. After the fireside, the options changed. Three of the new four options I had already seen recently. So we watched part three of a documentary following missionaries in California. It's almost my new favorite movie. At one point, a Hispanic woman investigating the Church describes how she feels the Spirit--like there's something far too big inside her chest, pulling and stretching to come out. But a very good feeling. This was how I have always felt the Spirit. Exactly.
Scene.
I tried to sleep last night, but the cold kept me awake. I had dreamt that I kept pulling things out of my nose, only to wake and find I'd been sleeping with a tissue up there. I was so tired and angry and ill, and I prayed a frustrated prayer, took the only nasal decongestants I had (non drowsy!), blew my nose, and tried to sleep again. Every time I laid my head down, my nose completely plugged up so that breathing was not an option. It's like the Lord was playing that trick on me that younger siblings sometimes do in movies--pinching my nose while I'm sleeping so I'd have to wake up (or die). Finally I got out of bed, grabbed my scriptures and begrudgingly began to work on our Book of Mormon goal in the lobby.
"Get a pen". That's what He told me. I ignored it sulkily and read on until the thought came quite clearly to me: "Ashley, I need to talk to you. Go get something to write with." So I did. I opened my journal and began reading 1 Nephi again. I was led to Jeremiah 7: 23-24. ["But this thing commanded I them, saying, 'Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward".] I felt the Lord was trying to tell me something, but I was all mean emptiness inside, so I began to write about that. And my thoughts were taken to Sister ------ and my box of things I'd sacrificed again. And that very feeling the woman had described in the video came to me (it was unmistakeable, now that someone else had described it just so). I was overcome by the Lord's love for Sister ------- and His need for her out in the field.
Instantly, a thousand things came to my memory at once--how the film had been changed last minute so I could hear that exact description of feeling the Spirit, the calculated timing of our Book of Mormon goal and our Anti-Nephi-Lehi sacrifices, the crazy thought that I'd had to offer Sister ------- my sacrifices. I remembered the blessing Grandpa Bellows had given me--that my health would be good according to my obedience. I ignored that first feeling, and now the Lord had used my health to wake me up!
I gave Sister ------- the clothes. And my favorite locket of Ma's that I always wear. (Sorry. I needed to). Just after that, Sister ------ found out she was getting sent home to sort things out.
I just thought it incredible that the Lord would alter MY life so severely in order to tell Sister ------ she's loved. You should have seen her face when she tried on the clothes. She told me she'd wear the necklace every day. I can't believe how much that mattered to her.
I'm so full of the Spirit right now I could throw it up.
THE LORD LOVES HIS CHILDREN. He will go to GREAT lengths to tell them that. I don't have any time left, but I just had to tell you. I love you SOOOOOO much.

Ash

Message from Hogwarts

Dearest family of mine,

THANK YOU for the wonderful birthday package! It was perfect! (Although everyone looks like an Egyptian princess in the family photo because of the way our eyes are edited....but I put it up on my shelf for all to see anyway. I kind of have a thing for Egyptian princesses.)

Yesterday morning my awesome companion and I took Ma's homemade granola and milk and bowls and some Einstein's bagels that Sestra Stratton received in the mail (she is probably the most popular person I know) into the Forbidden Forest and ate our breakfast after a healthy morning run. It was perfect. And then we discussed all the similarities between the MTC and Hogwarts--there are lots. In all seriousness though, I am loving my days here. I love the challenge the language provides and the depth that teaching brings to my soul. I find that, when I begin teaching a lesson about my God, my Savior, the Restoration, I am really looking into the hearts of whomever I am teaching. Usually, they're just teachers or Elders pretending to be investigators, but it's easy to forget that they're pretending. Because as soon as we begin talking about the truth, the feelings are real and it's impossible to misunderstand exactly how God feels about the person in front of me. The Spirit never pretends and it cannot be forced. But when it comes (usually when we testify), it is an overwhelming inner raucous of compassion--only a small semblence of the ferocity and intensity with which the Lord loves His children. Sometimes it's so strong that I'm afraid I'll need acupuncture to keep my heart from swelling, which would be messy. I just can't get over how great it is.

Also, I am loving cesky. It's difficult, but the way it stretches me is a bikram yoga, simultaneously-finding-and-pushing-oneself sort of pull. (Speaking of which, the exercise class this morning was YOGA. LOVED IT!) I've been able to spend a bit of time just speaking cesky with some fluent returned missionaries for the past few days--it's horrifying and exciting all at once to be forced to think on my feet and construct my own sentences with the limited knowledge that I have. It almost makes me feel as though I'm back in Romania again. (I often accidentally say things in Romanian instead of cesky, although this is getting less and less common.) It's incredible how quickly one learns things here. But I suppose that's the point of sitting in classes for 11+ hours a day.

The food here's not so bad. I've become the queen of making special requests of the cafeteria staff, but they are all very kind and accommodating. But really, potato pearls and gravy, with a side of SPAM?? If only Daddio were here.

It's so funny how the MTC begins to feel like a small university campus of sorts. You always run in to friends and we're always making new ones. I've run into Ben Miles several times (he teaches Romanian) and Marky's been my substitute teacher twice. Sometimes I find myself walking around and being surprised at the faces that I don't recognize. But I like it--there are so many interesting people to meet. I.e., there's an elder going to Czech with me that I want Danielle to marry. He's so cute and adorable and nice and he plays soccer and he's very musically talented and I just think they could love each other. I've already talked to him about it--I think I can convince him the age isn't that big of a deal.

I have three minutes left. I LOVE YOU ALL! Ma, I loved your letter. I'm so sorry that things have been hard on you with Pippen and all. Just remember: all dogs go to heaven. And tell Michelle that I will e-spank her if she doesn't start running with you more. (Also--I happened to see Beks on my temple walk on Sunday. She's going to buy me some brown flats and I just told her you'd give her my money. I hope that's okay. Really though, they're essential.)

Na shledanou! Hesky den!

Sestra Dean