12/29/10

Familyyyyyy!!!!

Can I just say that I love reading your emails? It's so great. The thing that I really love is that I see so much of who writes it in the email. I think you learn a lot about a person from the things they choose to include and the things they choose not to include in only so much space.

It was really great to hear all your voices the other day and hear about your Christmas--good inspiration for me to keep from turning in to the tubby sister missionary, you and all your new workout equipment. :) If only we missionaries could take on the Insanity as well...

I will ask President on Monday in my next letter (I already wrote him for today) about the Mother's Day thing. It might be very doable. I'll let you know. As far as a package goes--the one thing that might be nice would be another white Downeast shirt. The washing machines here kind of wreak havoc on my poor white things. But please, if you spend another hundred dollars on shipping fees for a package I will feel so bad I'll have to split it with all the homeless people in the center of town (believe me--there are a lot of them). But I won't lie, the package was pretty perfect. :)

As far as news...not much to report. I'm not leaving Ostrava...yet. The two incoming sister missionaries from Mongolia have had visa problems, so it's possible that they could come in mid-transfer and ruin all the bliss of staying in one city for a time, but as for now I am still here with Sister Laws, the Great.

Martin Grohol is doing absolutely wonderfully. I'm so excited about this guy--we've taught him tithing, word of wisdom, sabbath day and he just seems to take everything in humble stride. He's talked about how he knows that God exists now and yesterday he referred to the church as "his church". It's just great. He did say that not drinking alcohol is a little harder than he thought it'd be. He's never been much of a drinker, only socially and in moderation. Sometimes I think that's harder for people, because you don't see an immediate change in your life when you stop. We talked about New Years with him--keep him in your prayers, he's going to need some added strength from on High. Olga is making some progress as well, although we moved her date back to the 22nd with Martin--she still has a way to go. I think she's been kind of hitting on Martin lately, who's at least 12 years younger than she is... interesting. :)

On Sunday we ate with Petr Bandik's entire family. It was really neat to see how kind and respectful they were of who we are and what we believe. They talked with us all about Christmas and offered us fruit tea and were ever so kind. We didn't teach a lesson or anything, but we did leave a good impression, I think. I keep thinking that something great must come of it eventually for them--the blessing Petr received when he was confirmed talked about his entire family receiving the gospel someday. I hope I get to see some of that happen!

I'm glad to hear that you all enjoyed yourselves over Christmas. I forgot to tell you--one of the Elders made homemade eggnog a while back. It was amaaaaaazing. Even better than store bought. Perhaps I'll steal the recipe and make it for you next Christmas.

I can't believe that Maria's getting a horse. No fair--I've been asking Santa for one of those for years. Perhaps I'll write my letter to Jezisek next year instead.
Danielle--how was your snowboarding experience? Did you love it? Lots of young people here snowboard. It makes me want to go again.

Everyone, I just love you all so much! I hope you catch the spirit of the missionary work and share the truth with everyone you know! I've never believed the saying that ignorance is bliss--how can we not share with people the happiness that comes from knowing oneself and understanding the lives they live? Isn't it glorious?!

Cau!

Sestra Dean

P.S. There's this awesome talk called "The Fourth Missionary" by someone named Coleridge or something. He was a mission president once. It's directed towards missionaries, but I think it could be good for anyone in life. You should look it up. And send it to Beks if you find it.

Oh My Little Dears . . . (12/22/10)

Okay, missionary work is just the greatest thing in the world. Ever. That's about all I have to say.

Love,

Ash



Haha--gotcha. This week has been amazing--full of miracles. For example, MARTIN IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON JANUARY 22!! He is just so dang prepared, I'm beside myself! We've already taught him about the Sabbath Day and the Word of Wisdom--two of the hardest things for people to live here. And of course, he just takes it all in stride. (Martin is in the picture wearing the black shirt and the red tie). Something pretty funny--we gave him this baptismal date over a week ago--last Tuesday--and he said yes, obviously. On Monday we taught a lesson to him and when it was over I said, "Well, we'll probably see you on Sunday sometime." He got a little confused--"Wait...aren't you going to be there on Wednesday?" After a few minutes we figured out that he thought he was getting baptized on the 22nd of December! And he still said yes! Haha--I feel kind of bad now, but I laughed pretty hard when I realized what he'd been thinking. But he's very good natured and just laughed along with me. He came to church again and came wearing a suit and tie--said the idea "just came to him" that it'd be appropriate and we never said anything about it. (You'd be surprised--a lot of women here wear pants to church and a few men wear jeans...usually the men start dressing up after a while, but a lot of even the really solid women wear pants. Hey, they come--that's what matters.)

Oh yes, and Martin doesn't really know Petr Bandik...he knows a different Petr in Brno who we contacted once, but didn't want to meet with us. I don't even remember who he is. But his last name sounds kind of like Bandik, hence the confusion. But Petr's coming to church in Ostrava this weekend (his dad lives here), so they will know each other soon enough.

So basically all our investigators except 3 have fallen off the face of the planet because of the holidays. Buuuuuuuuuutttt--those three all happen to have baptismal dates! Woo! Linh (the boy from Vietnam) has met with the missionaries in Prague a few times and met with us yesterday in Ostrava and he's back on track to be baptised on the 8th of January. (He's also in one of the pictures attached) Apparently there are a bunch of Vietnamese mafia members in Prague who have been abusing Vietnamese women lately and that's why he's having such crazy visa problems. Hopefully things'll get worked out--but the important thing is that he is learning all about God and wants to have a real relationship with him! Woo!

On Monday we had maybe the coolest day ever. Our noble district leader, Elder Doxey, (the bathroom guy) decided that we should go out with a bang as a district right before the holidays. So Monday we didn't schedule any meetings (except one with Martin...we had no other choice) and we planned to contact 1,000 people as a district. It was maybe the most invigorating thing I've ever done as a missionary--I felt like a small little army, planning where we'd go and when we'd meet up again throughout the day to tally the numbers. I did everything with my whole heart that day and it was so worth it. We always have a 30-minute tram ride to the center from our apartment every day and we try to talk to people on the tram. On most days we just sit next to someone and make conversation and bring up the gospel more naturally. But this day we talked only about the restored gospel and when someone said no I just moved on to the next person. Maybe the 5th person I talked to had real genuine interest in getting a copy of the Book of Mormon...and after we'd exchanged numbers I moved right on to someone else--and he didn't even mind! It was so cool to just give it all everything I've got. We ended the day having contacted 1,292 people and receiving 44 phone numbers as a district of 6 missionaries! It's looks crazy, but 44 numbers in one day is AMAZING! Not quite like Taiwan here, I suppose. :) Several of them seem really promising too! I'm so excited to talk with them after the holidays are over!!

Speaking of which, I've been thinking about this today--what would it be like to only contact women, like Beks?? We'd have maybe one investigator here in Ostrava! I won't lie, girls close to my age are maybe some of the most intimidating people to contact--I have to psych myself up for a half second each time I do, because they tend to be much more closed off here. But men are easy to talk to! I think it's less intimidating for a man to be approached by a young girl than a young girl to be approached by her peer or something, so they're more open to talk. Sometimes they're a little too open though--I never thought I'd be kissed on the street as a missionary by so many strange men, but it happens quite a bit(on the cheek--no worries, it's custom).

Oh MY--THANK YOU SOO SO SO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGE!! I finally received it last week--it was PERFECT. Those toe warmers SAVED us on 1,000 Day. Seriously! (Sister Laws says thanks too!) And I had just been fantasizing about wrinkle releaser the day before I received it. And I've been feasting on granola every morning and enjoying peanut butter and banana toast and my heart it just utterly content. I am saving the wrapped guys for Christmas day, don't worry. :)

Also. You CANNOT tell michelle about Santa. If you do, I might just cry. No!

Transfers are next Wednesday. Sister Laws and I are hoping we'll stay together--I never thought I'd say this, but I don't want to go back to Brno! I love it here in dirty old Ostrava!!

I'm SO excited to talk to you all! It was so good to hear Daddio's voice last night--it was weird how normal it felt! We'll soak up as much in 40 minutes as we can and just revel in that. :)

Also--for any other former missionaries who might be reading this: I asked Dad a few questions about his mission and it was all so interesting that I just wanted to hear from everyone--
How did you contact people in your mission? What sorts of approaches did you use? Were the people already religious--how did they respond to you? What things did you find effective? Any interesting stories, I'd love to hear!

Mam vsichni z vas tak rada! Hezke svatky!!

Love ash

P.S. Captain BALLSY is getting so big! I just sent you a postcard girl--I LOVE you! Happy birthday!

Also: other pictures--us missionaries in the district with member, Renata--she was baptized after 3 lessons with the missionaries about a year ago and is still really strong. Other is our english class. Gotta love these guys--really good way to find people to teach.

Cest! (sounds like "chest", means 'honor'--it's what all the cool young people say here in Ostrava for hello...and I'm included in the cool and young)

Well hello there!

Anyone who happens to have any problems in life out there: please, before you do anything else, find the song "Count Your Many Blessings" by Dustin Glendhill and listen to it.
There. Isn't that better?

This week is just another thing of beauty here in Ostrava, where the streets are covered in snow and the namesti (town square) is peppered with little wooden houses selling food and handmade goods. Sometimes we go to a place right on the namesti for hot Thai soup that is on the third level of a building--I sit right next to the window and watch little dwarvish people scurry between little gingerbread buildings and just sigh to myself because life's that picturesque.

The most exciting news of the week: little Martin Grohol. He's 23 years-old. A little skinny. Sometimes his voice sounds like he's still going through puberty. But this is all in a very endearing sort of way--he's so kind and amiable and open, you can't help but love him. He's the one that came to church last week. Sometimes lessons with him kind of stress me out, I won't lie. The guy asks so many questions and it never seems that the knowledge we've given him is enough--it made me doubt our teaching abilities for a little bit, but in reality he's just hungering after the truth. On Tuesday we taught him again. We asked him about praying--he's been doing it, he tells us, but he wonders if maybe he's doing something wrong because he hasn't really gotten an answer yet. "I know there are like the 10 commandments and such," he said, "but maybe there's something more than that--maybe I'm doing something wrong that I don't know is wrong and that's why I'm not getting an answer." I KNOW, right?! So we're going to teach him about the Word of Wisdom this week. We told him answers come through time. Later he watched the Joseph Smith video that we share with a lot of investigators (we hadn't explained anything to him about Joseph Smith yet) and he said that it was really good for him--it talked a lot about receiving answers to prayers and he was able to apply so much of it to himself all on his own.

Friday we taught him about the plan of salvation. We had him read the pamphlet before hand, since he always has more questions. We asked him what he thought of it at the start of the meeting and he said he was a little disappointed to find out that this life is just a test. But as we taught him about it in more depth, I could just see his faith growing and his countenance lifting. Afterwards he prayed, like he usually does--but his prayers get better every time! I love it! I feel so blessed to have met him--this kid is really prepared to hear what we have to say. AAAAAND the best part isssss--HE'S FRIENDS WITH PETR BANDIK!! I just found that out on Friday after our meeting! Which means Petr can talk with him about his own experiences (read the email I forwarded you...he's just awesome!). Tomorrow we are inviting him to be baptized. Pray for us!

Olga came to church! Pray for her too--she needs to realize how real this stuff all is. She kind of takes everything a little casually sometimes, but I think she's starting to get it more.

We were able to get our former baptismal date who's been in Prague with family/visa problems in touch with Elder Uroumevic (I think I spelled that all wrong...), who was able to meet with him and give him a new baptismal date! He's still eager to be baptized and develop his own faith in the things we testify of, so that was really exciting. We are excited to invite him to the baptism in Prague with us.

We have also had some really good experiences lately in teaching with the members. One member here served a mission himself in Washington State. We've been trying to get him to teach with us for a while, but he's been pretty reluctant to offer his services. So I figured out what his work schedule was, and made sure to invite him to a meeting when I knew he'd be available...and he came! Not only did he come, but he explained the Plan of Salvation in a very real, tangible way that we would not have been able to achieve with our missionary Czech skills. The next day, Sunday, he got up in sacrament meeting and shared with the entire branch what a privilege it had been to teach with the missionaries--how he'd been unsure about it beforehand, but that it was well worth the time and helped him to strengthen his own testimony. Then he encouraged everyone in the congregation to make time to teach with the missionaries too! Wahhhh! It was so great!

Haha...I received a letter from Beks on Thursday--I just had to read an excerpt from it aloud to my district. They were all staring at me, slack-jawed in amazement. Maybe you already know this, but they contact people in 30 seconds at a stoplight, tell them about the Church, ask to meet with them again, and ask them if they would be baptized on a specific date once they found these things to be true. On average 12 people a day say they would. THIS IS UNNNNREAL! Beks, I'm SO proud of you and the job you're doing over there! That really is a very special place. Keep it up!

I love you all!!

Love, Ash

Lesson number 7,657: God thinks about these things too...

My dear little binkies,

This week has been really good. Well, actually, looking back on it there were a few hard parts, but for some reason the contented feeling of a week well-used lingers with me. Like a movie that has those bits in it that make you jump, but ends so happily that you barely remember those parts once the movie's over.

Before I forget, Ma--dont worry about the phone call. So far I know that: you will be calling me, I will be emailing you the number when I know it--probably the week before--and you will have the chance to do a test call sometime throughout the week before Christmas for a half-minute or so to make sure that it works. I will tell you more once I know the deets. Yes, Pres Irwin is the bomb.

I've learned a few things this week that I want to share with you--they will probably explain more about the week than anything else:

1. You don't have to understand everything to know that something is right. Olga--I think I mentioned her briefly before--is a 35-year-old woman we've been teaching for about 2 weeks now. She likes to talk a lot--I might say she's a little bit of an airhead, if I understood her Czech better than I do. (She's hard to understand sometimes.) But she has three kids and is divorced and came to Max's baptism--remember? SHE AGREED TO BE BAPTISED ON JANUARY FIRST!!! WOOO! I know that she doesn't quite get everything yet, but when we set goals, God helps us achieve those goals if we're willing to work at it. She needs to make reading a little more of a priority than it is now, I think, but I think she can get there.

2. God reaches out to us and gives us every opportunity to build a relationship with Him, yet it's still in our hands whether or not we do so. Our fears can hold us back when we deny that they exist.

Petr number two, the "golden" one with whom the spirit was always incredibly strong--well, he dumped us. I wish I could have made a big scene about it, like in Legally Blonde or something, but I don't think my Czech is quite there. Being a missionary has a surprising amount of similarities to dating life (i.e. communication is really important, you meet a lot of people that have interest, but only a few really last, sometimes when you're trying to talk to people about the purpose of life they ask you to go out dancing with them instead, etc.). But it's interesting, because I KNOW that he felt the spirit when weve been there. I know, because I've felt it every time and I could read it in him that he felt it. But he's afraid. We had a discussion about Jesus Christ that we'd planned to have, even after he'd already told us he didn't want to keep meeting. We both had the opportunity to testify really strongly that we knew these things were true and that he could find out for himself whether or not they were true if he were willing to try these things we were telling him. He kept saying that he's never had any friends who were believers and that he just doesn't think he needs to read some book--he's content. I'd always kind of thought that the people who wanted to stop meeting with the missionaries were only those who didn't really get the meaning behind the message in the first place. I can tell that he's afraid of something--of change maybe. I've asked him before if he's afraid and he always says no. I think recognizing our fears is the first step to conquering them. It's like that little lie Satan tells people--that he doesn't really exist--I've come to think that's the most powerful tool he possesses.

3. God wants me to have success even more than I want me to have success. On Saturday we met this kid, Martin. Hes in his mid-20's or so and was really interested in our message and hearing more, even though he didn't consider himself a believer. He was really intrigued by the idea that he could find out for sure whether or not God exists. So we took him to KFC after maybe 5 minutes of talking on the street and taught him about prayer and how he could ask God if He's really there. Then we invited him to church with us--AND HE REALLY CAME!! Woo! Great, right?

Except. We'd only talked with him about prayer and about God, and maybe a little about God's plan. So when people stood up and bore their testimonies in church about living prophets and the priesthood and temples and (this one came up a lot) how important it was that this is the ONLY TRUE CHURCH, I started to sink in my chair with worries about the poor kid next to me. We sounded like a cult, I just knew it. He was going to be scared and leave and never want to speak with us again.
But he decided to stay.

Sunday school (the Gospel Principles class doesn't exist in this branch--big bummer) was about the stick of Joseph and the stick of Judah. Way over his head. But he stayed for priesthood. Which was about the talk by President Uchtdorf--pride and the priesthood or something like that. AHHH!

But the crazy thing is that, while he was really curious and it was completely new for him, he didn't cower away. He said he could tell that these people were really good people, and he set up to meet again with us on Tuesday. And I realized that God will do whatever is necessary for people--he'll inspire others to say the right thing when I can't control them. He does what it takes when I do what it takes. Cool, huh?

4. God has a sense of humor. A few days ago Sister Laws and I were looking through a list of gospel terms in Czech. We laughed over a few of them and said things like, "yeah right, like I'm ever going to say something like Born in the Covenant here on my mission, hahahaa". But sure enough, a few days later we had a lesson with an investigator, Marek. The CR's oldest member (he joined during Communism!) came in and asked if he could join us. We invited him to share his experience with baptism, as that's what we were talking about, and somehow he starts talking about temple ordinances and, sure enough, the term Born in the Covenant comes out of his mouth!! What the--?! Sometimes I'm amazed by these members here...in both good and bad ways. Luckily our investigator wasn't the type to get too weirded out. But man oh man, I bet God laughed at us then.

Those are probably the highlights. It's been pretty cold this week, but today's not so bad. Sounds like it's pretty bad there too--Chris and Corey, if you die I probably won't be able to come home for the funeral, so please wait until next Christmas, okay? :) Kidding. For Christmas we get three whole days off! I can't even imagine what we'll do with so much time. And one day we'll have a big mission conference/talent show and rumor has it that a General Authority is coming. Weeeee! I'll keep you updated.

I love you all lots! Start looking for something from me in the mail soon!

S laskou

Sestra Dean

November 29th, 2010

Hot dang, I have the best family in the wooooooooooorld.\

This week has been much better. Well, I guess it's only been 4 days since I last emailed you...but it's been good still. Our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of Czech food (mushroom spaghetti?! i suppose that's just a czech twist on italian food... it was actually really good) and Elder Blair's apple pie. I'm not gonna lie, I was missing my dear friends from the sweet potato family, but it was definitely enough. We also had a rousing game of football--it's interesting playing football as a sister missionary with elder missionaries...Sister Laws kept asking me if two-handed touching is in the white handbook. Haha.

Petr dva (2) is an interesting fellow. I think he's golden potential, but we're hitting a little bit of a rocky spot. I forgot to mention that last week he prayed for the first time with us--but not after a lot of encouragement and me saying a prayer first. Looking back, I can't decide how sincere the prayer was. At the time I definitely thought it was, but he hasn't prayed since because he says he's not sure that God really exists. He says he needs to believe in him before he prays about it, rather than praying to see if it really works. We spent a while talking about prayer with him and what it is, etc, but I think we're going to keep teaching him other things and see if his desire to know increases. The funny thing is, he says he really wants to know--that he really has that desire to find out whether or not God's there. He just wants to take things slow. But I feel like taking things slow just makes one's fears bigger and prolongs potential happiness. It's not like we want him to jump in the baptismal font or anything--we just want him to try a prayer or two, ask a simple question--"Boze, jsi tam?"
There was a baptism we invited him to on Saturday, but he'd already planned to come to church on Sunday and didn't want too much too soon. I prayed really hard about him the night before the baptism, after our meeting, seeking guidance. I felt that if we could get him to the baptism he'd feel the spirit there and things would improve for him. I devised a plan to make him cookies and stop by on our way to give him one last chance to come. I really felt good about the idea...but he wasn't even home. No dice. Isn't it interesting, learning to follow the spirit? Liba (I hope you remember her!) is getting baptised on Dec. 5th (happy little birthday present, right?!) in Brno--I'm wondering if we could get him there with us. It's a 2-hour trip each way, but maybe he'd enjoy it.

But we did bring another investigator with us--Olga. She's a new investigator--single, 35 year-old mom w/ 3 kids. She's Catholic, but met the missionaries last summer and planned to meet with them and ended up losing their phone number. We've taught her twice already. Can I just say that the Primary room is a beautiful thing?? She brought her sons to both lessons, so we taught her there and let him play with things during the lesson. I'm not exactly sure how much she got out of the lesson, but she sure got a lot out of seeing how comfortable he felt there.

The baptism was interesting. I can sympathise w/ Bek's email about the baptism, because that's just how it is here too. It's mostly missionaries that come, a few investigators maybe, and a few members who are feeling really benevolent. We all met together and caught a bus to take us 30 minutes to some swimming pool that you can rent out. Then, we waited for another half hour outside because the people who'd booked it before us weren't quite finished yet. Inside there was a little bit of chaos, but hey--the man covenanted and began a new life and that's the beautiful part. She really liked the feeling there, despite how small and informal it probably seemed. Afterwards the man, Max--a refugee from Russia who speaks perfect English and is hilarious--bore his "testimony", which was mostly condemning the Elders who served in Yekaterinsburg Russia 5 years back (holler Briegle!!) because they only contacted young women, even though he had sincere interest in the Church, and condemning the Catholic church because he thinks they do everything incorrectly. Luckily the Elder who translated it into Czech used a gentler interpretation. Afterwards Max came up to me--"Was my testimony okay? Do you think President Monson would have liked it? I thought so--he really likes stories and such, so I thought he'd approve of it." Haha!

Sunday, both Petr and Lumir (the less-active man) came to church. Petr said he enjoyed the meeting, but left after the first hour, saying that there was a lot in his head and that we couldn't come visit him that night because there was a lot for him to think about, but maybe next week. I'm not so sure what that means, but we'll deal with that on Friday, I suppose. Lumir stayed for all 3 hours. When we arrived, he was sitting all alone in the back corner, somewhat disdainful, so I sat next to him. During sacrament, he turned to me and said--"Have you ever thought about how, since this is supposed to be the body of Christ, we've probably eaten him up several times over again already?" He's a really funny guy. I think Sunday School was really good for him--all about having the gospel written on your heart. But NO ONE SAT NEXT TO HIM DURING PRIESTHOOD!!! ASHKDFALJ;LAWKEJF;LKASFD! WHO ARE WE AS CHURCH MEMBERS?! I mean REALLY, people! There were people he knew there--his HOME TEACHER who is also the ward mission leader didn't even sit by him. After church I went up to his home teacher and mentioned that Lumir could really use his help now. I don't think he liked that all too much. But Lumir booked it after that and I barely got to say goodbye to the poor fellow. Yes, he needs to get over himself. But it'd help him if a few people were there to hold his hand as he did. There's a very sick lady in the ward who has a burning testimony but can't make it to church--we're taking him to visit her with us on Friday, hoping that he'll lose himself as he thinks of others. He wasn't super keen on the idea, but we didn't really give him much choice. He's the type that resists but is also secretly flattered that we want him there.

So that's most of that. We meet with Pavel on Wednesday. Who knows what that'll bring. We have plans to talk with 5 or 6 people about baptism this week--pray for us!

Danielle--your letter is still...a work in process, being carefully crafted in my thoughts. Don't be mad. Today we've set aside time to write letters and yours will be first.

Also, an investigator from Jicin (where sister laws served before) is in love with her. He told a member there yesterday. Haha! She is just too beautiful for her own good! She is also an accounting major, with maybe a semester left, and always points out big 5 firms when we see them--I think we've seen 4 of the big 5 here in ostrava. Maybe she'll come back and be an accountant in the CR--who knows? She's really great though.

I think Petr would really like the DVD--he has a laptop, so he'd be able to watch it on there. Go for it, I say. He is moving to Canada officially on March 1st (shout out to Gar Beecher--what a good day, right?), and he will be staying there for a year...which means that we are going to be taking a family trip to see him once I get home and then you can take a good look at him. Weeeee!

But that's basically life. It's REALLY snowing now--REALLY! Don't worry, I have a nice down coat, boots, scarves, gloves, hat--I'm surprised at how I dressed at home when it snowed, looking back. I was an idiot! You can never have too much clothing on when it's snowing out. Beks, sweat a lot of me on that bike, PLEASE.

Thanks for the report on HP. I'm already looking forward to it. Action-packed, magic-packed, sounds like my style.

I love you SO SO much! I will let you know about calls asap!

cau!

s. dean

I'mgratefulforemailsI'mgratefulforlettersI'mgratefulforpackages. (November 25th, 2010)

My Dear Dear Family,

Wooo! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! You have no idea how much longer a week and a half is than a normal week between p-days! It was SO GOOD to hear from you! ALL of you!

Today we are in Olomouc to feast and football and be Americans in the heart of Europe together as a zone. Awesome. For some reason today I keep remembering last Thanksgiving and everyone gathered around watching the BYU game...let me know how it goes, I guess. :)

Last week was a pretty rough week, I'm not going to lie. Probably the toughest of my mission thus far--but I've had it pretty easy as a missionary, so I think it's mild compared to some. S. Laws and I had a lot of high expectations as the week began, but one thing after another fell through. For example, Linh had some family problems and left to go to Prague with his uncle and just barely contacted us yesterday, despite our attempted calls and texts. He doesn't really want to divulge much information, but he should be coming back next week. He was supposed to get baptised in 2 days...if someone could teach him all the commandments and take him to church 2 more times in the next 2 days down there in Prague that'd be a great help. Velka skoda!

Then, on Wednesday the CR celebrated the day they got their independence. We had the entire day lined up with meetings--the ENTIRE day--and EVERY SINGLE PERSON cancelled on us...or didn't show up at all. So we ended up having a long day of contacting and tracting. We tracted one huge building and no one even wanted to get past 'hello' with us. Once we had gone through 50 doors or so we realized why--we met some Jehova's Witnesses who lived there and told us that they go around knocking on doors and talking to people often in that very same building. AHHH! A lot of people here get us confused with JWs--and there are a lot of negative feelings towards them, largely because they don't believe in blood transfusions and this really seems to bother Czechs, among other things.

And to top it off--I locked both the keys and the phone inside our apartment as we were about to go out tracting some more. Leave it to me to do something like that. Our neighbors were really nice and helpful, but it ended up taking the entire rest of the night.

Then, on Friday we had a meeting with Petr! Woo! We love all Petrs!! We brought Bro. Huska with us from the branch. The lesson started out really great and spiritual. Bro H kind of talked his brains out, but he said some really great things that Petr needed to hear, I think. We ended the meeting by inviting him to come to church with us. Petr paused for a second, considering it, and Bro H. jumped in with "Well we really don't want to rush you or anything you could wait and come next week if you want and you don't have to stay for all three hours you can just come to the first one and really whatever it's up to you we don't want you to feel like it's too fast..." and on and on and I think it kind of scared Petr because he decided that, yes, it probably was too fast--even though he'd been about to agree the second before. So that was a big bummer too--after a week that seemed like a long series of rejections, it seemed like the final straw and Sister Laws and I ended up in a big heap of tears and humility on the floor in our apartment.
But good news: he is coming with us this Sunday.

And this week has been much much better.

One reason: Meet Pavel.
-20 years old
-studies geography and crisis management at the university--wants to spend his life doing humanitarian aid
-comes from a Catholic family
-likes scouts and camping, etc.
-not bad looking at all and can grow a fair bit of facial hair in 2 weeks
-a little quiet at first, but opens up as the conversation goes
I may have mentioned him before--we had a lesson with him 2 weeks ago, but he was one of the Wednesday cancellations last week. We gave him a BOM last time we met with him. This time we showed the Joseph Smith movie to him and brought along a member, Tomas, who was baptized 1.5 years ago and taught by the beloved Sister Austin (my MTC teacher). He's 19. When we asked him if he'd read in the Book of Mormon he told us that he'd started at the beginning, but it was kind of hard to understand, so he skipped to 3 Nephi and read about Christ coming. !! This is a big deal! Normally when people don't understand they just stop reading. He said he really liked the idea of Christ visiting the people in America too--it made a lot of sense to him.

Then we watched the video. We talked about living prophets. We asked him what he would want to know if he were given the opportunity to have a 20 minute meeting with God. He said he'd ask which church was true, why he was here on earth, what he should do in life. I KNOW! This kid is GOLDEN! So he said he'd pray about Joseph Smith and about everything and keep reading in the Book of Mormon and we have another meeting with him next week. The feeling was so great and overpowering as we talked with him--he's really sincere and looking for this! AAHHHH! This is what I love about being a missionary! So please pray for him. Okay, thanks.

Another reason: we met a less active man on Monday named Lumir. He's 36 and hasn't been to church in over 2 years but has been coming less often for far longer than that. He was really funny--he could have talked forever!--but also really lonely. I think he stopped coming because he didn't feel he belonged--at least that's the feeling I got because he kept talking about how everyone was so serious and boring at church and he felt like everyone just sat there and listened and believed whatever they heard. That is definitely not our branch. We invited him to come to church with us and he's still considering it--I was surprised at how interested he seemed in coming back with us, but he made it clear that, IF he did come it would be because he wanted to come, not because he felt bad for not coming in so long. He also told us that he doesn't drink coffee because he doesn't like the taste, not because it's forbidden--but I could tell there were still embers of a testimony inside him that had once been aflame. As we left he told me to tell the former branch president that he stopped coming because he didn't want to listen to those people talk anymore, not because he didn't want to be a member.

I couldn't help but thinking how different things could be for him if he'd had a dedicated home teacher. People just need to feel loved. I see a lot of good in him. Here in Ostrava there are officially about 150 members, but only about 30 come to church. In one quarter last year only 6% of the people did their home teaching. A correlation? I think so... People need to just take care of each other! We NEED each other!!

And other people that I will report on in future accounts. (I.e. an investigator that the elders were teaching but asked us to teach instead--she's 23 and lives really close to us. She already has said she wants to be baptised, but she works every Sunday...serving beer in a bar with her mom. Misha. It'll be interesting, that's for sure.)

Other thoughts:

Grandpa/Grandma can email me if they choose, but I will have to write them back. But sometimes I don't have a ton of time to read everything, so probably a normal letter would be better.

Big box will be fine. We'll probably be on a train or something, so I won't have to carry it much. Hearing about the size and weight makes me think about what could be in it far more than I should. :) I love you mom.

Also: the knighting pictures. So, even though everyone in the CR speaks Czech, it's easy to tell differences between the ways people speak in different areas of the country. In Brno, people are notorious for using a lot of slang that they don't use in other areas of the country (although I've heard some of it here in Ostrava too). There's a woman in the Branch who takes the missionaries up to Spilberk fortress once every transfer and quizzes them on their Brno slang--if you pass you are then knighted a Brnak/Brniacka. So I passed, and therefore was knighted--my first step towards taking the city by storm.

BEKAH!!!! AHHH! I can't believe you're actually in the country! I LOVED seeing your picture--YOU as a real missionary! Sometimes when I explain missionary work to people we contact on the street I tell people about you going to Taiwan and learning Chinese and people are all astounded. Don't worry, after the first few weeks things go by faster...before you know it the transfer will be basically over. Hold on to each moment--don't worry so much about what will happen next, but make each moment count as you live it. For reals. I just LOVE you! I am greatly anticipating your letter with more deets.

Gayann--OH MY! Can I just say, you are AWESOME?! I already got the package and you have no idea how much I needed to feel some love at the time--it was right on cue. Thank you thank you thank you--be expecting a letter from me in the mail around Christmas. :)

I keep seeing signs for the new HP movie--any good? Not that my mind's in babylon or anything....

Family, I just LOVE you! You're just so good to me and just plain good in general! I want to hear some news soon about a new baby in the family or something exciting like that...what are Chris and Corey even doing over there?? Sometimes it seems so foreign hearing about other lives--why don't you spend more time talking to strangers? Isn't that what everyone does?

I'm so so so grateful for you! I'm grateful for the truths that I've grown up learning my entire life--that I know without at doubt that God exists, that He knows me personally and cares for me, that He is involved in my life, and that I can choose who I want to be. Isn't that beautiful?

Let's tell everyone about it, okay? Okay.

Lurve,

Sestra Dean