February 21st, 2011

Cest, fam!

So I'm emailing you from the fairytale city of Prague. Sister Laws had to renew her visa today, so we woke up early, took a fancy fast pendolino train, took some pictures on the charles bridge and may or may not have done the tiniest bit of shopping. :) This is our LAST week together! AHH! Or so we anticipate...I don't think President would leave us together--even though our investigator Klara sent him a request that we stay in Ostrava via email. She came to church yesterday with her daughter Tereza. Tereza told me, "I really don't want you to go!"and her mom got this knowing look on her face, smiled, and said, "Who knows? Maybe you won't." She doesn't know that we know. Haha. But president told me today that he had transfers figured out 2 weeks ago so that people's input wouldn't influence his decision. That means next week I will be emailing on Wednesday. Maybe I'll be in Ostrava, maybe I'll be somewhere else....who knows?

But this week has been great! We just have so many great investigators! I love teaching them so much--often I can see their faith growing in the 40 minutes that we teach them, the spirit works that well. Rosta, cute little old cartoony looking man, has a baptismal date for March 26th. He's not as scared as he was, said he's getting used to things and he's still buzzing his way through the Book of Mormon.
On Thursday we had another major contacting spree--remember the 1000 contact day last transfer? This time we went for 50 phone numbers (focusing on getting phone numbers vs. just talking to people makes a big difference in how we contact...). At least, we had planned on 50 numbers initially. Then the night before, district leader Elder Doxey (the bathroom one) called and said that he wanted to up it to 60. 60 we easily accomplished by 7:00 pm, so we had to up it even more--70 phone numbers! We came away with SEVENTY-TWO PHONE NUMBERS at the end of the day. Niiiiiiiiiiiice. I love that we make such goals and work towards them as a district. It's amazing the spirit it brings--I hardly even notice the time slipping away! I've learned that when we set goals with the spirit, the Lord really honors our hard work and helps us achieve--even exceed!--our expectations. I.e. Sister Laws and I made a goal to each get a phone number on the tram as we traveled to meet the other missionaries. Sometimes this is difficult--it all just seems to depend on the tram and people in it. Sometimes you can run into people who just want to talk as they travel but have no intention of setting up with you at all. Other times no one wants to talk to you at all. So we got on the tram and began immediately talking. The first two women I talked to were the long-talking, non-committing types. I was worried I wouldn't have enough time. Finally, with just a few stops left, I broke away from the second long-talker and headed for a cool, trendy-looking girl. We talked for a few minutes and I was able to get her number just before I got off the tram! It was great! The Lord really does bless us so much! So today we have a great deal of calls to make. One guy actually contacted us afterwards and asked if we could meet earlier, on Saturday. We talked with him a bit. He's Martin (part II!), 19-years-old, but really mature. Already a believer, but not really satisfied with any of the churches he's been involved with. We had a really great meeting with him about prayer, shared the Joseph Smith story with him and gave him the Book of Mormon. He was so excited about it, he asked us where he could go buy it before we had the chance to tell him it was free! We have another meeting with him tomorrow.

Also: we're meeting Martin's (#1) mother on Wednesday. Eeek! She doesn't want us to talk about the gospel, but....we'll see. Pray for her!

Another miracle: we had FIVE investigators at church yesterday! That's a big deal in Ostrava! AND MICHAL WAS ONE OF THEM! We met with him again and the difference in him was miraculous--he was happy, joking, seemed well-rested.. We taught about keeping the Sabbath day holy, which he agreed to try. Thus, he came to church! He really liked it, but couldn't stay the entire time. One of the really solid members in the church talked about faith, which was great for all our investigators. He actually served a mission in Washington State and speaks fluent english. The talks were all really powerful--I felt so good sitting with them, knowing it was what they needed to hear. But we do have another meeting with Michal on Tuesday. Thank you all for your prayers--I think they really helped! Keep it up!

Another person that came is Kaja--a friend of another investigator who hasn't had much desire to meet with us since we taught about the law of chastity. He comes from a long line of devout Catholics and our last meeting revolved a lot around baptism--we had to see if he knew what the Joseph Smith story meant for him. He sat next to me and was shaking and looking pale most of the time. He got up and left before the talk from that former missionary in our branch. I later found him in another room--he said that he normally went to church with his family and he just really wanted to know what the right thing to do was because he didn't want to hurt anyone. We talked about Joseph Smith's example. I see a lot of potential in him...however, he has a bit of a crush on me and sometimes I get really uncomfortable during lessons because he looks at me a little too much. But his desires really are pure and good--just before he met us he'd been praying for God to show him the right path. Cool huh? Miracles miracles miracles!

On Saturday we took a train down to Brno with Martin (#1) for a conference about missionary work! It was really neat--they had Czech members share their experiences serving missions. It was all really touching and I think it made the idea of serving a mission more real to Martin. He's a little worried about what his family would think, but he still has a bit of time to worry about that.

ahh i must go bye!