September 28 2015

So this week has been significantly better than last week. I've been going through some learning experiences in regards to the spirit and how The Lord uses us, His missionaries, in His work. I've had several small instances where people have just constantly rejecting us it seemed, and I just was beginning to develop a sense of failure due to not being able to find people. We've been trying to establish appropriate goals for our success as missionaries and we were constantly falling short, and that was very difficult for me. I felt like we were trying to do what was right, and that even though we were trying, we were not having any success! (that was my thought) Well I was wrong... I realized, or rather, re-realized, that the Lord has his own plans for us and for his Father's children. We only see a small piece of the entire picture, which means that we need to just do our best. Also, as a missionary, I almost felt as though we're entitled to success because of our sacred calling, but how wrong I was... or at least my point of view. The missionary truly is a servant of our Father in Heaven, but that doesn't mean that we're angels that have 100% and continual contact and understanding with God. As a matter or fact, the scriptures tell us that the Lord wants men to do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness. The Lord wants us to make decisions for ourselves, and the way it works is that we'll be able to have His spirit to guide us when we're actively making decisions and performing labors based on our own understanding of what is right and wrong. But we're imperfect, and that means that we won't always have the best ideas for what is right and wrong, but that, I believe, is when the spirit will come in and correct our thoughts if we are open to receiving those promptings. Another Thing I've noticed is that when we are feeling down about something, the Adversary loves to take that opportunity to come in and try to break us down even further. The Key is to notice that is is him, and when we notice that it is him, we can tell him to leave us, and we can fill that space in our heart where he's trying to dwell, with things from God, and when we do that, Satan cannot dwell there any longer. I have had experiences with this several times over the last several days and this is what it has been like for me. The Other day, I found myself worrying about something trivial, I can't even remember it now because I've chosen not to, but whatever it was, I was allowing it to bother me, and I wasn't allowing myself to move on. I let the Adversary creep in and I was feeling down and sort of depressed about it, bu about 10 minutes after I had begun to feel this way, I realized that the Adversary was trying to break me down, and I obviously was not happy about that. In the midst of my hour of weakness I was still able to recognize that I was being acted upon by our greatest enemy. I knelt down and began to pray. And I remember telling my Heavenly Father what I was feeling, and I remember telling my Heavenly Father that I would not leave any place in my Heart for the Adversary any longer, and that I would only fill that space with what HE had to put there, and I felt my gloomy feelings begin to go away. But I knew they were going away, that's the funny thing, I had consciously made that decision, to say, "no, I don't have time for you Satan." and if I don't have time for him, then he can't be there. And so Yesterday, when Elder Boyce and I were out contacting/Tracting Ponoloks (the buildings that were built for housing during communism, they look like cubes), while we were out tracting them yesterday, we had decided on a specific goal and it felt like we were not achieving our goal. we were trying to find a young family who wanted to hear and learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ topic, and we were just not finding ANYONE who wanted to hear about it. Elder Boyce was busing ringing the ponolok that we were at... (every ponolok has a small place next to the entrance with the names of every family living in each of the small apartments in that ponolok. Sext to each family name is a button that when pressed, rings a telephone in that particular appartment, and when somebody answers the phone, we can talk to them through a speaker next to the entrance to the building, so often we go "tracting" ponoloks, and just stand in front and call every appartment and speak to whomever picks up the phones or answers.) anyway... Elder Boyce was tracting this ponolok and while he was ringing the separate apartments, I was about 20 meters away, speaking to and stopping people who were just walking by on the cobblestone pathways next to the building. I stopped and talked to a family who told me about somehing, and (through my broken Czech) I understood that they had had some negative experience or SOMETHING with the Book of Mormon, and they were just not interested in out message, but they were patient with my Czech. I continued to try to talk to them and see if I could find any way to get them interested but they were adamant about their decision to move on. This type of contacting happened for the rest of the 45minutes that Elder Boyce was tracting the ponolok. Continuous rejection and people actively telling me, "NO, get out of here!" and other people who actually just waved me away like I was some stray dog or something. I was beginning to develop a habit of people just saying, "no." cause That was all that I knew... ever since coming here, I've never heard a person whom we've contacted say, "yes" it's always been either, "no" or "maybe" or "don't have time" or "don't have intrest" or "don't be mad, but, no" Occasionally we recieve a "maybe" but that's a rare occasion. it was habitual to just accept those responses. Then, right before we were about to pack up and go home, I stopped another woman, who looked just like any other person whom I'd stopped yesterday, and I explained who we were and what we were doing, and I explianed that we have a message about Jesus Christ, and then I asked her, "would you like to learn more?" expecting the standard... i hear... "ano" then I flipped out... "ano" mean (yes). I didn't know how to explain in Czech what I was feeling so I just said, "super!" (which is exactly the same thing in English as "awesome!"). Then I looked over towards where Elder Boyce was and called out, "Starší!"("Elder!") Elder Boyce looked up at me, and I said, "Půjd!" ("come!") he walked over and we began talking to this woman more and then we were shocked to hear that, Yes, she legitimately had interest! She then explained that she didn't have very much time. I was so excited, I just kept looking over at Elder Boyce while we were talking to her. I was just so excited that I whipped out a Book of Mormon, Restoration pamphlet, Plan of Salvation pamphlet, and a Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet... there I was holding 4 books, about to hand them all to her, and then Elder Boyce looked at me and asked, "what are you..? Just chose 1..." I took a look at what I was holding and... yes, asking this woman whom we'd known for 2 minutes to keep a commitment like THAT would not be a good way to start. we ended up just giving her a book of mormon, and getting her email address and found out that she lives in another city so we won't be able to teach her. so we're going to send her info to the elders in Olomuc. anyway, that's my funny story that happened Yesterday (sunday) Some other Interesting things that happened this week include: - I helped make, and we ate Halushky ( I spelled that using english so that you can pronounce it correctly) Elder Boyce:Before I forget we also had culture night last week. Thursday night we went to the philharmonic. It was a great concert! We listened to Dvořák, Bruch, and Beethoven; Dvořák and Bruch were my favorite, but especially Bruch was excellent because of the soloist Vadim Gluzman. We saw the opening concert of their 70th concert season so it was a big to-do. Before the beginning of the concert they baptized their new CD by sprinkling some champagne on it. There was a Catholic priest and everything :) Mom:I love that Connor didn't even mention going to the philharmonic.