March 21 2016

This week has been a good one. I have found great strength come from remembering my past spiritual experiences. If something was learned in the past by the power of the Holy Ghost, it is true, period. I also had the opportunity to share this concept with another member and her family. She expressed also that she was having Pochyby (doubts), and that her faith was having a hard time. I remember feeling like I needed to share the same lesson with her, that President McConkie had shared with me only a week earlier. So I asked her, (in czech of course) "do you believe that God has an individual plan, just for you?" This sweet memeber thought about this for a second and then said, "right now... no" I then told her that He does, and then proceeded to draw for her, on the whiteboard, the same diagram that President McConkie had drawn for me, about Doubts, about faith, and about spiritual experiences. I then felt impressed to tell her that something that she has in her life, is rozruch, which means, Excitement, but not the happy kind, the kind that refers to like Lots of activity... in other words, there is too much going on in her life. with her young children always speaking at the top of their lungs and flying around all over the place, and noise, and just the list goes on... She had absolutely no quiet time, ever... I told her that I wanted her to go home, and take 10 minutes of her time, just 10 minutes, and be completely alone, and to have no noise, nothing... and to pray, and litterally give Everything on her Shoulders to God... because he has a plan for her, and they simply need to be open enough to follow it. While we were talking, her kids left the room for a second... and it was quiet... er... and I said, "do you feel that? Quiet?" to which she replied, "yes". She expressed that she wanted to try it, and she said that she already was begining to feel like this was the right thing to do. After they left, I realized that during the lesson, I had no even thought about what I was saying. It had just come to me. I realized that, when the Lord needs me to be able to speak Czech, I will be able to speak Czech. So they left. And then Today, while we (the sisters and Elder Pickett and I) were going to visit the tourist city of Česky Krumlov, the sisters told us that while they were visiting this member yesterday, this memeber had expressed to them their appreciation for what they had learned when I shared that lesson with them. This member had taken the challenge to go home and pray, to give herself 10 minutes, to just give everything to the lord, and to get away from all other worldly distractions. She said that it had worked for her, and hearing that was a confirmation to me, that what I had invited her to do, was directed by the spirit. Also... Yesterday, I directed Sacrament Meeting for the first time... I was a little nervous, but at the same time I was not worried about it. When the time came, we started and everything went normally (CBud normal). But Sunday School was another story...

C-Bud Namesti

March 14, 2016

So... This week I went to Prague again, to complete my Visa Work, I'm officially a resident teď (now), and I'm serving as the Fist councelor in the Branch presidency as I mentioned last week. We were there a long part of the day, it takes 2.5 hours to travel to Prague and then 2.5 back... 5 hours of nothing but riding on a train on Tuesday, so our finding time and missionary time was shot on that day, but it was still an incredible day. Before Elder Pickett and I left Prague on Tuesday, I stayed in the Office after everyone had left because I wanted to ask President McConkie a question. He was in the restroom so Elder Pickett and I waited in the lobby area, and I remember rehersing in my mind how I wanted to tell him that I would like to talk to him for a few minutes, and then when he came out, I said, "President, do you have a few minutes I'd like to ask you a question." "sure Elder Dean, come on in." he told me. He walked me into his office and I told him, "President, my question... I want to know..." and tears came, "I want to know how I can overcome Doubt." "Doubt?" he asked. "What is the nature of your Doubt? Whether or not the church is true or... what?" I explained to him that over the last couple of weeks/days, I have been having doubts come into my head about whether or not the Church is actually true. I had been having doubts, and thoughts like, "do you really think that Joseph smith was a prophet of God?" or "you really think this church is true? you are only feeling fake made up emotions, and this is just a big scam." or "all this crap in the past that you called the spirit, it's just emotions. If God was real, he would reveal himself to you! When they say 'trust in God's timing' they are really just fooling you by making you think that the next lucky time when a Prayer is 'answered' is in 'god's timing' but it's only chance, and that's how the church fools you". and I had thoughts like that. But President McConkie was able to see right though me, and he said, "Elder Dean, do you think that Doubt is a bad thing?" "yes" I said through some tears. "Well it's not... Do you think that God thinks Doubt is a bad thing?" he asked. Then I said, "yeah... well, not any more I guess seeing as you just told me that it isn't." President then turned with me to the BOM where it says that faith is not a perfect knowledge. "Faith is not a perfect knowledge," he told me. "Faith always includes a percentage of doubt, otherwise it would be a perfect knowledge." That made sense to me... "Elder Dean, what is the most Spiritual Experience that you have ever had?" I thought about it for a minute, and then I said, "When I Baptized my little sister." He then asked, "why? what did you learn from that experience?" I thought about that for a second and then said, "I knew that Jesus Christ was real, because I felt like I was litterally standing in His Place, and that I was doing Exactly what he would have been doing." "Okay so you learned that 'Jesus christ is a real person', what else did you learn?" he asked. "I learned, that Baptism was real." I said, then President asked, "Okay, so you Learned that the Baptism was real, that the authority is real... That authority that you hold. How did you know that?" I thought again... then said, "Because I was baptizing my sister, and I just knew it was for her, and she's my family." "so you learned that Familes are forever." he said. "yeah." I agreed. President McConkie then drew a line on a piece of paper, and then lifted the shapie for a second and then continued to draw the line. "In our lives, we live by faith, but sometimes, Gaps occur, and we need to recall on past experience to strengthen us through our times of doubt." he said. This principle is true, I know that it is true, becasue I can call on past spiritual experiences like when I baptized my wonderful sister to support me through those times when I may doubt the truthfullness of the Gospel. If you want spiritual Experiences... have them. pray for them, and make sacrifices in your lives, and ask to be Humbled enough to accept God's will, and to ever have it become our will. that takes time... an entire lifetime to be exact, and even after death we'll continue to develope our faith. Fascinating... Love you all, sorry for not having much other that this for my weekly email. Elder Dean. Below... Check out this Naměstí here in CBud!

March 6, 2016

Hey Everyone, I just want to start out by telling you that I am no longer living in the United States according to the Church's understanding... officially recieved the call to be the 1st councelor in the Branch Presidency here in CBud, and to hold this calling, they needed to get my memebership record over here. I am not quite sure how I feel about that, but I know that the Lord has a plan... somehow. I walked into the office at the church building here in CBud, witht the young 29 year old Branch President, and they pulled up the church Records, and I saw my name pull up, and around my name was the name of each of the members of my family. I said, "Hey there's my family! :D " and then the Branch President clicked on something, and suddenly... my whole family dissapeared, and It said that I suddenly was part of the České Budějovice Branch here in the Czech Republic. Around my name was no longer my family, but nobody on the screen but me, and then he backed out into a previous window, and a list of all the members belonging to the Branch appeared, and there was my name! So... I guess that's going to be moved back to Eagle Mountain... eventually? Anyway. This area is booming, there are less members in this Branch than any other Branch I have ever served in, but these members, despite their quantity, are helping to build this branch so well, that about 40 percent of the congregation at church are non members. This is incredible! There are about 20 regularly attending members (if I understand that correctly), and that was about the number of people that we had at church yesterday. This city is beautiful, it has one main street in the city that is basically just an outside mall, a lot like city park or something like that, except you get cars driving through here as well, as people are walking all over the place. We live in one of the Nicest appartments I have ever seen in the mission. A lot larger than the appartment that I stayed in while in Jihlava, and Everything in this appartment is like brand new. Our washing machine door actually closes! We buy groceries for a member here because she's unable to purchase them herself due to her physical condition, she's just too weak to get out and get them herself, so we go get them for her once a week. When we visited her, we talked about faith as a principle of Power, refering to the story of Jesus and Peter walking on the Water. After our little spiritual thought on Faith, she bore her testimony of the divinity of the Book of mormon, and of her love for the Savior. I could not control it, and tears came to my eyes as I realized the powerful testimony that this woman has. I want a Testimony like that. Missionaries in the Past touched her life, and they may have no idea just how much this woman is grateful for them, for sharing the Gospel with her. I am struggling at the moment to regain a powerful conviction and determination to share the preach the Gospel. I know it will come back, but my biggest desire, is that when it comes back, I will be able to keep it. so often I think I get excited about he Gospel, but then I just kinda... forget why it really is so important. It truly is incredible to me that our Trials help us to come so much Closer to our Savior, even when we don't nessesarily see it sometimes. Since coming on my mission, I've continuously felt that the Strait and Narrow path has just gotten more Strait, and more narrow, and more strait, and more narrow... that every single decision will ether keep me on it, or throw me two or three feet to either side, and that I now feel like I cross the strait and narrow path a lot, but that it's really hard to stay on it for long. But at the same time, I am able to see how I am a much better person now, than I was before my mission, so I dunno, maybe I'm just unaware of something, or I am in the process of learning something. one thing is for sure... the Adversary is working really really hard to break me down, and I feel like evey waking moment of the day is an internal battle of Faith, vs, the world. and sometimes I just wish it could stop... on that topic, I remember the other day, I just went into our bedroom, (this was when I lived in jihlava about two weeks ago), and I knelt down, and I just asked God, "Heavenly Father, I feel like I have the Adversary attacking me from Every direction, can I please just have 60 seconds, without him attacking me, can I please just have 60 seconds to be with you, and know that you are there?" I felt a peace come over me, and for the first time in a long time, I felt nothing, but peace, and Love, and joy, and I knew, and I know, that my Heavenly Father was allowing me to remember that He is there, all the time. This mission is the craziest thing Ever... I'm never going to be the same person again. Today (monday), my district, we decided to visit a cool castle looking thing, and so we hopped on a bus, and headed over to this touristy place, although I cannot rememebr exactly where it is... all I can rememebr is the name of the city... Třeboň. in Třeboň, we walked around this lake and took some fun pictures at this Giant Tomb of this rich european guy or something that lived like who knows how many hundreds of years ago... pretty cool, I'll include some pictures. After we visited there, we headed back into town, saw a guy that happened to be walking the same direction as us, and we asked him if he knew where any good resturaunts were, and he directed us to a resturaunt underneath a castle... litterally we walked underneath the castle, and there is this wood door, and it's got the little square barred window with the wood slide that you see in like Lord of the Rings, and then when we walked in, there was a bar, and it went down into this little dining area, and then we followed a cramped hallway down into another part, and sat down at a table, and then a waiter came and gave us menus. All of the Waiters were dressed like Peasants, and they brought us our brocholi soup in clay bowls, and lit candles for us, and then we got chicken Kebabs (the kind on the stick), and sprite. Pretty much decided that this resturaunt used to be the dungeouns to this castle... I'll post a picture of this too. Love you all, talk to you next week! Elder Dean