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