Transfer 7: September 26, 2016

I have been thinking lately about the concept of happiness, and what it is. Why are we happy, and what do we call happiness? What is happiness? I would invite everyone to think about this and ask yourself, What is Happiness? I love my mission. that is a fact. Don't ask me why though, its one of the most difficult things to try to describe. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I one again fell short to get a lot of pictures. Here's the thing, in CBUD it was litterally one of THE BIGGEST tourist places in the world, so I was getting pictures every week, and several pictures at that. any pictures that I get out here are simply pictures, in the appartment, in the church building, with somebody after a lesson or maybe I can sneak in getting a pictures during the day of some cool things. The missionary white handbook says that we should never look like a tourist, and we've been asked to use cameras mainly on P-Day, so for me to take pictures during procelyting is technically disobedient. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This week we helped a member family, the Ekkerts, build a dresser in their appartment. Brother Ekkert is from the United States, and he married a czech. They live here now, and he doesnt't speak a lick of czech... their kids are learning both Czech and English. It's the funniest thing hearing little kids speaking english again, Iemme tell ya, it's really weird to hear children speak english over here. After helping brother Ekkert, they let us stay over for dinner, it's funny because we speak only english with him, and we speak english with his wife, but whenever we only talk to her, we speak Czech haha! on Thursday we travelled (slept on the bus) to Brno for Zone Conference. It was a good feeling for me to be back in the zone that I started in. I love the Brno church building. Zone Training was godo, we talked and learned about how to teach people who do not believe in God. These type of people should be taught to know who God is. The base of Everything that we do and teach is one foundational principle, "God is our Loving Heavenly Father" without this, the Atonement, The Savior, The Plan of Salvation, Prayer, Baptism, Repentance, and other things would become far less significant. When people first begin to believe in God, it is essential that They begin to immediately picture in their mind a Father figure, because without this, the image becomes that of simply an "energy" or "being" and that at once becomes mysterious and confuzing. There is power in knowing that we are Children of God, On Friday all of our lessons fell through, so we went tracting, or at least that was the plan, as soon at we started a man told us to leave the appartment complex, we told him that we have the right to do what we're doing, and he still refused to let us tract. It's funny though how much people feel our authority because the man suddenly got really afraid when Elder Andersen asked him, "Pane, Jak se jmenujete?" (Mister, what's your name?) "me? Uh, wh.. why me? who are you?" he responded. we still were kicked out of the building unfortunately. On our walk back, we met two people walking in the opposite direction, it was a man and a woman from Africa. When we stopped them, we started speaking czech and the man said, "where are you from?" in english, which threw us off a bit. We told them and told them about who we are and stuff. They clarified that they hated people who believe in God, because we always are trying to force other people to believe what we believe. We clarified that we simply invite people (if they feel like we're making them, that's a lie, the spirit does all the pushing and convincing). And then we just talked, and showed them that not all believers are violent and biased towards other beliefs and oppinions. We are simply trying to do what we believe and feel is right. They opened up after that. In the middle of the conversation, I got punched square in the back, and I stumbled forward, almost falling into the guy. I turn around and standing there is Opposition Lady (we've pretty much offically named her this now). She growled like a dog under her breath and then attempted to spit on me. pretty sure she missed... pretty sure. and then she walked passed us, and the guy and the girl who we were talking to just stood there dumbfounded. As Opposition Lady was walking away, the guy who we were talking to called out to her, "Hey, what was that for?!" She didn't respond. I got my bag and everything situated again and then looked up to them with a knot in my throat and said, "I don't know everything, but I do know this, that there is a God in Heaven, and He loves us, and He loves you, and It doesn't matter what happens to us, we are here to tell you this because it is true. I know it is true." I don't know why God allows these type of things to happen, but I believe that it touched these people's hearts to see how we reacted to opposition, they were in fact blaming us for being violent as missionaries, trying to "convince" people, but they were able to see how we reacted in the face of opposition and violence. I believe it touched their hearts. On Saturday we had Weekly Planning, it was a very long weekly planning. One of the men we're teaching is a Seventh Day Adventist Minister. It is very humble of him to allow two ministers of another faith come and teach him so we treat him with a lot of respect. We both feel like he knows that the Book of Mormon is true, but if the Book of Mormon IS true, that would mean that he would have to give up his Job, his career, his dream, his faith, and his friends, and possibly some extended family. This man is deeply passionate about his current faith, believeing that everything must be proved through the bible, and that nothing else is the word of God. He says that whenever he does anything and is not sure about it, he will compare it with "the Word of God", which he defines to mean the Bible, and absolutely nothing else. We've determined that with him, we're going to allow the spirit to do the heavy lifting. The Lord declared, " I am able to do mine own work, and I will hasten my work in it's time.". We have counciled with the Lord and we now know that He wants to fight His own battles with this guy. We're going to be doing a lot of testifying. On Sunday, we had a man come visit from the Stake High Council. He spoke about Happiness and how we can obtain it, and what it means to be happy. It's explained in greater detail in my letter to President this week. anyway. I got some more pictures from Elder Andersen, I'll sent them, they're good from a companion's camera because I'm in more of them. and I know that you like me to be in pictures. So here ya go. Love you Mom. I love this work, and there is a lot of power in chosing to see the good around us. I've learned that it's very easy to see only the things that trouble us, but if we just lift our eyes to the only one who gives us light, he will help us to see great things, and He will help us to overcome any obstical. I also would like you to consider the Savior, and what He has done and what He is doing, right now, as you read this. What does He think of you, you might be suprized what you find. The Gospel is Beautiful! in one of these photos we were in a park with a bunch of kids, they were playing Ninja, it's a game where you have to try to hit everyone's hands to get them out, but it's turned base, if you are confuzed, ask Kennedy, I'm sure she knows the game, classic. We met them in the park after drawing something with Chalk about the plan of Salvation. S Láskou, Starší Dean​