January 30, 2017

So apparently there's a big broadcast that we have yet to see about missionary work. The Prague zone has seen the broadcast already, and apparently there are some big big changes coming to missionary work. I am so grateful to be here in my mission. I have so many blessings. I was in a public restroom today and I looked around at the dirt and the grime and the smell of smoke and the world around me. The other day Elder Vickers and I found a drunk man who fell over twise, he told us, "I know that you are good boys, I know... I know." and even though the world around me is often low and sad, and broken, the Lord shows me that I have been brought to hights that the world could never bring a person to. I litterally have just strived to be obedient and good in my life, and in my imperfection, the effort has gotten me to serve a mission, to love the Lord, to have a wonderful relationship with my parents, to love my siblings, to accept callings, and to do much much more. I am so grateful that the Lord has brought me so far. Today, Elder Vickers, Sister Demann, and Sister Wilson and I took a bus to Malenovice in an attempt to get to Kroměřiž, a city not to far from UH and Zlín. We were trying to get there so that we could meet up with the Zlín elders so that we could go czech out a new city for fun. Take some pictures and stuff, but our bus connections were terrible, and we ended up just getting stuck in Malenovice. So that was an adventure today haha. Tomorrow we have training in Brno. It'll be the longest training we've ever had, it will go until 5:00pm, which is crazy because we normally end around 3 and so that means that we'll wake up, leave on a bus, have training, hop on a bus back to UH, and then go to bed. What a crazy day. We met with a member a few days ago. Brother G sat down in the church building with us, and we shared a spiritual thought with him. We asked him to think of somebody who he feels would need to receive this message of the restoration. He had a name, R. We asked this fine Brother about his friend R, who, he told us, was alone, getting older, and needs a friend. We got some more information. We asked brother G whether or not he thinks that R would accept the message of the restoration of the Gospel. He told us that he did not believe R would accept the gospel. "Still a couple years" he told us. Well, we met with R a couple days later, and brother G went with us. When we first met him, we didn't talk about the Gospel at all. We just got to know him a little. He likes airplanes. When we came for a second visit, it was just Elder Vickers and I. And we learned that R can tell you anything about the stars and about NASA and about rockets. He feels alone in his life, his two daughters live in other countries, and his one daughter that still lives here in the czech republic doesn't really talk to him. R has an old radio receiver set up in his house that he used to talk to people during communism and that he learned to use to tap into radio signals from around the world, and through which he would talk to people most of the time they were from people speaking in different languages. R was entertained with this for years, it was something that allowed him to talk to people... at least to talk to total strangers who were communicating over radio-waves. But as R got older, so did the world, and as things like the Internet came out, and the world moved on, his friends on this radio world would over time silently and quietly dissapear into the static. As he turned on the old device for us we heard as he changed the channels, over and over he would search for people, turning the dials. Anybody who would at least talk to him. just static. When we came for a second visit, Brother G was not with us. We felt that we wanted to try to talk about the Gospel with him. We had been praying that his heard would be softened. R told us, "I would like to try faith, and I want you to teach me." We have since been teaching him, he will be coming to church next week. I love you all, and I know that the Chruch is true. I know that the Lord's elect are here. S láskou, Starší Dean