New Area! Transfer 10 March 13,2017

Well it's official that I only have 4 months left on my mission. I can barely believe it, it has gone by soooo fast. This last weekend one of the Zlin missionaries' Investigators got baptized, his name is Josef, and he is the first person baptized from Zlin in over 3 years! Josef has a really cool story, he is that kid who had the dream of the building with the name of the church on it, and he saw a man come out of the building and he said, "This is a good Chruch." Josef's confirmation on sunday was really good too. =----------------- So we got our transfer calls. We were sitting at our desks on Saturday preparing to do our Weekly Planning Session, and as I was praying to start us off, the phone rang, and I got up, looked at the phone, I saw that President was calling, and then I knelt back down, told Heavenly Father that We would resume the prayer in a minute, and then ended the prayer. We answered the phone, Elder Vickers put it on speaker so we could all talk to each other. Elder Vickers will stay in Uherske Hradiste and he will train a new missionary. so that is super cool! But in that phone call, President spoke to me first, and he told me that I would be opening up a completely new area, a small city called Prostejov near Olomouc. President told me that my companion will be Elder Jensen, and that I will be the district Leader there. The mission has been hearing about this rumored area opening up for a few months now, but nobody had any idea who would open it, and now I will be there with Elder Jensen. I'm sitting in Sister Bowen's (a senior missionary couple) house right now in Olomouc, on her apple laptop, sitting on their couch. This small city, Prostejov, is part of the Olomouc Branch, and so the Olomouc District just got larger, there are going to be six missionaries in Olomouc, and two in Prostejov. That means there will be 8 missionaries in this district (including the senior couple). I am super excited to get started in this area, I think it's going to have it's challenges though because I'm going to be quite a ways away from 70 percent of the district, my companion and I will be alone in prostejov, we don't even have an office there, there is no place for us to meet inside with our investigators, we'll just have to use members' homes I suppose. The Lord is throwing me into an adventure here, and I know that it is going to be awesome! ------- Uherske Hradiste is an amazing place, I know that the Lord has big plans for UH, and the members there truly have my heart. It will be hard to leave them. I have recently been hoping for some type of confirmation that I have done what the Lord needed me to do in UH, I wanted to know that I had fulfilled my calling, and The Lord answered my prayer. I'll explain... Yesterday at church, everybody was anxious to know what was happening with the transfers. People kept coming to me asking, "are you leaving?". I just told everybody that they will see when it's announced. I was not sure how everybody was going to react, and then church started. After Josef's Confirmation, and after the sacrament, the bishop's counselor who conducted asked the departing missionaries to come and bear their testimonies. The room was quiet. I was sitting on the second to front row next to our investigator who we had brought to church. I turned around in my chair to see if Sister Wilson would get up, then I turned forward again. Then I stood up to go bear my testimony. As I stood up, I heard several gasps from behind me. I stood at the pulpit and bore my testimony, and expressed my love and appreciation for the members and for the opportunity to serve in UH. I was surprised to see several people tearing up to see that I was leaving. "Had I really made that big of an impact on people here?" I silently asked myself. Over the pulpit I explained where I was to go, and with whom I would be serving, and those details. The conducting counselor got up after Sister Wilson and I did, and he told me over the pulpit that I will have a place on their refrigerator, everyone laughed. And after sacrament meeting was over, Everybody wanted to talk to me, and suddenly several members where asking me if I had time to come over for dinner one last time or to come over to lunch or if they would have time to say goodbye that next day, monday. One particular sister, a mother, came and told me that I had helped her so much personally, and that she was going to miss me. I'm so grateful that the Lord allowed me to serve in Uherske Hradiste for 6 months. I learned so much and I truly learned what it means to love the people. I will now do my absolute best to bless this new area, and the members here. The Lord qualifies those whom he calls. I'll definitely need that help this transfer. I asked the Lord to bless me with some responsibility so that I could serve Him more, and he gave me more that I was asking for. now I just need to not get prideful about this. THAT will be the hardest thing this transfer I think, but there will definitely be many things to humble me this transfer too no doubt. Love you all, here are some pictures. S laskou, Starsi Dean