Hey Everyone,
Hope you've all had as great a week as I have - It's been a really good one in comparison to some of those other, decently good and on-the-whole rather great weeks. This week is probably going down as one of the best yet, right up there with the last week of last transfer when we had that music program, found 5 investigators, and found a man who got BAPTIZED over the weekend. Yeah - a man Elder Smith and I found named Daniel (we found him on the 7th or something, last month) entered the waters of Baptism on Saturday. He is my first investigator to get baptized that I was involved in finding from the beginning. It was great working with him last transfer, as he loves to read and took not only the Book of Mormon, but a Liahona, all our lesson pamphlets, the testimony of Joseph Smith, and a Church information brochure. He's now preparing to receive the priesthood. Oh, how wonderfully exciting!
This week was really great here in Trebic, too, but it all happened over the weekend. We had taught some lessons, helped Iva (she's preparing for baptism) with reviewing more of the doctrine and so forth, found an investigator (Actually, we found a new investigator on Tuesday too who had been requested by her priest to stop investigating and return everything; she did, but when we found her again after being prompted to talk to her personally, she wanted to meet immediately and she's very excited to have her Book of Mormon back), but were nowhere near our lesson goals and finding goals. We still needed a new investigator and 3 member lessons, all of which are very hard to do. As we planned, we were stuck. We had no ideas on how to accomplish these things, since members need advance notice and investigators take time, which we didn't have since our weekend was already planned completely. So, we got on our knees. It's an interesting, telling the Lord how you've tried your hardest but, somehow, it didn't add up. But, if he can calm seas, organize worlds, and level mountains, we knew he could organize our plans to help us meet the needs of our area. We concluded our prayer, and started making a few calls. About 10 minutes later, 2 member lessons, one being taught with a less active man that Elder Machado has seen once in the last 3 months, were set up. That meeting with the less active man brought in two new investigators, and the family already knows him personally (In fact, they were so happy to have us over, that the wife started giving us all this food and things and is excited for us to come back). The member had a chance to share his testimony, which always helps us to become stronger and remember who we are and what we know. The second member lesson was completely spirit driven. It would take too long to expound on, but Honza, a 19 year old kid who speaks American (When I heard his accent, I almost started crying, it was so good - He even knows what "Mickey - D's" is) has an iPhone (another plus). His phone's background is two penguins talking to each other, one of them wearing a crash helmet. The caption: "We're all gonna die, but I've got a helmet." We used that to expound on the plan of salvation, along with his personal love of flying airplanes to illustrate the need for instructions, steps, a plan, and the necessity of a savior (helmet). Sure, we are all going to crash now and then - but if you've got the Savior on your side, then your helmet is impenetrable (Paul wasn't the only one who thought about armor and the gospel).
I guess something else happened on Thursday, too. We went on exchanges with the elders in Jihlava. This means that I get to spend 4 hours of my week on trains since my companion is the district leader and is responsible for spending time in the other area. That morning, I woke up with a feeling of dread. I knew that, although it would all work out, I was in for a loooong day. And it was. Our trip to Jihlava was fine, but on the way back we missed our train. So, we contacted for an hour in Jihlava. Then, we went to catch our next train. It was mislabeled, and started taking us towards Plzen. We didn't have a ticket for that line, either, so we got kicked off at the next stop (thank goodness). Then we waited for another train back to Jihlava, where we caught the next train back to Trebic. An hour and a half later (They were doing work on a bridge), we pulled in, and got to work. We needed to make up for lost time, so we started hitting the streets. That night, we batted 1000: every person we talked to had interest and either sat down with us so we could teach a lesson, gave us their number, and one became a new investigator. One man was even a reporter and we're getting the details ironed out for having a newspaper article run here. Woo hoo!
On Saturday, we spent the entire day in Brno (basically) with Iva for a baptism. Unfortunately, the man being baptized didn't make it (We're not sure what happened still, since he had been meeting with the elders almost every day for the last three weeks). But, the program still happened without the baptism, and it answered a lot of Iva's questions. In all, she walked away more prepared for her new baptismal date - October the 10th! While we were there, she told us that she felt the 10th was her first answer but, because of fear and doubt, she told us the 31st of October. She's now scheduled for this transfer, and we've moved our teaching schedule into higher gear to accommodate the welcome change.
All in all, we're very excited. I'm getting a lot of pictures of this beautiful city and the surrounding area. We visited Telc today, probably the most Czech town I've seen thus far. Painted plaster, relief's on buildings, a castle and basilica hooked together, and we also spent time with Jarda from Jihlava who is both a member, a soon-to-be Wisconsin missionary, and Mr. Czech Republic. Pretty neat.
Well, I really really honestly do hope that you are all doing great back home. We have been very blessed this week with everything we've been working on, and I want you all to know that everything that's going on here does not originate from me personally. I'm the one responsible to get it done, but in the end the Lord is the one who gets our lives in order. As His servant, I just do the foot work.
Good luck this week!
Elder Brent Anderson
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