You mean there is a God? (Week 4 in Liberec, week 30 in Czech)

Hello Everyone!

So, this week was good, somewhat like other weeks of missionary work, but also full of miracles. Really exciting. That man, Tomaš Matoušek, that we found last week on Sunday is really progressing fast. We had a meeting with him on Tuesday, and when we taught him about using prayer from our own words, from our hearts, it blew him away. "Wow - you mean I can actually use my own words and talk to god?" It was very humbling when, after we asked him to pray on the end of our meeting, he asked if he could do it maybe next time so he can try it on his own first. After a second, he asked "Oh, does that mean I don't have faith if I won't try it now?" He's so keenly interested in discovering his relationship to his Heavenly Father and in communicating with him, in developing that faith, that he thinks about our lessons almost all the time between them. We taught about Joseph Smith, the book of mormon, and he's been reading from the beginning. We'll be applying scriptures from the book of mormon soon and using passages to teach him not only doctrines, but how to use and love the scriptures. I love the scriptures. There's always something new to learn. I heard that was the mark of good literature, that it yields to you more and more the more you experience in life and the more you study it. Well, I guess the scriptures fit that description perfectly.

Soner isn't doing as well as I'd hope, but he's honest in intentions and desires. He doesn't know how to read German and, although he understands, his memory of things learned in German isn't particularly good. Since we don't have any turkish materials, we're having to develop plans with members and rather elaborate lessons using tons of scriptures that he'll have in his turkish book of mormon in order to teach principles. If it comes down to it, we'll go looking for someone who speaks Czech or English as well as Turkish, and then have a translator to make this happen. But, in the mean time, he's progessing and he prayed for the first time with us on Thursday.

We've started a family home evening program every friday and it's already started to change the life of a family being taught by the other elders. A single parent family that didn't believe in God, the feeling of the spirit when we sing about eternal families and about our heavenly father has influenced them to believe that God may exist, and they are starting to see changes in their own relationships for the better. The Gospel brings light, life, and happiness wherever it is applied, and I can say that because I'm seeing it first hand change the lives of people who have been taught that there is no God and that we're all just one big accident, that we should make a ton of money and that's it. Oh, how much more there is to life than just the things that last for a while and are gone. I know for certain that the message of the restoration and of the Gospel of Christ empowers us with the vision of eternity sufficient to give us purpose in every righteous, worthy activity. What a blessing!

I love you all, I pray for you all, and I hope you're all being taken care of just as much as we are out here. We'll be having another zone conference in about 2 weeks, so if you're planning on writing letters or anything and you want them to get here before December, you've got a few weeks to get that done. I'll be getting mail tomorrow, so you can expect some snail mail (or, as I like to think of it, pigeon-carrier mail since it's sometimes about that fast) in a couple weeks or so.

Otherwise, have a great week and I'll tell you all about the adventures of Elder Anderson in our next episode. You can expect some things about new investigators, a new baptismal date (:D that'll be two in two weeks!), and, if all goes well, a family!

Thanks,
Elder Anderson