"Good morning olomouc! It's 6:30 in the morning! You know what that means: It's time to get up and get moving with your day! The weather forecast for today is looking pretty good...." Elder Anderson smacked the phone and it clattered to the ground and he rolled out of bed. The sun-burn on his neck from a branch weekend hike didn't hurt as much, and he was glad it was Sunday morning. He grabbed Elder Chambers' prized alarm clock, the one he left in Třebíč, a clock famous for being small yet very loud. Elder Anderson knew it would be going off in a few minutes, but he set it on his bed and started to pray. "Heavenly Father, thanks for yet another day of beautiful Czech missionary work. Thanks that PJ came on the hike yesterday, thanks that Pavel is almost ready for baptism, thanks that Elder McGowan is such a stud, thanks that we had a mission wide consecration week, thanks....*yawn*....." Elder Anderson's voice got really tired and he started to doze off....
**BUZZ!! BUZZ!! BUZZ!!**
The Chambers alarm clock/prayer-safety-net went off next to his head. He jumped up, hit the snooze button and kept praying. "I'm grateful that Elder Chambers' alarm clock helps me stay awake when I pray in the morning, I'm grateful for the up and coming morning exercises and yogurt that I love so much here, and I'm especially grateful for another sacrament meeting and the chance to formally review and recommit to the Gospel that I love teaching so much."
He continued his prayer, occasionally dozing off but being saved by the buzzer each time. Finally, after working out their daily plans with the Lord, they got to work on actually making it happen. Elder Anderson had seen some amazing miracles that week already due to consecration, and not so much from Sacrifice. Consecration is willingly and cheerfully setting something apart completely and entirely to the Lord, be it a building, 2 years of time, a holy temple, or yourself, and Olomouc had seen some neat miracles thanks to that. The other missionaries in Olomouc had a new baptismal date slated for the 18th with Pavel, Pavel was doing really well and had just a few commandments to go before having a green-light for baptism, and PJ had shared some impressions and ideas with them the night before that were very exciting.
The Monday before the Elders had prayed and planned on taking a certain divinely inspired route through the town, into the park, and back into the center before going home for the night. Following zone conference counsel, they strived to have the spirit with them 100%, to be enveloped in the spirit, and to strive to be completely consecrated to the Lord. Well, it worked! The night before they had seen very clearly a certain route they needed to follow and signs they would see to be sure it was being followed, including talking to a man on a rock, meeting a man and teaching him as they walked up the stairs, and finally being guided through the remainder of the night talking to certain individuals. They averaged about every other contact being significant, and were very grateful for the people they spoke to. One of them was a man training to be a Catholic priest, and the two Elders were very grateful for the opportunity to teach and bear testimony of the Restoration. His concerns of priesthood authority and means of worship evaporated through simply, powerful statements of testimony and restored truth, and in the end had little more to say.
Other days during the week were similar in nature, spent finding and teaching and testifying to many many people, but the Elders didn't lose focus of the most important thing: Inviting others to come unto Christ, to accept the restored gospel, and to enter into baptism. They spread their fire in Brno on exchanges for a day when Elder McGowan interviewed a man for baptism and Elder Anderson with the local district leader almost gave out a baptismal date to a brand new investigator (That almost will be rectified soon, since he wondered about committing to baptism before reading the book of mormon)! Earlier in the day they had met with an ex-cop who really loved weapons of every kind (Including laser-sight pepper spray, blowguns, crossbows, and battle-axes), and enjoyed sharing with him how faith in God brings us hope in an otherwise fallen world.
The biggest highlight of the week were probably the impressions of PJ. Saturday night, he shared with the Elders his testimony of the Gospel in the park, right after he had shown them his drum set at a local born-again christian chapel (The Elders started teaching him right there in the Chapel/stage but, at the insistence of the Spirit, they left for said park; even still, the elders thought it was pretty groovy that they had testified and taught a few restored truths about the plan of salvation right there from a radically protestant podium complete with electric guitar, bongos, and a combo-set). In the park, PJ proclaimed, "I'm really happy to be learning these things, but I don't know what I want to do in the future. I have a restaurant, and that's one of my goals. I'm in a band, and our CD will be coming out soon. I was wondering if you know any good schools in the US I could study at?" The missionaries grinned with joy and told him of a place in the heart of a very happy valley where the students are christian and the education is excellent. When they asked him what he thought, he said "why sure!" On their way home, PJ had something on his mind. "Hey, Elders? What I really want to do, you know, is...Well, I'd like to teach the gospel like you guys. Do you think that is possible?"
Needless to say, the Elders were well pleased and assured him that his desire was absolutely fantastic. They drove home that night with the thought of a Mongolian return missionary/BYU graduate/stake president on their minds and were pretty stoked the rest of the week (Except for that one text at 3 AM on sunday: PJ couldn't come to church because his Chinese restaurant in Prague had been invaded by skin-heads and he had to go open up a can of 300 lb. Mongolian-judo, but he assured the disappointed Elders that the week after was going to be better; the elders kicked themselves for not thinking of that one during their prayers and decided they'd pray for Divine Providence to protect PJ's restaurant from skin-heads next week).
After reviewing the weeks events and putting on his freshly ironed shirt, his nifty Czech polyester tie, and shiny-polished shoes, Elder Anderson decided that, out of everything he'd done in his life, Missionary Work was the best of them all - for real. All the other stuff was good, but missionary work easily trumped the rest. And he was happy.
Starší Brent Anderson
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