Hello everyone!
This week has been a fascinating week for me as an individual as well as in the mission overall. The mission is getting ready to swap out mission presidents this next week, but we also had a transfer of missionaries coming in and out. The last of the generation of "Slovacek" missionaries left with that group, including three assistants to the president, all of them having served as mission leadership at some point. It was really bizarre, because these missionaries were the ones I looked up to the most when I was a younger missionary, and now I'm crossing into the same places that they were at when I was their age in the mission. They've grown and changed a lot, and you can see it in their faces and their testimonies. Missions are beautiful things.
The new missionaries are very excited and even placed three copies of the book of mormon on their flight to the country. They're very excited about the work and we've done a lot of extra hard work to make sure they were assigned to serve with just the right companions in just the right circumstances. Kind of odd to think that I've been out here for that long but, when I look out the window at the 19th century stucko architecture and statues and gardens and the view down on the old town square with all the ancient churches and temples with the castle and palace just up the street, I say to myself, "odd? Why, this is home!" And it is! I love it here so much, I love the people with all their crusty, hardened exteriors and their wonderful hearts when you get down to it, I love the cobblestones and the communist panelak apartments. It's just wonderful here.
We took the new missionaries from the airport into the mission home and then, after some brief training, dragged them around the city to a lot of neat places to try and wear them out so they'd sleep through the night. They went out contacting for an hour, which was exciting, and we took them to dinner to try out some new czech foods. After signing over their lives to us and giving us their passports and visas, we were set to go to the foreign police to battle it out for their visa registration. By "battle" I mean we walked in the back door instead of the front where a line of foreigners is fighting to get service with the clerks, took the air conditioned elevator to the third floor, and sat down with the clerk to hammer out a few details. Not too bad. The service entrance didn't always exist, but it does now, and it's a favorite for missionaries to get through to the foreign police quicker than others.
The departing missionary testimony meeting was definitely a highlight of my mission, and I'm grateful I get to see at least another two of them while I'm here. I'm also excited for the switch in mission presidents this week. President Slovacek is one of my greatest role models. If I can measure up to a fraction of what he is, I'll be in pretty good shape. He'll be sorely missed by everyone, but President Irwin is going to bring a marvelous perspective to the work and the attitude and leadership we will need to take the mission to the next level, from doubling baptisms to establishing the next european stake. Yep, it's going to be HERE and we're excited for it (I say that completely unofficially of course, perhaps as more of a challenge and to say "Yes, we're going to earn the blessing of a stake in this country, and it will be here soon!")
I'm doing well. I've learned a lot about the importance of leadership and delegation and correlation this last week, things that I'm going to be applying for probably the rest of my life. I've got a few books I'd like to read to deepen my understanding of a few subjects regarding leadership and councils and so forth, but the organization I see here in the mission home is fantastic, and what's even cooler, it's the spirit that maintains the correlation between us as an office and the rest of the mission. We put out newsletters and calls and text messages and emails and so forth, but the spirit unifies the missionary work in a way that is imperceptible unless you see it yourself. I do have to say that I'm glad for the coordination and leadership and opportunities to serve and direct missionaries here, because it means we also have delegation of tasks. Since I'm not the computer specialist here, I can support and advise him, but I don't have to do the kind of stuff I'm "used to" in office situations and can instead focus on leading the missionaries and motivating and inspiring them. I just hope I can do it the way the Lord wants it done.
Well, I've got to go, but I'm grateful for your prayers and support and your emails and letters and pictures and everything. I love you all, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Elder Brent Anderson
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