Fotky ( Week 38 in Prague, Week 98 in Czech )

Hello all,

I'm afraid this week won't be much in the way of writing. Please find attached, however, some pictures from our trip today to Karlovy Vary, a rather impressive tourist trap west of Prague.

Love you all, hope you have a great week. We're bringing in new misionaries, and I found another investigator, a lady who's very interested in receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We've talked about her baptism in the first meeting, and she's interested in being baptized. No date yet, but she's reading and we're meeting again next week.

Elder Brent Anderson

(From Starsi Brent's Dad) After today, there are only 2 more postings until we pick him up on March 19. We will try to post while there in Czech. Have a great day

'Pozoruhodný týden', Translation 'Notable week' ( Week 37 in Prague, Week 97 in Czech )

Wow, I really don't know how to contain this last week. President Irwin had a surprise baptism, that was remarkable, a man named Tony who'd been waiting to be baptized for a long time but, due to circumstances, couldn't until this last week. Marian Boysyuk, a recent convert from the end of 2009, has his mission call to the England London mission. Ondrej from Ostrava (I remember teaching him, although he wasn't in my area) is going to the Toronto, Canada, Spanish Speaking mission. And another mission call for another member here is on it's way. That will make 5 missionaries in the last 5 months from this mission. Wow! I don't think I've seen that many missionaries out at once from my home ward!

What else...A boy named David from Spain came to Family Home Evening on monday. His uncle in LDS, and he's agreed to take lessons from me and Elder Foster (And Ondrej, he already speaks spanish). I don't remember much from Mr. Felix's 7th grade spanish primer, but I am ready for when he accepts a baptismal commitment: "Que Suerte!" :-)

In other news, the office has been very busy. Elder Olson, an area seventy, is here today for District Conference, and on Thursday Brother Wirthlin, the director of temporal affairs for Europe, was here. It looks like we might be moving offices soon, across the street to the former Hungarian embassy. President is keen to get a center for young adults opened, and we could renovate the office into such a center if we moved offices to the old embassy space across the street.

Actually, another neat event from this week: One of the church's treasurers for Europe, Brother Russell, came for a visit. He was opening some new bank accounts, and I got to participate in discussions to get the accounts opened. Brother Russell was a very pleasant individual, and I was very happy to spend time working with him.

Apart from that, we're getting ready to get some new mission vehicles to replace older ones, the mission home is getting repainted, the floors refinished, and it's district conference today and tomorrow. It'll be nice to just participate, I usually am asked to translate for English speakers at larger church meetings, so I'll sit in another room and listen to the talks and prayers over headphones.

It's good to be here. It's good to see what more can be done in a few weeks, and I'm grateful for that.
Elder Anderson

A quick note ( Week 36 in Prague, Week 96 in Czech )

It's been a good week, we had a baptism today in Prague. Elder Andersen baptized someone he'd taught for a long time before he switched areas in Prague from being Zone Leader to being an Assistant. President has been out of the office most of the week, he's insanely busy lately with conferences and other functions, so it was another week of holding everything together in the office.

I would like you all to know I understand how journal vouchers work now much better than I did when I started, and I can see why it is that plusses are minuses and minuses are plusses sometimes. We went finding yesterday, it was brilliant getting to stand on the namesti and admire the buildings, the people, the world around us, being able to bear direct testimony about the restoration, give out a book of mormon, and swap numbers with people. Such a breath of fresh air!

One thing I'd like to recommend to you all if you ever come to Prague is the Museum of Communism. I'm afraid I don't have the time to talk about what I saw when we went there last week, but I do have a brochure with the web address: www.museumofcommunism.com. The tour was simple, but really powerful, and it helped to give a deeper context to the people here than I'd been able to comprehend from just speaking with them.

Hope your week was great, mine was, and we've got much to do yet.

Elder Anderson

"Happy happy happy anniversary!" ( Week 35 in Prague, Week 95 in Czech )

The title today is a reference to a song from a former. He made up a song that's become part of mission culture, and it's those four words and about 3 notes. Yes, it's as long as it takes to read it, but it's a good one. A classic.

I remember when I woke up on the 5th of February. It was a Thursday, and we were going to class for the first time. I remember standing in front of that tiny wardrobe mirror they give you, with Elder Fish and Elder Read putting their ties on, and I went to go put my name tag on. It didn't have a scratch on it like it does now, although I do have the original. There was a smudge of stickiness on the corner where they put your red dot to tell everyone you're new. As I looked at the name tag, I was thrilled that I got to put it on, and I told myself I'd let it be that thrilling for every day I got to wear it. Today was no different from any other day, and I put the name tag on. When I think about that name tag, I think about every day I've had since then, and I can't help but think about all the days I've been able to represent the Savior personally. I remember one time, I don't know if I wrote about it or not, but my district leader in Prague challenged me to be that representative as much as possible in a week, to focus on that aspect of the work. As I did that, I remember standing on a town square in the middle of Prague stopping someone and teaching them right there. And I had this overwhelming feeling that I was representing the Master Teacher as I did so. There are countless other experiences similar to that one that come with a mission, when you're striving to magnify your calling.

One of my favorite parts of that Wednesday night when I entered the MTC was meeting one of our teachers, Brother Brown. The Czech exercise was simple: say something in English, Brother Brown will slowly say it to you in Czech, then practice pronouncing what he said. We didn't understand a word, really, of what we were saying. But I remember asking Sister Reese: "What is your favorite color?" And the czech translation came: "Jaká....barva...je...vaše....nejoblibenějši". I can still remember what I said back: "Nej-oh-bleeping-what??" He repeated that last word for "Most favorite" a few times, I don't remember if I ever said it right, and I remember setting a goal right there that I was going to work on pronouncing the word "nejoblibenější" for my whole mission. I envisioned myself getting on the plane home and turning around and saying the word perfectly for the first time, since obviously one couldn't learn a word as tongue-twisting as that in anything less than two years.

But, we made it, and Czech isn't the challenge it used to be. I'll even talk to myself sometimes here in the office in Czech to practice words and pronunciation that I don't get as much around President and in the office.

Amidst all of the "first-timers" like going to a Czech wedding, baptizing in a swimming pool since we didn't have anywhere else, teaching in coffee shops when it's freezing cold outside, giving blessings in a foreign language, broken windows, flood recovery and Mormon helping hands with the Czech Army, seeing an atheist pray for the first time, and then the light they have when they get their first answer, teaching a new missionary how to do something miraculous like get an appointment and a number without speaking good Czech, seeing people healed from priesthood blessings, praying and seeing all of your prayers answered, feeling the prayers of others and seeing their impact, knowing what to say when to say it and how that changes a lesson, being devastated when people reject what they know is right, seeing a struggling missionary choose to quit struggling and move forward with their mission...

I think that starts to approach a lot of what I see in my name tag. Elder Blair wrote a song that has some very powerful lyrics, and it's so upbeat and positive. One of my favorite bits is in the last verse.

When with all flesh my eyes shall see
My Blessed Savior face to face,
My witness then shall not exceed the truth I know this day.

For God has written Jesus' name
With pen of flame upon my soul!
So how can I not testify
Of Jesus Christ my Lord?

I think that those two verses summarize everything I could ever expect from my mission. It started out a long time ago, probably before this life. It's been a process since I was born, from baptism through Aaronic priesthood quorums. When I received my name tag, it was not a culmination. I think it was more of a reminder of what I need to do to make this life meaningful, and that is to take His name upon me. And I know that the most valuable part of the last two years has been just that: I've been able to see how that name on my name tag isn't just on my name tag.

It's a good day today - it's the first day there's not been some snow on the ground to be seen. It's been a great week, and I hope you all have a comparable week yourselves.

S láskou,
Starší Brent Anderson

Brent's 2 year anniversary

Hello Everyone, (from Brent's dad)

I updated the Brent Comes Home date to reflect the actual return of Starsi Brent. Sorry this took so long to do. I just didn't remember to do it until today. His 2 year anniversary of being set apart as a Missionary is February 3. He will actually be returning home on March 28, 2011 when we arrive with him from Prague. We will be picking him up at the mission home on March 19 and spending the week with him touring Czech and the surrounding area. We are looking forward to seeing him again.
We hope you have a great day and that you have been enjoying the adventures of Starsi Brent.

Brian and Kathy Anderson

Co že? ( Week 34 in Prague, Week 94 in Czech )

Well, this was an interesting week. A really interesting week.

The continuing saga of visas and insurance came to a head this week. There were about 3 or 4 points where we weren't sure if we were going to be losing an entire group of missionary visas, but we pulled through. The insurance is squared away, we have all the documents put together for their renewals, most of which now have to be notarized, and the missionaries will be coming on monday to file their applications.

I've got to say that it's really hard not doing missionary work as much as I used to. They say that missionary work is the life-blood of the church, but it's even more so the lifeblood of the missionaries themselves. It was very exciting getting to go sing and contact yesterday. An anecdote worth sharing was when the new mongolian sister missionary spotted a couple of mongolians walking through the crowd. She slipped out of the group that was singing and rushed over to them. The rest of the district was so excited to see her have a chance to shine, since she doesn't have fluency in english or czech just yet. We were singing "Lead Kindly Light", but all of us had our heads turned and we were leaning and straining so we could see around the whiteboard we had with us how she was doing. And, she was very successful. It was very exciting to see and there were a lot of high-fives shared when she came back.

I think it's interesting to use her as an example, since she really doesn't have much going for her. Except for one thing: She knows what she believes is true, and she's willing to act accordingly. Her willingness to sacrifice stems from her faith and hope, and both of those stem from her willingness to follow the rules and live what she believes. When we have that confidence backing us, we cannot fail.

In other news, Lilia decided to get married and the marriage took place yesterday. We were invited, and it was a simple ceremony at a town hall in one of the quarters of Prague. Her husband isn't a member, he seems nice enough. A lot of their decision to be married revolves around having someone there for the other (She's a widow), and another benefit is that she's now a czech citizen. This will help her a lot in establishing herself financially, and in being able to visit the USA to see her son who moved there many years ago. And, she'll be able to go to the temple in Freiburg for baptisms since she'll have a passport and all the documentation she'll need. We're very happy for her.

On the way back from the wedding, we were in the back seat of a member's car. As we were going through an intersection, another vehicle swerved into our lane and rammed the back of her car, giving a good knock to everyone in the car. Her car didn't have much damage, a literal "fender-bender". The other car had a nice round dent in the front, though. After assessing the situation, me and my companions left the scene to get back to our plans for the day. But, now I can say I've been in a car accident in the czech republic. I guess I can cross that one of my list of mission experiences.

This next week will be a good one. There is much to be done, and I'm glad to be where I am. I don't count, but it's hard to miss next wednesday, the 3rd of February at 8 PM I'll have been a missionary for 2 years. It's such a great blessing, and I'm glad there is yet more to do and more time to do it in. I couldn't ask for more.

One last note: This week I was blessed with a new investigator! Last saturday a lady walked in the door who wanted to learn about our church and asked some very specific questions regarding baptism and church membership. I was very grateful to explain some principles to her, and she is now engaged in reading the book of mormon. I'm glad the Lord gives us small and simple things like that which end up meaning so much to us.

Elder Brent Anderson

Be happyyyyyy! Elder Thompson be happyyyyyy! ( Week 33 in Prague, Week 93 in Czech )

Hello Everyone,

The subject line for today, "Be Happyyyyyyy!" is from a song written by Elder Blair that he performs from time to time on his Ukulele, or the "Uke" (Yook) as he's inclined to call it. It's the kind of song you can't not hear and smile, be happy, and start singing along, and like all good things, I thought I'd share it with you all. Just imagine the happiest song you've ever heard with the simplest of melody and lyrics, and that's the song. As for Elder Thompson, he is very happy - he'll be getting a gift from me and Elder Andersen that we picked up last week (One of the virtues of a threesome: One of you can distract the companion with the birthday while the other quickly gets through the checkout line and puts the most excellent gift in his bag.)

This last week was really busy and, unfortunately, the first wherein my efforts to get on top of the office work and get on the streets were thwarted. We did have some appointments with members, which was nice, and my two companions are doing a great job in pushing the work forward in our area. The Andersons packed their bags and took off from the airport into the sunrise on Wednesday. Such wonderful people with amazing experiences and burning testimonies. I'm grateful for them both.

The highlight for this week was definitely on Friday when we visited a members home, the Balačkovi. We shared a simple meal of pork, potatoes, and peas with them, and had the opportunity to commit them to sharing the gospel with one of their relatives. They've not known how to go about it, and with a little encouragement they've decided to have her spend the weekend to come to church. I'm sure that for some return missionaries this might sound pretty routine. We were very pleased with the results, however, since many members here are very afraid of admitting they are members. In fact, some will go to church wearing street clothes and will bring their sunday dress in their backpack so they don't look conspicuous travelling. For these two members to be inviting their family to hear the gospel is a great step, and I'm glad that we got to be a part of it. The Holy Ghost was felt by all as we asked them to relate their own conversion stories. "Who do you know who would also enjoy what you have felt thanks to the gospel?" It's hard to not want to share what one has that is good. Sometimes we are afraid or aren't sure what to do or how to approach it. But when we trust in God and use charity as our motive, it works out just right every time. It may not be that everyone we speak with will be incredibly excited about the gospel, but I know that it makes a difference in the lives of those around us and in our own lives when we share what we have and don't stifle it.

I hope you have a fantastic week, and here's to seeing what happens in the next.

Love,
Elder Brent Anderson