It's been a slow week here in Plzen... We kontakt really cool people and get their numbers and even set up times to meet, but they stillllll don't come... FRUSTRATING!!!! But it's okay. We are just going to keep calling :)
My district leader is really awesome. He told us in our last district meeting that faith is like a ladder. We climb and climb and when we get to the top and there are no rungs left then that is when our faith is truly tested and we have to hope that God is going to add more to our ladder. He also told us that we need to focus this week on giving people a reason to come back and meet with us. We went on mini-exchanges with him this week and he said to think of it like being in the mall... when salespeople come up to you in the mall and start going off on how this new lotion is going to help you so much and you should try it and blah blah blah then most of the time you are like, no thanks I'm not looking for lotion, I wasn't even thinking about lotion and I don't need it right now, OR you are like no, thanks I have my own lotion, I don't need your lotion. BUT if we start off by giving people background and really focus on making them WANT it so bad that they can't think of a reason not to take the dang lotion, then we will be successfull. :) He also said to focus on people that we can relate to and that we really really really want to teach and once we find those people to grab on and don't let go. And he said if you can't think of people that you want to teach, or if we are having a hard time finding people that we want to teach then we need to change ourselves. That has been really hard for me thus far on my mission.
CHANGE. Ugh. It's the best worst thing ever. It hurts to evaluate yourself and realize that sometimes what you thought was enough isn't. It's not a very good feeling, but then once you can fix the problem and you are able to grow, then it's the best feeling in the world.
This week we had a really cool experience testing the ladders of our faith. We tried to go and visit a less-active but they weren't home. BUT the events leading up to us finding out they weren't home are what tested our faith. First we had to find out where she lived because she lived in an apartment building that is surrounded by other apartment buildings and the numbers on the buildings are sometimes really hard to find so we walked down this row of apartment buildings looking for the number 65. We got to the end of the row and their was no 65. It ended with 63, so we went to the next row, but is started with 67, so we had to go back to the first row and we kept walking until we found this random building that wasn't really on a street but was just kind of in the middle of all the other buildings and it was... 53 so by that point we were thinking that 65 didn't even exist, but we kept walking straight up the street and looked up and there was 65. That was the easy part. Once we got to the building, we looked at the zvolnek (which is where you ring people to let you in to the building) but her name wasn't there, but a girl came up and opened the door and asked what we wanted, but just as she asked a man came out of the door and saw who we were and pushed us out of the door and said something mean in Czech and walked out of the building. I still think that could have been the ladies husband, I'm not sure... But then we really didn't know what to do so we just started ringing people asking them to let us in. It was terrible. I got through 5 people telling me know and the whole time my companion was saying that we needed to go but I just keep ringing. I'm not even sure why. Finally this man with a really scary dog that barked and jumped on me, opened the door for us and we asked if he knew where the women we were looking for lived and he yelled at us that she lived upstairs so we walked all the way to the top floor of this building and then we looked at the buzzers up their and their was on that had her name on it so we rung it and NOBODY ANSWERED! Then we looked at all the doors on the floor, there were 6 and 2 of them didn't have names on them, so I thought, you know we made it this far so we knocked on the first door... no answer. (the whole time I was praying please don't yell at me, please don't yell at me, I will start crying if you yell at me) Then we knocked on the second door... no answer. So then we went back downstairs and left a letter in the mailbox telling her that we tried to visit and leaving our information. I know it might not sound like a lot, but I was scared out of my mind to do this. But I know that even though the woman wasn't home and we didn't miraculously find someone prepared that I am showing God that I am willing to do what it takes to find his lost sheep and I think that's what he wants. Plus we can always go back and see if she is home on another day now that we know she lives there. Next time we will even take the next step and trakt her building... even though there are scary mean people there... It will be great! hahah
It was a good week. I hope you read the above story because it's funny and applicable to your lives and if you care about me you will read my long e-mails too... hahahah
love you all and hope you are having miracles of your own
s laskou
Sestra Bruno (Franny)
