7 Simple Words

Happy--- We met with Angie!!! She is amazing. We weren't able to meet with her last week because she cancelled the lesson. It was weird because we haven't gone a week without seeing her since we first met her almost 3 months ago. So she came on Thursday and explained why she missed. She told us that her psychiatrist told her that she needs to be independent and not to be really cautious when she meets with us so that she doesn't get tricked into anything... Then she googled Mormons and the Book of Mormon and was really overwhelmed and didn't want to meet with us. All I could think was NO!!! No no no. Please don't tell us you don't want to meet anymore. BUT she came on Thursday and we talked about her concerns and she is doing a lot better. We talked about transfers and how one of us will most likely be leaving and she invited us over to her apartment for dinner!!! She is so amazing.

Sad--- We had studies/interviews with President and he basically told me that I am leaving Prague... sadddd day

Crazy--- Night kontakting. I am learning to love it. It gets dark here at 4:30 p.m. It is insane. Since we are a new area there is not much else to do but kontakting and believe me, you meet some pretty interesting people.

Glad--- We had a lesson with Jaro (which translated means Spring) he told us that he feels different when he meets with us (THANK YOU HOLY GHOST!!!) And after the lesson the member that we had there talked to us for 30 minutes about how prepared he was and said that anytime we had a lesson with him to call and he would come and teach with us.

Far--- We went on exchanges to Ostrava... a 4 hour train ride there, 4 hours back. Blah.

Close--- Sister Bateman and I are practically related. That's what it feels like anyway... and after 4 months, I guess that's how it should be :)

Gross--- Metro P.D.A. It still grosses me out. I know I am in Europe but come on people!!!! Get a room. Actually don't. Meet with us, learn about the temple, and have an eternal family! I mean come on.

It was a good week! I have learned so much about myself these last two transfers. My faith has grown so much. Every day I get a little closer to being truly converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was reading this week in The Acts... Right after Jesus Christ has appeared to Peter and told him that if he loved him then he would feed his sheep. Then Peter goes on to run the church and he is just a powerhouse! It made me wonder, what happened between the end of The Book of John and The Book of The Acts. What happened to Peter? What did he do? What did he feel? Because before he doubted. He didn't have enough faith to walk on water, he denied Christ, he went back to fish. Christ constantly had to reprimand and revise... he did so lovingly but still. But the last time Christ appeared, the last time he asked "do you love me?" changed Peter. I hope that on my mission the same thing will happen to me. I have experienced the reprimanding and revision but I hope that by the end I can say that I am a truly converted disciple of Jesus Christ and even after my mission continue to be his disciple!

3 Nefi 5:13 "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life"

This work is wonderful. I'm so glad I'm here! Have a beautiful, wonderful, happy, smiley, week!!!

I'm thankful for you all!! HappyThanksgiving!!! 

s laskou

sestrabruno

The Power of Member Missionary Work

Hey Fam,

This week was grrreat. On Sunday we had a way awesome thing happen. This woman from America came to Prague because she had been doing some family history and found family members of hers in Slovakia so they drove down to Prague to meet her. While she met them she gave them a Book of Mormon and invited them to church. They said they would come but they were late because they were lost and during the middle of Gospel Principles the woman came in a pointed to me... I didn't really know if she was pointing at me or someone else, but she told me to come, so I did. She told us the situation and asked what we should do. We decided to go ahead and teach them a lesson. It was awesome. The lady, Sister Hammonds completely taught them everything and it was so awesome. She was amazing!!! Then the son lives in Prague and was interested in English class so he got our number. Usually that is the kiss of death because people don't usually call/text us unless we do it first... BUT he texted and told us he wouldn't be able to come to english this week. BUT we texted him back and invited him to the concert and he came!!!

The concert went really well too. It was a little stressful putting it together but it turned out really really good. There were 98 people there. WAY awesome. And Kristian (the guy) became a new investigator because he wants to learn more about the story of Joseph Smith. It was really cool.

We also had a lesson with a way cool Mongolian girl who has lived in the Czech Republic for 14 years (she is 19) and her family is Buddhist. She is awesome though... a referral from an investigator in a different city in The Czech Republic!!!

Then we had a lesson with Prokop our baptismal date. He isn't really progressing very much and he only meets with us like once a month... sad. We are trying to figure out what to do with him. He is so cool. He is a very nice man, but he isn't putting forth very much effort... WHAT TO DO?!?!? We will figure it out.

I hope everyone is doing well... I love you all... send me pictures!!!!

S laskou

Sister Bruno

The Weather Outside is Frightful

AHOJ HOJ moje rodina!!!

It's getting purrrty cold here in Praha... The sun never shines. And my companion said that from now until April it's going to be pitch black starting at 4:30... FUNNNN. That makes street contacting velmy interesting. But I'm just glad we had such good weather up until now. Really it was the most beautiful fall I have ever experienced in my life. OH Prague in the autumn. Y'all missed out.

The work continues on in Namesti Miru (that's the name of our area). We have been getting a TON of referrels. I LOVE referrels. The investigator is like 20 times more likely to show up to an appointment when they have been referred by a friend... and they don't think missionaries are as crazy :P!! We started cleaning a less-active man's house this week and he has been so grateful.(If you saw his house you would know why) At dinner yesterday he asked if we could go to other people's houses that weren't members and talk to those people. We answered really excitedly, yes!!! So he is going to have us meet one of his friends... Service is so awesome.  

Also we are putting on a concert this friday to try to find more investigators. It's been really fun getting ready for it. Yesterday we had a singing display on the street and handed out flyers... and we sang on the Metro on the way to the singing display. That was an interesting experience for sure. But now I can say, I have sung on the Metro in the Czech Republic, in PRAGUE. Not everyone can say they have done that :). I really hope that people come. This transfer my testimony of how the spirit can work through music has grown so much. I know that my Czech is not perfect, but when you sing a song and you feel the spirit swell within you so much you just want to burst! THE CHURCH IS TRUE! That happened for me last week when the primary kids sang a mix of English and Czech of Families can be together forever. It was beautiful. Great things are happening. The Lord is really hastening the work and I'm glad I get to be here to help!!!

Leaves Are Falling All Around

This place is beautiful. Holy Cow. Everything is a different color. The leaves are red, yellow, green, purple, orange. SO PRETTY.

This week was pretty exciting. We have a super cool awesome wicked new investigator named Matt, really Matous but he speaks english as well as slovak and czech so he told us we could call him Matt. His life has been pretty crazy and not very great so I think he has a hard time trusting people, but we had the best first lesson getting to tell him that GOD LOVES HIM! He is a former from the Elders so he knew a lot already about the church and he is kind of skeptical about living the standards but we asked him to give it a try and to meet with us, and he said YUSSSS. NEW INVESTIGATOR! It felt good because our area is still so new and really every new investigator has so much potential.

We also had a great lesson with this lady named Angie (Angea) she is also Czech but speaks perfect english. (Prague... I will never learn Czech because everyone speaks english!!) It is amazing to teach her. She takes gratitude to a whole new level. Really. She is so grateful for everything she has. Sometimes I wonder if our investigators or I am doing the teaching because I learn so much from these people everyday! Angie is so kind and so sincere, but she really does NOT like Jesus Christ. It makes me so sad!!!! She says she doesn't understand why people are so fanatical and she doesn't like to feel guilty about his suffering. We are going to talk to her about it this week and hopefully build her testimony of Jesus Christ... or at least plant the seed.

Then we had training and Sister Bateman and I had to do the training. My companion is the sister trainer leader, but president said that her companion should get involved too, so we just ended up doing the whole training together... It was so scary to get up in front of the entire zone and talk about Church Attendence, but I tried to think about it as an opportunity to bear my testimony about why going to church is so important. We told the missionaries that it is because church is the safe harbor away from the storms of life. I was really nervous but I think we did a good job. (?) hahahh it was a lot of fun anyway.

Everything is going well here in PRAHA. It really is the city of dreams. How is everyone else doing?  Have you all found the 1 person who you can share the gospel with before Christmas??? Let me know how it's going!!!

s laskou

Sestro Bruno

Open Your Mouth

So this week was awesome! We had another exchange with the other sisters in Prague. This one was really fun though because it was our first overnight exchange! And it was with one of my MTC sisters! I love Sister Rosenvall and I'm glad she is serving in Prague. Plus we taught our very own lesson with one of our investigators. I know I shouldn't have been scared becuase we are both in our third transfer and her Czech is really good, but I was a little nervous without Sister Bateman. The lesson went by so smoothly though. We talked about baptism and he said that if he came to know it was true, he would definitely be baptized. YUSSSSS. Way cool.

Conference was awesome. SO AWESOME. We just barely watched it this past weekend though because we had to wait for it to be translated to Czech. Thankfully we got to watch it in English... I'm not sure how much I would have understood if it had been in Czech, but we had to wait so that the branch could watch it in Czech and we could have the English in another room. There are actually a lot of members here in Prague that speak english, or some other language besides Czech. My favorite talk was by M. Russell Ballard who told us to OPEN OUR MOUTHS. He was really speaking to full-time missionaries and really speaking to me! Sometimes it's really hard to be brave in a place full of people who think I don't know what I'm talking about, or think that our message isn't important, but hearing that talk gave me the faith and courage to open my mouth and talk to people. The worst they can do is say no. And that is a little devestating, but with time, they'll come around!

I hope all of you had wonderful conference weekend as well (even if I am 2 weeks late) And I hope you are thinking about the person that you can refer to the missionaries! I know that they would really appreciate it! (The person and the missionaries) I love you all and I hope you are all happy and healthy and loving life!

s laskou

Sestra Bruno

Smarty Pants Missionary

This week has been crazy. As in, it is hard to remember everything that happened because it's been crazy.

The highlights of this week were definitely the lessons that we taught. EVERYBODY WE TEACH HAS TO BE THE BIGGEST SMARTY PANTS IN THE WORLD. I think it's pay back for me being the way I was before my mission... aka also a smarty pants. 

We "taught" (I say it like that because it didn't feel like we taught him anything, I think he just thought we were cool and was interested in our church) This man, whose english was perfect, about what we do as missionaries. He is Roman Catholic and it was so interesting because he explained what it means to be Roman Catholic in the Czech Republic. It means that your parents were roman catholic and so by birth you were declared Roman Catholic, you don't have to go to church, you don't have to believe, but you are Roman Catholic. We taught about the Restoration and he said that we were smart and passionate, but that he liked the idea that the Pope prays for his sins and he is forgiven... UGH, and then he said we could e-mail him in September... double UGH. He was so awesome, and I hope we can meet again after he has read in the BOOK OF MORMON.

Then we taught our investigator Karel again. HE IS AWESOME. He is still struggling to believe but we are working with him. HE IS AMAZING. Whether or not he makes it all the way to baptism or not, I just want him to know that God is there. HE IS. ALWAYS. And he always will be.

I got to go on Sister exchanges this week because my companion is the sister training leader so I was companions for the day with my old MTC companion Sister Steglich. IT WAS REALLY FUN. We just contacted together but it was crazy because while we were in the MTC we never thought we would get to walk the streets of Prague together. WAY COOL!

Then we had an amazing training. President McConkie is the best. He taught us about Christ as a shepherd, I hope you can all read John 10 this week and think about how Christ truly is our shepherd and what that means. He leads us and protects us and he is so humbly. It is beautiful. Then he committed us to getting 2 new investigators each week. We are pumped to meet our goals this week. I can hardly wait to start!

I love you all and pray for you

Sestra Bruno