June Flowers can bloom in December through our memories

Ahoj hoj my dear rodinicko Miracles were blooming allllll over the place this week. I really could believe it. The first miracle being that I had exchanges in Prague this week. I love that city with all of my heart. I was with Sister Rosenvall (one of my MTC sisters) and she helped me so much! We talked about how I can improve and what I can be doing better. One of the main concerns I have had on my mission is being about to feel successful. She, so lovingly, told me that all that I am doing shows my success, and even if I don't see it right now, that when I come home from my mission and when I have daughters that are going through the same things I have gone through that I am going to help them thanks to all that I am doing on my mission. Plus I got to be in Prague... and I saw Jardo and Angie!!! (2 investigators that I taught) Jardo is getting baptized on Friday!!!! and Angie... well she dropped the missionaries, but still I got to see them and tell them how much I love them. It just helped so much to see how much they have changed all because of the gospel. I'm so glad that I was able to bring that into their lives in even the smallest way. Then I came back to Plzen and we just exploded. We taught a girl that was contacted in September who texted us telling us that she wanted to meet! It was awesome. She met some believes through cheerleading and she wanted to know more. Unfortunately she went to Austria this week so we don't know when we will get to meet with her :( We also had first lessons with a man named Janu who contacted us our first day here in Plzen and gave him all the committments and he accepted them all. And we had a lesson with a man whose grandfather helped build Pilsner-Urquell (the beer factory here). And the coolest thing ever happened during a chalk display (we just draw things on the ground in chalk and contact people about it). I talked to this AMAZINGLY PREPARED girl from Portugal who doesn't know if she believes in God but wants to find out. At the end of the contact she asked if I really thought I could help her. I almost hugged her and half-shouting half-crying said "YES, I PROMISE THIS WILL HELP" It was an amazing feeling. She had a test so we are going to call this week to set up. On top of that we keep running into people that I have contacted/taught before last transfer and getting numbers... miracles. The cherry on top of an amazing week was that a women from church and our investigator (that only comes to church and wouldn't meet with us) became BEST FRIENDS. Seriously best friends. We had a meeting with the member to talk about her personal mission plan and talked about how she could help us bring this women to baptism. THE MEMBER WAS SOOOOO EXCITED. She set up the meeting herself. The member and investigator became friends while the investigator was coming to church and now they are working together. Roksana (the member) told us that our investigator was going to help her with work and Roksana was going to help the investigator be saved. IT WAS SO CUTE! We just had the lesson today and it was soooooo cool. The member taught the lesson for us. She shared all the commitments and told the investigator that she was going to call and check if she was reading and praying. And we set up again for thursday to teach the lady and her 3 daughters!!!! WE ARE STOKED. Members are KEY. Seriously they make a HUGE difference. I can't believe the amazing week I have had and I'm so blessed to have seen the hands of God in my work this week. My testimony of no effort ever being wasted has been so strengthened. God really knows the right time and condition and brings forth miracles in his way. I am so glad that he knows better than me and he makes these things possible for his children. Isn't he the best??? I love you all and I hope that all is well. GIGI IS HAVING HER BABY?!?!?! I'm freaking out. I'm so excited to see pictures. Everyone looks like models in the pictures they sent. How did I luck out with such a great family? I love you guys s laskou Sestra Bruno

True Colors

I won't lie, fam, this week was a buttkicker. The lovebug must have been in the air because people were just not showing up to the meetings that we set. Other than that it was good. We taught Tomas again. He is the sweetest old man on the planet. And it's hilarious because he tries to act like he isn't, but then when he prays during our lessons he thanks God for sending us to him... we still haven't really talked about baptism because he is hard-core catholic, but we plan to talk to him about whether or not he is catholic by tradition or by choice. Most people here believe what they believe because of their parents. Which is weird to me because so many people pride themselves on being "individuals" but then when we ask why they aren't believes 9 times out of 10 it has to do with how they grew up. SO I just want to take this time to say THANK YOUUUUUU to my wonderful family who taught me about God. And who taught me not to take their word for it, but to find out myself. I just want so badly for all of these people to know what I know. They would LOVE it too. Anyway just wanted to say, I love you all sooooooo much! 

Speaking of individuals, we met a lot of those this week. :) One of them brought my companion chocolate on Valentine's Day. bahahahah. We had to give him to the Elders... but it was definitely a journal moment. We also taught the WAYYYY cool guy named Daniel. Unfortunetely he gave us every excuse in the book for why he couldn't meet even though he was clearly feeling the spirit. Sad day. BUT he said he would call after he read Alma 32, if it interested him... Since I know how powerful the scriptures are, I know he will call... if he actually read and had sincere interest like he said he would. Basically I know how ready Plzen is to explode, but for some reason something is missing... we will find it. 

PLUS Simona came to church again this week!!! She is the one with the 3 daughters... But she won't set up to meet with us :( It's so weird because this usually does NOT happen. Usually it is us begging our investigators to come to church and not the other way around. Plans are being made to rectify the situation. Haha. If you have any ideas let me know. It's a tough one. 

Plzen has definitely been good for me. I think I have learned more things about myself and how the world really works here then anywhere/any time in my whole life. But I think the one thing that sticks out the most is that I have undoubtly, with a surety learned that God loves his children. Me and you and all our investigators and our friends and every one. SO. MUCH. Even if it is hard to recognize. I think that I am in store for another tough transfer, but I'm looking forward to it. 

Happy Valentine's Day. Love you love you love you!!!

S laskou 

Sestra Bruno

A Short Report from the Czech Republic

AHOJ! Hey sorry so my enter button isn't working. It's going to be kind of a weirdly formatted letter home this week. BUT. It was a good week. We taught some really good lessons and got a new investigator! Her name is Pavla. And she's 21. SHE'S AWESOME! We are so excited to meet her again. The lesson was a little bit crazy because we met her on the namesti (town square) and then walked to a cafe and it was so loud and people were smoking and drinking all around us and I ordered hot chocolate (the only thing not against the word of wisdom on the menu) but they brought me out a latte instead... awkward. Then we taught her a basic lesson and she was awesome. She responded well to everything!! The Book of Mormon was really hard for her to read though, but it is for everyone here in the Czech Republic because it uses really old Czech and people aren't used to reading religious books. So that was understandable. She is so great though. Unfortunately she didn't come to church this week,

Eating Your Way Through A Mission

Hello family.

Another transfer has just flown by!!! I can't believe I have been in Plzen for 2 months already. But I guess that I will be staying here and Sister Cooper is going to be my companion. She is great. From what I have heard, she works really hard and is really motivated. I'm pumped. Plzen is going to see some really cool things this transfer!

It has been a really amazing week. We have eaten at SO MANY MEMBERS HOUSES! The members here really loved my last companion so they had us over once before she left. There is this really funny old lady called the "groovy grandma" who makes ovocny knedliky (fruit dumplings). They are the best things ever, but they are basically a heart attack waiting to happen. They are potato dumplings with apple filling then she covers them with powdered sugar and cream and a cup of butter (1 cup for every knedliky). We went over to her house this week and had what is called "The Knedliky Challenge" basically you try to eat the most knedlikys. Your pride is really on the line. I ate 13 of them!!!! And my companion ate 20 (That was the record for Sisters, 45 is the record for Elders) Don't you worry, I have one more transfer to beat the record!!! It was insane. We also had traditional Ukrainian food at another members house. IT WAS SO GOOD. Real Ukrainian borsk. It was delicious. Seriously I am gaining soooo much weight. But it is worth it.

We also had another lesson with the Catholic Man. He prayed correctly after we taught him how to pray so that was really interesting, and great. Also Simona came to church again yesterday, and she took the Gospel Principles book home! We still haven't been able to meet with her though. She is really busy and I'm trying to figure out how to get her to let us teach her!!! It's really good though. 

It's been a crazy week, and a crazy transfer. I'm really looking forward to seeing the amazing things that will happen here in Plzen the next two months. I know that great things are ahead! I hope you are all doing splendidly. 

Love you!

s laskou

Sestra Bruno 

Faith, Agency and Opposition

Hello dear family,

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) 

TRAKTOVANI...

This week was INTENSE. We had a mindblowingly crazy spiritually uplifting zone conference. Our mission president changed a lot of the things... Then we had interviews with him and he asked if I would do whatever he asked and I said YES! I'm really excited to start doing everything I can to find people. One of the biggest pieces of advice he gave was to have in mind who we need before we go finding, and plan accordingly. The church in this part of the vineyard needs some extra TLC... we are so close to getting a stake. I WANT IT TO BE THIS YEAR. And we need families and strong priesthood holders. So we are thinking outside of the box and we are doing things that scare us. LIKE TRAKTING. I know I might sound like a horrible missionary to some of you who have served... like everyone in our family... but we don't do trakting really in the Czech Republic. Well... we do it's just really scary because the way that Czech houses were build is crazy. There is a front door, but you can't get to the front door with out ringing people the peoples zvolnek, then they have to come out and open the gate that is locked before you can even think about getting to the front door. Even with houses. EVERY HOUSE/APARTMENT BUILDING/SHACK/ANY LIVING ACCOMODATION has one. So there is no way to knock the door and people are just not super nice when you knock on their door. BUT Holla at 'cha girls. We got over our fear and we trakted. We are starting small... one hour a day of trakting and we are starting with houses and not humongous ponaloks (apartment buildings that were built during communism that are super scary and people threaten to call the police on you and yell at you). Baby steps. WE ARE BEING BRAVE AND WE ARE BEING BOLD because these people need it! People need us to tell them that their lives aren't ok without the gospel. They need the message that we are talking about! And we desperately need them to be our branch builders here in Plzen so that we can get a stake in the Czech Republic. It was actually pretty good. We talked to some really nice people, and we talked to some really not so nice people and we had one man who basically kicked us out of the neighborhood... that's okay, we'll get 'em next time. 

We also talked in training about becoming Czech... figuring out what they like, how they act and then using that to talk to people. I'm going to try to be better at that. I really want to embrace this culture. I want people to think that I'm Czech! It's gonna take some work.... hah Also we watched the Mormon Message "The Curren (sp?) Bush" The Lord is really the gardener in our lives and I really want to focus on being the person that the Lord wants me to become. Which is hard. Sometimes I don't know exactly what the Big Guy wants from me, but I'm working on that too. It's gonna be a good week. 

Wishing you health and happiness

s laskou

Sestra Bruno

That Awkward After-Christmas-Time-where-people-are-waiting-for-New-Year's-and-still-don't-want-to-meet with you

Hey Fam!

It was so nice to talk to all of you on Christmas! Seriously. It made my year!!!! Things I learned: 

MY FAMILY IS CRAZY (in a good way) all the other missionaries could hear everything we were saying and I was in a different room with the door closed... hahaha. 

I miss you all more than I expected to!

I wouldn't be the missionary I am without all of you!!!

That being said, Thank you... And stop promising me to random strangers in Brazil and utah singles wards. 

It was an amazing Christmas!!!! We started off with a visit from my girl Marketa from Prague. It was a great visit. Then we spent Christmas Eve visiting members and showing them a 5 minute film then bearing our testimony of Jesus Christ. It was amazing. We have wonderful members in this part of God's vineyard. The members in Plzen are just so friendly and genuinely pray for the missionaries success. It is a beautiful thing. Then for Christmas Eve dinner all the missionaries got invited to a members house. She made us... get this... Fried Chicken and potato salad... Traditional Czech christmas food. I thought that was funny since I am used to fried chicken and potato salad but prepared in a whole different way. A little bit of southern comfort for me during my Christmas in the Czech Republic. It was pretty funny. Then we had millions of things called sucrovy which are just these tiny christmas cookies. Every cookie tastes different though. It's crazy. I'll have to send pictures. We literally eat thousands of these things. Needless to say I am F-A-T. I have a New Year's Resolution to give up milka bars (the chocolate here). 

Then for Christmas we visited a hospital and sang to this man. It was so cute. He asked where we were from and we told him America and he was shocked that we had come all the way from America to sing for him on Christmas. Then he wished us health so that we wouldn't end up in the hospital like him. It was really cute. He sang along to the carols we sang... it was awesome. Then we had lunch with our district. And dinner with some members who didn't have family to go home to.

The day after Christmas was probably the funniest because we went around singing at places where we thought people would be, but Plzen is pretty small and so there was no one out. We were basically singing to ourselves. It was definitely an experience that I will never forget. I have never sung so much in my life for an audience as I have on my mission... I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. hahhaha. 

The holidays were so wonderful but I am really excited for everything to go back to normal and to get back to normal missionary work. I have souls to save here! hahaha. But really I am super excited for what the New Year will bring. It is truly a time to reflect on how to improve and change and get better (as is every new day that comes) because "a marvelous work is about to come forth among the Children of men" and I get to be apart of it! #STOKED 

I miss you all so so so much! Have Fun at Annika's wedding!!!! Do the stanky leg for me!

s laskou

Sestro Bruno