The Best Week Yet!

Elder Brousseau and his companion

Nazdar všetci,

Tak hej so first off, my new companion is someone close to home. Actually, he went to Hillcrest High School. Anyway, so this has been the best week of my mission so far, let's dive right in, I'm excited to talk.

Sword in the Stone-Chris could be King!

So first off, I'm loving Nitra, the city where everything is possible. To illustrate this, like 2 hours before my companion showed up, a guy, to whose brother we had given a contact card called US and asked to meet. We got to teach almost immediately after he showed up, and I noticed we were on almost exactly the same page when we taught, it was really cool. The only problem with this was something that has been happening more often than I care for: He went home and his girlfriend/mom/some woman on the street/girl that he knows flipped out at him and [said] he "can't" meet with us anymore. This guy who was so absolutely awesome and cool got restricted from the gospel by "the woman thou gavest me." Frustrating, but really kind of funny to deal with, we have heard some really just Great blasphemy in the last week from these women, napríklad, "How many times has Pana Maria showed herself to people? And Jesus doesn't show himself to ANYONE! Who's greater then?" No joke though, I really love talking to these ladies, teaching women with attitude has become a wonderful experience because when they find out the truth, they will fight tooth and nail to convince everyone of it. A fine example of this is our investigator, she started out all "O no yoo di'nt!" and now she's just awesome.

Chris and his friend

Another investigator is really on the path to baptism. His new date is the 6th of September, and boy is he excited. This man is just priceless, he was really sad when he found out that his date was changing, and when we talked about what was going to happen with him there, he asked, "How long do I have to stay under the water? Because if it's more than a minute, I'm not sure I can, but I'll try." He's just so Great. We actually got to go with him to Velky Cetin, where we found a river and a lake where he would be excited to be baptized, and had a wonderful experience while we were there searching everything out and picking plums and making fun of cults and all sorts of tomfoolery. He came to church this week, because he's understanding the importance of commitments, he also texted us this week telling us about this awesome spiritual confirmation he got that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God. I wish I had recorded him sharing these spiritual experiences, they're just awesome.

We're off to a really good start this transfer as far as organization, my companion is a lot like me, and really likes a good organized area book, so I'm happy to announce that for the first time since the area's opening, our records and apartment are completely organized and up to date. That's really big for me, there are so many people that I feel would be ready and willing to accept the gospel if missionaries updated regularly and wrote legibly.

Levice, Slovakia

We had kind of a sad experience of some Romas who came to our building and listened to our message and everything and became new investigators, but they just for some reason could NOT handle us praying and just busted up laughing every time. It was really sad, but we dropped them and we're making sure we just hug it and love the experience, you know? I now have owning a professional pianist at the piano on my challenge completed list, haha. Our first singing display this transfer went pretty well too, my poor companion isn't much of a singer, so I'm going to be teaching him, so that will be wonderful, he's got a Great attitude, about which I am very glad.

So my Bible has turned into a weapon frankly, and I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it. We don't really Bible-Bash, mostly because I have a terrible hatred for using the scriptures to drive away the spirit, that just feels morally wrong, but when it does happen, the bible has itself categorized according to religion, and actually, brings really good experiences when not used in anger or retaliation. 

Elder Brousseau selfie

Priklad: Teaching this hot-shot who answers the phone with, "hello, this is So-and-so, the 7th day adventist." Our lesson started out BAD. He almost immediately started attacking our church, doctrine, and our Book, and pulled out his Bible to try and start proving it. We listened and didn't disagree with him, even though he was saying some really really not agreeable things. Then, when he had finished with his speech, which ended with, "And so, if it's not in the Old AND the New Testament, it can't be true," was when inspiration struck. I told him, "You realize we didn't come here to try and convince you, right?" We talked about how we have all sorts of evidence, like carvings in stone, and the stuff underneath the Aztec pyramids, but that evidence doesn't really matter to us. Evidence and miracles and signs are absolutely useless if you don't have the basis of faith. We then invited him to pray about it, and he agreed when inspiration struck again. Knowing that Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor, I listened to the spirit and started to show him the references that I've found in both the Old and New Testaments supporting the Book of Mormon, and he was really curious to see Revelations 14:6. We went and read it, and this lesson that had started out so incredibly zlé ended up with him teaching us for about 15 minutes why that had to be absolutely true. It was amazing to see the change. The difference between Bible-Bashing and opening someone's eyes to the truth is very simple. It's the attitude with which you complete the action. If you do it with love and trust in God that they can feel, it will work out, but if you're out to prove something or act in anger, the Lord won't support your testimony, even when backed up by facts.

My companion

We haven't had much time for lunch or dinner in the past week, so it was really wonderful to go visit a wonderful sister in the area and just get stuffed. She reminds me so much of my grandma, she's so sweet, she ended up giving us like several pounds of food to bring to a less-well-off investigator of ours, and she showed us around her little city, it was spectacular. Something cool about Slovak real quick, we have these crazy city names like Levice (where she lives) that are actually plural, so when you talk about them it's like, "Wow, these cities are beautiful," even though it's only 1...It was a little weird to get used to, and I still make some mistakes sometimes, but I'll keep pushing on. People here every day still think that I'm native, so I must be doing something right.

Anyway, that's all for this week, Love you all. I hope all is going well for you!

Lots of love,
Starší Chris Brúso

P.S. My companion has a big crush on my sister, just BTW. =)