Chris' Special Tie Knot

Chris' Special Tie Knot

Friday, June 12, 2015

Nezmenitelne evanjelium (Immutable Gospel)

June 8, 2015 

Nazdar!

We have seen such great success this week, I just want to thank God first for the help he has given us. Our investigators all seem to be progressing, we're finding new ones, and our burdens are being made light. I love the gospel, and all of the things it contains. I love my family and everything they do for me. Well, off of the serious note, I'm sick of serious things.

Let's get right to it, yesterday at church M1 took the sacrament, and actually CAME, all because W. helped her come. A. and Y., two Thai girls that we found a little while back came also, and had really great experiences. We also had 2 pretty big visits from a former missionary, and a family from Arizona who used to live here. Needless to say, church was awesome. Elder R. and I were able to teach Young Men's during the 2nd hour, which was a great learning experience, I have trouble believing that I acted/act like these boys, but whatever, I'll just do better.

We have had a really interesting week full of different types of missionary work. We had contacting, teaching, and tracting of course, but we also had weird things that I haven't really done a lot of before, like randomly going on splits, giving baptismal interviews, and trusting investigators testimonies to stand the test. I know that that sounds really sad, but I just wanted to illustrate how different and great this week has been, I've been really stoked about it. Also, there's a good chance that M (future missionary) will come back this week in order to help me team-teach priesthood.

Well, Monday, I don't honestly remember a lot of what happened, mainly because we haven't really been doing super fun things as a District because none of us really have time and also it's REALLY hot, like yesterday it was about 30.5 degrees out, and I was in a suit. Not fun, that's why winter is better.

Tuesday, we got to start out by going and supporting one of our members who runs a kebab stand here, he's from Afghanistan, and his name is M4. The poor guy was gunned down for being a Christian in his home country, and then kicked out from Switzerland, where he found the church, and lives here now. He's so humble, it's great. We also had a meeting with M1, which went really well, she has become a whole lot more humble and accepting during the time I've taught her.
Wednesday we had a meeting with M5, this guy we've known for a while, and it went about how we expected it to go, but he's steadily showing more interest, which is a good thing. We also taught English, which is always a joy.

Thursday was where things started to get a little bit interesting if I remember correctly. We gave a heartfelt note from Sister Cottle to a member who has recently become less-active, which turned into a little bit of a fiasco, but that's fine, we're all ok now. The other portion of it was having a second meeting with M1, where we established a date for her AND W., who has been meeting with her outside of our lessons. We've been trying and are still trying to decide how to work with that situation, because sometimes, like on Sunday it looks good, but other times it looks like it could be a hurt to both of them. In any case, we're hugging it, and doing our best to help both of them come closer to Christ.

Friday I gave I. his baptismal interview, it was really spiritual. He doesn't feel ready yet, so we'll see what happens there, but his baptism will probably need to be pushed back a bit again.

Saturday was really cool, a former missionary here was visiting and helped us teach W., it was pretty cool.

Then Sunday happened, which I talked about earlier. So cool to have a full building again, and it wasn't even a conference or anything.

I love you all a lot, have a great week.


Elder Brousseau

June 1, 2015

Stastie je nieco tazko opisatelne, ale lahko pochopitelne. (Happiness is something hard to explain, but easy to understand.)

Nazdar!

You know, it seems that the Lord sends random stupid things that he knows are going to make me happy and keep me going more often than I ever seem to expect. It's a game he's been playing with me for a very long time, and I've decided I appreciate it. The example that's fresh in my mind today is this week. Last week, I was getting hit pretty hard with feeling inadequate because of the lack of results that came from last transfers hard work. I felt like it was because I had slacked off, or because I wasn't good enough, and then I began to see good things in other people and forgetting about good things in myself. In order to save me from my own self pity, the Lord decided that just because he knew I would appreciate it, even though it's stupid, he helped people to start complimenting my Slovak again. I know it's dumb, and I promise I'm not comparing myself to anyone except for myself, but He knew I would appreciate it during this weird time for me. So yeah, that's pretty cool, I've had several people in the last week tell me I'm from central Slovakia according to accent, so that's really nice.
I'm doing a lot better than last week, and I'm not just saying that because Elder R. was reading my letter last week and said that it sounded like I was in the depths of despair, and I guess I can see why he thought that. Also, I got like 90 emails from people thinking that I need some sort of encouragement. I wish that I sounded as happy in my letters as I actually am. Because I am SO happy. I really love being here. I love Slovaks so much. It astounds me how surprised people are to hear that. For example, this lady today at a bus stop refused to believe that we were here for so long because we loved Slovaks and wanted to help them. Admittedly, she had had a little bit of alcohol, but she just decided that that information didn't compute, and therefore didn't believe it. I wish that Slovaks weren't surprised in a bad way to find someone who loves them. I want their surprise to be more of a, "Wow! Thank you! What makes you love Slovaks? How do I get part of that love?" Instead of a, "No one loves Slovaks, go back to America." But I love it to death.

Well, our investigators are doing pretty ok. M1 is introducing us to her friends and growing in determination to come to church and understand the sacrament. I am so proud of the progress I've seen in her, last week we also had a really cool lesson, where we were able to  actually teach her with W., which we're hoping helps both of them.

W. has done another weird, where she wanted to meet out of the blue, and then wanted a blessing, and then helped us teach, and now isn't really texting us back...not sure what to do with her other than wait.

M2 has come back into the picture, she has been texting us all week, and is hoping to start meeting again in order to work towards baptism. So great.

K. has also come back into the picture, I recognized him from a bus, and we immediately ran off the bus and after him. Turns out, he doesn't hate us or anything, in fact, he still wants to be baptized, his phone just hasn't worked since he came back from Turkey, and he couldn't remember where the new building was. We'll see what happens with him.

M3 is currently not meeting with us, which we are pretty ok with, mostly because she doesn't want to meet as a family as far as we can tell. Not usually a good sign.

On another note, where do [people] all get the same Anti-Material from? I've been having to debunk the same stupid papers like 4 times since I've come to Blava, and every time they are so convinced that everything in them is true. Dumb, but whatever, they're not hard to break.

I wanted to ask you to tell Elder Kearon thank you from me personally, I told him that he wasn't thanked enough for the work that he does, and then afterwards realized that I never actually did thank him for it. If you could do that for me, I would be grateful. Training was great, It gave me several pieces of inspiration I was really grateful for, a good example of which is: How can we help our investigators feel more cared about? Answer: Daily SPIRITUAL contact, give them little things to read and a nice note daily every day that you don't meet with them. I have high hopes for this, if that really is the main thing to be felt in conversion like Elder Kearon said, we should have several new converts soon.

Anyway, lots of love,


Elder Brousseau


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