God is Love--more growth in Bratislava, Slovakia!

June 14, 2015

Nazdar!

Hey! So guess what? I only have 25 minutes to write all of my letters today, so we'll cut straight to everything, first, thanks MOM for sending me those essay questions, I'll think about what to write for them and respond when I can. LARS, That may have been the best question anyone has asked me on my mission, I'm sorry I don't currently have an answer. KENNEN, be a good Zone Leader! Remember to write in your journal, even though you don't have much time. Ok, on to the good stuff.

We've seen a lot of miracles this week, randomly things start to just be falling into place again, and we can only be grateful they're this way right now, and hope they stay in place long enough to see some more success and fruits. I really hope that I stay in Blava, seeing as we have transfers next week, and an area will need to close because no one new is coming in at the moment. Blava has the most missionaries in it right now, so my guess is that they close either an area here, or one in Nitra. On the very bright side, the missionaries here are going to be so much more well equipped spiritually, and I'm excited for the spirit to help us out a little more seeing that our numbers are going down even more. We were actually talking about this today, that there are probably less than 50 Americans in the whole world who actually know how to make Halusky in the traditional Slovak way from potatoes and everything. It's a pretty select group. :)

M1 had a cool experience this week, where she basically said goodbye because she was going to Ziar nad Hronom (Banska Bystrica district) to do some Catholic church stuff, and she felt like she wouldn't be coming back for a while, then she felt really badly there, and came back the next day. We're helping her right now to gain some spiritual confidence to take the next step on her own.

W. is getting closer and closer, we had a meeting with her today, where we had planned not to really bring up baptism at all, because she doesn't really want to talk about it, but the person we were teaching her with started in on her without any prompting from us at ALL. It was pretty great, he was all like, "When is YOUR baptism happening, I want to come and see." He's not even a member, so that was a pretty sweet experience.

M2 is back in contact with us, I hope that we'll be able to get an exception for her to be baptized and come to church in November, because her contract really is preventing her from visiting church pretty hardcore. Not fun. But she's still pretty positive about the whole thing, so that's great.

Elder Ringger and I have been eating Halusky almost every day this week. It has been heaven. On Monday, we made halusky for W. and the Cottles at the Cottles' apartment, and they said it was the best they had ever had. Later, a member took us to, "Help him move," even though he had no intention of moving, really really annoying, and a big waste of a day, but he did take us to 2 different restaurants and get us halusky, so that makes up for the one day we didn't have it.

Overall, I really don't have anything to complain about, which is nice. I don't like complaining very much. Also, about the title, Elder Ringger and I are thinking of making a T~Shirt/Bryndza import company. We're talking millions here. Or at least 12. It'll be pretty ok.

Well, I love you guys a lot, Thanks for telling me about your dream PAUL, That must have been pretty cool.

S Laskou,

Elder Brousseau

June 21, 2015

Ked ma ini kolac, zlato, blahobyt...Vedz, ze Pan nemoze od zmluv odstupit. (Google Translate did a horrible job with this one...)

Nazdar!

So...First I need to thank you for your prayers in my behalf. They've been very helpful. This last week, we've had several miracles which make me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Missionary work is such, that you will put all of your efforts into trying to find someone new who is interested and ready for baptism, while the Lord laughingly prepares someone behind your back who will come of their own volition.

I love my mission, it is literally everything to me. Elder Ringger decided with me that he could be trunky when he's dead (when his mission ends), and we stuck out our transfer together. We worked hard, we found, we taught, and we baptized. It was so special to me to see a real live "Best Two Years." The missionary about to go home, no girlfriend waiting for him, literally signing up for classes during emailing, who has lost his faith in finding because of a lack of perceived success decides to give it one last shot, and it pays off. W. got baptized last week on Saturday at 15:40 and was confirmed [a member of the church] yesterday, on Sunday. From the looks of things at the moment, in the next several weeks we should be having 3 more just like it as well.

I am still in Blava, still District Leader, and I have a pretty green companion, Elder Cahoon from Brigham City, Utah. He seems a like a missionary after my own heart, so we'll see how things go with him. He just came out of Nitra, and he's a happy guy so far.

M1 is getting ready for baptism, but she's still scared and really distrustful, which is totally understandable, considering she's living in an apartment with a girl who constantly looks up anti-mormon things, and is currently finishing up 6 years at Catholic school, so no one blames her. The date she's picked is June 30th.

M2 Is getting ready for her baptism next Monday on the 29th, which will be great, we're just working on getting her to church for her confirmation. Because of her contract with Devin Castle it could be a little bit harder than wanted.

M3 is M3, he's going to be baptized, it will be great. He's currently scheming as to how to marry a Mormon girl from Southern California once he's a Mormon too, which is pretty entertaining.

Anyway, I'm really quite content with this transfer, it's been really fun. Last week we got to go and watch a Flamenco guitar concert on a boat in the Dunai for Culture Night, which was pretty sweet. Heavy metal is so very boring compared to what a Classical guitarist can do.

I love you all so much, be Good!!!

Starsi Brousseau

Uz som zfanatizovany! (I Had A Fanatic!)

April 27, 2015

Nazdar!

Hey everyone, I can't wait to tell you about how this week went! So first off, no one got baptized, but that almost makes it better in this case, we had 2 people that were supposed to! And what's better is that they both pushed their dates back, they're having some really faith-building experiences at the moment, so cool. Well, let's see, where are we since we talked last week?

Slavin Monument

First, last Monday we got to go see something quite amazing. We got to go see why Slovakia has such a close relationship with Russia, to the point that throughout this Ukrainian conflict, nearly all of the Slovaks that we talk to side with the Russians, and if a bigger war broke out, there would be no question whether Slovakia would go against the European Union. They would side with the Russians. Why? Because Russia is their savior from WWII. We went up to the highest point in Blava, to a place called Slavin, where we saw the Russian war monument. It was a super amazing spiritual experience to me, to walk around this cool building (which looks quite similar to a temple), and see the names and dates of cities that Russia freed from the German occupation, especially to find that every single one of the cities mentioned I have been in for missionary work. It actually makes me extremely grateful to Russia for the work they put forth to preserve the Slovaks, so that I could come here and serve. I love love love this people so much.

On a side note, on Monday we got 4 new investigators, how sweet is that?

We have had a bit of a rollercoaster, but it makes me really grateful that I have Elder R. as a companion at the moment, he's really good at rolling with the punches and just going with it. He is trying so very very hard to stay in the here and now, but goodness, he's excited to go home. It makes me a little bit sad, just because I feel the end coming, and it really makes me sad and scared, kind of the same sad and scared as when I was thinking about coming. Where, I feel like I'll go, and I won't know anyone, and everyone will think I'm weird and stupid, and pretty much all of the same fears, except an added one of not being able to see the wonderful Slovak members again. That scares me the most. But on a super positive note, I still have quite a lot of time, and on top of that, SUMMER'S FINALLY BACK!!! Haha, I used to think that winter was my favorite season, but it's totally not. All of the students come back to Blava for the summer, and this place just comes alive, whereas in the winter it's pretty dead.

Our investigators are in weird places. Like, lots of them want to be baptized, but some of them don't understand it, and others do self-destructive things that prevent it, and others zase (again) are muslims/JWs trying to convince us we're in some sect. I have an interesting thing for you to think about though. One of our investigators is staying in a student's dorm for theological studies. In her flat are at least: 2 Catholics, 1 Jehovah's Witness, 1 Adventist of the 7th Day, and 1 Lutheran, all studying religion. They don't get along concerning nearly anything, especially not doctrine, until the question of whether our investigator should join our church, they all suddenly unite in saying no. It just makes you think, you know?

We're doing really good things here though, we're really happy to be serving where we are. Our District is doing well on top of that, despite the fact that for some reason things that were previously viewed as going rain or shine, have had to be cancelled for various reasons. Attitudes are positive, and spirits are high.

Well, lots of love, send me questions if there's something you'd like to know more about, the more specific, the better.

Elder Brousseau

May 4, 2015

Na Pleciach Kolosov (On the Shoulders of Kolosov)

Nazdar!

I am very excited to tell you about this week, I've had some real growing experiences, which have been tough (as is to be expected), and extremely helpful. Elder R. and I are getting along quite well, and I actually just got an email from my boy Tomas Vasicek in the Alpine mission where he met Elder R's brother at a mission conference with Elder Bednar and Teixieraeireieiexirieiea. How cool is that? Well, on to the growth.

So last week on Monday, we went to Blava castle with a handful of investigators, and it went REALLY well. It was super fun as well, especially considering that M5 (one of our investigators) decided not to follow the rules, and drove his car right up to the castle doors and parked out in front of them. Somehow we didn't get in any sort of trouble for that. But we did a lot of teaching, and had a lot of fun, it was great.

Today is the first P~Day of the transfer in which we aren't getting together and doing a fun District Activity. It feels kind of poopy, but we'll fix that next week, our schedules are just so various.

Our investigators are doing pretty good, here's some stuff about the more prominent of them:

A. and J. (I'm not sure how they're actually spelled) are a couple of massage therapists from Thailand, and I had a little miracle in Brno concerning them. I hate talking about a mistake the office elders made, but they didn't remember to give us the Thai Books that we ordered, and I guessed that beforehand, so I went in Brno with Elder W. to the library to see if they had any that we could take, and guess what? They had exactly 2 super old Thai copies hidden somewhere in the back that we were able to take, it was SWEET.

A2 is back in the picture, he had his first anniversary last week and so he just took the whole week off to spend with his wife, and I honestly can't really blame him for that decision, even though I would have liked them both to be baptized on their anniversary instead, that would be quite a memory, right? But we have a meeting with him today, and we're going to try and get him and his wife to come to the Druzhkovci with us sometime, so that A2 can hear the parts that are harder for him to understand in his native Russian, and we'll finally be able to meet his wife.

M1 has a hard situation where no one is talking to her right now because last week she blurted out to her roommates that she went to church u nas (with us), and word got to her parents. As far as we know (she went to Banska Bystrica and met with the missionaries there) her parents have just sort of given up on controlling her, which would be really really great, but we'll find out at our meeting later today. She has been responding super well to the Book of Mormon, and we're going to build off of that.

M2 still wants to be baptized, and she's getting less and less high maintenance the more she realizes that we're nice people who actually care about her and we're willing to work with her schedule and not get super mad when she doesn't understand some things completely. It's really nice, BTR is something we've kind of neglected up to this point in her teaching, and now that she's getting it, she's even more willing (if that's possible) to continue in the church towards the goal of baptism.

W... her problems in the gospel all boil down to a fundamental refusing to understand the church. She refuses to understand despite missionaries and all sorts of members telling her in different ways that we are not members of the church to be part of some cool club, we're members to strengthen our relationship to God. On top of that, she says that she has a strong relationship and doesn't need to do anything to make it better while zavoren saying that she prays like once or twice a week, and never out loud. It's really quite depressing to work with, and I'm a little afraid that my frustration with her attitude has shown through in our meetings, which may have turned her off more.

So the biggest growing experiences for me though, were at training, where I realized and got a good picture for myself about how much I really just love the Slovak people. I really really just adore everything about them, even the stupid annoying little quirks that their culture gives them, which is funny for me because I know that they're stupid and annoying. Something that really helped me to start loving the people more was reading in 1st Corinthians 9:19 through like 23 a long while ago, back when I was with Elder G., and really just trying my very hardest to be as a Slovak to the Slovaks. It has been the biggest adventure to really just forget my own hardships in my love for another people, and I feel like it has really enlarged my spirit.

I've also had a big learning experience considering my own hypocrisy through teaching W. I have been holding things against people for a long time, and it's been a huge wake-up call to me, to teach someone who won't even admit that they're holding things against people. Grudges kill the spirit pretty hardcore, and "forgiving" but not forgetting doesn't help anyone. The biggest advice I can give to anyone who wants to feel better about themselves is LET IT GO, and start being grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who deals with only having imperfect people with which to work. I love him so much.

Here's a pretty good and effective baptismal invitation in Slovak in case anyone's curious, or has a place for it in their missionary work:

Naším cieľom ako misionárov je pomáhať ľuďom sa priblížiť ku Kristovi. Boh je Naším Otcom, a s týmto pohľadom, môžeme vidieť jasne, že nás miluje, a chce, aby sme aj jeho milovali. Jeden spôsob, ako môžeme ukázať tu svoju lásku k nemu je urobiť nejaký sľub, v podstate, že ideme nasledovať to prvé prikázanie, Milovať budeš svojho Boha, celým svojim srdcom, mocou, mysľou, a silou. Boli by ste ochotní sľúbiť Bohu, že to idete robiť? Vieme, že čim viac to zachovávate, tým viac budete cítiť Božiu prítomnosť vo vašom živote.

V našej cirkvi, verime tomu, že ten najefektívnejší spôsob urobiť s Bohom sľub, je robiť to čo Kristus učil. Ako sa dostaneme na tuto cestu je vlastne niečo čo tiež nám ukázal Kristus, a to je Krst. Date sa pokrstiť, aby ste mohli uzatvoriť ten sľub s Bohom? (Use Google Translate to see the English version of this invitation.)

So yeah I think that's everything, I'm excited to talk with my family this next Sunday, we'll see how that goes, It's a little bittersweet to think about how this is my last Skype call while I'm here, but I'll survive somehow.

Zo Slovenska S Laskou,

Elder Brousseau

May 11, 2015

Den Matiek...Posledny (Mother's Day... Last One)

Nazdar!

So...I'm not really sure what to write, I just talked to my family yesterday, so that's still just kind of floating around in my head at the moment. I think I'm going to have some really interesting and fun conversations with my parents later in life.

But really, I'm not sure what to write. Things are good here in Blava, the church is getting hit pretty hard here though. We had a visit from Elder Adler of the seventy on Tuesday, and we got to discuss things with him for about 2 hours, which was really cool, especially because during the time, we had 3 lessons on plan, but all of them cancelled so we got to stay and enjoy more of the surprise visit. But he expressed the exact same concerns that I have about Slovakia. Far too many young single adults are leaving. We know that it isn't just here, but the church is smaller here than in the surrounding areas, so it seems to hurt more. 

The biggest thing that happened throughout the week...I'm not sure, there are 2 things sticking out in my head, so I'll say both of them. First, Elder Adler helped talk us through some of the harder points of missionary work here, and we came up with a really cool solution for the question of:

 What to do when my investigators want to be baptized, but they're all waiting for someone else to go first? He told us, that all concerns are either an insufficiently strong testimony of Joseph Smith and the restored authority, or a fear of reaction, and that a concern like this could stem from either. Thus, we must teach our investigators how to bear their own testimonies without fear. If they get used to bearing their testimonies now, think of how much they could grow BEFORE they're baptized, and then how much it will strengthen their resolve afterwards. I also received a great idea from my family yesterday: go to the place where the baptism is going to happen, and give them a baptismal preview like we do at home with the 8 Year-Olds. We are going to try both of these later today, so we'll see how it goes.

Thing #2: M1 has started to consider who she wants to baptize her, and we had an almost perfect meeting with her and M. C. on Saturday night. I love our investigators. There aren't as many as there were last transfer (poor Elder R. thinks he's the grim reaper, but they just weren't ready for commitment), but the ones here are cooler than ever before.

Well, I think that's everything, I'm really tired and not thinking completely straight, so I'll just play it safe and finish before I say something chunky.

Lots of love,

Elder Brousseau

May 18, 2015

Nazdar!

Wow, this week has gone by really really fast, and a TON has happened. Basically, it seems like lots of things are unravelling really really fast, and it kind of scares me, and I'm hoping that the Lord has a specific plan of how things need to play out here, because it seems like a lot a lot of things are resting on the missionaries that shouldn't normally need to, even in such a small place. 

News #1 M.C. has gone to Plzen in the Czech Republic to be closer to K. and to, "Perform God's Work." We're hoping and praying that he doesn't go too far over there, we really need him on a mission. In fact, it would just be better if he came back and ceased contact with K., it would solve a whole lot of problems we're having to deal with.

News #2 W. has decided it's her mission to get our other investigators to take "Breaks" from meeting with the missionaries. Kind of crazy, and I don't really appreciate it.

News #3 M1 is unusually happy and ready to be baptized, despite all of the opposition surrounding her. Pretty awesome.

News #4 A2 understands at long last why he should consider being baptized again. He is such a light to meet with.

News #5 Satan's plans have been very obvious to see ahead of time, which makes them easier to thwart (isn't that a good word? Thwart...)

All in all, we are teaching JW's over Halusky, eating borsch with the coolest double RM duo ever, Playing soccer with our District President, and doing the Lord's work.

I could not be happier here.

Lots of love,

Elder Brousseau

P.S. News #6 we had a crazy cool Branch BBQ in a classic Slovak park. pretty cool, super good food, and entirely Slovak. So fun.

Early Transfers

Nazdar!

Haha, for those of you wondering about the title (That is...if Google translate does things like it should...) That's right. Transfers again. 1 Week early. So much radost (joy). I'm very happy to email you again from Blava, the biggest little city I've every been in. My new companion is Elder R., who's from Provo/Washington State, and actually went to Timpview for school. We're really excited to be together for his last transfer, he was the first missionary to be trained in Banska Bystrica, and I was the second, so that's pretty cool.

Our week last week was very bittersweet. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving every single second of my mission. I even love the seconds where things don't go the way I want them to. I'm sacrificing a lot of time trying to get all of these photos to you, not in the normal fashion, so SORRY TO ALL WHO DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO SEE THE PHOTOS!!! But I think it's worth it.

Highlights real quick:

W. ALMOST got baptized, and then she got sick, but she passed her interview and everything.

We got to live through a Russian Easter, which was sick.

Conference was amazing, loved Elder Holland, and Uchtdorf, and I've heard that I actually got to understand President Packer better than all of the English listeners, so that's pretty cool.

We totally went to the zoo. There were totally Dinosaurs there. Best mission experience yet.

M. is totally ready for baptism now too, and so it Andrew, so maybe that will be some motivation for our other investigators.

Love Brat P., he's so cool. Used to be the majster slovenska (Slovak Champion) in rowing, how sick is that?

Love you all, have a great week!

Elder Brousseau

The Trencin Blues

Ahojte!

So this week has been amazing, but also pretty crazy. Everything is going...well, it's pretty much just going. Our investigators are doing AWESOME, especially two of them, teaching them is like teaching inactive members because they already believe everything and know it all by heart. One investigator's problem is she has a lot of trouble walking because of some severe scoliosis, but you wouldn't be able to tell that she has it until she tries to walk around you, it looks painful. Another investigator's problem is he doesn't like our branch, and he doesn't want to quit smoking. The good news is, since last week, he's come to church, and he made a friend with one brother, and a recent convert as well, so things there should take off and fly pretty soon, I'm really excited.

Map of Trencin

Trencin is getting kind of boring. This city is seriously so small, people already recognize me on the street, not because of my badge, but because I've personally contacted them before, which is good and bad depending on the person. For example, there's this little gang of satanists who, now that they know me always walk up and act really threatening and stuff, it's really annoying, especially when we're working on a regular contact who's actually interested. Anyway, I'm ready to go to a new city, but I'm getting the feeling that I'm staying here for another transfer at least. I'm not sure what to think of that.

Chris with his trainer and all those he trained

This last Thursday we had our monthly training in Bratislava, which I LOVED. I adore the outgoing missionary testimonies, especially because my mission is small enough that you know every missionary personally. Well, I shouldn't say that because I don't really know that many missionaries in the Prague and Jihlava Zones, but I at least know all of their names. As far as the Slovakia and Brno Zones though, it's a personal basis.

Chris finally found beef!

What I'm thinking of for my ideas of the week this week is I really want to try an idea I keep hearing about Hungarian missionaries doing, where you contact with a survey. It seems like a really good way of getting quick, meaningful contacts in which you can testify about something every single time. Just like a little 10 question survey about religion or something, especially because tabling is working so nicely. In answer to a question from last week, tabling is an idea I had because I saw some Jehovah Witnesses doing it, and my trainer found out they do it other places as well, where you go get permission from the City Council to grab a table and just go put it on the town square. Then you just sit at the table. It's really really effective, I love it. The other thing I'm going to work on is really getting our English class to be like professional grade, because our biggest problem now is that new people come all the time, but they only come once because they don't particularly like what they see. I know Slovaks really like hand-outs, so we'll see where this goes. The other thing is an idea the sisters had about making our Family History class a 3 workshop course called "What's your story?" I think it's a really cool idea, so hopefully we'll get to test that out as well.

Anyway, I love you all and hope that you have a great week!

Elder Chris Brousseau

Chris' now famous lasagna

Nitty Gritty

Ahojte!=)

Trencin

Ok, so this time I really have no idea where to start, so my thoughts are going to be a little bit scrambled. I'm finding out exactly how spoiled I was my first transfer to have a car, because now, living without the car is SO hard. Not in the city, that's fine, but like on Saturday, we had to go to Brno, which is in the Czech Republic for a Branch Presidency meeting (my companion and I are in the Branch Presidency here). I had never had to navigate through the streets of Brno, which is about 3 times as big as Banska Bystrica, and 4 times as big as Trencin, without being able to use highways and road signs, and it was REALLY hard, especially because this was Elder Ellingson's first time going to Brno with someone who didn't already know the way to the church building there, so we had a bit of an adventure getting there, we never got lost, but I'm not sure we ever really knew where we were going either, but we got to the building anyway, and it was awesome. The miracle about the whole trip was that we didn't ever get time to go buy our bus tickets before we actually had to go, and we've been burned a couple of times for not getting tickets early, and because of this, we were planning all these alternate ways of getting there before the meeting started, but we both just had the feeling to just go up and ask, and we were able to do exactly what we had originally planned with no problem, it was amazing!

Elder Brousseau and his companion

This area is an adventure every single week. We didn't get one lady baptized, not because she doesn't want to, but because she had a doctor's appointment Saturday at 11 am that went until 2 for her back, but I do have good news! I finally got to actually meet her and we have more meetings with her set up, it's going to be SO great to teach a lady we already know is completely prepared and ready. The bad news is that we're going to have to wait at least 3 weeks to have the service because our Branch President is taking a Slovak break because he just had heart surgery so he's gonna go sit in a spa for 3 weeks. The other bad news is that our investigator pool is suffering. No one is answering their phone when we call, the streets are pretty much always dead, and the people on the streets don't want anything to do with us. I think that the Olympics are effectively stopping the work. It also doesn't help now that it's pretty dangerous for Americans to be out on the streets, we've already heard about 3 companionships getting beat up in the last week because America beat Slovakia in hockey 7-1, so everybody hates us for that on top of everything else.

Satisfaction from a good day's work

So yesterday I had manifest to me why I never ever ever ever ever ever EVER want to deal with drinking ever in my life. I already knew that drinking was bad, but I'll be the first to admit I was still a little bit curious anyway, because it's portrayed in the media as something that's cool and fun and it's a party and people are so funny when they're drunk. I obeyed the word of wisdom out of respect to my parents and because I believe Joseph Smith was a prophet, not because I wanted to, and now I am so happy that I did. My companion and I were walking across a bridge yesterday when we saw something happening in front of us and we weren't sure what it was. At first I thought that it was a couple of people beating up a homeless man, which we would have gone and stopped, but then it looked like 2 teenagers were trying to stop a homeless man from jumping off the bridge, and we weren't sure what was going on so we just kept walking closer until we realized that they were trying to pick him up, it was just a boy and a girl and an older guy, probably in his 50's. I immediately walked up and asked if they needed help and the guy said yes they did, they were trying to get this man home and they couldn't do it by themselves. So I made an executive decision for our companionship and said that we'll help them get him home, and the 3 of us picked him up and started carrying him. Let me describe to you now why the word of wisdom will never be a problem for me. This man was so drunk that he couldn't remember how to walk. He had already peed his pants at least once, and did again while we were carrying him. He was making NO sense in anything he was saying and was acting like a 2 year old fighting us the whole way saying he wanted to lie down on the ground and stuff. While talking to the 2 people trying to help him out, it came up that the girl was his daughter, and when she told us that, he heard and yelled to the whole world that she was a very unkind word and that he didn't have a daughter. The young man yelled at him to take it back because she looked like she was about to cry and he just kept saying that his daughter didn't exist. At 1 point because he was kind of heavy and it didn't help that he was being dead weight we set him down on a bench, and then when we were done resting he said he wasn't going anywhere until he had some chocolate, it was SO annoying, we didn't give him any chocolate, we just picked him up and kept going. After we had dragged him about a kilometer and a half, we got to his house and helped them get him inside. These people were SO grateful for our help and I really hope that something good comes of this because they were such nice people and I really like them, they deserve to have their lives improved a bit.

Anyway, I'm still having a blast and missing you all profusely. I love every one of you and hope the very best comes to you throughout the coming year.

Milujem t'a,

Starší Chris Brousseau

New Area!

Trencin is really close to the Czech border

Zdravim!

So I started emailing the pictures before I started this email, and now the computer's going really slow and I can't even tell what I'm writing because the words aren't keeping up with what I'm typing so I'll just send it as is and just pray that I don't make any spelling mistakes, but if I do, please forgive me. asjdflkajrigh

So here I am in my new area! This city is a little bit smaller than Banska Bystrica, but in a country that only has like 5 and a half million people, how big can your cities get? haha, the answer is about as big as a passport photo. Anyway, with it being small, it also has the coolest castle in Slovakia, to which I will be going as soon as I'm done emailing!!! I'm so excited. The whole place is just this perfect little fairytale kingdom what with the castle and just everything about the city, I wouldn't be surprised one bit if Cinderella was based here, you know? I hope the pics I'm sending are doing it justice, they're going REALLY slowly though, so I hope that all of them get through, let me know if you enjoy them, because I have a feeling that some of them are going to be my favorite on my mission.

I'm so excited to work with my new companion! He's from WIndsor, Colorado. I'm a bit taller than him, and he's super chill. Our workout schedule in the morning has changed a little bit because it's a whole lot colder here than in Banska, so we don't go running anymore, but we have a nice pull-up bar here, so my companion asked me to push him at the beginning of the transfer, and now we're doing 45 pull-ups every morning both of us. My goal is to be able to rip off 100 in a row at the end of my mission. He has been here in Trencin for 6 months already, so it will be 8 months at the end of this transfer. I honestly think I would go crazy if I was put in the same area for more than 4 months, but he says he's fine with it because he likes it here.

Chris' new kitchen!

The Slovak here is so weird. We're pretty close to the Czech Border, so people have kind of a mixed accent, and it's a little weird getting used to, but everyone here is SO impressed by my language ability, it's so encouraging to me to get to see the hand of the Lord in my life giving me a real spiritual gift! On Sunday, one of the members told me that I have the best Slovak he's ever heard out of a missionary, and he's been a member for 17 years. I was just floored, especially because my companion was right there, and I personally think that he speaks better than me, but he proceeded to say the exact thing to my companion as well, and my companion agreed!!! I almost started crying, I'm so happy that I've been blessed with the gift of Slovak gab. People on the street every day now are surprised that I'm from America, I can only imagine what it's going to be like at the END of my mission, haha. I love it here though, there are going to be quite a few stories for me to tell in emails, I can already tell, I just hope that I'll be able to remember them all. I can't wait to show you all the cool pictures too, like everything here really is Gorgeous.

I got to go to my first Opera on Saturday!!! It was a Slovak traditional opera explaining all of the differences between each region and every different kind of people found in Slovakia. It was really cool, the actors had a different style of clothing, dance, and singing for each region they represented, and the music was just out of this world amazing, I wish that photography had been allowed, I should have tried to sneak it, but haha, I can't wait to go to more, it was SO cool, and it looks like I'll have a lot of opportunity for that here.

Anyway, I'm excited, we have a baptismal date for this Saturday from someone we found. She was friends with our Branch President in High School, so she's all prepared, and apparently has been to church enough times for us to baptize her, please please please pray that she will accept everything and won't have any problems with commitments like chastity or Word of Wisdom, we need your prayers here. Any way, I love you all so much, and I'm ready to push the work of the Lord forward in a different part of his kingdom.

Milujem ťa,

Starší Chris Brousseau

Will I Stay or Will I Go?

Chris' new guitar:  Jasminka

Well, 

This day marks my very last P~Day for sure here in Banska, which is both sad and exciting for me. This letter will probably be shorter because I'm about to go on an adventure and get my haircut, and I just realized I don't actually know the word for hair...So that will be fun. I'm hoping that my trainer and I both stay here, but I've accepted that that maybe won't be the case. If I do leave, I'll really miss this place, I really want to see some success in this city, but I know that it's good training because I'll for SURE see success if I go to any other areas now. My news of the week is that I got for a Christmas present a guitar. I named her Jasminka, and my goal is to be pretty ok at the guitar by the time that I get back home.

New friends

As far as that piano lessons idea goes, I haven't really had time to try it yet because we had 2 exchanges last week and that ate up a ton of my time what with being in Zvolen which isn't my area for a while, but we did still get a lot of good successful lessons, which was awesome. I wonder what the secret is though, we're teaching a lot of people who have investigated the church for years, but have just never made the step to baptism, and I think our lessons with them are like a counseling session, because they say they feel the spirit every time they come meet with us and they really like that, but when they go back into the world, they aren't sure about the truth of our message anymore. What can I do better to help them see baptism as a necessary step to having that feeling all the time? Because they obviously don't see it now, even though we have lessons about the priesthood and the holy ghost regularly. Any advice? Because you know what's a weird feeling? When you go into a lesson, and there's this awesome 25 year old girl who's peppy and already know's the whole Restoration backwards and forwards and already has a testimony of the B of M, and just accepts everything great, and then you ask her her name and you realize that your MTC teacher actually taught her while he was on his mission, and then you realize that he's been home for 2.5 years and is already married and then you get the dreaded feeling that you're talking to an eternal investigator...

Preparation day in Slovakia

Today is a very important day for me. It is the first day that I haven't been in a shirt and tie so far in the field, and I hope to have many more P~Days like it. Like I said before, transfers are coming up this week, and while I absolutely adore Banska Bystrica, I do want to see other areas, specifically Košice, mainly because I heard that they have this place called Big Burger where they actually have BEEF!!!=D Haha, I've been craving beef for weeks, and I know that's not going to change because nobody has it out here, not even McDonalds, you go up to the order place and say, I want a hamburger, and they ask you, Chicken or Pork? And I just sit there and cry on the inside. It's the worst. On the upside, I've found this wonderful drink called Orangina! It's this french soda here that has like actual Orange peel in the soda, it's SO good, haha. (Editor's note: Orangina is pure French awesomeness!) I think honestly, I like the soda here more than Purple Stuff, and I'm going to go through some serious withdrawals when I get back home. On the Bright side, that's a long ways off still.

Ok, so I think I've had enough of a rant sesh today, so thanks all for listening, I hope that this email finds you having a fabulous day doing your favorite things with your favorite people (minus me of course, hehheh).

Ahojte, ale uvidíme sa čoskoro,

Starší Chris Brousseau

A Good Week

Ahojte!

Famous church building in Banska Bystrica

Hey all, what's up? I really have no idea where to start, I guess that's going to be a common theme for my emails, haha. Um...well, we make German pancakes and that French Toast I love all the time. This sounds so wonderful until you find out that we ran out of Mapleine last week. I thought that that was just something you could get anywhere, it's just this little bottle where you put half a teaspoon in a pot with some water and sugar and you get 3 cups of pretty decent tasting maple syrup. Then I found out that the only Maple Syrup they have here is like 15 Euros for a little like 1/2 liter thing, it's TERRIBLE. So I petition you my family, please send me some Mapleine, I don't need very much, but these things require syrup and we can't get any without having to forgo eating for a while. Anyway, thanks so much in advance, and hey, Mom, you should organize a big family home evening and read from Quentin L. Cook's address to new mission presidents from like June or July, oh my gosh, talk about deja vu!

So anyway, my investigators are either doing really well or really badly. For example, on Sunday we had the best day ever and had 3 investigators at church--I'm so happy about it. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there was an investigator who suddenly was wanting to meet with us more often, which we were happy about until we found out that he was just wanting to so that he could chew us out about being missionaries and tell us our mission is hopeless and try to get us to leave Slovakia. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa, your advice on talking to Catholics has helped us a lot. Suffice it to say that now I'm fighting for a baptism so that my trainer can have that (he has yet to participate in one), before the end of his mission. One thing that we've found works pretty well ever since we started using it yesterday is just be shameless. Haha, by that I mean, the people here really don't enjoy accepting service of any kind so that kind of stuff really doesn't work, so instead, we simply ask them to help us and when they ask with what, we say we're missionaries and we need help finding someone to teach, do you know anyone who's a strong believer in Christ? So far it's worked every time.

This week we're trying to work specifically on a couple of people. First, there's a member here who we're trying to just make contact with. We know her phone # and where she lives, but the man of the house always answers the phone or the doorbell, it's SO annoying, cause he's all like, "you came again?!? I'm calling the police!!" And we're just like, "dude! We just want to say hi, just let her talk to us, and you called the police last time and they didn't do anything, what makes you think it will change? We're not doing anything wrong." The first time I was actually kind of scared until I saw him, he's like 5' 0". But the poor lady, I'm 100% sure this guy is at LEAST verbally abusive and I mean, he won't even let her answer her house phone, which does NOT have caller ID, we know this. Keep us in your prayers there.

Fun photoshopping. Chris and his trainer

Our other investigators are flourishing because our finding is gradually getting better as I improve in the language. Last week we had 6 new investigators, you should have heard our District leader when we were doing call-in reports about it. Now all I'm hoping for is to be able to get all of them to be progressing and then baptized. This last week we had just the coolest training ever. It was in Brattislava, and my goodness, President McKonkie is just inspired. We talked about Branch-building, which is where I got that talk I mentioned earlier. We need to get the attitude that we're on a normal mission out of our heads. Slovakia is different from every other mission in the world, and we need to start acting like it. Remember how last week I felt a little bit stifled by the amount of rules? Well President said to us yesterday that if it isn't in the white handbook, it's not a rule. Holy liberation Batman! Haha, everything is so much easier to work now, when I suggest we do something in district meeting or at the apartment, instead of hearing, "Well something we couldn't do when we were on a mission in Africa was...," or "When the last mission president was here we weren't allowed to do that...," I hear, "well is there something against it in the White Handbook or Preach My Gospel?" I. Am. So. Grateful that the Lord has heard my prayers and that President feels like spiritual creativity is required for the people here. The first thing I want to try this week is go contacting to teach piano lessons for free, with the only stipulation being a 45 minute lesson and then a 15 minute spiritual thought. I think that that would be just amazing here and it would help the people not only to accept us, but I'd get to be around pianos a lot more than I already am, and hopefully a real piano, not just a keyboard. Haha, remind me to try and get into Grandma and Grandpa Burton's will for their piano. And the Cabin.

So I'm swiftly running out of time, but I'm a firm believer in the creativity of groups, so I'm going to put forth the question, what should I try? Do you have any exeriences from your missions that you'd think would help me here in Slovakia? How do you think would be the best way for me to contact someone, what words would help you be interested in this church?

This is their grocery store.

In answer to this week's questions, the weather is very moist. It's gross nasty almost rain. It's super misty and there's mud everywhere, but it's about 50-65 degrees every day, it feels like March or April here in January. It's very strange. At the grocery store every week we usually buy 8 litres of milk, and just whatever we want for us to eat that week, like for French Toast, we'll get some cheddar cheese (SO expensive), and some of that potatoe bread I've talked about before called knedličky, and we usually get a big thing of about 32 eggs every week. We usually have to buy flour every week, and we always get more ingredients for Halušky So that's bacon, potatoes, Brynza (Sheep cheese), Smotana (it's like sour cream), and onions. I still hate onions, but I'm finding that if I can't taste them they don't bug me so that's good. Thank heaven's we DO have a washing machine right next to our shower in our apartment, but we don't have a dryer, so we hang our clothes on this little rack in the winter and outside in the spring summer and fall. It's hard to say if everything's pretty close, I know that the Zone Leaders always get put in Banska Bystrica and Zvolen because they're in central Slovakia so it's about the same distance everywhere, but that distance is about 2.5 hours in every direction. Yeah, driving all the way across Slovakia is like Orem to St. George distance, isn't that crazy? And if you're referring to like grocery stores and stuff, yeah, we have a Billa (It's just like Smith's Slovak Style) right across the street, and right behind Billa is this awesome track and outdoor gym we go to every day. It takes about half an hour to walk from our apartment to our building (that picture of the street is the one the church building is on, leading up to the Namestie), and about 20 minutes to drive to Zvolen, so that's about everything. We usually do walk everywhere we go because we have a limit to the # of miles we can use.

Thanks for everything.

I love you all,

Starší Chris Brousseau

Šťastný Nový Rok!

(Editor's note: This blog post is out of order. We didn't have time to create a blog post last week. We think you will love this letter!)

Čauko!

^^^Isn't that the BEST expression? It's like ciao, but diminuitive, so it's like a cute little bit of ciao, cause I only wanted to send a cute little bit of ciao home to you...anyway...

New coat and scarf by Tracy

So this last week has been just crazy. I honestly don't know where to begin, I guess Monday...So we found this store that has a suit that's normally 450 Euros on sale for 130, and I'm thinking that might be a worth-it investment for a missionary to make in his mission, but at the same time I'm thinking, "it's the beginning of your mission, why aren't you waiting till the end to spend the Christmas money on things like this?" but then I think it's 100% wool for crying out loud! So yeah, that's a dilemmna, but I'll ponder and pray on it so not a big deal at all, especially, like why am I even thinking about money at all, this should be a spiritual mission. While we were walking away from the store and I was thinking all that, I caught a glimpse of something I had yet to see here in Slovakia. Someone was drinking a Sprite on the namestie! Just a regular normal Sprite! I couldn't believe it, I wanted to go ask them where they got it, but we had an appointment to get to and I wasn't able to, so I'm still without regular things like that from America. Sorry for this first paragraph, I'm still trying to get my thoughts together cause everything's just crazy right now. Um, so I didn't get the suit, but I'm still considering/wanting it really badly, any advice? But on to better things that are far more important, like church in Zvolen! I heard once that cigarette smoke was the best smell you can smell during church but I'd like to submit that it's actually Christmas Punch. In Zvolen we had a congregation of entirely investigators, it was SO cool, and I honestly could see each of them being a member there, it would just be amazing, and I hope sincerely that it plays out that way.

Chess board made with post-its

So Tuesday was P~Day for us, and we got to head to Zvolen and watch a bit of a movie at a missionary couple's apartment! We watched like the first hour of 17 miracles, it was cool, but I didn't watch any of it. I was sitting at the table writing New Year's letters cause I felt like I'd seen that movie too many times back home anyway. But the celebrations here are massive! Every day literally is a holiday, like yesterday I didn't get to email because everything was closed because it was 3-kings day, and there's another holiday every day of the year, the just obviously can't close down everything for every single one, only about 1 of every 4. But they sell huge fireworks year-round because they set them off for nearly everything--they did on new years eve, and new years day, AND the day after that, and yesterday, AND Christmas and every other holiday, there's just fireworks constantly going off. Through all of this, it's pretty difficult to get any work done, we hardly got any lessons last week, which meant we were finding...all the time...When my trainer went on an exchange in Brattislava last week, another elder and I had a 5 hour block where we just tracted. Not even because we planned it that way, we just had 3 lessons cancel, and man do I HATE tracting. What this is all coming to, (I promise I'm still positive and happy) there is that a good thing came from all of this. During weekly planning, I expressed to my trainer that I am sick and tired of "finding" and we need to start getting some referrals, and I gave a good 20 minute monologue of just how this all needed to happen with things like finding at colleges so we can get some younger, more connected people interested and stuff like that and we really have taken it to heart, and we are working our TAILS off in order to get a branch ASAP now. While we've been doing this, I've really felt this feeling of boldness come upon me and you know what? It's working. I can't wait to have call-in's this week and tell the AP's that we have 6 new batismal dates, yeah, that's right, SIX! We have one lady and her son set up for the 1st of February, and we've only had 1 lesson with them! She's brand new and just golden. I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for her. Then we're working on getting 2 families into the branch, either of which would allow us in Banska to move from being a group to an established branch and then the work would really just shoot forward because we'd be able to issue callings and not have to worry about keeping our members motivated as much any more. That's my vision for Banska this year. I need to have a self-sustaining, and self-motivating branch that gives referrals to missionaries and positive peer-pressure to each other! I really hope that I don't get transferred away, but I know that that very well could happen. Transfers will be issued February 3rd, and I'm sort of dreading it, but we'll see what happens, I know I just need to "let go and let God" at this point.

Walking around town

So, a little more about these investigators: The first family: they are an older couple, he's 66, and his wife is like 50, and they have a house in Banska, and he built his own little cabin up in a teeny village about an hour away called Latky. They're taking care of their 8-year old granddaughter and wow is she just sassy, the main phrase I hear out of her is yes, AND???, it's so funny. But they're just amazing. The first lesson we taught with them was the plan of salvation, and you should have heard the man at the end of it, he was like, "I have something to say...the catholic church has been around HUNDREDS of YEARS and they have all of this mixed up, and here you 2 young boys come in here and just explain it all so SIMPLY!" exactly like that, and then when his wife gave an our father at the end of the lesson, he was just like, "I hate that prayer, it's useless, why can't you pray more like them, they talk about specific things and don't memorize anything, that's how I want to pray." And Money in the bank at the end of our 2nd lesson with them, he prayed! I'm so excited to keep teaching them, the husband was made for this gospel, he reminds me so much of my grandpa, it's wonderful. And the second family are this adorable little family that were found a long time ago but dropped because they didn't really have time for religion at that time. They speak english to us but it's really slow, and so we keep speaking Slovak back, but they insist that they want to speak English with us so that's how it works. They're a Christmas miracle, where we were in their neighborhood during Christmas eve visits and we just on a whim went over and asked if we could come in and share a spiritual thought, and they said yes! It was so cool, they like hunkered down and were ready for a big hour long lesson with their 4 daughters all in their pajamas and just looking at us so intensely, it was so cute. The oldest is 10 by the way, and all of them were really disappointed when we ended after just 15 minutes, and I can't wait to go back this week and teach some more, they didn't have more time to meet until after the new year so we actually have them on schedule, and it's just going to be SO great.

Library where they send emails

There are a lot of people where this is the first email from me they're reading and I just want to apologize real fast that it's taken this long. A quick shout-out to my MTC teachers, thank you SO much for all of your help, I really felt prepared to work coming out here. Thanks so much for what you told me about your MTC experience, it really helped me to see all of the good things that were happening and that I was learning and helped me see that I didn't need to focus on what was hard or what I didn't like. Thank you so much for all of the listening you did, it really helped me to de-stress, and just the fact that you weren't scared to go off topic or be silly I know didn't only help me feel comfortable. Haha, I think I'm getting to know you better out in the field than I did in the MTC because everyone still has stories about serving with you, especially because my trainer knew you so well! Anyway, I'm so grateful that I was able to spend time with you in the MTC as well, and that you got all of my video-game references, but were able to stay focused on teaching, that's been a big help out here in the field and I've been doing a lot of looking back at your example of how to laugh and joke for like 3 seconds and then be back in teaching mode. Thanks again to all 3 of you, I wouldn't have had half of these exeriences if I hadn't learned how I should act and how to speak from you first.

Iconic church in Banska Bystrica

So that's about it, everything here is going great, my new favorite food is fried cheese, haha. I'm having trouble figuring out how people here live, because everything comes out here so much later than it does in America, like at a resteraunt the other day I say a huge premier commercial for Harry Potter 7 part 2, which is coming out here in theaters later this year, and I just couldn't believe that people just wait that long to see it, when it's been out on the internet and in other countries for (how long now?) months and months, and also how they don't just get sick of American culture just being all over the place. It's just crazy, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere different.

Milújem Vás,

Starší Chris Brousseau