Surprise Visit, Baptism, and BYU Dancers!

JULY 27, 2015

Nazdar!

Vazeni citatelia (Dear Readers), I hope that these letters please themselves to you! Here we are at the start of another amazing week in the life of a Slovak missionary, and I'm feeling that most important thing that I can write today to you is about the scriptures that have influenced my life and mission. But we'll get to that in a minute.

First, we have some sweet progressing investigators, first, M4...Haha, M4... He is the greatest of guys, he said a quote the other day that is just so him, I asked him what his childhood was like and he said, "I did not have a childhood, and so I am living it now." He really is such a child. But he had a really spiritual time talking to my companion the other day during a concert practice, and has decided to be baptized. We'll see what happens, but he put a deadline on it, that it needs to happen BEFORE September, so chances are I'll get to see it.

M1 is currently having a rough time, which has become pretty usual. She currently is wondering why the members gossip and keep secrets from each other if it's "Christ's church," which is fun because I think we all wonder the same thing at one time or another. The fact is, that no one is perfect, and we can't condemn a church because it let sinners come. He who hath no sin may cast the first stone, right? Worthiness does not require perfection, but honest and unceasing effort. She's doing really well, just not currently on a desirable path for us.

I. is awesome! She is so very honest, which is something I've come to value so much more here. Being honest is something where, when you're dealing with matters of a sensitive nature, for example, religion, is completely a must. Think about trying to lie directly to God. That's something which we all agree is less than appropriate e.g. Satan, Cain, etc. Anyway, back to the subject at hand, She doesn't believe in God STILL, however, we're trying something a little bit different with her. We just want her to talk to God, be as honest with him as she is with us. Like, if she hates him, tell him, if she doesn't believe in him, tell him, if she feels stupid about talking to him, let him know. The theory is, that no matter what she's saying, if she has a sincere heart and real intent, God will manifest himself to her. So now we just wait.

1.) Ok, now "to the nitty-gritty." I'd like to start with my mission plaque scripture: 1 Nephi 13:22. When you read that you might think I'm joking, but wait, there's more to it than just a sweet answer to JW's (they never want to read it, but you tell them they won't get an answer from God other than through the scriptures, it's so fun). So basically, imagine a slightly bigger but younger Elder Brousseau who's not an Elder yet. He is desperately scared to go on a mission. He has everything in life that he considers needed/good (e.g. Food, Parents, Piano, Girlfriend, Swimming, Xbox, Good High-Quality Friends), and doesn't see what he will gain going through two years without that stuff, talking about something he doesn't feel he understands. He tells his Mom he's scared, and she takes him to Apollo Burger during school (bloopbloopbloopbloop Level Up+1!) and she tells him that he doesn't really need anything other than a basis in testimony, and maybe it would be a good idea to read the Book that you're going to be talking about again. So I get there and realize something monumental: Nephi didn't understand the meaning of the [Bible]. Isn't that interesting? He was doing missionary work, essentially just trusting God that he would let him know what it was all about later. And God does! Really sweet. Fast forward a while. I'm so glad that I read that and allowed it to influence me the way it did, that is SO important to me. God hasn't revealed everything to me, in fact, the more I learn, the more I thirst to understand better, but I know that there is a sense to everything and that patience many times is more important than immediate results.

2.) 1 Corinthians 9:20-23 SOOO profound. I felt unsuccessful in much that I did as a missionary until I read this and realized what I was doing wrong. It's not wrong to be proud of being American, especially from Utah (I've never been more proud of that in my life), but it is wrong to be more proud of that than love the people of your mission. Missionary work changed for me when I started trying more than anything to be Slovak. People see, and people recognize your efforts. They feel your love more poignantly when you express it in their native way. You become more Christ-like trying to love people in the best way that they will understand. For me, being a consecrated missionary has been trying to be Slovak. Trying to be Slovak has deepened my love for God, and the scriptures, seeing them applied in the lives of more than just me and my family/friends. I love love love this application.

( 20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;

 21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.

 22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

 23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.)

Hey, I don't have much time, so I'm going to just end, which is sorta awkward, but just know I'm so happy to be here, and I know the church is true. Be good!

Elder Brousseau

JULY 13, 2015

Nazdar!

Dang, well, I don't have much to say, I had a great week, and I am very tired. We're going to a BYU dance concert tonight, in which Cayel Tregagle is performing. I got to give him a tour of Blava earlier, and his group took first place in Praha last week, so that's cool. The dance group here is so full of life and energy, it is SO cool.

Monday: I already told you about Monday last week, but the fun thing is: in the last week, we've given 3 tours to big groups of Mormons in Blava, so I daresay I'm getting kind of good at it.

Tuesday: Nothing super big of note happened, other than our lesson with M1. We thought it was totally obvious that she prayed for us, but when I pointed it out during the lesson, it totally blew her mind. We'll hope that quickens her progress.

Wednesday: We had a really strange experience, where the lessons we thought were going to be absolutely terrible turned out amazing and the ones where we thought would be great turned out nasty. Haha, we taught a super flirty girl who we thought had bad expectations, but when we showed her the white handbook, she immediately took it as her mission to help us keep all of the rules. GREAT! We also taught a kid who we think might be a drug user, but he agreed to change and be baptized, we'll see what happens.

Thursday: Tried to contact the 2nd of the referrals Dad gave me. Turns out she moved a long time ago. Not sure what to do with that, but we got some great pizza. The first referral just sort of slammed their door in my face and yelled at me, then pretended like they weren't home, I'm not sure why, they just probably had a bad day.

Friday: We had a really fun day, the best part by far was heading up to the Batkovci to have dinner as a District. There's such a special spirit in the homes of the Branch Presidents here. They are all such elect men, I love it. Also, there's a return missionary who is staying with them while doing an internship here, in something that really interests me. Maybe I won't be majoring in computer science after all...

Saturday: We helped out S., and taught M1 again, then had a blow out at game night, there were 18 people there! So much fun, we almost didn't have enought activities!!!

Sunday: Wonderful as always, we taught W1 after church. The only hard thing is: M1 is still having a super rough time coping with the sacrament, and it's eating away at her resolve. Please pray for her, we know that if she doesn't take the step now, her life will go downhill really fast.

I'll tell you about today next week.

I love you guys, and I'm really proud of all of you.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Brousseau

JULY 6, 2015

Nazdar!

Well, in the words of an apostle, this week I think has been embodied by a phrase: "Go to the edge where miracles happen. Turn to the Lord in prayer, and go to the place where you will cry, "Without thy help I will fall. Help me fly." Welcome to the apostolic work." This week I feel like I appreciate the idea that the only Elders in the church are the apostles and the missionaries. Our mission president at training talked about how his job now for the church is to keep track of us for the rest of our lives, so we've been blessed/cursed with a young mission president who will live for quite a while, and one of my previous companions told me that, like it or not, coming to this mission in particular is training for us to be used later. Learning the things that we learn, seeing and feeling the culture and the church and the spirit here seem to be especially potent.

There's something special about serving a mission that really allows you to receive a deeper understanding of who you are, who you were, and who you're meant to be. I have found on my mission a real love for the gospel, and an appreciation for the connectivity of all things. I'll get to this more later.

So first in the week, I found out that I had been volunteered by my district to try and improve upon the gift of tongues. We had a "Meet the Mormons" night planned for Wednesday night, and previously in every other area, people who don't speak English have been presented with a paper that has a summary of the events in Slovak or whatever language they speak, just with main ideas so that they can continue to watch. In ours, they wanted something a little bit more, so I was volunteered to do a live translation into Slovak of the whole movie, so on Monday, we got ahold of a copy and watched it during language study and dinner so that I could write down the main ideas and remind myself of how to say certain things. It was one of the hardest things I've done on my whole mission, it was a lot more demanding than I thought it would be, but I got it done, and I'm really happy with the work I was able to do. I'm so grateful for the gift of tongues, and the abilities that the Lord has blessed the missionaries with throughout the world, this work would not be possible without his help and guidance. I really like a quote from a previous general authority, "If this church were not true, the missionaries would have destroyed it a long time ago."

We got to help out Brat V. last week, which is a special opportunity for us, he just barely moved into Bratislava, and he's not really one to ask for help, but it was really cool. We helped him clear a lot out behind his apartment.

We got to meed Elder Ferrell's family, who are really cool. I really like Elder Ferrell, he is a great man, and you can tell how much he loves his mission. I would greatly like to make a similar impression when I leave. His sister was really entertaining too, she had gone on her mission to San Antonio Texas right after the filming of the first District, so she got to tell us some funny stories about the missionaries we've been watching for our whole missions.

M1 has had a real roller-coaster of a week. She had her Birthday on the thirtieth, and on that day, her parents came to take her away and sever contact with us. Suffice it to say, she stayed, but she's pretty stressed. She was in fact, so  stressed that she couldn't even answer the phone on Friday without crying, so she wouldn't even answer when we called. But Sunday was great, she came to church, where she had a pretty good experience, and tried to take the sacrament. The best though was teaching her with the entire Burton family. Uncle Ricky was really involved, making sure that she felt understood and comfortable, which he's really good at, and Johnny bore awesome testimony that she should be baptized. At the end of the meeting she was so happy, she has changed her attitude from No, I won't be baptized to, I want to be baptized. Isn't that a stark contrast?

The Burtons also helped out with M2. She has been kind of out of the loop the last little while, but this opened the door to keep talking to her, we're going to start trying to get her more integrated, specifically by making the decision to give her to the Sisters to teach. We hope that this will make her journey to baptism a whole lot shorter and more bearable.

On Thursday we had training, which was awesome, my favorite part was the AP's segment, where they went over extremely awkward contacting situations and how to deal with them. Mine was really great, I had to contact someone in a tram who would then yell at me to stop bothering everyone. It was so scary even in a practice, especially thinking of the memories I have of things like this happening before. It was a real spiritual builder to know there were other missionaries who have found ways to push through it and be truly fearless, and it's helped me to be better since then. The best part was, we were blessed to be put in cabins where there were people interested in the church who are often in Blava both to and from training, and we came out of it with a new investigator and an almost new investigator (she just needs to set up again).

On Friday we got to go with the Sisters to S's apartment, which was SWEET. She is an inactive member from really complicated reasons, because she is one of the most faithful people I've ever met. She just needs to come to church in BLAVA a little more often. She has a special talent of making everyone feel like they're the most important person in the world, which I am so jealous of, she's like Aunt Alisa and Aunt Karen.

We had a really cool fourth of July, where we celebrated in the building with sloppy joes and potatoe salad and soda and listened to traditional American music, super great. We also had a cool meeting with GM, a less active, who it seems doesn't really want to become active, but is slowly coming around. We'll continue to work with him. He came to church this week, so that's good.

Sunday was so special. After church, we tried to go out to Dlhe Diely to contact a referral, but the tramlines were closed that direction for some reason, so we ended up walking back to the building, and on that walk, I had a really bad feeling. It was HOT, I was not happy, I didn't think anyone would want to talk to us, and so of course, without us contacting anyone, a horde of people wanted to talk to us. Literally. It started with about 10 or 12 girls from Austria who came to Blava to as part of a dance group, then on the way back, a Tina Murphy from South Carolina who was part of a tour, and a couple of other women from the same tour group. Then a man stopped us in the heat of the sun on the main namestie where slowly a group gathered around us to talk to us. So cool. We almost missed the Burtons because we were talking to this group of people. Then we walked to Hviezdoslavovo, where we first saw Papa Johns and one of his daughters, and we got to talk to them for a little bit and the Cottles happened to walk by so we introduced them, and then the Burtons came up. I remember how absolutely surreal it was for a second, seeing my family in the place where I was serving, and not thinking it was real life, but that quickly went away. It was SO cool. We showed them a couple of cool little things here in Blava, and went to dinner at a really traditional Slovak place, it was cool, but the best part was sitting in the building for about an hour and teaching M1 with my family. Missionary work is by no means just for missionaries. Members are the best, if you're a member, help your missionaries, and if you're a missionary, put some trust in your members, they won't let you down.

Then today, just in time to practice for next week, we were taking a quick walking tour when of course out of the blue, about 12 people show up all happy to see the Elders. A couple of families in the Air Force stopped here in Blava on about a 4 hour lay-over, and we were able to show them around. Again, SO cool, I asked Sister Cottle after, why are Mormons just the best people ever? I don't know if I'll ever have an answer, but I think it's because of the gospel. I'm so excited as well, both families have oldest daughters about mission age, one of them has her call waiting for her right now while they travel, and the other one is trying to decide whether she should go. Elder Cahoon and I were able to help her get a little bit closer to the decided end of serving a mission, and that was cool. Also, I've been shown that missionaries have a much stronger taste for Halusky than normal people, about which I have mixed feelings.

Anyway, I'm so happy this week, it truly has been full of miracles. It's funny how the Lord works, on the weeks where you need absolutely no pick up, because you're working hard, and you feel good because you're working hard, he just sends you a whole lot of people just for kicks and giggles. So cool.

Lots of love,

Elder Brousseau

JUNE 29, 2015

Nazdar!

Wow, I am so excited to still be able to write to you! This week has been quite bittersweet for me, but thankfully a lot more sweet than the former. We had the pleasure of entertaining Elder Cahoon (my new companion) and Elder Sherf (going home with Elder Ringger) in our apartment last Monday and Tuesday before they left for Prague, and we were all able to go teach M2 together. That meeting was kind of tough, it started out with her being super excited for baptism, like SUPER excited, we were planning everything out, and then we got to our lesson portion for the day: tithing. That was probably a poop decision, throughout the week she disappeared again, didn't show up for her baptismal interview and is being kind of hysterical, and I'm attributing it mostly to that bad timing. Too bad, now we're going to have to wait another month for her to calm down.

M1 is having a pretty hard time as well, her Mom when she went to Ziar nad Hronom left her standing on the doorstep at night, just because she hasn't completely split off contact with us. We love M1 so much, and she knows that, which is why she hasn't, after a year of meeting, she's finally starting to trust the missionaries, which means a lot to us, but now at this critical time (her date is on Tuesday) her parents have started to just kind of play with her feelings. Her mom sent her a letter saying that, "If you come back home and break off contact with the Mormons, then I will truly believe God is loving and good to us." She's an atheist, which can help us understand why that's hard for M1, who desperately wants her mom to believe in God, but at the same time wants to do what's right. Really interesting, but we're trying to be the best support we can be, and make sure she knows that we'll be her friends no matter what happens, but to listen to the Holy Ghost.

M4 is a little nutball. He just needs to be baptized. According to the things he says, he still doesn't completely understand what that means, and if he DID understand the cleansing and sanctifying power of christ manifest through baptism, he would have already been baptized a long time ago. He needs to let go of a lot of his pride, but that will come, no problem.

We randomly got like 9 referrals on Saturday night, and then I open my email, and what do you know? A couple more. It's like the Lord wants to make up for no referrals my whole mission here in my last little stretch. On a completely different note, M1 went to the hospital for a few days, but she still managed to pass her tests and is doing completely fine now. Also, suck it anti-material, we found out that part of the reason that W. decided to be baptized was watching the stupid temple video things online, and she's curious as to how it feels to actually go there. Instead of scaring her away, it made her want to join!

I'm doing great otherwise, things are going well with Elder Cahoon, and I'm having fun being a missionary. Thanks for your support and all you do. Steve, stop laughing.

Love,

Elder Brousseau

Velkanoc...Druha Kola!! (Easter...2nd Round!!)

Nazdar!

Hey everyone, I am SO excited to tell you about Easter this year, it's been the best one of my life! Haha, I am in the funniest environment right now. People are being n00bs and playing random internet games and just swearing, and I am laughing my head off remembering how much I used to love those (minus the swearing, ask my friends, I don't do that). It is really really quite interesting to think of how empty a life filled with just a computer can be. Somebody really needs to find out how to combine the fun and entertainment of computer games, with life lessons and work, like make a fun, not stupid school game, where you like teach people calculus or something. Or teach Bible stories in an epic fashion, that would be pretty sweet, I'll probably do that. Well anyway,

Monday last week we went to Devinsky Hrad, which was pretty sweet, except the top portion has been closed for the last 5 years due to a lack of funds to repair it. How dumb is that?!? But we've become the district that does fun things together on P~Day, which is SWEET, I've been dreaming about that my whole mission, and it is just as fulfilling as I thought it would be. We went to Narnia pub afterwards, have I mentioned that they sell Kofola there in LITRES?!? So great...

Devinsky Hrad

We haven't really had a ton of lessons in the past week, which was pretty sad, but I think we needed it, as a little wake up call, not to sit back in a great area, that we still have to work to break 20. I think we got 17, and I have been thinking about this a TON. I don't know if I've already mentioned this, but when I first came here, Elder B. (his trainer) and I had one of the better areas in the mission, especially Slovakia, and we were fighting, FIGHTING every week for like 12 or 13 when the standard was 14. We were putting everything we had into it, and falling short all the time, at the same time when a lot of people were fighting for 4 or 5. Now we had a "bad week, where we only had 17 lessons and 3 baptismal dates." This mission has progressed so hardcore, and I think the main factor in it all is the attitude of the missionaries. Something I talked about with Elder K. a bit, is the whole, 97 no's and 3 yes's. You have to go through the no's to finally find the yes's, and it's so nice to go out with that attitude and then get like 16 yes's right in a row at the beginning. So nice.

We had our concert this week. I am so embarrassed, I feel like I'm worse at sight-reading than I was at home. That is definitely my weak point on the piano, however, Elder W. (current companion) and I KILLED it on the finale. We played a modified (both musically and lyrically) version of "Below my Feet" from Mumford and Sons THANKS MOM, and we're working on doing the same thing with Neon. It is amazing how these concerts can really bring people closer to Christ. We invited tons of people to it, and on top of that, we had T. R. (a less active member who happens to be a virtuoso) play with us, and he had a spiritual experience doing it. We even had a deaf member stay for most of it, just because he loved the spirit he felt there! I love music. Unfortunately I have no pictures nor video of the concert.

So, Easter, we had a very very interesting Saturday, but we got to make a velkonocna baba, which is a traditional Slovak Easter Food that I learned from Sister P. last year, and then today, we actually got to go and do the Easter visit, where we "whip" a girl and wish her to be healthy and pretty for her whole life. SO fun, also, we added spiritual to the list of good qualities. You tap the girl with a whip made out of reeds, and say a poem, and then you have the option of pouring water on them to give them beauty health and fruitfulness for their lives, and they give you eggs/money/chocolate, its pretty great. Then the girls get to do it to the boys the next day. I am TOTALLY making that a tradition in my family, it is so sweet. Also, highlight of everything, we went to the zoo today with FOUR investigators. So much fun, turns out they had a Dinopark right in the middle which was of course my favorite. It's just like Vernal but smaller. The animals also seemed to be really acting up just because all the missionaries came to see them, it was so great.

Well I'm pretty much out of time. Love you all, thanks for reading and being a part of my mission with me! Este, I apologize again for the lack of wifi, I am going to try my hardest to get pictures as quick as I can.

Hrda Lasky,

Elder Brousseau

Last Transfer in Zilina, Slovakia

Nazdar!

Hele, I'm sure you're all surprised that I didn't email you on Monday, but it's because of this: We are literally teaching too much to have the full hour and a half of email time, and usually the first hour is spent emailing President, and replying to other emails, and we only had about 45 minutes, so here we are now on...I don't remember, but I think Wednesday, and here's my email.

Well. Last week was crazy, just like it seems every week is now. I've noticed that the more time you spend diligently finding, the less time you actually end up spending. I'll explain myself real quick. At training we discussed a principle that I was really quite impressed with. The principle discussed was that we don't set apart hours of our day for "finding," we should be finding 100% of the time, we set apart specific hours for "contacting," or "tracting," not finding. I had noticed before then that around 40-60%, I'm not willing to commit to an exact estimate, of our new investigators are found either through teaching someone else, or through us talking to people about the gospel while we're doing something that isn't contacting or tracting. Contacting and tracting are not super effective missionary activities in actuality, however, they become more effective in proportion to how much you do them. It clicked in my head when I heard that, that if we diligently find, even when we're not "finding," that then we will have more people to teach, and we'll have to "find" a whole ton less. This is extremely true, and the best part is seeing it work.

So, we totally went bowling on Monday. It's super inexpensive here, because they found that if they put the same prices on bowling here as they did in America, no one goes bowling, so it's actually around the exact price of what it's worth. I was reminded yet again of how absolutely terrible I am at bowling, I had the lowest score both games.  Later we taught Z., who is awesome, and she's totally going to get baptized, she's just scared of what her Catholic friends would do if that happened. We talked about Adam and Eve, which is always a really fun discussion, especially when she doesn't actually agree with the Catholic belief, and thinks ours is way better.

Another highlight of every week is P.M., this now completely active member here. This guy is seriously Branch President status now, he's preparing to go to the temple, and he has started to have enough confidence in his knowledge of the gospel to actually put forth his own ideas and comparisons during priesthood in church, which, I must say, are spot on. I am so happy to have him to work with, we're working on teaching him about every apostasy the world has gone through in as much detail as we can find in the scriptures, from the apostasy between the dispensation of Elijah, in which the Pharisees and the Sadducees as well as Buddhism and Taoism were all founded, to the apostasy right after Adam, in which (according to the Liahona magazine, I'm not actually sure where they got this info), Hinduism was started with the followers of Cain and Satan "plotted with his followers from that time hereafter."-not an exact quote from Helaman 6:26-27. Love him to death, we're going into the Great Apostasy tomorrow.

M. is doing awesome, she's still completely on track to her baptism on the 14th, and she really is prepared. We were going through the baptismal questions with her, and we started and it went sort of like this:

Elder S: Do you believe in God the Eternal Father, in his Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost?

M.: and I say, "Yes."

Elder B: Gooood....do you ACTUALLY belive that?

M.: Starsi Brousseau, why in the world would I be trying to get baptized if I didn't?

It was so spiritual.

J.P. is normal, still obsessed with ghosts, and doesn't really feel a need to pray or really do anything religious. He has some really cool ghost stories though, it's fun. We're planning on giving him the best ghost story ever next time: The one where a guy was brutally and illegally murdered, but came back from the dead.

L. survived a crazy car accident last week, and this week is still doing really well. He's in sort of the same situation as Z., where he's TOTALLY going to get baptized, and he has nothing holding him back except for a crazy complicated situation with Sister S. being best friends with his ex-girlfriend all the while still being sort of in love with his ex-wife, with which he has 2 kids. We're praying pretty hard that something in that situation will change quickly so that he no longer has a problem with Sister S., and it's going to take a miracle, but at the moment he's progressing quite well.

P.K. is totally on track! We had the lesson last time that like, "You realize we're not Catholics and we want to baptize you right?" and he was all like, "Yeah, I knew that from the start, I kind of want to know why." So cool! He's this sort of old guy, like early 50's, and he tries so very hard to do what he knows is right, it's great.

M. is doing pretty well too, last time we taught him with Sister S., and it went pretty well, we showed him the "Your potential, your privileges," video from President Uchtdorf, and talked to him about trying to find out exactly what his privileges are BEFORE he no longer has them. He still doesn't have a huge desire, but he's totally getting baptized as soon as he realizes what the church organization specifically can offer him, which is friends who care about you and would like help you in quite literally every country on the planet. Teaching M. has really improved my English again as well, because, while he doesn't really speak English, he always has super great questions about the differences between words, and which word is best to say in certain contexts, I really like him.

I got to teach the W. family!!! This is a way-cool young family the other Elders are teaching, and our district is doing well enough in both companionships, that we've started having to go on splits so that we can all teach all of our lessons that our scheduled, so great. Elder F. has been very inspired with how he has gone about teaching them, people (Zone Leaders) keep trying to push him into trying to speed things up, but having gone there and having taught them myself, I am convinced that he has been taking the spiritually correct path with them. They are so amazing.

R., ok, well, we found out this guy is apparently a "real" Jehovah's Witness...I asked him during our 2nd lesson if I could see his new world translation because he was using a rohacek translation, and that has tons of stuff missing, but doesn't have the little asterisks telling you that they're missing, and he was all like, "Pozor pan Bruso, real Jehovah's Witnesses don't even let that thing come into our hands!" and proceeded to rant about all this corruption with the bigger JW church in Brooklyn and denouncing all they're "abominable creeds" and stuff, I was torn between confusion and a strange desire to record everything he was saying. Turns out, there are 2 JW churches, and the mission of one of them is to entirely discredit the other, but they call themselves the exact same thing, so there's no way to distinguish between them. Kind of crazy, but he's a joy to teach, he knows the Bible pretty darn well, so when we use the Bible to reference things and explain our point of view, instead of not understanding and getting caught up in random little reference battles, he understands the bigger picture and it makes sense to him. I really love this guy.

L. has gotten so hard-core into Anti material, which he doesn't completely understand. He is not in an amazing position to join either, because he's a minister for another church, but he is interested as to why he doesn't have the sorts of feelings about our church when he's meeting with us, as he does when he's reading bad things about us. Interesting.

R. is great, he's this awesome 21 year old kid who does MMA, and he's had some really cool experiences with God. He says he already has a Book of Mormon, but we're going to give him a new one, just in case. I'm really excited to see where he goes, we've only had a couple of lessons so far, but he has in every single case showed that he has a very open heart, and a sincere desire to do right with God. He knows L., which is a little iffy, but as far as I can tell, he doesn't really listen to anything he says, so we'll hope and pray he doesn't get into the same kind of stuff.

Sunday we gave our demonstration on Music History, Music Theory, and Conducting, and it was a success. We were in the building that day from 9 in the morning until past 7 in the evening just because of Church and then the activity, and then we were teaching the rest of the time, which illustrates my point at the beginning, we didn't have time to go out and tract like we normally do. Such a great week, and such a great feeling.

Lots of love,

Starsi Brousseau

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. =)

When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Appears

Nazdar!

Hey all, I had actually forgotten and was completely surprised to remember this Wednesday that this last week was the big transfer week! My companion went back to his first area, Košice, a place, I would really enjoy ending my mission. Goodness, I think I may have just jinxed myself. Anyway, So we had a really great week, I don't know if I want to keep doing that whole day by day analysis, that feels kind of boring, so Im just going to point out some awesome miracles from this week.

So first off, our man who's on date for baptism is unfortunately not going to make his date because he didn't come to church, but I just want to share about how he became an investigator because he's a miracle man with lots of faith and interest in us. So he had decided to leave the Lutheran church, and went out on a walk to be alone in Bratislava. He just happened to decide to say a silent prayer and as he looked up toward heaven to ask where on Earth truth could be found, he saw our building sign. The Elders from Dlhe Diely were taking a bathroom break there when randomly this person came up and asked them to please teach him everything. They found out he actually lives in Nitra, and this amazing South American genetic scientist is now our most promising investigator.

Also, this week someone else became officially a new investigator. We have high hopes for her because in the past, she has been less than happy to discuss gospel topics with us, but it seems like she's genuinely interested, and we have had some seriously great lessons with her because she really wonders about these things. KEEP ASKING QUESTIONS, THERE ARE ANSWERS!

Our concert on Tuesday was an amazing success! We had 35 people come for it, and only 1 of them was a member, they just ADORED it. Our performance was spectacular, despite us not practicing very much for it, the Lord really helped us, but the best part was the spirit that was felt. To introduce every song, we didn't even do anything special, we just read straight out of the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson as written in Preach my Gospel, just in Slovak. I was floating on cloud nine afterwards, it felt so amazing to see the spirit touch that many people through the musical talent of our district. My favorite songs that we performed were: "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring," "O Divine Redeemer," and "Pane Chcem T'a Nasledovat'" ("Lord, I would follow Thee").

Later, my favorite miracle happened, I was having a pretty bad day, I'll fully admit, I was questioning my ability to be a missionary. I had been told by someone to, "Go home and change your terrorist country, Yankee," but that had just been one of many contacts and other things that had gone wrong that day. Then the Lord decided to lift some burden from my shoulders and to give me a wonderful feeling that I couldn't explain of just utter gratitude to be in Slovakia, and gratitude to be a missionary. At that point, people started to see that, and we were able to teach 2 crazy-good double-lessons, one in a hotel with 2 bartenders there, both of which now testify that they know that Joseph Smith was called of God, and 1 committed himself to read the Book of Mormon through and through in a week. The other one was a part of that war that I mentioned a while ago, where we by chance met the man who owns the biggest auto quality control firm in all of Europe. He and his friend decided that they were terribly curious about why they've been hearing about the Mormoni, and what our fuss was all about. They both as well committed THEMSELVES to reading the Book of Mormon, and as if the day couldn't get any better, another person we've been trying to work with texted us out of the blue, and decided they wanted to talk with us about God's plan for us. Just too good to be true.

Last of all, I just wanted to talk about something that last transfer taught me. I have noticed a huge difference between the people who are just Catholic on paper, and the people who are actually Catholic. I think that that came in part to the wonderful family that I have in Vermont. The people who actually act according to their faith, and aren't just a part of it because of tradition are people that I am proud to know, regardless of which faith that is. As the Article of Faith says, "...Let them worship, how, what, or where they may." That leads me to an important question? Why do we expend so much time and energy into missionary work when we claim to let everyone worship in their own fashion? In answer to this question I would first encourage anyone curious to read Our Search for Happiness by M. Russell Ballard. But second, we love other religions, we recognize that our religion actually wouldn't be possible without other religions and their ways of worship. Can you imagine what it would have been like if Joseph Smith had been born during the Spanish Inquisition and claimed to have that vision? I figure it like this: someone who lived as best they could in this life is someone that Christ knows and loves, regardless of faith.

Love you all,
Elder Brousseau

The Right Words at the Right Time

Elder Brousseau at home in Nitra, Slovakia

Nazdar!

I don't have much time, so I apologize in advance for the shortness of this letter. We've been having crazy and unnatural storms here, where we see HUGE clouds, which aren't supposed to be here this time of year, and we can see circulation going on in them as well, like a tornado is about to start, and they've been flooding our streets, but it hasn't been stopping the work thankfully.

Pondelok: Went to an antique shop and realized that I actually LOVE antique shops. They had army packs from Vietnam there, I wanted to buy one, but I thought, "where would I put it..." so I didn't. Afterwards, we met again with someone. Unfortunately, we're not going to meet with him anymore, he's not interested in the church at all, and we're a little bit fuzzy about what his actual occupation is. We know he's a singer, but he might also be some kind of...recruiter for something illicit...anyway, yeah, not meeting him any more.

Utorok: ZAZRAK, we got a referral from another elder, who is in Dlhe Diely Bratislava right now, a man from Venezuela who lives in Nitra and really wants to meet with us. We set up a meeting for the next day. Later, my companion and I had another miracle, where we went to the Metsky Urad to check up on our concert, and the people there got SUPER angry at us. I don't have time to explain the whole situation, but President wasn't able to answer his phone to tell me what to do, so I said a quick prayer and had the words of an article of Faith come to my mind. When I told them about how, "we believe in being subject to kings...in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law," which means that we want to co-operate and we're willing to do whatever they asked, the whole situation diffused. The anger immediately left, and the main angry lady actually sat down with me and helped me fill out a legal form step by step very patiently and happily. Articles of Faith are worth it to memorize.

Streda: Set up our meeting with someone, but he came 2 hours late, when we were actually starting to teach English. Before English, by the way, we had the very unique experience of walking into the building a half an hour early to begin to set up, and seeing the other Elders standing in the hall looking awkward. Upon asking, what's up, they were just like, "we're not sure what to do," and when we went into our place, there was a lady we had contacted, just whaling away on our little keyboard on the organ setting, and singing some random Slovak song. It was unforgettable. But then we taught English, and I got a super duper triple lesson afterward, where we were starting an Exchange, but everyone was interested in our church, so my companion and another missionary taught one man, another elder taught someone else, and I taught two other people. They were all solid lessons, and now we have a lot of New investigators who have good expectations and real interest.

Štvrtok: Had the Exchange in Chrenova with another elder, we ended up not being able to do a whole lot, but we DID get some really good exercise running from the building to the city park for sports night, which is like 4 kilometers. We did it in pretty ok time too, if I do say so myself.

Piatok: I had left my planner in the building yesterday because we had to just drop our stuff, get changed, and run to sports night, so there's nothing written there. All I really remember is getting this AWESOME potential. So first off, there are not many black people here. In fact, there are so few that tons of people stare at the ones who are here, and I honestly feel kind of embarrassed for them, because that's just dumb, they're still normal, wonderful people. Anyway, so the few who are here, are either African and Muslim, or American/English/French and have heard of Mormons before, so I make an effort to speak to ALL of them. It's one of the ways I've been improving my French here. Anyway, I contacted 2 men on the way to the Námestie, who were both Muslim, one from Sudan, and another from Ethiopia. We had an AMAZING conversation with these men, and got a lot of publicity from it because people were staring at them, and then at us, and wondering, "wait, I thought Mormons were racist," but the most important thing was, one of the men is now an interested potential who is extremely smart and actually lives in the rich sector of town.

Sobota: Today was kind of one of those "Meh...days" where nothing really happens because you have weekly planning, AND Ladovy Medved, AND it's your turn to clean the building, AND you go tracting but everyone thinks you're Jehovah's Witnesses. That has started to get on my nerves. But nothing really to report that day. except for the end, where, when we thought the day was over, the Lord sends a guy our way with his son on our walk home who contacted us, and upon finding that we teach people about Christ, asked to be taught the next day.

Neďuľa: Church was cool today, we only had the missionaries and a sister there because everyone is out of town for the end of the summer, so testimony meeting was where everyone there bore their testimony. But during Sunday School, one of the other Elders' investigators showed up, he's really cool. Later, that lesson with another man was awesome, we've set up again for Wednesday and it was cool, we went in expecting to get uber-haggled about everything because everyone in the building came to the lesson wanting to hear what we were saying, but we just testified and everyone loved it and will probably come back next time as well.

Anyway, loving it here, I hope you all have an amazing week. It's amazing to see really how much we are blessed just for putting forth a little effort in the face of opposition and pushing just a tiny bit further ahead, people come out of the wood-works to find out why you did that, because it isn't normal.

Love you all,

Elder Bruso