Weekly Letter I forgot #losingtrackoftime#timeflieswhenyourehavingfun#timedoesntactuallyfly#metaphorssuck#sodoestwitter#hashtag#mayhem

Čaute!

Arranging hymns for the Mission President

Worn out after a long day of work! :)

Ok, so this week I don't have a whole lot of time for letter writing unfortunately, but hopefully I can get the same amount of adventure and spirit into this shorter time limit. This last week was a bit of a blast, we unfortunately did not hold our baptism this Saturday either, I'm really having to get better at this whole patience thing. The good thing though was that we were able to have a training! Haha, I'm getting to loving those too much, they're always so cool though, our mission president really is an inspired man. I was informed on Sunday that I needed to arrange a version of Redeemer of Israel for the training on Thursday, and I completed it! Then I was informed at the training that I wouldn't need it until the March training, so that was kind of a bummer, but it can only get better, right? And lol, I'll just arrange some other hymns too so no biggie. We got to stay in Bratislava on Wednesday night and ooooh boy was that fun, now that I'm not new anymore (I finished being trained last week! The bad part is I'll probably be training next transfer, and I am NOT excited nor ready for that...), I know pretty much all the missionaries now in the mission, and it's a lot easier to have a fun time around them. Also, about 2 months ago, I bought a really cool Banska Bystrica t~shirt, and my first companion went and picked it up and brought it for me at the training!!! I'll have to take a picture in it and send it home sometime. I love the missionaries here, you can really tell when you meet each of them, we don't have a single bad, uncommitted, or even unconsecrated missionary. No one gets trunkie, no one gets distracted, no one wants to go home, even for important surgeries (more on that another time), and most of all, no one doesn't love the crap out of each other. I adore every missionary here, it's so wonderful to be surrounded by all these amazing people all the time. At the training, we had a powerful lesson on the importance of getting investigators to church, because that's one of the biggest problems here as far as getting investigators to progress. We also talked about a cool principle we call cross-pollination where at church we advertise for English, and at English, we advertise for Family History, and at Family History we advertise for Concerts, and at Concerts we advertise for Church and learning more about Christ, just so that everyone who comes to these activities gets to see the whole picture of what we do, and why we're here. I found out as well that our Christmas concert practice in Banska Bystrica was actually filmed and put on Youtube, I think it's just going to be under vianoce koncert or something like that, but our investigator filmed and edited us so if you'd like to watch that, do some searching. (http://youtu.be/jjAI3DryH40) good thing is I got it verified that it's actually on the English version of Youtube, not Youtube.sk, so you don't even have to worry about it, you'll just see a picture of me and know it's us. It's not the best recording, but maybe you'll just like seeing it happen. Anyway, that's all I have time for right now, I hope to be emailing some actual spiritual stuff to you next week.

Love you all,

Elder Chris Brousseau

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

We're On Our Way!

Čaute!

Chris' MTC District

So this is my very last msmku here in the MTC! I can not believe every day how fast it has gone by. The MTC is a wonderful place, it is very hard to get used to all of the rules, like no music at all anywhere, but every one of them is in place for a reason. The hardest part for ME to get used to, was, say you're the best at basketball...No one cares. Or you have the most scripture mastery scriptures memorized...No one cares. You could be growing up to be the next prophet and no one will [care] about you any more than [any other] Elder... The only thing that gives you like ANY status here is where you're from, where you're going, and how well you speak your language, which is exactly what everyone tells you NOT to compare yourself to. I've never felt the spirit so strong anywhere else.

This is the group traveling to Prague today!

So in this last week, let's see...We got our flight plans! We leave at 7:30 am on Monday and fly from Salt Lake to Dallas, Dallas to London, and London to Prague. I'm really nervous about going because I'm finding more and more the differences between Czech and Slovak, and I'm scared I won't be able to understand very well, but I'm praying for comfort and peace and that has been working really well so far. We got challenged at in-field orientation yesterday to give a mormon.org pass-along card to someone before we meet our mission president, so I wrote pamätajte prósim o Ježišovi Kristovi on the back, and I'm not expecting much from it, but you never know.

So time for a 'tender-mercies-of-the-Lord' story. On Sunday sometime, I left my journal somewhere, I still cannot think of where it was left, but I was so worried because there's a lot of stuff in there, you know? And I wasn't really freaking out about it, but I kept looking all of Sunday night, and all of Monday too, then on Tuesday when I had finally just gotten it through my head that it was gone and I just needed to start over with a new one, I checked the mail after dinner, and someone had found it and MAILED it to me! My goodness I was surprised, but it was so cool to be reminded that the Lord takes care of the little things too, not just the crazy huge life decisions.

Here are the Slovak missionaries!

On Sunday, I got to see the Character of Christ film from David A. Bednar, and for all of you planning on coming into the MTC, don't do what everyone tells you to, they don't understand what they're talking about. Save that film for the week before you leave. It is so worth it to wait because at the end of your stay you're in more of a missionary mindset and are more ready to understand the message that he is trying to convey. His main message is about how every time when we would turn inward in pain or fear or selfishness, Christ turned outwards, like for example, read the JST after Christ had been fasting in the wilderness for 40 days and Satan was tempting him. In the Bible, he calls angels who minister unto or help him regain his strength. In the JST, he sends the angels to John the Beloved who is in jail instead of helping himself, he helps others every time. It is absolutely stunning to behold the magnitude of his love for each of us.

So nothing really happened the rest of the week until Thanksgiving, which was awesome! We started out our day with a devotional from Russell M. Nelson who talked about how we can turn gratitude into revelation, both from God and about ourselves. I love apostles, all of them have such an intense love of the gospel and of God. I got to sit on the front row, like close enough to see the shine on his forehead kind of thing, I felt so lucky, he kept looking RIGHT at me. Then later remember how I made it into 3 musical numbers? I thought that was cool, but not very amazing because I saw there were like 45 different groups of people trying out, so I was assuming there would be like 15-20 musical numbers or something like that. Turns out, there were 4, and I was in 3 of them. I was so surprised I was almost too nervous to play, but I went up and played through my fear and did really pretty well. On Harry Potter, I only made 1 mistake, and people have been telling me at least like 15 times a day since then that they loved it and were so impressed, it's been really humbling for me to see how much people appreciate things like that. The duet I did with the fiddler went wonderfully, I didn't have a hard part, and he's like 'my cousin-good' so it was cool. Then on the Joseph, I actually got my confidence up enough to look right into one of the cameras while it was on me and wink. Everyone laughed except the MTC presidency who happened not to be watching at that moment.

Chris playing piano for the Thanksgiving Program

Anyway, it's been a really fun week and just an overall great experience here at the MTC. An update on my investigators, we got a new one on Tuesday, who really isn't interested in the gospel and I can't see it going anywhere. Another man got baptized and confirmed on sunday, which was awesome, and another man was baptized on Saturday last week. I'm ready to go out and declare the gospel in a real setting, we've been practicing street contacting, and gosh it's too awkward, but I think I'll be able to get over that pretty soon. I think it's about high time I gave another testimony in Slovak, so here goes.

Ahojte, mojí kamáratkí. Dufám že viete že žije našých spasiťel. Viem toto a viem tiež že môžeme robiť ničo ako potrebujeme postrednictvom uzmierenia Ježiša Krista. Viem že potrebujeme vidieť že naš ciel predtým ako a pótom ako ideme na misia je posvať ostatných aby prišli ku Kristovi tým, že im budeme pomaháť ziskať znovusriadené evanjelium postrednictvom viery v Ježiša Krista a Jeho uzmierenia, pokania, krstu, a daru Ducha Svätého, a vytrvania až do konca. Môžeme posvať nikto, viem to s mojou celý srdce. Tiež viem že oni budú počuť lebo to nie je nový pre nikto. Už vieme toto evanjelium, musime to najst zasa. Je to môj svedectvo o pracu misionarom a hovorim tieto veci v mene Ježiša Krista amen.

MTC Christmas lights are on!

(Google translation: Hello, my friends. I hope you know that our Savior lives. I know this and I also know that we can do as we need Nico postrednictvom Atonement of Jesus Christ. I know I need to see that our goal before and then as we go on a mission to help others to come unto Christ by helping them we help to acquire znovusriadené gospel postrednictvom faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and perseverance to the end. I know it with my whole heart. I also know that they will be heard because it is not new to anyone. We already know this gospel, we have to look it up again. It is my testimony about the work of missionaries and speak these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.)

Milujem ťa,

Starší Chris Brousseau

(Editor's note: we were able to speak to Chris on the phone this morning during his time at the SLC International Airport. He left this morning for Prague and will likely arrive early Tuesday morning, Mountain Standard Time. He sounded so excited and so nervous to get started! Please keep him in your prayers.)

Thanksgiving!

Ahojte!

These are the missionaries traveling next week!

So this week has been so crazy. But there's some big news in order! First off, I just received my travel plans to the Czech Republic! I am so excited, we'll be departing next Monday, and they sent that we need to be prepared to face subzero temperatures from the FIRST MINUTE we step outside of the Airport! I am so beyond excited, this whole experience will be so crazy for me, I'm going to love it. The other big thing I'm excited to tell you about is...............I got to Skype on Monday with my investigator's mom!!! Haha, and Guess who she is?!? She's the lady who translated the Book of Mormon, AND Preach My Gospel into Slovak! I felt so inadequate talking to her, but we were able to bear our testimonies, and she said she was very excited to have missionaries like us coming into Slovakia, because apparently they only send the best, haha. Some of you may be wondering right now, "wait, I thought she was an investigator..." Good wondering! Keep it up! She IS a legitimate investigator who lived with her dad (her parents are seperated), and I am so excited, she goes home this week to go talk with her dad about letting her be baptized.

Writing and illustrating at the MTC

So let's see, what else happened this week...hmmm....Even MORE good stuff! I got a PACKAGE from my best friend this week! I opened it up during class and when I saw who it was from and all the stuff in it, I just started to cry, I am so blessed by you people. You are the most perfect friend I could ask for.

In other news, yesterday I tried out for another musical number because the first one went sort of ok, and the MTC president's wife had me stay and evaluate other performances with her, and suffice it to say, I tried out for 1 performance, and I just got letters not 10 minutes ago confirming I will be playing 3 times in the Thanksgiving Day devotional. I'm not sure how I feel, I'm like beyond nervous, but at the same time, I'm sort of excited because I'll be playing for 1 or more apostles. I'm playing Hedwig's Theme, I'm accompanying a girl who is singing a medley for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and lastly, I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm doing a duet with a fiddler on the Orange Blossom Special....I'll be playing the cello on that last one. I feel so humbled that these talents that I've always thought were cool, but never really put any store in are being so immensely appreciated by the MTC, especially from someone who doesn't play hymns.

Chris' b-ball blackeye

Anyway, things are going wonderfully, and I am so ready to leave and go to the field in a little less than 2 weeks. This is my last real P~Day in the MTC because of Thanksgiving next week, so I don't know if I'll be able to email until December 9th (Mondays are my P~Days in the field), so if I don't get to say it before I go, I love you from the very depths of my soul, your support has meant everything to me here in the MTC. I know that missions are hard, and it already has been hard, but I also know that with support like what I'm getting, I will never have to feel like giving up. I am prepared to go and spread the work of the Lord in every land and tongue, and more importantly, I'm prepared to lose myself doing it. I will serve a complete, full-time, honorable mission.

Milujem T'a,
Starsi Chris Brousseau

The Time of My Life

Ahojte!=)

So this week has been rather crazy/wonderful. Our investigators both agreed to be baptized! One man has some troubles right now that prevent it from happening for at least a couple of weeks, but

Chris learned a new knot!

we're texting him every day with encouragement and we can already see him improving. Another man agreed I think because his friend is Mormon, and I'm personally working with him to show him how the plan of happiness actually applies to him specifically, whether he's LDS or not because he seems really confused on the matter. As far as our other investigator goes, she wants to get baptized, but doesn't feel comfortable making these huge life decisions without her family, so she's going to go home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and meet with the missionaries there, so keep her in your prayers because she's so ready she has a testimony of nearly every principle so we're just waiting on the family approval!

I have been working really hard this week on something that I've struggled with my whole life. Unfortunately it doesn't seem so be going very well. Whenever I'm having a really good day, like everything is just going so right it always seems to happen where something little will hurt my feelings REALLY badly, and I know it's dumb, like I shouldn't even let it bother me, but I just can't help it. I don't know how to make things not bother me, does anyone have any advice on that matter? On Sunday it was manifest to me that the Lord recognizes my efforts in the matter though, and is willing to help, so I will keep doing my very best.

The Sunday night devotional was with the MTC administrative director and it was about chastity. I have been astounded at how often we get talks and lessons on chastity here in the MTC, and every time the speaker specifically directs it at missionaries. It makes me so grateful that I AM worthy and ready to be here in every aspect, because I've seen a couple of missionaries go home already because of things like this. The talk was actually really great though, the emphasis was specifically on those who live the law of chastity enjoy the strength and wisdom that comes through self-control.

Chris' zone at the MTC

Monday morning the Bulgarians and the Croatians left at 4:30 AM, and I have been missing them so severely. There wasn't one of them whom I didn't like, and they were all spiritual giants. I was so grateful that they picked me to give them their send-off prayer and "speech". I gave it in Slovak, and everyone was able to understand except for the new Polskies, but they're coming along. Those men and women were such examples to me. Our branch Presidency told us this on Sunday, and I don't know if it's true, but it seems to fit. They said that the Lord will only pick the missionaries with the strongest conviction, the most patience, and the least judgmental tendencies to serve in Eastern Europe, because the people there will only learn and grow in spirit through the best examples that the Lord can give. I seriously almost started crying while the branch president was telling us that because I don't feel like it fits for me, but everyone else it describes their personalities almost exactly. Especially the Bulgarian elders. They are all fun and energetic, and they can joke and laugh with the best, but I've never met a group of people more down to Earth. Bulgaria currently has 4 active members, but I have a feeling that that's about to start growing, especially because we have the first 2 Bulgarian sister missionaries EVER here!

Tuesday was absolutely fantastic, we had a devotional from guess who?!?.................................................................................................................................................................L. TOM PERRY!!! He spoke about companions, and I was just floored. I've never actually seen him bang on a pulpit before that night, but you could see and hear, that this man has seen the works of the Lord, and he can't hold his feelings about the gospel in. He spoke about Moses and how through all of his doubts about his mission, which was to go to the most powerful man in the world at that time, and try to get him to willingly give up his means of power, and provided a way for him to get through all of them. Moses said, but I am slow of speech, and God replied, "Who made man's mouth?" I cannot emphasize the power of the Lord in this endeavor. Last night for TRC, my companions and I taught 3 Slovakian native members at the same time, and not one of us misunderstood a single word. The spirit of missionary work is extremely palpable every time that we prepare ourselves to feel it, instead of preparing our investigators to hear us.

Chris was asked to welcome new missionaries last week!

On Wednesday I hosted to try and catch one of my friends when he came into the MTC, but I actually have yet to even see him. Instead, I got to host 4 new in-state elders who's spirits are so strong. One Elder in particular I could tell, was from Ogden Utah, and just watching his mom the whole time they were saying goodbye, I could tell that he is a special soul. He's going to South Carolina, and wow, those people are in for one heck of a missionary.

I already talked a bit about Thursday, but hey guess what? Thursday marked the end of the 6th week! Our companionship is surprisingly united at this point, so much so that it's really hard for me to think about going somewhere without my elders with me. I'd like to testify about companions, referencing something I was very surprised that Elder Perry didn't talk about with Moses. Moses' companion during his mission was none other than his brother Aaron. Moses doubted, so the Lord gave him a companion. Through the spirit, this companionship was able to complete true miracles, and I know that that will happen to my companionships throughout my mission. I will probably never be blessed with a tripanionship again throughout my mission, but the Lord can easily make do with only two.

New Slovakia tee-shirt

In conclusion, I'd just like to emphasize how much I love you. I enjoy so much getting your letters and your Dearelders, they literally brighten my days every time I get to read them. I'm so glad I have the best friends and family in the church to support me through this short time I have to give all of my efforts towards furthering the work and glory of God. You are each in my prayers every morning and night, and I pray continually that my service will in some way bless your lives. I constantly remind myself here that faith doesn't make things easy, it only makes them possible, but the Lord knows your faith every time perfectly.

Milujem T'a,

Starsi Chris Brousseau