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

June 14, 2015

Nazdar!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

S Laskou,

Elder Brousseau

June 21, 2015

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

Nazdar!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Starsi Brousseau

Nezmenitelne evanjelium (Immutable Gospel)

June 8, 2015 

Nazdar!

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday we had a meeting with M5, this guy we've known for a while, and it went about how we expected it to go, but he's steadily showing more interest, which is a good thing. We also taught English, which is always a joy.

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

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

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

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

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

Elder Brousseau

June 1, 2015

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

Nazdar!

You know, it seems that the Lord sends random stupid things that he knows are going to make me happy and keep me going more often than I ever seem to expect. It's a game he's been playing with me for a very long time, and I've decided I appreciate it. The example that's fresh in my mind today is this week. Last week, I was getting hit pretty hard with feeling inadequate because of the lack of results that came from last transfers hard work. I felt like it was because I had slacked off, or because I wasn't good enough, and then I began to see good things in other people and forgetting about good things in myself. In order to save me from my own self pity, the Lord decided that just because he knew I would appreciate it, even though it's stupid, he helped people to start complimenting my Slovak again. I know it's dumb, and I promise I'm not comparing myself to anyone except for myself, but He knew I would appreciate it during this weird time for me. So yeah, that's pretty cool, I've had several people in the last week tell me I'm from central Slovakia according to accent, so that's really nice.

I'm doing a lot better than last week, and I'm not just saying that because Elder R. was reading my letter last week and said that it sounded like I was in the depths of despair, and I guess I can see why he thought that. Also, I got like 90 emails from people thinking that I need some sort of encouragement. I wish that I sounded as happy in my letters as I actually am. Because I am SO happy. I really love being here. I love Slovaks so much. It astounds me how surprised people are to hear that. For example, this lady today at a bus stop refused to believe that we were here for so long because we loved Slovaks and wanted to help them. Admittedly, she had had a little bit of alcohol, but she just decided that that information didn't compute, and therefore didn't believe it. I wish that Slovaks weren't surprised in a bad way to find someone who loves them. I want their surprise to be more of a, "Wow! Thank you! What makes you love Slovaks? How do I get part of that love?" Instead of a, "No one loves Slovaks, go back to America." But I love it to death.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, lots of love,

Elder Brousseau

Uz som zfanatizovany! (I Had A Fanatic!)

April 27, 2015

Nazdar!

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

Slavin Monument

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elder Brousseau

May 4, 2015

Na Pleciach Kolosov (On the Shoulders of Kolosov)

Nazdar!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zo Slovenska S Laskou,

Elder Brousseau

May 11, 2015

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

Nazdar!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lots of love,

Elder Brousseau

May 18, 2015

Nazdar!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I could not be happier here.

Lots of love,

Elder Brousseau

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

Tak sa Tesim na (I So Look Forward To) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Nazdar!

Haha, you can ignore the title, my companion just got an email telling us some details about the release date and everything and we've decided to get a group together for the midnight showing. But that's a long time in the future. What's happening right now, is:

I am still having the biggest blast being a missionary.

Here in Blava, there are a lot of missionary skills I'm finding that I still need to master. I really like that I actually had the experience that I did, which is pretty much the opposite of most missionaries in Slovakia, which is to start outside of Blava, and not go there until you've served almost everywhere else. Then you get a whole lot of the awkwardness of missionary work over with, and on top of that, you have an opportunity to learn a lot about why the people are the way they are, especially just in different areas in the mission FIRST, instead of just getting thrust in, and immediately frustrated, like seems to happen sometimes. One of these skills though, that I'm working on mastering at the moment, is bus/tram contacting. Man, it is a WHOLE lot different to contact someone on the street, or to ring someone's doorbell or zvoncek as the case may be, than to contact them on a bus, and it needs to be handled differently, especially because it seems Slovaks can only handle a certain level of awkward before they flip out and make the situation like 200x more awkward than it already was. The thing I'm grateful for though, is having seen the other types of missionary work before, which helps me build the faith to know that learning how to bus contact effectively is actually worth it. There are people who need to be found, and sometimes the Lord has them literally just sitting there in front of us, and we just need to speak up.

Well, Right now, there are 4 and a half people on date in my area, the half is K., a guy who I think if we were in contact, he would make it, but since we're not, he's probably not. The other 4 are in good positions though.

So W.: She didn't get baptized because she was sick last Saturday, and she's been sick the whole week. Something a little bit annoying about Slovaks is: when they get sick, they just completely shut down. Literally, I've had a cold for a few days and people have been yelling at me like, "Why are you outside? Call your boss and just tell him you need 3 days to just sit at home and don't do anything!" I keep thinking like, What the poop? Anyway, our plan with her is to tell her that whenever she's ready to be baptized, we'll just take her down to the river, she doesn't really need a socialna udalost...

A.: He still hasn't talked to his wife about baptism, but his date is this Saturday, so that may not be a problem. He still needs to learn a few more things like temples and eternal families, but according to what we think of him, he will make it.

M.: Finally on date! Haha, she's going to finish studying, and then she finally consented to be baptized because she knows it's true. So great.

M.: Next Monday... The clincher is whether she comes to church this Sunday, she can still make it, but most likely we'll have to move it back a little bit.

and that's about it. Our other investigators are doing great, but these 5 are doing really well with the exception of K. He's probably just still in Turkey, I hope he found the missionaries there.

I'm doing really well on top of that, about once every week it hits me again exactly where I am (Slovakia, not America), and what I'm doing (Serving a mission, which was always just sort of a dream in the back of my head, like, suuuure, yeeeeeaaaah, I'll do that...When I'm like 19, but that will never happen.) and it renews the original excitement of coming. I'm so grateful to be here. I'll write you all again next week, and hopefully I'll have 2 baptismal pictures to send as well, keep those investigators in your prayers.

Modlievam sa pre kazdeho z vas osobne denne. Mam vas velmi rad.

Elder Brousseau

Early Transfers

Nazdar!

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

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

Highlights real quick:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love you all, have a great week!

Elder Brousseau

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

Tyzden Vymien (Exchanged Week)

Nazdar!

Well guess what?!? Haha, we have waded our way through all the Anti-Stuff finally!!! We told the Ex-member we were meeting with that we didn't want to meet anymore if he wasn't interested in anything other than "opening our eyes," and we told our Anti-Investigator that he needed to cool it or he would never become a member, which surprisingly enough worked. Special thanks to fairmormon.org for providing very useful, true, and respectful information. On another note, thank you (my family) for the birthday package! Yeah, I accidentally had no idea why I had a package and opened it. I appreciate the Hymn Book. Also the Mac and Cheese and Kool-Aid. I also loved your letter, I'm glad that I was an entertaining baby, because if I hadn't been, you probably wouldn't have had patience for me later in life.

Ok, on to the rest of the stuff. First, I finally finished writing about last transfer in my journal!!! Haha, yeah, that's February 15th, thank heavens for planners or that would never have gotten done, I'm doing my best to catch up as quick as possible without forgetting any important details. I will probably need a new journal and memory card soon. BTW, I found a fun thing to do to help people from getting trunky (I'll explain why this came up in a little bit). When you have 138 days left in the mission, start reading the Doctrine and Covenants, one section a day, backwards. It will keep you more and more focused in and grateful for serving a mission. President Holland said it best, "Don't you EVER let ANYONE take your mission away from you! My mission is EVERYTHING to me, and maybe you think I'm crazy, but it really is. Do not go home, and do NOT give it up for anything!" I really love that talk, it really gets me fired, up, especially when he speaks about loving the people. I have a strong testimony that the gift of tongues will NOT come in it's fulness until you really love the people you serve. I love these people here, and I have some very big news today.

1st, M. and M. are still going on missions. M. got her call to Salt Lake City, Utah, and she is still freaking out. I promised her that if she serves in Farmington, or near Skyline, that my grandparents would LOVE her to visit them. Story time! Satan didn't want her to go to the temple. How did he show this, you ask? He had the driver taking them to Frankfurt get in a car accident in the Czech Republic. Scared the living daylights out of everyone there, but no one was hurt, even though the car was totalled. But, as in 1 Nephi 3:7, God provided a way, and she went to the temple and loved it. M. hasn't gotten his mission call yet, and is currently in Germany, so I don't have new news on him.

We had Elders R. and B in our apartment ALL WEEK, it was prettty fun. Everyone came down Tuesday night for the training, and we thought it would be easier to have them just stay with us all week, rather than take the 10 our train back, and then have to come back for the conference on Sunday. So they helped us work in our area, which was pretty sweet. It was really fun to be with them the whole week too. Also, my companion Elder W. was able to teach S. the Deaf member with Sister McConkie on Tuesday! He's so great, and they just had a blast.

Neither W., nor I. was baptized on Saturday unfortunately, we'll keep working with them, W. just needs to realize that Elder C. is leaving and she doesn't have time to procrastinate anymore. I. more needs to realize that he knows it's true. M. keeps flipping back and forth between all sorts of opinions, so we'll see where things head with her. We made contact with N. again. Teaching Muslims is SO fun, they kind of live in a little bubble, and it's great to see a light come on in their eyes. They make really really strong happy members as well.

I am getting better at Ping-Pong, and I hope to continue in that, that's one of the most entertaining activities I've ever participated in. I almost beat A. on Saturday, it ended 19-21, which is great considering normally it's like 7-21. The Zone Leaders are practicing all the time, which makes it really fun to have super good (better than me) people to play against whenever we have time for it.

Members from the Nitra Branch at the Slovak reorganization!

Ok, big news. On Sunday it was announced that Slovakia is being re-organized. We are no longer part of the Brno District, but instead the Bratislava District has been created. That means, no more traveling to Brno for conferences, or Youth activities (Trainings will still happen there), or anything like that, but that Bratislava will be in charge of things like that. This means enormous progress for the church here. I was crying so hard when they made the announcement, this means we are one giant step closer to Slovakia being it's own Stake and it's own Mission. I can't wait, these members are so strong, and they work so hard. I can't believe how much the church has grown here, just in the time that I've been here. At the beginning of my mission, we were fighting every week to have 13 lessons when standards were 14, and we were in the best area in the Zone, most were fighting for 4 or 5. Now we are sad and disappointed when we haven't had at least 20. I am SO proud to be a Slovak missionary during this pivotal time for the church here, it is AMAZING to witness the courage and dedication of the members. I love this place.

I don't really have anything more to add, have a wonderful week, thank you Grandma Burton for supporting me so much, I love you to pieces! Also, thank you Mom and Dad for keeping me so informed. I am so grateful for my family. BE EXCITED FOR CONFERENCE!

Zo Slovenska s Laskou,

Elder Brousseau