When in Czech : Hope

Drahy Krasny Lidi!

Hey! I hope everyone had a fabulous week! Lots to tell so lets get to it!

Shoutouts:

My birthday is in 8 days. You could say that I am a little excited. :)

Boo boo keep on tearing it up little sis!

Vera! I Hope you had the best 1st Birthday ever. I can't believe that you have teeth!

Mladá Mysteries:

---> We watched Meet the Mormons on Friday with the Branch. The story of the Candy Bomber really got to me. I cried like a baby.

---> A typical Czech Grab n Go lunch consists of roliks (bread). Sister Boza and I had a couple of those this past week.

---> When Sister Boza goes to the bathroom I hide and then scare her when she comes out. ha! I get her almosttt every time.

---> It snowed ALL DAY Saturday. At least 6 inches!

---> Bondy is the name of the Mall that is right by our home. It is theee place to be if you are a cool kid.

Book of Mormon Insight:

12 And Alma and his people did not raise their voices tothe Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him;and he did know the thoughts of their hearts.

13 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be f good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.

14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me here after, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

I absolutely love these verses. (They will be used later on too! Stay tuned. :)) We all have many burdens that we cary in life. School, family, marriages and the list goes on and on. As missionaries we not only carry our own burdens, but we carry the burdens of a lot of others as well. It can be very taxing and overwhelming at times, but I have felt the truth of the promise given to us in these verses. That our burdens will truly be made light even in the midst of the difficulties we face in life.

Christ-like Attributes:

Sister Boza and I study a Christ-like Attribute each week. This past week we studied hope.

I love how it defines Hope in Preach My Gospel. Hope is enthusiasm, optimism, EXPECTING good things to happen, atd.

It has been interesting to see how the events of our week seem to correlate with the Chirst-like Attribute we are studying.

Hope and Tracting:

We went tracting a couple of times this past week. The first time we went in the morning around 10ish on a Thursday. It isn't the most practical time to go, but we thought hey, lets try it anyway.We were coming to the close of our 2 hour block and we said alright, lets try these 3 houses and then we will start heading back home. We rang the bell of the first home and a mother came to the door, with kiddos crawling all around her legs. We introduced ourselves and she goes on to tell us that she had met missionaries a couple years back. We asked if we could set up on a different day and she said, sure! of course! We exchanged numbers, and set up for this Wednesday! We are going on a walk with her and her kids and are going to teach her the gospel while we do so. ha! As began our tracting block that day, I was trying to implement what I have been learning about hope into my thoughts and my actions. It was a little difficult and took a lot of effort, but I believe that Heavenly Father rewarded us for our efforts that day by placing us in the path of Pavlina. Looking forward to seeing what comes of our walk with her on Wednesday. :)

Our second tracting experience was Saturday morning the midst of a pretty good, steady snowfall. IT was awesome. We had a good lesson on the Restoration with this man and were able to speak with a few other people, but nothing too concrete. On our way back home, we hear the phone buzz and you will never guess who it was.

TOMASZ!!!!

Tomasz texted us!!! He texted saying that he was in town and wanted to meet. We met with him at the kancelař and had a really good lesson with him. He explained to us more of what happened last week when we got evicted. This past week was a really hard one for him. He got pretty emotional with us. We read Mosiah 24 with him emphaszing verses 12-16:

12 And Alma and his people did not raise their voices to the Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him; and he did know the thoughts of their hearts.

13 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.

14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

16 And it came to pass that so great was their faith and their patience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying: Be of good comfort, for on the morrow I will deliver you out of bondage.

We testified of the power of prayer and how Heavenly Father really does hear every single one our prayers and that we are truly never alone even in the midst of troublesome times. That through the atonement of Christ, our burdens can always be made light. He really loved that and found great comfort in those verses.

We told him how proud of him we are for contacting us. We pointed out to him that that is a huge step in his own conversion. He could have easily done what he did last time and try to figure life out on his own, but he chose Christ, he chose Heavenly Father this time by sending one small simple text asking us to meet.

He came to church yesterday and particpated in Sunday school. He was able to speak with Prezident Zbranek about his living situation. The ward memebers have been informed and are going to keep their eyes open for any apartments. He is living with a friend in Boleslav this week, but after this week he has no place to go. Keep him in your prayers!!!

NELLI:

Nelli is our Bulgarian investigator who was found by Sister Angerhofer and Clark. She has the 2 cutest little boys named Kubi and Viki. Nelli has been progressing soooo well recently and we have seen a change in her as we have tried to keep lessons shorter and more spiritual so she can experience that conversion unto Christ more. After her blessing we felt that she was ready to hear the "b" word again. Baptism. We felt prompted to have the Elders join us again for the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson for support on the authority aspect of baptism.

The lesson went SO WELL. Sister Boza and I were soooo incredibly nervous. Every other time we have brought up Baptism her walls go up immediately and she become defensive about how she was already baptized. We taught the Gospel lesson using the 5 steps. Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. As the lesson progressed to the 3rd step we were a little apprehensive, but we started in and she had no problem with it. We explained baptism a little bit more in depth for her then we have in the past and it made sense to her this time around.

I was the one who was "on the line" when the next step in the conversation was to invite her to be baptized.

I said a silent prayer in my heart that her heart would be softened and that she would accept a date. She paused for a moment after I invited her to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper authority, and then she said in her soft voice, " okay, yes."

I have never felt so much joy. It's more then just asking someone to be baptized, it's inviting them to come unto Christ. To be born again in Him who suffered for each one of us. To become a new son or daughter in Christ.

It is truly a beautiful thing to have the privilege to invite people to baptism.

Nelli accepted a date for the 27th of February and we are so certain that she will be able to make it!

She said to us as we were leaving, "Well, do you think that I could be baptized on the 24th of Janurary to make it more symbolic? That will be the day I met the missionaries 9 months ago."

The 24th was 3 days from then. ha!

She asked so sweetly and so sincerely, but we had to tell her no. Even though we wish we could have told her yes! ;)

We met with her 2 more times this past week and she is doing great. She is reading, she is praying, she is keeping comittments. There are still some things that need to be taught, but really truly we feel so strongly that she is one of the elect.

Welp, That is all I have for today folks!

Thank you for all of your love and support! My wish for all of you this week is to have the hope to find Christ in your life and the lives of others this week. Have the hope that Heavenly Father will bless you with a missionary opportunity. He needs ALL of us fighting the good fight.

Much love from the Eastern Europe side:)

S laskou,

Sestra Fred

The day it snowed A TON!