Monday, July 25, 2011
(Note: We are removing names and replacing them with letters and dashes for privacy sake)
Dobry den, rodino!
I'm so excited to be emailing you again! It is so exciting for me to fill you in on my week here in Plzen - I wish I could tell you everything about my day every day, but unfortunately that just can't happen. Boo. But I can fill you in on some highlights!
First, a little more about my trainer - he is from Innsbrook Austria (we think the same ones the Gallachers knew), and comes from a family of 5 brothers and 1 sister. He's an elder with a really good heart and has really good desires to grow this area. This is only his 3rd transfer in the Czech Republic, so he's picked up on the language and the gist of the work really fast. It's pretty impressive, and I hope that I will be able to be at the point he is by the end of my 2nd transfer! He studied Jazz Piano at a university before he came here - crazy right? - and is really good. I definitely have a lot to learn from him this transfer.
Our apartment is in a panelak, and is actually pretty nice! We did have to do a MAJOR cleanup when we got here, though - we're still in the process of finishing that...haha. My bed is actually pretty good - I sleep with my pillow and comforter every night, and we have a little floor fan that I position right next to me, so I'm sleeping just fine! Thank you for sending off the recipes - my tummy thanks you too! We cook actually most days - or we go to a potraveny (convenience store) to get some quick food. We also eat in restaurants a few days a week. Also, we eat at a member's house once a week as a district. She's so nice, and wants to teach Marmee how to make ovocne knedliky when you come to visit after my mission! Haha - the people here are so awesome.
We live about 30 minutes from the Church building and around 20 minutes from the city....yeah...so we do a lot of tram contacting every day. It's a little scary, but it's like jumping into a cold pool every time - really scary at first, but as soon as you get talking, you get used to it (like you get used to the water). My problem is that I've always gotten into a cold pool one little step at a time haha. It's really challenging me to just go in and do it. But it's so good.
Now for a little bit about this week in particular - unfortunately, we've pretty much lost all contact with our investigators from last week...it's pretty sad. They haven't answered any phone calls or texts, and aren't at home when we try to stop by. Dang - it's really hard to see people start to see the light of the spirit, then retreat back away from it. But we have been hard at work to find new people to teach. We've found a lot of new potentials, and have set up meeting with a bunch of them. A couple cool people in particular we've been teaching:
J--- is a younger gal from Poland who is only here for another 1.5 weeks or so. But we contacted her on the street, and have been teaching her. She said that she was atheist, but feels like there has been a hole in her heart for some time that she wants to be filled. She wants to believe in something, but doesn't believe in God just yet. We challenged her to read Alma 32 from the Book of Mormon and pray about whether God exists and to feel His love, and I pray that she will receive an answer. Our goal with her is to get a really solid referral to pass onto the Polish Mission.
I---- is a really cool man we met on Saturday. We had just tried to visit another family, but they didn't answer their door - so we started walking back to the tram stop and I---- was sitting on a bench across from his car, listening to Bulgarian folk music. We almost walked right by him - but at the last second I stopped and contacted him. He invited us to sit down, and we proceeded to basically teach the entire first lesson. It was so cool, and he was very accepting of the message and fascinated with the Book of Mormon. He is from Bulgaria, and is Eastern Orthodox, I think. But after we talked, we invited him to church. He also asked how much the Book of Mormon was so that he could buy it - we gladly told him with a huge smile on our faces that it was free. Then, yesterday, we arrived at the church building 15 minutes early to see I----talking with our branch president, President H. Wow! How cool is that!? He stayed for church, talked for a little bit afterwards - we saw him again today in Namesti republiky and set up a follow up meeting for Wednesday. What an awesome opportunity to teach someone so willing to be taught!
Another cool experience happened yesterday - after church, we were finishing up our studies and I was feeling pretty unproductive - our companionship study hadn't been the most effective, and I just had the impression that we needed to just get out of the apartment for a little bit. So we prayed and went contacting on the street just outside our panelak. in those 30 minutes we contacted, we received 1 address, 2 phone numbers, and 2 follow-up meetings. How crazy is that? And the coolest part for me was how we got the numbers - there were two younger guys (prob early twenties) walking together and talking. Usually, we try to contact people who are alone, because they're usually more likely to listen. But again, at the last minute, I contacted these 2 guys. The contact almost finished when they said they weren't believers and started walking away - but I quickly asked them if they believed in something, which they said they did, just not God or Christ (this is a pretty common belief). We ended up talking for a little bit longer, and they gave me both their numbers and we have a meeting set up for next Saturday when they get back from vacation in Liberec.
The spirit truly is with us as missionaries, and how grateful I am for that! We're trying to work with members to get referrals - that really is the best way to do missionary work. Please pray for our branch here. They're really good people.
I love you all so much, and can't wait to hear from you next week!
S laskou,
Starsi Mullen
ps - not sure on the package thing...pictures and letters always make my day, though!
I'm so excited to be emailing you again! It is so exciting for me to fill you in on my week here in Plzen - I wish I could tell you everything about my day every day, but unfortunately that just can't happen. Boo. But I can fill you in on some highlights!
First, a little more about my trainer - he is from Innsbrook Austria (we think the same ones the Gallachers knew), and comes from a family of 5 brothers and 1 sister. He's an elder with a really good heart and has really good desires to grow this area. This is only his 3rd transfer in the Czech Republic, so he's picked up on the language and the gist of the work really fast. It's pretty impressive, and I hope that I will be able to be at the point he is by the end of my 2nd transfer! He studied Jazz Piano at a university before he came here - crazy right? - and is really good. I definitely have a lot to learn from him this transfer.
Our apartment is in a panelak, and is actually pretty nice! We did have to do a MAJOR cleanup when we got here, though - we're still in the process of finishing that...haha. My bed is actually pretty good - I sleep with my pillow and comforter every night, and we have a little floor fan that I position right next to me, so I'm sleeping just fine! Thank you for sending off the recipes - my tummy thanks you too! We cook actually most days - or we go to a potraveny (convenience store) to get some quick food. We also eat in restaurants a few days a week. Also, we eat at a member's house once a week as a district. She's so nice, and wants to teach Marmee how to make ovocne knedliky when you come to visit after my mission! Haha - the people here are so awesome.
We live about 30 minutes from the Church building and around 20 minutes from the city....yeah...so we do a lot of tram contacting every day. It's a little scary, but it's like jumping into a cold pool every time - really scary at first, but as soon as you get talking, you get used to it (like you get used to the water). My problem is that I've always gotten into a cold pool one little step at a time haha. It's really challenging me to just go in and do it. But it's so good.
Now for a little bit about this week in particular - unfortunately, we've pretty much lost all contact with our investigators from last week...it's pretty sad. They haven't answered any phone calls or texts, and aren't at home when we try to stop by. Dang - it's really hard to see people start to see the light of the spirit, then retreat back away from it. But we have been hard at work to find new people to teach. We've found a lot of new potentials, and have set up meeting with a bunch of them. A couple cool people in particular we've been teaching:
J--- is a younger gal from Poland who is only here for another 1.5 weeks or so. But we contacted her on the street, and have been teaching her. She said that she was atheist, but feels like there has been a hole in her heart for some time that she wants to be filled. She wants to believe in something, but doesn't believe in God just yet. We challenged her to read Alma 32 from the Book of Mormon and pray about whether God exists and to feel His love, and I pray that she will receive an answer. Our goal with her is to get a really solid referral to pass onto the Polish Mission.
I---- is a really cool man we met on Saturday. We had just tried to visit another family, but they didn't answer their door - so we started walking back to the tram stop and I---- was sitting on a bench across from his car, listening to Bulgarian folk music. We almost walked right by him - but at the last second I stopped and contacted him. He invited us to sit down, and we proceeded to basically teach the entire first lesson. It was so cool, and he was very accepting of the message and fascinated with the Book of Mormon. He is from Bulgaria, and is Eastern Orthodox, I think. But after we talked, we invited him to church. He also asked how much the Book of Mormon was so that he could buy it - we gladly told him with a huge smile on our faces that it was free. Then, yesterday, we arrived at the church building 15 minutes early to see I----talking with our branch president, President H. Wow! How cool is that!? He stayed for church, talked for a little bit afterwards - we saw him again today in Namesti republiky and set up a follow up meeting for Wednesday. What an awesome opportunity to teach someone so willing to be taught!
Another cool experience happened yesterday - after church, we were finishing up our studies and I was feeling pretty unproductive - our companionship study hadn't been the most effective, and I just had the impression that we needed to just get out of the apartment for a little bit. So we prayed and went contacting on the street just outside our panelak. in those 30 minutes we contacted, we received 1 address, 2 phone numbers, and 2 follow-up meetings. How crazy is that? And the coolest part for me was how we got the numbers - there were two younger guys (prob early twenties) walking together and talking. Usually, we try to contact people who are alone, because they're usually more likely to listen. But again, at the last minute, I contacted these 2 guys. The contact almost finished when they said they weren't believers and started walking away - but I quickly asked them if they believed in something, which they said they did, just not God or Christ (this is a pretty common belief). We ended up talking for a little bit longer, and they gave me both their numbers and we have a meeting set up for next Saturday when they get back from vacation in Liberec.
The spirit truly is with us as missionaries, and how grateful I am for that! We're trying to work with members to get referrals - that really is the best way to do missionary work. Please pray for our branch here. They're really good people.
I love you all so much, and can't wait to hear from you next week!
S laskou,
Starsi Mullen
ps - not sure on the package thing...pictures and letters always make my day, though!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
"I Believe...Contact me"
Ahoj, rodina!
I'm emailing from Plzen library, so I can use an English keyboard again! yay!
This week was crazy...but good!
We've been doing a LOT of finding this week - and our efforts were definitely rewarded. We found and got phone numbers for 38 new potential investigators...yeah. That's right. Lots of contacting this week. But amidst all of that, we also had a couple cool experiences with individuals.
Unfortunately, most of our appointments (all but one...) for lessons with members fell through this week. boo. And what was even worse was that every time the members showed up, but the investigator didn't. Bigger boo. I feel bad, because we're told to plan lessons with investigators and members, but our investigators flake out. bah. laaame.
One really cool experience happened with a kid named Honza this week. We almost walked by him on the street, but I turned back at the last second and asked him if we could help him sweep the sidewalk. He said he was fine, but we got into a discussion of God. Apparently he's a believer (they say that a lot as a common term here), but doesn't really know a lot about God or Christ. We told him about the Book of Mormon, and he seemed to be interested - but when we asked if we could meet sometime, he said no. And he didn't give us any contact info. Dang. So we moved on. Fastforward 2 days - we're getting on the tram, and there's Honza, standing in the tram. We talked with him a bit more, then we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and read Moroni's promise on the street. After that, he said HE would contact US if he had interest. Dang again. Usually, people here never call us - we have to call them. So we moved on again. But 5 hours later, sure enough, we get a text from Honza - he's going away for 2 weeks to a scout camp (cool!), then wants to meet and talk with us as soon as he gets back. Wow - the Lord truly puts people in our path. I have a testimony of that - but I have to do my part. If we hadn't turned back, we would have never talked to him. How important it is to talk to everyone!
Another quick cool experience - we had a really quick 10 minute lesson on faith and Alma 32 with Petr and Pavla last Monday - I thought it went as well as it could have, but wasn't sure if they would make any progress. Petr wasn't really a believer, so we figured he wouldn't progress very fast very soon. But Tuesday morning we woke up to a simple text in broken english - "I Believe. Contact me." Wow - we talked with them and he said he couldn't explain it, but he just wants to figure some things out personally now. We couldn't meet with him much last week, but hopefully we will later this week. God truly does answer prayers!
Training was great - it's cool to see how close I truly am with my MTC district! I hope I get to be some of their companions later in the mission - I would love that! I got a couple really cool compliments at the training, too - one older missionary who I practiced with said I spoke Czech better than any greenie he'd ever seen, and one of my zone leaders said that I spoke with great conviction and confidence, even if everything I said wasn't exactly grammatically correct haha. That's what it's all about. Speak with conviction - speak from the heart - and the Holy Ghost will do the teaching.
The food is actually really good! Only one bad experience so far (a plate of knedliky and a ginormous pool of saurkraut...yum...) - but everything else has been delicious! I'll send pics of what I'm eating as soon as I can :)
Church was really cool this week - we had like 9 kids under the age of 11! It really livened up the branch, which was fun to see. I love the members here - our branch President - President Holub - is young and really neat. We also are teaching with Vendy, a really cool 21 year old member who converted pretty recently. She speaks English really well, which is nice for me because she can help me understand what people are saying in Czech. I love the people here so much!
I hope the move with Chris and Jenna continues to go well! Sounds like quite the process haha.
Know that I love you all so much and think of and pray for you often. Thank you for your letters (and thank Teresa for her package! It made my day, and a letter is coming her way, too :) ) - they really brighten my day. Marmee and Dad, you've always been my biggest cheerleaders, and nothing has changed. I love you so much.
I love this work and these people. Thank you for your prayers on my (and their) behalf. I love my Savior and the happiness that this Gospel brings into my life, and hopefully soon into the lives of some progressing investigators!
S laskou,
Starsi Mullen
(ps - YAY! I'm in the Marriott school! :D )
I'm emailing from Plzen library, so I can use an English keyboard again! yay!
This week was crazy...but good!
We've been doing a LOT of finding this week - and our efforts were definitely rewarded. We found and got phone numbers for 38 new potential investigators...yeah. That's right. Lots of contacting this week. But amidst all of that, we also had a couple cool experiences with individuals.
Unfortunately, most of our appointments (all but one...) for lessons with members fell through this week. boo. And what was even worse was that every time the members showed up, but the investigator didn't. Bigger boo. I feel bad, because we're told to plan lessons with investigators and members, but our investigators flake out. bah. laaame.
One really cool experience happened with a kid named Honza this week. We almost walked by him on the street, but I turned back at the last second and asked him if we could help him sweep the sidewalk. He said he was fine, but we got into a discussion of God. Apparently he's a believer (they say that a lot as a common term here), but doesn't really know a lot about God or Christ. We told him about the Book of Mormon, and he seemed to be interested - but when we asked if we could meet sometime, he said no. And he didn't give us any contact info. Dang. So we moved on. Fastforward 2 days - we're getting on the tram, and there's Honza, standing in the tram. We talked with him a bit more, then we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and read Moroni's promise on the street. After that, he said HE would contact US if he had interest. Dang again. Usually, people here never call us - we have to call them. So we moved on again. But 5 hours later, sure enough, we get a text from Honza - he's going away for 2 weeks to a scout camp (cool!), then wants to meet and talk with us as soon as he gets back. Wow - the Lord truly puts people in our path. I have a testimony of that - but I have to do my part. If we hadn't turned back, we would have never talked to him. How important it is to talk to everyone!
Another quick cool experience - we had a really quick 10 minute lesson on faith and Alma 32 with Petr and Pavla last Monday - I thought it went as well as it could have, but wasn't sure if they would make any progress. Petr wasn't really a believer, so we figured he wouldn't progress very fast very soon. But Tuesday morning we woke up to a simple text in broken english - "I Believe. Contact me." Wow - we talked with them and he said he couldn't explain it, but he just wants to figure some things out personally now. We couldn't meet with him much last week, but hopefully we will later this week. God truly does answer prayers!
Training was great - it's cool to see how close I truly am with my MTC district! I hope I get to be some of their companions later in the mission - I would love that! I got a couple really cool compliments at the training, too - one older missionary who I practiced with said I spoke Czech better than any greenie he'd ever seen, and one of my zone leaders said that I spoke with great conviction and confidence, even if everything I said wasn't exactly grammatically correct haha. That's what it's all about. Speak with conviction - speak from the heart - and the Holy Ghost will do the teaching.
The food is actually really good! Only one bad experience so far (a plate of knedliky and a ginormous pool of saurkraut...yum...) - but everything else has been delicious! I'll send pics of what I'm eating as soon as I can :)
Church was really cool this week - we had like 9 kids under the age of 11! It really livened up the branch, which was fun to see. I love the members here - our branch President - President Holub - is young and really neat. We also are teaching with Vendy, a really cool 21 year old member who converted pretty recently. She speaks English really well, which is nice for me because she can help me understand what people are saying in Czech. I love the people here so much!
I hope the move with Chris and Jenna continues to go well! Sounds like quite the process haha.
Know that I love you all so much and think of and pray for you often. Thank you for your letters (and thank Teresa for her package! It made my day, and a letter is coming her way, too :) ) - they really brighten my day. Marmee and Dad, you've always been my biggest cheerleaders, and nothing has changed. I love you so much.
I love this work and these people. Thank you for your prayers on my (and their) behalf. I love my Savior and the happiness that this Gospel brings into my life, and hopefully soon into the lives of some progressing investigators!
S laskou,
Starsi Mullen
(ps - YAY! I'm in the Marriott school! :D )
Monday, July 11, 2011
First Big Week in Plzen!!
K, so this is going to have to be a really short email... boo. I only have like 24 minutes left, and I have to write to President Irwin. Oh well. Anza, sorry also, I can’t figure out how to load pics from this cafe...I’ll try to figure it out for next week.
So, first big week in Plzen! It’s crazy to think that I’m actually here. I have some very interesting and cool stories, though, so I’m going to just jump right in!
We both blinded into this area, so we didn’t know anyone. Yeah. And there were only like 4 investigator sheets...yeah. So we’ve been doing a lot of contacting this week, which has actually gone better than I thought. It’s really scary for me to contact people - I still don’t speak the language conversationally (after one week, you think I’d be fluent haha) and a lot of times, as soon as people hear the words Jesus Christ, they blow you off or just say they don’t have time and walk away. It’s hard, because I love talking to people, and I want them to like talking to me...but a lot of times they just don’t because of who I’m representing right now. It’s difficult for me sometimes, but I know it’ll ¨get better. I’m doing the best and most sacred work right now - just gotta remember that!!
Anyway, despite a lot of rejection in contacting, we actually got like 9 or 10 potential investigators and have already had a lesson at one of their apartments. The man who we taught was Petr, and he is a very cool and interesting fellow. We contacted him near a naměstí, and he told us that he was a polygamist...oops. But we kept talking, and we ended up setting up a meeting with him. We went to his apartment (I said I wanted adventure haha) and thankfully there was only one girl there. She was actually really sweet and her name is Pavla. We taught both of them about Joseph Smith and the Restoration, gave them both Book of Mormons, and they agreed to read it every day. So we’ll see where this goes - we’re meeting with them again later today. Pray for them!!
There’s only one other companionship serving in Plzen - Elders Stockdale and Vivona /(Elder Vivona is our district leader) - they’re awesome to work with!
I got a bit of a reality shock in my first Sunday here - there is only one branch in Plzen, and it is very small. There is no young men or womens, and the attendance on Sunday was somewhere around 18 or so. So we’re really here to build this area. What an opportunity!! Although small, the people in the branch are SO nice - they all complemented me on my Czech, and I introduced myself in sacrament meeting. They all couldn’t believe this was my first Sunday, and one lady said that I’d speak Czech better than her by the time I left! I love the people, and hope that we can grow this branch in the time we have to work here.
Unfortunately I must close here. Know that I love you so much, and hopefully will be able to get a longer email off next week with some pics!!!
S laskou,
Starší Mullen
Thursday, July 7, 2011
I AM HERE AND WELL
Elder Mullen with President and Sister Irwin
Ahoj, rodiče!
I am here and well!!! I am sure you are all wondering the big questions, so I’ll just get to those first! We arrived yesterday safely and I am loving it here! My first area is a city called Plzeň, a city to the west of Prague. It is an amazing city! Look up pictures on Google - hopefully it has good photos! My companion is Starší Egger, and he is from Austria! I think this will be a great companionship - he seems very nice and I think I will really grow under him. It’s only his third transfer, but he speaks Czech very well! The first conference was absolutely wonderful! (k, for now, I’m going to switch all my ys and zs, because they’re switched on this Czech keyboard, and I want to just type as fast as I can!! haha) We arrived in the Prague airport, all of us just so psyched to get out into the city. We went an an AMAZING Prague walk, where we were showed all around the sights of the city - it was so amazing. You’re going to love it when you come here one day!
We ended our Prague walk with 15 minutes of contacting, which I was so nervous for! but I ended up being paired with Starší Heath, and it went SO well! The first 2 people we talked to just ignored us...but the third one we ended up talking to for a good 10 minutes! His name was Petr, and he spoke just a little English, so most of the contact was in Czech. And it really went so well - he said that he doesn’t (k, that weird symbol is supposed to be an apostrophe,´but I can§t find it on this keyboard haha - i§ll get a hang of this eventually!) believe in God, but he will someday - I thought that was a really interesting answer. Never heard that one before. But we kept on talking, answered some questions about shromaždění (church), gave him a pass along card with the address of the church and got his phone number! Dobrá prace, ne? Haha
Today is my p day only because it§s transfer day, but our p day will normally be on Monday. Cool!
We live in a panelák apartment about 15-20 minutes outside of Plzěň, which is actually nicer than I thought it would be! It’s a little messy from the last companionship, unfortunately, but it’ll do! We have a bedroom/study room, kitchen, little dining room, entry hall, and living room with couches and stuff. The bathroom leaves a little to be desired, but it’s OK haha. I don’t have my camera cord to load pictures today, but I’ll try to upload some on Monday. I’m super excited to be here! What a blessing to serve in a place as beautiful as this country!
The people I’ve met so far are for the most part SUPER nice! On the train ride from Praha to Plzeň, I sat next to this older couple who were just so nice! I was trying to speak Czech to Starší Egger, and we started talking when the older lady corrected a bit of my Czech word order. So we kept on talking and talking, practicing Czech together - it was so cool! She is a Czech history teacher, and also teaches Czech language. She didn’t speak hardly any English, but she spoke her Czech slowly so I could understand - and understand I did! We talked for at least 45 minutes, and at the end, we exchanged addresses and we gave her a pass along card - she wants me to write her a letter, and then she’ll write me back haha - I got a picture with her that I’ll send next Monday. How cool is that?!
I really love it here. It is so fascinating - the history, the language, the culture, the people. I love everything about it. Starší Egger and I are blinding into this area, and there is only one other companionship in the whole city (which is the fourth largest in Czech!), which will be a great learning experience for me. So today and tomorrow will be a lot of getting familiar with the area, the members, the progressing investigators, etc. What an experience this will be!!! I seriously cannot even express my excitement to be here, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ! How excited I am to meet the members and move the work forward with their help!!!
Anyway, some more quick fun things from the past 2 days...
President and Sister Irwin are wonderful! They’re such a cute couple, and are just so nice to all of us. They like to joke around and are very on top of the important things and low-key on less important things (like rolling up sleeves, etc haha). President Irwin told us that nobody can replace our parents, but we’re theirs forever now haha. This morning they made us a wonderful breakfast at the mission home - juice, cereal, breakfast pastries, pancakes, milk, bananas...it was wonderful! I just feel so blessed to be serving under their leadership - they truly are amazing people!
As we were walking to the apartment in Praha where we stayed last night, we ran into Milan - THE Milan, who Bratr Johnson baptized and played the role of for us to teach! I felt like I was meeting a celebrity haha. He seemed really nice. Last night was actually really nice - super low key, and i got a lot of rest, which was nice. I have to admit I’m a little tired right now, but I know that I need to keep pushing through to fight the jetlag.
After this email, Starší Egger and I will go get some groceries and probably get a bite to eat, then head back to our apartment. It’s so exciting to be here! I have to admit, it’s weird not being with my fellow MTC groupies - they’re all dispersed throughout the country (Ostrava, české budjovice, Praha, Ylín, etc.), and it’ll be weird not having them around. But next Wednesday we’re all returning to Praha for a training day and to get our visas registered with the foreign police, so we won’t be apart for too long haha! It was weird saying goodbye - but now it’s time for us to divide and conquer, so to speak!! haha.
Because our apartment is so far away from the city, we’ll probably eat out for most lunches and dinners, and eat breakfast at the byt (apartment). We’ll use the trams and busses mostly, I think, which will also be a cool experience. The public transit in Czech is so massive!
By the way, there’s a new law in the Czech republic that all packages with a combined total value of more than 28 dollars has a LOT of trouble getting through the post - so if you send mail, be sure it’s under that value - just a piece of info passed along from the mission office. Also, a couple requests - could you send me some simple breakfast food recipes (like crepes, pancakes, etc.)? I would love some to make us breakfast sometimes!
Anyway, I hope that all is well with you. Starší Egger said we usually spend an hour writing emails home and to the mission president combined - I didn’t have to write a mission president report this week, so that’s why I could fit so much into this email! Just a heads up so you know that unfortunately not all of them will be this long or detailed haha.
I have a testimony of this work. I love this country and these people. I love you all, and I love my Lord.
Starší Mullen
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