"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 )