One Precious Child at a Time

October 16, 2011
Hi family!

To start off, yes, I did get Aunt Sue and Uncle Steve's package and the Whitings - thank you so much! Letters in response are being written or are already on the way. It sounds like you had a wonderful experience with a little bonus trip built in to visit family! I hope you said Hi to all of them for me! Also, know that my prayers are continuously with Aunt Sue and also with Lyndie's baby (Sherry told me a little bit that she's having some sort of shivers).

This week was great here in Olomouc - much more success than last week! I just wanna tell you all about it, so here it goes -

So we had another lesson with our investigator from the USA which went awesome! She was so open to listen about the Book of Mormon and how she could know of its truth - it was so refreshing. Plus, it was kinda cool to teach someone in English - it's kinda nice to be able to say everything you want to exactly how you want to say it haha! She also brought her 5 year old son to the meeting, and he is hilarious. She asked him if he wanted to come with her to church and talk about God, and he said "Yes, mommy, I would love that!" How cool is that?! So we had a wonderful lesson with her, gave her the Book of Mormon, and she said she would read from it and pray about it. She said that she could definitely see how this requires a lot more faith - but we assured her that God will answer her sincere prayers to know of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. She talked to her husband, and she said that he's willing to come with her to church next Sunday (they were going to come yesterday, but Filip came down with a fever on Saturday), and she wants to keep talking about the Gospel with us! So we might start teaching my first investigator family! How exciting is that?! So we're way excited to move forward with them.

We also had a lesson with another invetigator last week - we've really been struggling to help her to pray, because she says that it's weird and unnatural to pray to someone she doesn't believe in. So we're kind of in a catch 22 with her - she can't build a relationship with God until she starts praying and trying to reach out to Him, but she doesn't really want to pray or act until she has some sort of relationship with God...so that's kind of hard. She said she would talk to us more about what she's feeling on Friday when we're meeting with her next. Last time, we watched the Restoration video with her, which was really good for her - but now it's all on her. If she exercises even that "particle of faith" from Alma 32, and tries, we know her faith will grow and she will come to know it is true. But it's going to take a bit for her to really start growing and progressing.

Also, something kind of exciting was that we reestablished contact with another investigator last week! I was getting kinda worried because she wasn't answering her phone - but I finally got to talk to her last week and she said that she was in Prague and just got back to Olomouc and wanted to meet again! So that was exciting - we have a lesson set up for this Wednesday.

We also picked up another new investigator this week. She is around 20 or so and is a Roman Catholic, which is quite common here in Olomouc. Olomouc is apparently the Catholic capital of the Czech Republic. Anyway, I contacted her solo last week and she actually came to our first meeting on time! That doesn't happen too often haha....but she came and we had a pretty good lesson. She was really interested in the fact that God and Jesus Christ are two separate beings, and was really interested in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. We gave her a copy and challenged her to read, ponder, and pray about its truthfulness. She said she would, and we set up a follow up meeting for this Wednesday - we're excited to continue meeting with her, and pray that she will do all that is necessary to qualify for Moroni's promise to know that the Book of Mormon is truly the word of God.

We're continuing to meet with our other two investigators, but we know that they only will start really progressing as soon as they start getting to church - so we're really pushing for them to be able to come to church. They are awesome though - one of them always makes everyone in the apartment kneel when we pray and calls on someone to pray, even if they don't really know how to do it. He'll then explain it in super-fast Slovak and tell them to pray, which they do. It's way cool and way funny simultaneously. I love it.

But now for my favorite story of the week! We have been going to the house of a part-member couple at least once a week since the beginning of the transfer. The wife has been a member for quite a while, but has also been inactive for quite a while, and her husband is Catholic. We've been meeting with them for a while and both of them have trouble with commitment. We have invited them to come to church every week of the transfer, trying to help them realize its importance, but to no avail. So last Tuesday we went over there for our lesson. We had decided to share with them President Uchtdorf's talk from conference about each person being so important to God, and it really struck a chord with them. As we were watching it, the husband logged onto his facebook, posted the video of the talk to his blog, "liked" it, and added the comment - "Poslouchejte" (listen). It was cool. Then, after it, his wife told us that Satan definitely tries to appeal to her feelings of inadequacy and nothingness. I followed a wise sister's advice (she said that we just need to look her in the eyes and tell her that God needs her at church) and bore testimony of God's love for her and for him individually, that he wants us to be happy, and that the greatest happiness comes from keeping his commandments. It was a cool moment. So we challenged her to pray to her Heavenly Father to know if they need to come to church this Sunday. At the end of the lesson, she asked right out in her prayer - "Help us know if we need to go back to church." We left that night praying that she would receive an answer throughout the week that she needed to come. Fastforward to last Saturday - I called up their house and talked to the husband...and he said that they weren't sure if they were going to come and would just leave it as a "prekvapeni" (surprise). I was bummed, because in the past "not sure" always ends up being "surely not." So come Sunday morning, we weren't expecting them to come....so you can imagine how big my eyes and smile were when I saw her walk through the doors of the church building! I went up and asked her "So did you pray about it?" She said that she prayed last night about if she needed to come, and here she was. It was so cool, and all of the members who have been around for a while all were so happy and surprised to see her. Her husband unfortunately didn't want to come, but we hope that will change next week. I was talking with one of the members of the branch here and she said that it was an absolute miracle - she hasn't seen that sister at church since 1996. I have a testimony that prayer works. God will answer our prayers and will tell us "all things that we should do" - even come to church. He loves each of us individually and knows us, as Aunt Cori says, "by heart and by name."

How grateful I am for the gospel of Jesus Christ and for the hope and happiness it brings into people's lives. This work truly is the work of God, and I am so humbled by the opportunity to be an instrument in His holy hands to help His beloved children, one precious child at a time.

I love you all,

S laskou,

Starsi Mullen