Did ya feel it?

November 9, 2012

Dearest family,

Thanks so much for the email! I loved hearing so much from you - we usually go to the office and print off our emails after studies and then read them during lunch, then return for the hour of emailing - it's kind of a perk having the office because I get more time typing to you! So thanks for the updates.

I loved the message from the First Presidency regarding the election. We're instructed in the white handbook to not talk about politics, but I would say how grateful for the increased publicity of the church thanks to brother Romney. Even people here know that he is a "mormon" and it has been wonderful for the church.

How fun that you have visitors, to be followed by many more! Needless to say, my bedroom is open to all haha. I hope that you have a wonderful time with the Larsons and Teares. Please send them my love!

And how fun to have Thanksgiving in California! Wow, Libs and Sherry in CA for 10 days! Jealous! Then Cori and Dave coming in - that will truly be a fun week and a half, I'm sure. If you go, have fun Black Friday shopping haha. I will be there in spirit and hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. It is truly a wonderful time of the year to reflect on what we are thankful for. We have so many blessings and are so, so blessed. 

We should have 6 new missionaries coming in a week from Wednesday! Very exciting. Going home will also be Elders Macneish, Romero (both Slovak Elders), and Dietrich. We will definitely miss Elder Dietrich in the mission and his contagious enthusiasm for the work. He taught me a lot in our transfer together in the office and I am grateful that we were able to serve. I hope you'll be able to meet him someday, he is a wonderful person. 

And I'm glad you enjoyed the pics!

1)  Have you had more snow? - Nope, just that one day of sudden snow! It's sunny outside right now, so the weather is being indecisive in Praha!

2)  We trust you are keeping warm...any requests/need for clothes or hand warmers or slippers...or...or...or? - Not really, I'm doing pretty good on the clothing front and if I needed something I'd probably prefer to buy it here since I can try it on. There are no lack of clothing stores in Praha, so if I need anything I'll have no problem finding it haha.

3)  What, if anything, are you doing for your p day? - We are going to catch up on our journals! There are several days when we don't get back until late because of travel so we don't get our time at night to write in our journals. So we're going to catch up a bit! I also have some days from my transfers in Brno where I left a blank page and wrote a sticky note that night highlighting the points of the day I wanted to remember. So yes, journal catch up! Then the Office elders will be having a baptism in Prague, and we'll be having hopefully 4 investigators at it ! So we will attend that and I will be singing Be Still my Soul in Czech with Elder Knapp who serves here. It should be great!

4)  We are working on the music...wondering if you want SATB arrangements and how many copies of the music do you need?  Do you want some of the easier Sally DeFord arrangements?  We assume you can adapt to the voices you have. - So the best for the concert would be solos, duets, and quartets.  We're hoping for it to last probably an hour, including the intro, some scripture readings, etc. We won't have a lot of time to practice because we don't want this to interrupt normal proselyting any more than necessary, so don't get anything too difficult. But whatever you can find will be much appreciated! We're hoping to do the concert in the first half of December, so we're super excited! As far as the number of copies, probably just one more than the number it's arranged for (for solos 2 copies, quartets 5 copies, etc. - one extra for the piano)

5) Share with us the highlights of your week.  We are certain that there are many to relate. - Wow, this was another week of miracles! One of our investigators is doing great and the miracles keep coming with her. We had a lesson with her on Tuesday and she started opening up more to us. We set a baptismal date with her for December 8th and she is very excited. She told us then "there's something I wanted to tell you - I was talking with my sister who lives in the UK and told her I was meeting with missionaries from this church. Then she told me that she was going to the same church in England and joined it 2 weeks ago." Elder Coleman and I smiled so big and were speechless. Her sister had been reading the Book of Mormon in English and now Thembeka is reading it in her native Shona. It is amazing how the Lord directs his children to the gospel, even countries away. We have been keeping in daily contact with her even when away through phone and she is doing great. We suggested for her to read 3 Nephi 17 after our last meeting and she absolutely loved it. She loved the account of Jesus blessing the children and said she is really enjoying reading the Book of Mormon. There is such power in that book that affects each person who sincerely reads it. She asked yesterday in our phone call if she could invite her friend from Zimbabwe to the baptism tonight, too, because now he wants to learn about the church. Such amazing miracles. There have been quite an amount of multi-cultural baptisms in the past months in the mission - people from Kenya, Vietnam, France, and so on. It is amazing to see the church growing here. We have also been increasing our teaching pool of native Czechs - we began teaching the most elect, cool lady last Sunday and she is amazing. She wants to believe and find faith but has never been able to in the past. Her husband is from Guatemala (I know, right, Christers?) and she has 3 children. After our first meeting on Sunday evening she gave an amazing prayer and agreed to work towards baptism. We don't have a specific date with her yet, but she is absolutely amazing. We had another meeting last Wednesday and it was wonderful - we talked about how to fit in all the things of life with the gospel. She is a nurse and a mom, so she knows what "busy" means. But she said that she just needs to get used to praying and reading the scriptures and it'll be fine. She is so wonderful and down-to-earth. She asked when good times to pray are and we got to teach the wonderful truths of prayer - that we can pray anytime and anywhere. I shared with her  that "my mom's favorite times to pray are when she's driving and when she's vacuuming" and she absolutely loved it! I'm so excited to keep teaching her. She will be coming, hopefully with her whole family, to church on Sunday - what a miracle! We also started teaching a cool YSA kid who felt the spirit really strong in our lesson last Monday and recognized it. I still remember when you, Marmee, would feel the spirit with us in Primary and then stop and whisper "Did'ya feel it?" Such wonderful things you taught me that I will remember and cherish my whole life.

6)  With Christmas approaching we would love it if you could see if there is another nativity creche.  We would love you to have a second one.  If possible we would like another one for home and one for Chris and Jenna as well.  Also we were thinking it might be a sweet gift from us to the Irwins so they could have a taste of their country when they head home.  Let us know what you think.   So if you come across another different example of Czech craftsmanship that you would like to have as a keepsake from your Christmas in Prague please feel free to purchase one - or four! You officially have a "green light'' from your Tata!  Haha!!! We love you so much. - cool, I'll start looking as Christmas approaches!

So I must close here, but know that I love you so, so much! We had trainings in Olomouc and Zilina this week and will have them in Prague and Brno this upcoming week and it is a privilege to serve here in this capacity. I love missionary work and the joy that it brings. I love you all and pray for you often. This gospel is true and is the only true source of lasting, eternal happiness. I have that truth reflected in the lives of so many here. Give my best to all.

S laskou,

Starsi Mullen