Taylor got to travel with another missionary to Slovakia for a visa renewal.

Happy Birthday Taylor!

 In honor of Taylor's birthday today, I am updating this blog! His last email came on Saturday and here are some excerpts:

 

Monday. We had office meeting, as per the norm, then a very rapid meeting with President, me and the assistants. We ahve to put together a Christmas card, and it is hard. For me. I don't know computers! It shocked me when I got called to the office because I'm not one of those people who spent a lot of time arouond computers before the mission, and I certainly don't have any more knowledge about htem now. So basically, my role is to try and design the card, and then one of the assistants, Elder Mullen, will make it. So, Monday I prepared orders for conference and worked on the Christmas card. That is absolutely everything. 

Tuesday was better. First of all, we had end-of-transfer lunch, with all the district, the Irwins and other senior couples included. It was a blast. Then, we went and did a singing display. Which was less successful than previous ones have been. We as a companionship received one number, and he called us back the same day to tell us he wasn't interested. But it was nice at least to get out of the office and talk to some people.

Thursday was by far the bests day of the week. For a couple reasons. First of all, conference. I love conferences. They are just a feast.  But, right after the conference, we had to help other missionaries with some visa stuff, help the APs prepare some things, and do a lot of those kinds of things, all in less than two hours. But, in the middle of all that, President came up to us and asked us to go get the missionaries from Vysehrad, and area here in Prague, and then come back into his office and talk to him for a second. Now, Elder De Angelis and I found out on Wednesday that I would learn who my next companion would be very soon. With that, and other things the APs told us, we had a suspicion that the new office elder would be someone from our district. And sure enough, we went back into the office and President did indeed inform us. He had to do so, because he wanted Elder DeA to spend all of Friday training the new office elder. My new companion is...ELDER CLYDE! I am so stoked. And shocked. He is the greatest. I'm pumped that we are going to be together again. It is going to be just awesome.

Friday I went on an exchange with Elder Rhees while Elder DeA trained Elder Clyde. It was good. We actually got to do a little missonary work! I didn't have much to do in the office, and it didn't matter anyway, because President banned me from the office that day so that we didn't disturb the intense training going on there. So, we did some finding, had lunch with the rest of the district, did a singing display, taught a few lessons, studied the language... A good day all in all. One lesson was with Kamila, we talked about eternal families and temples a little more. She's great. Also, we taught one of Vysehrad's potentials, this girl named Anna. She's probably 20, and she is soooo cool! She isn't an investigator, but she is awesome. The lesson was good, but she said she can't meet right now. The reason is this: She says she is still a very new Christian - she's been a believer less than a year - and she is too focused on getting comfortable with her new faith to be involved in too many things right now. Even though nothing would help her more than meeting with the missionaries. She did at least take a Book of Mormon and promise to read in it, and also said we can definitely stay in contact with her. She really is great. Down the road, she'll see. She'll have a desire to meet and she'll be baptized. 

Well, boring, I know. It was an okay week, but probably not the most exciting read of your lives. Thank you for your patience. I hope to have some nice pictures for you next week, we're going ot tour Prague today using the same route we did on our first day in the country. Fun!

I love you all, the Church is true,

Starsi Knapp

Kamila was baptized Nov. 10! She is happy and excited to be a member of the church.

More From Prague

A continuation of a story from last week...

Okay, so quickly the tire story.  But anyway, we weren't going to change them due to the clothing situation, but as we walked away, I felt like we should. So, I convinced my comp that we should go back and do it, even though it had started to rain a little. The next day, Saturday, the same missionaries were back again for the baptism. Thus, they had somewhat of a long drive there, and...it was all in the snow. Early early Saturday morning it started snowing, and snowed all day until 10 or so at night. So, I don't know if their winter tires helped them at all, but I have been really working on trying to recognize the prompthings of the Spirit. I decided that it takes practice. Sometimes, we aren't sure if something is from the Spirit or not, but as long as it is a good thing, I believe that at the very least we will grow from the experience, even if we don't directly see the evidence of our action. I was blessed enough in this situation to see that I had been led to change those tires that afternoon. I'm not saying that they would have wrecked or something if I had ignored that prompting, but I did get to feel the peace that comes from following the Spirit.

As I've contemplated the difficulty of this mission, this past week in particular, I was thinking about a talk I heard from Elder Holland. He said we should never, ever expect life to be easy, because it was never, ever easy for Him. I watched it in the MTC, and it has stuck with me since then. And of course, it's absolutely true. If we want to be true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must be willing to suffer all things for Him. If we are not willing to endure all the trials of this world, why should we expect or deserve to enjoy all the glory of the world to come?

Starsi Knapp and Starsi DeAngelis have TWO baptisms scheduled this week!! Kamila and Jitka are both scheduled. According to Taylor, they are "golden" and "solid". He and Elder DeAngelis had decided maybe they should put off the baptism because there were quite a few lessons they hadn't taught Kamila, but then when they met with her she was so excited to be getting baptized on Nov. 10 because that is her birthday! She said, "Nov. 10 is my physical birthday and now it will be my spiritual birthday!" So...Taylor and his companion decided they couldn't put it off. Instead they are having daily telephone teachings with Kamila, as well as meeting with her when she can. 

Taylor's district also does "singing displays". Some missionaries sing while others contact and teach and it seems to be quite effective. He is busy helping the missionaries with visas, supplies, changing tires, etc. but he and Elder DeAngelis have lots of time for teaching still. He loves Prague. I will attempt to put some pictures on the blog!

Taylor is happy--that is evident. When a person lives the gospel and serves, how can he help but be happy? 

The picture of me gesturing at the ground with the sweet statue in the back is me standing on the...Prime Meridian. Yep. I could cut the world in half.

(He didn't say what the statue in picture #1 is all about...)