Monday, January 27, 2014

Breaking Records

Draha rodino,

This week has been absolutely crazy! We have been working our tails off running around, teaching, finding, doing everything we can. We have taught more lessons this week than ever before. I'm stoked. We've been busy, and we are pretty excited to see how the week ends out.

Sunday! We had a nice meeting with Vera about the nature of God before church. She had met some Jehovah's Witness lady the day before and had questions about who God is and that sort of thing. So we cleared some things up, and she really enjoyed it. I love talking with people about the nature of God, because it's such a great doctrine that makes so much sense and gives us such personal meaning. We also had a good meeting on the same topic with a recent convert named Eva after church. We were actually on splits, I taught Eva with a different missionary while Elder Boysen taught Viktor with the other missionary's companion. We also visited Jitka and her daughter Maruska that evening and had a nice lesson about the last couple points in the Plan of Salvation. Then, we went to the office and had last ever call-ins! Most missions in the church have stopped having Sunday night calls, preferring to have the missionaries report their own numbers on pdays. So, we have officially made the switch, which means no more late nights on Sunday. We are glad. But call-ins went well. I get frustrated from time to time when people, be it missionaries or others, just don't get it. It's sad to see missionaries who aren't having the experience they could be having on a mission. 

Monday we had a very nice lesson with Vera and the wife of the first counselor in the branch presidency. We have started going through the baptismal questions with her, simultaneously reteaching the lessons. It's been good. She's so great! You'll get to meet her when we come in the spring. We also had good meetings with Ary, Maxim, and Viktor

Tuesday we met with Elder Boysen's driving teacher in the morning to get the last steps of registration done before he starts driving lessons. After that we finished our studies, then went to district meeting. It was a good meeting. The new format is just great. President is a genius. By that I mean spiritual. After District meeting we had a good lesson with Artur about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It went really well. He still has growing faith, but he's come along really well, and I really think he will get baptized. He's a great kid. We then had an interesting experience with President. He had a meeting with an ex-member who wants to be rebaptized, and the meeting was to determine whether or not he could. Because of his history, president wanted us there. There were certain criteria that the branch president requested be explained to this man, and he didn't take them well. He ended up saying some things he shouldn't have and storming out of the office. But, so it goes. He needs to humble himself a bit more before he can really come back. But we had a nice visit with Jitka and her daughter again, visited the Pavlicovi, and met with...a recent convert later taht night, but I cannot for the life of me remember who it was. It was one we set up later in the day, so I don't have it written. Hmm.

Wednesday we met our Buddhist friend Michal in the morning, had a relatively nice meeting with him. It was much more under control than usual, and we think it's because he came to churhc this week. We then met with Vera, had a singing display and met some really cool people, taught a guy from Cameroon named John, and had a very interesting experience...Earlier in the day, we got a call from the Mendenhalls saying that a man had showed up at the church building wanting to talk to missionaries. He was a former from like four or five years ago. He wanted us to get him in contact with a religious TV network so he could preach the Gospel to the world. We made a deal with him. If he let us teach him the restoration, we would help him get in contact with the network. His name is Steve, or at least that's what he calls himself. He's czech, but he goes by Steve when speaking English. I would guess his real name is Stepan, the Czech equivalent to Steven. He has...interesting ideas. Probably an after-mission discussion.

Thursday we taught Steve again. For the lasst time incidentally. But then we went to sing again, at a place called namesti republiky. It was not as successful as the one yesterday, but we did find a cool lady from Ukraine. We then taught Vera, and had a cool thing happen. There was a random lady waiting with Vera and the member we taught her with. We didn't think much of it because we needed to start the lesson, but she joined us! After the lesson, I talked with her more, and it turns out she is the nonmember wife of an inactive member here! We set up to visit her the next day. We also taught Jitka again, then a really cool half-Czech half-Italian girl named Karolina with Sister Munro. We then visited our Filipino investigator at her home, taught her the Restoration. We then had a good lesson with a less active girl about some of her friends who are inactive so that we can start finding them.

Friday we had Polar Bear (joint language study) with the district, a great lesson with Pet'a, visited the Cambelovi (the part-member family from Thursday), taught Ary, Artur, and then Viktor. Nothing quite so exciting as the rest of the week, just the norm. Some good lessons.

Tomorrow is Australia Day, so for P-day we went to the Munros today and celebrated. I can't wait for you to meet them. They are the greatest ever. I love them so much. We had a blast with them. They made the food they have ever year at the barbecue, did some trivia with us (did you know that our ancestor, John Murdock, was one of the two missionaries who opened Australia for missionary work?), taught us some songs, just an all around good time. We taught Vera, her daughter in law, and the Cambelovi again this morning. Now, for the goal. We have a record in this mission. The most lessons ever taught in one week was by Elders Clyde and De Angelis a few months ago. 35. Two weeks ago, we taught 32. This week, we've taught 35 so far, and we're shooting for 40! We have a few on plan tomorrow, we should get even more than that.

Well folks. I love you. I look forward to hearing from you next week.

Elder Knapp



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