This week we had more flake outs than I can count. For instance, one day we had planned 5 lessons with 2 back up lessons (stop by and see if their home). Ništa. Nothing. We did have a lesson but it was with someone that called us asking if we could meet. So it was a great tender mercy and usually this lesson is mostly to practice in English but this time she just wanted to talk about the Book of Mormon! We can feel that she's so close to being baptized. She has a testimony of everything and we invited her last week, but she wants to take it slow because she feels like she has a lot to change before getting baptized. So hopefully we can help her feel ready and not be afraid because everyone changes everyday. Yes, baptism is a big commitment, but at the same time it's not. It's hard for me to explain but we should be trying to become closer to God everyday. Baptism is just one of those steps. So I pray that we can help her feel ready.
I forgot to announce this a few weeks ago, but this year is the 40th anniversary for the first baptism in Croatia! So there's going to be a big celebration in June and President R said all the missionaries in the mission can go if we have 40 baptism. This week we had more flake outs than I can count. For instance, one day we had planned 5 lessons with 2 back up lessons (stop by and see if their home). Ništa. Nothing. We did have a lesson but it was with someone that called us asking if we could meet. So it was a great tender mercy and usually this lesson is mostly to practice in English but this time she just wanted to talk about the Book of Mormon! We can feel that she's so close to being baptized. She has a testimony of everything and we invited her last week, but she wants to take it slow because she feels like she has a lot to change before getting baptized. So hopefully we can help her feel ready and not be afraid because everyone changes everyday. Yes, baptism is a big commitment, but at the same time it's not. It's hard for me to explain but we should be trying to become closer to God everyday. Baptism is just one of those steps. So I pray that we can help her feel ready.
Another tender mercy is that each visit counts. We stopped by a less-active member's home, and she told us that she didn't feel comfortable at church sometimes because she's not keeping the commandments all the time. We reassured her that that is one of the reasons why we go to church so we can gain strength and no one's perfect. And then she came on Sunday! Hopefully she'll find the strength throughout the week to do the things God wants her to do to become happier by then. We have about 12 now and about 21 with baptismal dates before then and 6 weeks left to find the rest! It's totally possible! All of us are so excited and are working really hard so the next 6 weeks are the most successful of the mission!
We went tracting yesterday, and we've been having a lot of ništa at the door and "yeah, come back later" half hearted with a closed door throughout the last week while we tract. But we kept going. My MTC branch president told us that this is what enduring to the end means. He was talking about our last week or two that we needed to keep working hard and stay focused, but tracting is the same thing. It's a type of enduring to the end. Everyday we try to go tracting because we've been told that if we do for at least 2 hours a night then we will find people and have success. Oh and by the ways, tracting has changed a little bit since probably most of you returned missionaries are used to. In January, I think, a member of the Area Presidency taught about "The Master Teaching Program" and this involves a lot of different things, but for tracting it means to teach on the door. Before, the statement started with "We are representatives from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...", but now we start with many different types of statements like "The Book of Mormon is scripture similar to the Bible. It teaches of Jesus Christ. It has helped me in my life and I know this book will help you in your life. How have scriptures helped you in your life?" We teach a little and then ask a question. This way if they shut the door, they are rejecting learning more, not rejecting talking to us. So we knocked at this door and talked to this young man at the door. He was truly interested and we just pretty much taught him the first lesson at the door. I could feel the Spirit so strong when we testified! The strongest I have felt at the door for sure. But it was a tender mercy to keep going and keep enduring!
Another thing we are working on is a seminar answering "Questions of the Soul". We'll advertise saying we will answer questions like "Does God Exist?", "How Can I Make the Home a Happier and Safer Place?", and much more! These questions are answered through the Book of Mormon, so we're hoping to make this a way to find people and specific people who are looking for answers in life. I hope this works great because we are already putting a lot of effort into it. We plan to have these seminars for 2 weeks twice a week just to see how it goes. It will start in May. I'll let you know how it goes!
Funny story of the week: We're looking for a less-active member, Viktorija something, and we called information for her address and Sestra L says sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. This time it worked! So we headed to this address right by the church. We headed over and noticed a restaurant up ahead named Viktorija. We joked how it would be funny if that was the address information misunderstood us and gave us the restaurant instead of the person's address. We got closer and started to look for 1A. We got to the restaurant and it was what we feared. 1A. We started just busting up laughing and took pictures of this restaurant that was closed. People looked at us like we were Americans or something ;) Oh boy did that give us such a laugh for the night!
I have a talk on Sunday and I'm going to talk about the Atonement and the main point I want to give is that Christ can comfort us of all pain. Sometimes we just focus a lot on the Atonement with sins which is a huge part so ima smisla (makes sense), but sometimes we forget that when the sins are cleansed, the pain and guilt we felt can leave too. Also, just whenever we feel pain, Christ felt it too. He's there for us to help us with whatever sicknesses physically or of the heart we have. I read the scripture Alma 36:19-21 about how Alma felt exceeding pain but felt exceeding joy after he repented. Christ atoned for us so we can feel that exceeding joy. Repentance is hard but worth it! Why suffer when there's a way to feel happiness? That's why I'm on a mission. I want to share this message with the people of Rijeka/Croatia and I am. Every day! The joy is worth the pain I have to go through to find those people who are ready to receive the gospel. Seeing the change they are making in their lives everyday and seeing the change I'm making in my life everyday is worth more than anything else I could be doing right now. Remember God wants us to be happy. Find that happiness in your life every day. God is showing you. He wants you to pray to him, to read the scriptures, to succeed! He's always there. He loves you. I love you! Thanks for always influencing throughout my life. Every single one of you. Even if I don't know you, you have influenced someone who has influenced someone and so on until it has influenced someone who has influenced me. I know there's a lot of influence, but everyday good or bad, there's a lot of influence. Choose the good! Choose the joy! Volim vas puno!!! Želim vam da birate dobro tako možemo se vratiti Bogu u Nebu i se osjećati njegov ljubav svaki dan. (I love you!!! I want you to choose good so we can return to God in Heaven and feel His love every day.) (I say this in the name of Jesus Christ my best friend. Amen.) I kažem ovo u ime Isusa Krista, moju najbolju prijatelj. Amen.
I forgot to announce this a few weeks ago, but this year is the 40th anniversary for the first baptism in Croatia! So there's going to be a big celebration in June and President R said all the missionaries in the mission can go if we have 40 baptism. This week we had more flake outs than I can count. For instance, one day we had planned 5 lessons with 2 back up lessons (stop by and see if their home). Ništa. Nothing. We did have a lesson but it was with someone that called us asking if we could meet. So it was a great tender mercy and usually this lesson is mostly to practice in English but this time she just wanted to talk about the Book of Mormon! We can feel that she's so close to being baptized. She has a testimony of everything and we invited her last week, but she wants to take it slow because she feels like she has a lot to change before getting baptized. So hopefully we can help her feel ready and not be afraid because everyone changes everyday. Yes, baptism is a big commitment, but at the same time it's not. It's hard for me to explain but we should be trying to become closer to God everyday. Baptism is just one of those steps. So I pray that we can help her feel ready.
Another tender mercy is that each visit counts. We stopped by a less-active member's home, and she told us that she didn't feel comfortable at church sometimes because she's not keeping the commandments all the time. We reassured her that that is one of the reasons why we go to church so we can gain strength and no one's perfect. And then she came on Sunday! Hopefully she'll find the strength throughout the week to do the things God wants her to do to become happier by then. We have about 12 now and about 21 with baptismal dates before then and 6 weeks left to find the rest! It's totally possible! All of us are so excited and are working really hard so the next 6 weeks are the most successful of the mission!
We went tracting yesterday, and we've been having a lot of ništa at the door and "yeah, come back later" half hearted with a closed door throughout the last week while we tract. But we kept going. My MTC branch president told us that this is what enduring to the end means. He was talking about our last week or two that we needed to keep working hard and stay focused, but tracting is the same thing. It's a type of enduring to the end. Everyday we try to go tracting because we've been told that if we do for at least 2 hours a night then we will find people and have success. Oh and by the ways, tracting has changed a little bit since probably most of you returned missionaries are used to. In January, I think, a member of the Area Presidency taught about "The Master Teaching Program" and this involves a lot of different things, but for tracting it means to teach on the door. Before, the statement started with "We are representatives from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...", but now we start with many different types of statements like "The Book of Mormon is scripture similar to the Bible. It teaches of Jesus Christ. It has helped me in my life and I know this book will help you in your life. How have scriptures helped you in your life?" We teach a little and then ask a question. This way if they shut the door, they are rejecting learning more, not rejecting talking to us. So we knocked at this door and talked to this young man at the door. He was truly interested and we just pretty much taught him the first lesson at the door. I could feel the Spirit so strong when we testified! The strongest I have felt at the door for sure. But it was a tender mercy to keep going and keep enduring!
Another thing we are working on is a seminar answering "Questions of the Soul". We'll advertise saying we will answer questions like "Does God Exist?", "How Can I Make the Home a Happier and Safer Place?", and much more! These questions are answered through the Book of Mormon, so we're hoping to make this a way to find people and specific people who are looking for answers in life. I hope this works great because we are already putting a lot of effort into it. We plan to have these seminars for 2 weeks twice a week just to see how it goes. It will start in May. I'll let you know how it goes!
I have a talk on Sunday and I'm going to talk about the Atonement and the main point I want to give is that Christ can comfort us of all pain. Sometimes we just focus a lot on the Atonement with sins which is a huge part so ima smisla (makes sense), but sometimes we forget that when the sins are cleansed, the pain and guilt we felt can leave too. Also, just whenever we feel pain, Christ felt it too. He's there for us to help us with whatever sicknesses physically or of the heart we have. I read the scripture Alma 36:19-21 about how Alma felt exceeding pain but felt exceeding joy after he repented. Christ atoned for us so we can feel that exceeding joy. Repentance is hard but worth it! Why suffer when there's a way to feel happiness? That's why I'm on a mission. I want to share this message with the people of Rijeka/Croatia and I am. Every day! The joy is worth the pain I have to go through to find those people who are ready to receive the gospel. Seeing the change they are making in their lives everyday and seeing the change I'm making in my life everyday is worth more than anything else I could be doing right now. Remember God wants us to be happy. Find that happiness in your life every day. God is showing you. He wants you to pray to him, to read the scriptures, to succeed! He's always there. He loves you. I love you! Thanks for always influencing throughout my life. Every single one of you. Even if I don't know you, you have influenced someone who has influenced someone and so on until it has influenced someone who has influenced me. I know there's a lot of influence, but everyday good or bad, there's a lot of influence. Choose the good! Choose the joy! Volim vas puno!!! Želim vam da birate dobro tako možemo se vratiti Bogu u Nebu i se osjećati njegov ljubav svaki dan. (I love you!!! I want you to choose good so we can return to God in Heaven and feel His love every day.) (I say this in the name of Jesus Christ my best friend. Amen.) I kažem ovo u ime Isusa Krista, moju najbolju prijatelj. Amen.
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