March 23, 2009

Hey Family,

This week was amazing!!!!!!!! I had so many new experiences. Wow. Well the definite best news of the week was that we had two baptisms!!!!!!! Both Kačka and Ken were baptized on Saturday morning at 9:00 at the Sauna in Zimni Stadion in Uhesrke Hradiste. It was an amazing experience. Every part of the mission is worth it just to see those two come out of the waters of baptism. They were so happy. We had been a little worried about Ken, but this last week he has been so happy. He just loves being around the members and he loves reading his Book of Mormon. After his interview for baptism on Thursday he asked our district leader what he has to do to become a missionary. He wants to be a missionary!!!! His life has changed so much. Then both Kacka and Ken were confirmed in church on Sunday. Kacka is definitely involved in the branch because her family are members, but I was worried about Ken fitting in with the branch because he doesn't speak a lot of czech. But on Sunday he was invited over to lunch at a members house and was also invited to lunch on Friday at another members house. It is neat to see the branch really accept him.

After our baptisms on Saturday we had another cool experience. There is a man in our branch named Petr Kasan. I think I mentioned him last week, but he is an amazing member missionary. He has a group of people who live all over the Czech Republic that meet every once in awhile to discuss religion and their paths to God. Well he invited us, President and Sister Slovaček, and two elders from Brno to meet with this group and visit with them. Petr Kasan had everyone in the group talk about their paths towards God. It was so interesting to hear the people's paths to God. They all started with I think that..... And they all had different ideas. And then it got to President. He said, " I know that there is one path to God." and then he bore his testimony and talked about the church. It was a very powerful reminder to me of how wonderful the KNOWLEDGE we have is. It isn't an idea, it isn't something that if it was true, it would be nice. It really is a knowledge. It is so amazing.

Okay well I am probably boring you, but I had another first time experience yesterday. We taught a man named Tomaš. He had met with the missionaries a couple times and then decided that he wasn't interested because he was devout catholic. Well he came to English class last week and said he wanted to meet with us again. So we met with him yesterday. We started by asking him if he had read in the book of mormon and he said he hadn't because he doesn't need another book of scripture. So we talked about the Book of Mormon and that we can know that it is true through prayer. He didn't really agree with us, and started to be more rude, especially to the member that we had with us. My companion Sister Waite then said that we have the truth that we need in the Book of Mormon. Tomas then turned to us and said, "Okay well you just worship your little book of truth", threw the Book of Mormon in our face, stood up, grabbed his coat and ran out the door yelling, "Naschladenou" or goodbye. We just looked at each other. It was a first of someone throwing a Kniha Mormonova at us.

Oh, this week we had zone conference. We had a fun time traveling to Brno with our district. So it was Sister Waite and I and 4 elders from Zlin who took a train to Brno. Elder Reishman our district leader, jumped off the train to let a lady out and then the train started moving the doors started closing before he was getting on the train. We had to hold the door open, while he ran and jumped to make the train. It was crazy. But then at zone conference our district sang. We have some really talented elders in our district. We sang O Savior thou who wearest, and it was beautiful. We had so much fun with it. We were practicing it in the train. I hope we didn't bother anyone else.

Well, thats all today. I love you all so much. Life is going great here in the Czech Republic! I know the gospel is true and my experiences this week just add to that knowledge. Love you.

Love,
Sestra Hill