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It is insane that it is already going to be November next week.  It is weird that a whole year ago I was in Zlín.  Time flies.  In small scale, this transfer has been going by really fast.  I feel like a couple days ago I was writing last.

I am doing well.  We had some great lessons with a some people.  We are meeting with a girl named Tina.  She recently became a Christian and is now learning about our church.  We met with a guy named David.  He is of the Hare Krishna faith.  His beliefs are similar to ours in some ways.  He seems open to learn more and he actually came to church last week.

This week I changed the last tires of the mission cars.  We had our English class which went well.  We had a singing display on Tuesday in our area Anděl.  Also there was a zone conference.  It is bizar to be there since I realized that the next one is my last.  It was a great conference at which President McConkie does this very cool thing where he teaches us from the scriptures.  He has such a bank of scriptural knowledge and wisdom and it is a blessing to be taught by him.  His testimony and his love is so strong and radiates from him to everyone.  Yesterday a bunch of the young adults from the branches in the Czech Republic got together in Prague and had a nice activity together.  Today they are doing service at the site where the Church baught property to start building a stake center!  Yesterday I got to see Ivo from Brno and Eva from Zlín!  It was great to renew friendships and talk.  Ivo is going to the temple in a couple weeks for his endowment!  He is doing great in the church.  He just gets stronger and stronger.

This mission is a very sweet point in my life and I enjoy serving the people here.  If wants to make a friend for life, share your time.  If you want to make a friend for eternity, share the gospel.  These friendships I am making will last forever.  The Church is TRUE!

 

Take care all and Replace Fear with Faith!

Elder Bahr

Miracle Week!

This week we had a many great and many interesting things happen.  For sake of time I will tell you only a couple.

The first one; We met with the man that visited our building last Sunday that the strange reason (see last week if you don't remember).  The meeting sadly went no where.  He doesn't want to accept anything from what we teach.  He was very nice and hospitable though since he invited us over and made us lunch.

The other thing thing was a miracle.  It was an experience that I think is one of the top mission experiences and trumps the story told above.  It still hasn't finished, it is an ongoing experience, but I think it will end up amazing.  Last Tuesday we had an exchange.  On the exchange Elder Simcock my district leader and I contacted a kid named Tomaš.  We got his number, we gave him a call so our number would be in his phone.  He said "Ok, good." as we called, but I didn't see on his phone anything show up.  We thought it might be a false number given to us, but we continued on in high hopes.  The next day Elder Talbot and I were doing some calls.  We called Tomaš's number and the person picked up.  I asked if Tomaš was there and she said "No, wrong number."  I said thank you and hung up.  Now, usually I answer with "Ok, well we are missionaries..." and try to get a meeting.  This time I didn't and as I sat there, I felt like I should call back.  After being nervous and convincing myself to call again, replacing fear with faith, I did it.  She answered and I said "Hi, I just called and I know Tomaš isn't there, but we are missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ.  We talk with people about Christ.  Would you be interested in that."  Surprisingly she said yes.  I told her about the Book of Mormon a little bit and invited her to meet with us. She replied asking where we were in the Czech Republic.  I said Prague and she said she lives in Most (120km to the north).  I thought "Dang... What to do now?"  She said that she would be in Prague on the 27th and then I told her that that day we have church.  She said she would come!  This story is a miracle because people usually get upset when we call a wrong number and try to share the gospel.  However, because of following the Spirit in calling again and doing what I am supposed to, we found someone ready.  We are super excited to meet her.  I will tell you all about her when the day comes.  Moral of the story though is to keep trying in any situation with what you are doing even if it doesn't go right the first time.  :)

My mission is do good.  It is GREAT.  I am happy to be here.  The church is true and I am happy it is here in our day.  Have a fantastic week.

Elder Bahr

Conference Weekend for Czech Republic

Here in the Czech Republic we, like always, have to wait a week for conference so that it can be translated.  So, yesterday and Friday we went to conference.  It was very good and I was super excited for it.  As I have grown up I have gotten more and more excited for conference weekend.  It is definitely a highlight of the year because of the great spiritual feast we get!  Saturday all English speakers got together and watched together.  In the Prague branch there are a few American families.  After priesthood session, President McConkie asked us missionaries what we used to do after conference.  Just like most other missionaries he told us that he would go out for dinner, so like the tradition was, we all went to a nearby restaurant to have dinner together and talk about the conference.  It was a great way to end Saturday.  Yesterday on Sunday we watched together conference as well.  My favorite talks were in the last session.  But... all the talks were great in all the sessions.  Between the morning and afternoon sessions we had an interesting surprise... a man that stands outside of our church each Sunday handing out anti-material to our members and bashing on our faith was performing an exorcism on our building.  We sprinkled it with holy water and began to pray.  We actually decided to set up and have a meeting with him tomorrow.  That was a small example of replacing fear with faith.  In the moment it wasn't difficult, the Lord was on our side.  We pray it will go well.

Throughout the rest of the week, we had a couple lessons.  One of which was with this great kid that was an exchange student in America.  We taught him well and he retains all we teach.  He impresses me.  He expressed to us that he would be a member because all of what we teach "sounds so good" but he doesn't believe in God.  We are going to keep working with him and hope he will find out for himself that God is there.  He is a great kid and very smart.  He will know one day.  This week we helped at a members house.  We took mortar off of old bricks for them.  We had a singing display which I just love to do!!!  Last Tuesday I helped change the mission cars' to winter tires.  It was fun.  I love to do service as a missionary, especially when it relates to fun things I did in the past like changing tires.  Monday evening we visited an American family.  The live here and work at the American Embassy.  We travelled by public transportation to their house and walked to their street the last part of the way.  As we turned onto the street we saw a bunch of American-style houses.  We found their house and were welcomed in.  There whole house looked American!!!  They fed us a great meal of French toast with American fruit and maple syrups.  For dessert we had root beer floats!  It was so good.  We then had Family Home Evening.  It was sooooooooo good.  They definitely have the spirit in their home.  We taught about the Spirit in the home and it just resonated beautifully.

 

I have a nice week.  It is crazy that already the 2nd week of the 9 week transfer is gone.  Next week ought to be a good week as well.  I look forward to it.

Elder Bahr

First Week In Prague!

Well Prague is just great!  Interesting things is that my P-Day here is now on Saturday (Prague missionaries).  I have been here a week and I enjoy it a lot.  My companion as I said last week is Elder Talbot from Alpine, Utah.  I got here Monday afternoon and put my things at the building.  That evening we had Family Home Evening with all the young single adults and our investigators.  It was a fun activity.  During it was sang to for my birthday!  It is strange to be 21.  The next day we went out on the streets to contact people.  We had an amazing day of contacting!  We met so many cool people and had nice meaningful conversations with some of them.  We set up meetings with a few of them.  Thursday we had English class which was very fun.  Wednesday we met with a family that we met the day before.  We had dinner at their house.  They are not real big in being believers but enjoy having us over and having us teach them.  We will keep working with them.  Wednesday we had district meeting.  It was nice not having to plan it like I had to in České Budějovice.  I enjoyed being able to sit and listen.  Thursday we did more street contacting.  It is so great to contact here!!  People are SO open.  We went to a college area in Prague and set up some lessons.  We also had a nice conversation I will never forget with a man from England.  We were just talking and sharing our beliefs with each other.  He was atheist, but we both enjoyed so much each others company.  I pray for his happiness because he was a nice man.  It was just a beautiful conversation we had.  Friday we had a singing display which I haven't had in a while!  It was so fun to sing for people and share our testimony in this way.  We got many meetings set up and many peoples' contact information as a district.  Later we were at the building and a man came up and told us he has been gone for a couple years but loves meeting with us and would like to meet again.  He is very smart and lives a humble life.  We will be meeting with him again soon.  We also had a game night as a branch.  One of our new investigators came.  She enjoyed it a lot.  We met with her before and taught a very spiritual lesson.  And today we have P-Day.  It will be interesting getting used to, but I will handle it.

This week has been amazing and I can't explain it all in the time I have right now but I am just blessed to be here my last transfer.  This city is white and ready to harvest.  I must go now.

Replace fear with faith,

Elder Bahr