Saturday, November 23, 2013

Christmas Nearing and Christmas Gifts of Joy Arriving!

First I am excited to say the Christmas markets are up on the town squares!!!  I missed visiting them last year and the year before I was in the MTC, so I was sad last year to think I will never get to see them up close and enjoy the Czech Christmas Spirit.  Lucky me, I will be able to see them this year!!!  :)
Now, Would it be too repetitive to say we had another miracle this week as well???  Well, I will say it.  There was another miracle!  Quite a large one too!!!  These are the Christmas gifts of joy.  We were at district meeting talking about how in the work we were going through a rough patch with little success and that soon the patch would move on and we would be successful.  It was an amazing meeting.  The Spirit was very strong.  Toward the end we heard the door ring to the church building.  The senior couple the Mendenhalls went down to check.  They came up excitedly and asked for some missionaries to come down to talk with the woman there.  The sister missionaries went down.  After about 20 minutes they came back up and told us this story.  This woman and her friend had ordered a couple Book of Mormons a few weeks ago and hadn't got them yet, so they found the church address and went to get them.  She got the Book of Mormons for her and her friend and was taught a quick lesson.  "She is definitely prepared." The sisters said.  "She was so cool!!"  To make this miracle even more spectacular, later that day we were walking an investigator of ours to the door when another guy came to the doors.  We let him in and let him walk past, thinking he had a lesson with some other missionaries.  We said bye to our investigator and then this other guy came up to us.  We introduced ourselves and he was super friendly and outgoing so I thought he had been missionaries for a while.  He said it was his first time here.  He began to tell the same story the sisters' new investigator had told about ordering a Book of Mormon.  He was the woman's friend and got off work and decided to come by to take a look.  So we showed him the church building and where we meet for church on Sunday and how it goes.  He told us his story how he came to know of Mormons, during which I was awe struck!  He said he had seen a video online of a guy (Who was Mormon) from New Skin and said he just felt something that he needed to come to know.  He decided that he had to meet him, so he flew to Provo to meet the guy who then was in Los Angeles, so he flew down there.  He met him and felt the same thing!  Later he was walking along a sidewalk at the beach pondering about God.  At that moment, he had first ever thought about if God could exist. A man walked past him and they said "Hi" to each other and he said he felt there was some sort of connection between him and that stranger that makes us all brothers and sisters, children of our Father in Heaven.  He stopped and leaned on the railing of the sidewalk over the beach and looked out over the ocean.  After a short moment, he looked down at the beach where someone had that day written in the sand "GOD LOVES YOU!"  That was an answer to his silent prayer.  He decided to get to know Mormons and our beliefs and Replaced Fear with Faith and went out of his way to know God.
As my mission comes to a close, and the beauties of this land, this people, and sharing the gospel here ends, I am privileged to see these miracles continue in majestic ways.  I am most grateful to be a part of Christ's true church and to preach His gospel.  I know the church is true.  I know God lives and answers our sincere prayers.

Everyone, take care.  Enjoy getting into the Christmas Spirit.
Family, Friends, I will see you all shortly.
I love you all.

Elder Bahr

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