Poslední Týden!

I am in my last few days in the country.  My mission has been good and has gone by fast.  I am excited to come home and see my family and start the next chapter of my life.  Until then, the work continues.

Last week we had a zone conference.  At the conference I, as well as the other missionaries in my group, gave my departing testimony.  It is a tradition for in your last conference you share with everyone what you learned on your mission, joys and your testimony.  It was difficult.  I didn't think I would get emotional, but it snuck up on my and I lost it.  I talked about many things and I can't remember all I said, but mainly I shared about how much my testimony in God has been strengthened.  I know God is there and I notice and feel His influence every day.  It is a beautiful thing to feel.

We had a couple singing displays this week too.  We sang at a place called Dejvice and at Museum.  It was great both times because there were extra missionaries there from other cities visiting for visa work, and we got to sing Christmas songs!!!!!  I love Christmas and the spirit that fills the air.  I thought about it today and there is a spirit of love, warmth, gratitude, and togetherness around Christmas time along with the nice smells in the air of burning wood, sweets, etc.

Today for P-Day we had a "turkey bowl" with President and his family, soon we will go back to their place for dinner.  Later this evening is a baptism of someone the sisters are teaching.

I have no more to say.  I will keep it short and sweet.  My mission has been great.  Not boring or disappointing, but pleasant and uplifting.  I am happy for all the people I met and have been able to help.  I am thankful for my family that has supported me the whole way.  I am gratful to my Father in Heaven for His patience with me and His hand in all things.  I pray that the people in the country of the Czech Republic will be blessed in coming to know of the truth and knowledge of the gospel.  It truly makes people happy.

Everyone, Until we meet again - Replace Fear with Faith!

Elder Bahr

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

Zooooooooom!

Some people say this week went be slow, but for me it was fast.  We had a great event happen this week too!  We have been for the last month or so been advertising for a concert we were putting on.  Last night was it!  We had 98 people show up to our concert!  Members, non-members, friends, etc.  The concert was called The Restoration.  We sang songs that speak about all sorts of things from the restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith.  In total 8 songs were performed and in between, a member spoke about prophets, Christ's earthly ministry and the restoration through Joseph Smith.  It went very well.  We had this week a couple singing displays to advertise for it.

We had a few lessons this week.  Teaching has slowed down a bit, so we are trying harder to get more people to teach.  This whole transfer people have set up with us to meet and many have cancelled or came to the meeting and have not been able to meet since.  We try our best though and we will see something someday. It is kind of like when I was in Brno and Elder Štrobl and I got few lessons, but later we found out that 3 people we found and taught have been baptized there since.  My mission has been satisfying.  The work is great and will continue on!

Replace Fear with Faith,

Elder Bahr

Messages of the Week

I hope this doesn't sound repetitive, but this week zoomed past.  Just the other day was Halloween and now soon approaching is Thanksgiving.  I have been blessed this week with great missionary opportunities.

Recently in preparation for our concert we have been having more singing displays.  Monday we did one and yesterday we did one.  Yesterday we traveled by the Metro (subway) to where we would sing.  On the way we sang in the Metro trains!  While a few of us sang, the other missionaries passed out fliers!  At the display we passed out MANY fliers and we are expecting a large turnout!

We also were able to work out in areas where missionaries don't often go.  We went to the outer parts of Prague.  We had some nice success!  We have a lesson today with a nice Slovakian lady we met a few days ago.  There was another lady we met as well that lives outside of Prague and she gave us her address for us to send her a Book of Mormon.  It is great that even when missionaries can't make it somewhere, we can get our message to them!

A few days ago we met with a cool guy from Ireland and he invited his friend from Sweden to the lesson.  They both had many questions about Mormonism and came out of the lesson knowing who we are, instead of thinking what the world sometimes thinks about us and not finding out for themselves.  They are two great young people and I see great potential in them!

Last story is a MIRACLE!!!  My last few weeks have been full of them.  Last Sunday in České Budějovice a less active member, Elder Greener and I would teach, came to church!  She was apposed to going but decided she would go after dropping her daughter off somewhere.  She then said to herself "I will go if there is a parking spot open."  The streets were clear!  Then she said "I will go if the door is unlocked."  The door was unlocked.  Then she said "I will sit on the stairs just outside the sacrament room door and listen to the first few talks."  President McConkie just happened to be there and instead of sharing his testimony at the end to wrap up the meeting, he felt prompted to do it at the beginning.  He did so in the very time frame that the member decided to stay.  He mentioned some things in his testimony that really meant a lot to her and now she is on her way to activity again and to all blessings the Lord has for her.  She has had some thing stopping her that was replaced with FAITH.  It is great to see the Lord's hand in this work.  The church is true.  :)

Elder Bahr

MORE MIRACLES!!! WOW!!!

This week we had two huge miracles.  I will just get on with telling about them now.

President McConkie talks about how we need to strive to be spiritual people when we are missionaries, because we are entiltled to that right and that is the only way we will be successful in the Lord's work.  I agree... so last Wednesday night we tried out hardest to be led by the Holy Ghost in our planning for the next day.  We decided that Thursday we would go to the town hall to look for service opportunities in the city.  We planned after that to go to a nearby park to hand out flyers to advertise our concert we are putting on about the Restoration.  While there we were talking with an old lady.  As we did so, a young lady came up to us and waited to speak with us.  Atthe end of the conversation the old lady said she would come!  Then we turned to talk to the young lady.  She told us that she had moved here recently and everytime she sees missionaries, she tries to see if she recognises them from them teaching her in the past.  In this limited visability park in the middle of Prague, she spotted me and recognised my hair.  Now, here for the crazy part... she is a girl I taught at the very beginning of my mission in Ostrava!!!  Now for the crazier part... when she was taught almost two years ago she wasn't making much progress towards baptism.  When we spoke a couple days ago, she said that she has been thinking a lot about baptism and wants to be baptised but has something holding her back.  We will be meeting with her on Sunday to talk about it and help her to be baptised!

The other story is the very next day.  Thursday evening we were planning and trying to be spiritually in tune.  We felt like we should go contacting people at 8 in the morning locally (during our usual study time).  The next morning right after breakfast we went streight outside to work.  With no conversations with anyone and 10 minutes left in our block of time set apart, we felt prompted to cross the street which was a little out of our way for our path home.  We contacted a young man named Tonda.  We taught him right there on the street about the restoration and now have another lesson schedualled for today!  The miraculous part is that he said that lately he has been wanting to be baptised!  We told him that is what we help people do, it so make that covenant with God.  We are more than excited for our lesson today.

The Lord's work moves on.  The church is true.  It is a beautiful thing to be a part of.  This seems like a great way to finish a missions, FULL OF MIRACLES!!!

Nepřestávejte vyměnit strach vírou!  Vytrvejte!

Starší Bahr

Už bude Listopad!!!

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