What a week

Hello my dear family!

This week there has been so much happen. We went to visit someone we tracked into down the street that said just to stop in another day. Well it has been about a month of trying and when we rang the zvonek, we hear the lady yell that she will be down in a minute. Well we stand there waiting and what do you know the door opens and there is this little old lady who had to be at least in her 90's. She came out and talked to us and she really couldn't hear very well and she popped out her dentures and she was hilarious! As we were standing there Sister Cooper looks at me and says is this Marketa? I just smiled huge and said no. Sister Cooper asked her about Marketa and she went on about the young lady that lives above her. I guess we rang the wrong zvolnek, there were only 2 and they both said the same thing! It was hilarious though and the fact that Sister Cooper thought it was here when a month ago Marketa had dark brown hair and was in her mid 50's. It was really funny. One thing that the people here tend to talk about, are our beautiful teeth and smiles. I can't tell you how many people have said something about my teeth. So parents, know that the braces are paying off! :)

We have been working a lot with our less actives and it is really neat. We started Olina on personal progress to help her to prepare for the temple. We are way excited for that as is she. We plan to start some of our other less active sisters on it as well. Since the point of the book is to help you come closer to your Savior and keep you on the path to the temple, this is the perfect thing for these less actives. We are so excited to be doing this with them!

This week I have had the privilege to see some of the blessings of our work. We have been working with Sister Vondrackova, a less active who likes to come for the social aspect and has been a member since like 93. (Speaking of which it is interesting to me that I have been a member of the church longer than most of the members here. many of them were baptized after 2000! The church here is so young!) So we have been working with her and I have just felt like she needs to feel loved and know of her worth. So over the past few weeks I have made a special effort to welcome her and make her feel loved. We have started to meet with her each week and teach her. We read part of a general conference talk with her from the relief society session called "You are not forgotten". In that talk there is a story of a lady who is all alone, has no family etc. But it goes on to talk about how she is not alone, how she is Heavenly Fathers daughter and she is loved and not forgotten. This story relates perfectly with our lovely sister so we shared it and then testified. It has been really neat to see my love for her increase and to see her progress. I love her so much and anytime I see her it makes me so happy! She has started to show up to activities and church a little earlier. She has started to have a smile and to laugh. She came to the start of sports day just to say hi, even though she couldn't come. On Sunday she brought us some treats for our district meal after church. She is really opening up, and starting to show her true colors. She is not hiding behind her pessimistic façade anymore. It is really great to see her change and the light of Christ come back into her life. As I have watched this I can tell why I am here. This is my calling, to help bring these beloved daughters back, to help them find joy and enjoy life. That is done through this gospel. Through truly understanding who you are. On Sunday during Sunday School I sat by here. She is starting to participate in class and not refuse to do anything! So exciting! At the end of the meeting, the teacher had ended but one of the students wasn't done. So they began to talk and share things and Sister Vondrackova just glared at them and then looked at me with that same scowl. I just looked back at her with the biggest grin on my face. To that she growled at me and showed her teeth. As she did this she began to laugh quietly. It is so great to see the changes happening! I feel like I can't express all the changes that are happening, you would just have to be here! It is so neat! In our lesson with her we told her that we wanted to start her on personal progress to help her prepare for the temple. We testified of the greatness of the program and how it had blessed us. She acted as if she didn't want to and was resistant. But when I straight up asked her if that was something she wanted she kind of timidly said yes. AH!!!! I am so excited to be here in CBud helping bring people to Christ, it is so wonderful!

As we have worked with the less actives it has been really interesting to see how much they truly regress when they stop coming to church. Satan truly does get in there heads and start to mix things up. It is amazing how mixed up doctrines become. How strange some of their ideas are. Even if they are still reading in the scriptures and praying, they are loosing so much by not coming to church! Those that aren't reading and praying though truly have no idea about the gospel. They think they know something and as they talk, they are going in circles and contradicting themselves left and right. It truly is sad to see the messes that Satan can make as he slowly pulls people out of doing the basic things of the gospel. I have seen so many of Satan's traps that the scriptures warn of in the lives of these less active members. It is truly sad to see. But I can't wait to get back with them and to have the opportunity to teach them, to refresh the basic simple doctrines in their lives and to help them get back on track, living the life that will bring them the most happiness and allow them to return to live with their Heavenly Father.

Sestra Zvanocova has truly made a ton of progress as well. We talk her out for walks and teach her little lessons on the bench. It is amazing to see how much she has improved over the two months I have been here. In the first lessons with her she was always saying I am sick I don't know the answer, you just tell me. Now we ask her a question and she is quick to respond. I committed her to bear her testimony last week to someone and she just smiled and then bore her testimony of Jesus Christ to me. It was so sweet yet strong. She is an amazing women and it is neat to see her understanding, health, happiness and basically everything increase. The gospel is amazing and truly does help. This 80+ year old woman is truly being blessed by the gospel. I am so glad i have the opportunity to teach her and help her on this path.

We also discovered with Ctibor the huge difference a simple case change can make. We thought he told us that the Book of Mormon was not 100% true. When we asked him why, he said, no! The Book of Mormon is true, it is the word of God, it was written by prophets, it is true so is the bible! It just doesn't have ALL of the truth. So that is exciting progress with him. We also found out that he doesn't have the priesthood because he feels like he has to be holy to have the priesthood and he isn't holy. He also talked of how he isn't worthy to come to church because he has debt. He also talked about how he wasn't keeping the word of wisdom 100%. When we went through everything that you aren't supposed to do and he said he wasn't doing any of them, we asked why he wasn't keeping it 100 but only 98%. He went on to explain that his friends and people around him are breaking the word of wisdom and since he is around them he isn't 100%. I then took him to the articles of faith and explained that he is not guilty for other peoples sins. It was amazing to see him brighten. It was as if there was a weight taken off his shoulders as we told him this. It makes me wonder how many other little things Satan is telling him that is dragging him down. It truly is amazing to see Satan's work, pulling people down and making them feel miserable. I am so grateful for my knowledge of this gospel, for my activity in this church and for the opportunity that I have here in CBUD and the Czech Republik to help bring people back to the Lord.

While work with the less actives is great, we have struggled with the investigators. Basically all of them were out of town this week. We have one that wasn't but her mother in law is against us teaching her so we can't teach her anymore. I always heard mother in laws were a problem I just didn't think someone else's, on my mission would cause me grief! ha ha We had one other that was in town part of the week, Jarda, and we taught him. He was really receptive of the plan of salvation as in it makes sense. But he wasn't convinced it was the plan for him and he flat out refused to set a goal to work towards for baptism. Even though we told him he didn't have to if he didn't feel prepared but just have it be a goal to work for. He also flat our refused to pray with us or to pray on his own. But at least we know he will be honest with us and that when he commits to something he will be committed! :)

Finding efforts have actually been pretty productive. We noticed this week that we have not had one person we contacted show up for a lesson. Evidently our contacting efforts need to be better. All of our investigators are either continuing, we tracted them or they were referrals. All the numbers and appointments we have gotten from contacting have fallen through. So we have tried some different approaches this past week and it has been glorious! We did building tours. We got 5 one day, if you were wondering that is very impressive. Getting one maybe two is normal. With our building tours it really weeds out the people who don't have interest and you have the opportunity for a longer contact, it is great. We haven't gotten any phone numbers out of it, but we do have an appointment tonight. Hopefully she comes, she wouldn't give us any contact information. We had the opportunity to give out 2 Books of Mormon through all of our building tours. One girl was really receptive and excited about it, she was there with a boyfriend. But unfortunately she is from Prague so we couldn't set up with her. But the other girl, this is kind of an interesting story. We had been talking about the Book of Mormon and handed her one. (when ever you get the book in their hands they always flip through it and skim read, so interesting to me) After some discussion on it, we mentioned that it was free and she could have it and she had no interest. I then talked about the promise at the end of the book. Moroni 10:3-5. We opened up to it and had her read it. After she read it and we testified about it she was all over taking the book home. She was really excited to try out the promise. It is amazing the power of the scriptures. The words in them truly do convert people. I am so grateful for the scriptures and the support they give me as I teach. I couldn't do it with out them!

Sorry this has been so long! Like I said a lot happened this week! ha ha Just know that I love the work here (even though you go to bed exhausted and wake up exhausted, somehow the Lord manages to carry you through the day, it is such a miracle!) and that I know that what I am teaching is true. The gospel is true, and it brings me so much joy! If you want more joy in your life, I invite you to read in the scriptures and share what you learn with others or with your journal. It is such a neat experience. As you share your learnings, you truly grow closer to the Savior and you help those you tell come closer too. The closer you are to Him the happier you are. I am living proof of that! I love it here!

Love you all so much!!!

Sestra Hicken