"We Visited Vietnam This Week"

Ahoj!

This week has been such a blur, but it was good. 

The other day we went to dinner with a few of our recent converts. One of them took us to this random place in the middle of nowhere. We walk out of the bus and literally felt like we were in some little Vietnamese town. He takes us into this building and there's 4 Vietnamese restaurants lined up with a person standing outside each one trying to get us to go to their restaurant. Probably the most bizarre dinner experience I've had so far. 

One thing I noticed about Czech culture this week is that whenever you're on a tram and anyone older starts walking towards it, at least 5 people immediately stand up to give them a seat. It's so cool. 

I asked a dude that comes to our Czech class how he's doing and he told me I "won his heart." Definitely not the first time people have had a weird thing for the sister missionaries and definitely won't be the last haha. 

Also...apparently Daylight Savings Time is a thing?? Not the biggest fan. And don't even get me started on Winter. Pray for me, cause it's supposed to snow this week and I don't think I'll survive. The other day we woke up and it was super foggy outside, and it was the weekend, and on the weekends no one is in the city. It was creepy as heck but also really cool. Sometimes I love the weather here.

There's this lady that randomly showed up to Institute 2 weeks ago and started asking the elders a ton of questions about our church. Ever since then she's been constantly hanging out with the missionaries. She's at every activity that we're at. She's so cool. We were talking to her last night, and she says that we've shown her what true friends actually are. She says she didn't know people like us exist in the world. And every time it's time to leave she doesn't want to leave because she "feels so good." She's literally the coolest person, and we can't wait for her to eventually be ready to start learning more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Man I love missionary work. 

Spiritual Thought:

As I was sitting in ward council this week I was just thinking about how crazy it is that I'm in a completely different country yet the church here is the same. To me that's another testament that this church is Christ's true church restored on the earth today. Whether it's Mesa, Arizona or Brno, Czech Republic the church is the same. It's run the same way, and the members believe the same things. This is definitely a worldwide church, and it's definitely true. If you're not sure about that, send me a quick email and we can chat about it.

I love you all, and I'm so grateful for all the prayers and support. I definitely feel it! I hope everyone has a great week and you eat a bowl of Kraft Mac and Cheese for me, cause I've been craving that hard core this week. Love you all!

Sestra Lewis

"Another Week, Another Crypt"

Ahoj!

Jak se máte?! First week of the transfer is done, and it was a long one. Transfers are always crazy cause you have to figure out a new area, new companion, new ward members, new investigators, etc. But it's getting better and I'm getting more comfortable with Brno. 

Not much happened this week. We had a lot of meals with the members and got to know some of them. The missionaries in this district last transfer spent all of the transfer building a really solid relationship with the members. It's awesome. We basically have a meal with a member almost every day. Sometimes twice in one day. The members here are awesome, and I'm stoked to get to know them better. 

The other day (I can't remember which one. All the days blend together haha), we went on a výlet with an investigator to a crypt underneath this huge church. It was filled with human bones and there was this dim lighting going on. Slightly creepy but so cool. 

After that we went and walked around the inside of the church. For being the most atheist country in the world, the Czech Republic has some gorgeous kostely (churches). 

Here's a list of some of the random people we met this week:

•A little Macedonian girl on a bus who speaks perfect English, Czech, and some other language I've never heard of. We asked her about Czech and she goes "Learning Czech is a piece of cake." Thanks for that confidence booster kid haha

•An Italian dude who bought us 5 huge pizzas. He named his stomach and throughout the night his stomach would talk to us and join our conversation

•The most adorable family from New Zealand. I taught their little son a handshake, and he remembered it just in time to move back to New Zealand in about a week. I'm not crying, you're crying.  

•This super cool recent convert from Thailand (shoutout to all the Thai missionaries who were in my zone in the MTC). He goes back to Thailand next week for 2 months. We're sad about that one. 

•This young dude from California who has a weird obsession with Russian women. "I don't know why it's a thing. I just let it be and go with it."

•An old lady in the ward who I had a full conversation in Czech with. Understood everything she was saying and was able to respond. The Gift of Tongues is real, just saying.

So far Brno's been way cool. I'm excited to get to know more people and to build relationships with the members. I'm also stoked to find more people to teach. We have some fun ideas for finding that I'm excited to try. 

Spiritual Thought:

I did a personal study this week focused on happiness. In 2 Nephi 5:27, it says "And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness." There are so many places in the Book of Mormon that talk about happiness. I went through and tried to figure out what made the people happy. In the case of Nephi in 2 Nephi 5, his life was in danger, his brothers threatened to kill him, and he had to flee into the wilderness. He had every reason to be sad and frustrated. But instead of being sad he says they were happy. Why? It's because he didn't lose faith in the Savior. He continued to be obedient and live the Gospel. He went to work building up a city and creating his happiness. He didn't sit there in the wilderness on a tree stump thinking about how hard his life was. He got up and went to work. The same is true in our lives. We don't have to be a slave to our circumstances. We can be happy despite the hard things in our lives as we focus on the Lord, trust in Him, and go to work. 

I hope everyone has a great week! Just remember to trust in the Lord and everything will work out! In the words of a cute old man that we met at stake conference on Sunday, "Good night and very good sleeping."

Sestra Lewis

"I'm Pretty Much a Pro at Trios"

Tak Ahoj!

This week was a good one. Friends were made, people were baptized, and we almost went to the funeral of a famous Czech singer. 

There were a lot of moments this week that got me so stoked to be on a mission. Missions are so freaking cool. Never in my life did I think I would be in the Czech Republic eating McDonald's in the mall as a super chill dude from Nigeria told us about the problems with the government in Nigeria. And I love getting to know people and hearing their stories. We met with one lady who's a less active member. In her words  shes a "missionary magnet." She's been to Hungary, Peru, Portugal, etc., and she runs into missionaries every place she goes. She says that anytime she's having a bad day she'll look across the street and see the missionaries, and it helps her get through the day. She's so cool, and we've adopted her as our mom. She's so excited to hang out with the missionaries every week. Man missions are so cool. 

So there's this Czech singer that is so famous here. During Communism he brought in more money for the country than Škoda did. That's a huge deal. Škoda's a car company here that's so big they have an entire city for the factory and all the workers. It's insane. Anyway...the singer, Karel Gott, passed away, and the whole country has been in mourning. There's little shrines to him everywhere. His viewing was Friday, and we were gonna go to it with an investigator, but it didn't work out. Sad day. But we did get to go with that investigator on another history výlet around Prague. He showed us all the secret places that tourists don't know about. It was exhausting but so cool. 

On Saturday there were 3 baptisms from 3 different cities! They all came to Prague and were baptized here. One of them was a man that I helped teach when I was in Jičín. There's nothing like watching people you teach repent and become more like Christ and make that First Covenant with him. This Gospel brings so much joy into people's lives. 

Whelp my time in Prague has come to an end. Transfers were this week! It's kind of insane that I've been here for 2 months already. I'm going to Brno, and I'll be in another trio with Sister Scott and Sister Guyman. I'm so stoked. After a 3 hour train ride without a companion I got to Brno, and I'm so stoked to get started. Brno is the second biggest city in the Czech Republic. It's the only city in the Czech Republic and Slovakia that has a church building that was built by the church (Fun Fact: the Prague church building used to be a pub). Everyone who serves in Brno never wants to leave. It's gonna be such a good transfer.

Spiritual thought time:

With the commitment from President Nelson in this last conference to study Joseph Smith History, I've been focusing my studies a lot on Joseph Smith and trying to strengthen my testimony that he was really a prophet called of God, and that the Book of Mormon is true. I was reading a talk by Carlos E Asay, and he talks about how the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest event to happen since the resurrection. 

      "I take issue with those who believe that the placement of men upon the moon is the greatest occurrence of the last two thousand years. I do so because I know of an event wherein the Creator of the universe himself came to earth in answer to an obscure boy’s humble prayer and revealed pure theology.           

       Yes, it all started so quietly, so simply, and so very wonderfully. A believing boy took “one small step” and prayed. A loving Father in Heaven listened and responded. What has resulted is rightfully referred to as “one giant leap for mankind.”                                     

        All the towers ever built and all the spaceships ever launched pale in comparison with Joseph Smith’s first vision. Though men fly higher and higher into the heavens, they will not find God or see his face unless they humble themselves, pray, and heed the truths revealed through the Prophet of the Restoration." -Carlos E Asay

There are so many truths that were restored through the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm so grateful for a God who calls living prophets on the earth today. 

I hope you all have a great week! Love you all! 

Sestra Lewis

                                        

                                                 

 

"Talk to People and You Get Food From America"

Nazdar! 

I never feel more like a missionary than the moment when we're looking up when our bus back home gets here, we find out it leaves in 1 minute and it's the last bus back, we're 5 minutes away from the bus stop, we all look at eachother, and then we start booking it as fast as we can to get there on time.

We had zone training this week, and it was so good. Zone trainings are one of my favorite things. There's so much power in having the entire zone together. It gets us so pumped to just go out and share the work. The APs gave a training at the end about opening our mouths and sharing the gospel with everyone. They then gave us a Book of Mormon to write our testimony in and then we all sang the mission song together and they sent everyone in our zone out on the streets of Prague to talk to everyone. It was so much fun. Trainings are the best. 

The other day we were talking to people in the park, and we stopped this one dude. He was this super funny Czech dude. We were talking to him in Czech for a few minutes and all of a sudden he switched to perfect fluent English. But...he had a British accent. So he was Czech...speaking fluent English...with a British accent...and then he rode away on a unicycle. I want to be that dude's best friend haha

Pro tip: make friends with the locals cause then they get you into places for free. We have this one investigator who's really into history. We went on a výlet with him, and he took us around Prague. He used to work at all these history places, so he got us into them for free and took us to all these secret places that tourists don't know about. It was so chill. 

General Conference was way good. We watched the Saturday Morning session live on Saturday night. We got together with the district and some friends from the ward and got dinner and snacks then watched conference together. Then Sunday we watched the Women's session in the morning, had breakfast with the district and Sister Gehring, watched the Saturday afternoon session, then watched the Sunday morning session live on Sunday night. Conference feels so different as a missionary. It was so cool. I already can't wait for next conference.

Also. A ton of the senior couples that are serving in Germany came to P
rague for their pday today, so our church building was full of a ton of super cute old senior couples. I was in heaven haha. It made my day.

Spiritual Thought Time:

The other day as we were contacting in the street, we met this lady from America (her husband's bringing me back Kraft Mac and Cheese from America). She's lived in the Czech Republic for about 4 years. She was talking to us about how Czech people are super atheist. She asked a Czech one time why they're so atheist. There are so many gorgeous kostels (cathedrals) here, so at one point these people believed in God. The man she talked to said that during the war God left them. They went through so much as a country, and God wasn't there for any of it. One of the things that I've learned is that God loves the Czech and Slovak people so much. They hold a special place in His heart. I'm so grateful I get to be here and teach the Czech and Slovak people that God is always here for us. He never leaves us. He loves us so much and is right there for us as we reach out to Him. He's got our back. 

Love you all! Thanks for all the prayers and support! Have the best week! 

Sestra Lewis