Ahoj, mom and dad :).
Thanks for the awesome responses to the email I sent you, this will be awesome. I'll be using them for sure, and I may make it into a book translated into Slovak with my language study time--we'll see :) . All the Slovak missionaries are supposed to be working on it, so it should be fantastic. By the way, I passed my theory test this week for driving, so soon I'll be moving on to the actual driving test. I'll let you know when I get an exact date on that. I did get your package, which was quite good. Thank you so much! The fruit leather turned out great--you could be making money off of that. I ate it all already.
This week was pretty awesome, if packed with a lot of extra meetings. They did, however, do a load of good, and our branch has seen some great things from all the work and new ideas. As you've gathered from the email I sent you, we're working on getting people inspired to action by using some things they've not encountered much of, then applying it to them. Using the couple stories I already had heard and could remember about our ancestors, I've already been sharing a message about the effect people can have on their posterity. Church attendance this week was up, including a less-active member and several of our investigators. It was interesting to see that as we shifted our focus to sustaining the members and rejuvenating the less-actives this week, our investigators progressed along with the members. We've also found a couple new people to teach thanks to the efforts of our amazing Slovak recent converts. Lessons were down, but progression was up. God works in mysterious ways.
In Doncaster this week, the English missionaries had a baptism, and we wanted our investigators there to be able to come and see how it all is. One of them ended up being able to come, and she absolutely loved it. She told everyone that she was "very happy" (she has some decent English skills), and had a lot of other positive things to say. This included telling me that if she gets baptized she would want me to baptize her, she'll come to church next week, and that my rendition of "Nearer, My God to Thee" (I've played around a bit with some of the hymns on the piano and have my own versions that I sometimes play during the prelude before meetings, which is what I did at this baptism) is just like something she sang in her church in Slovakia and that she loved it. Wow. Another one of our investigators in Doncaster who couldn't make it had us over for a lesson after the baptism. It was the same one we had an outdoor lesson with the other week, so we did the same thing again and had similarly good results. One of her neighbors came over at the end of the lesson, and we invited him to come pray with us. Our investigator convinced him to say the prayer, and he ended up nearly in tears by the end. He had previously gone to a different church, but left it after some things happened that he didn't like and hadn't prayed since. He was so happy after this prayer that I think if he'd been smiling any wider, his eyes would've disappeared. He's going to come over to her house from now on whenever we're teaching there, which has the added benefit of being able to go in the house since we'd not be alone with a woman. Two of our investigators who came to church are now beginning to work with us to arrange their marriage, which should happen at the end next month if everything goes according to plan. Their baptism would then follow in the weeks after sometime, and both we and them are excited for it. One of the other people we're teaching who came to church is getting very close to his own baptismal date, so we were overjoyed to have him at there on Sunday. This next week is sure to be filled with miracles as well, so we're praying, planning, and working hard to play our part in bringing God's children closer to Him.
Thanks for your help and love :) . You're truly the best, so don't forget it! Have a miracle filled week, too.
Love,
Elder Brown
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