Week 28 in Plzen THE LAST LETTER

                     11 Aug 2014

Ty jo, I don't know how to start this email. I can't believe it's my last one. This week went by so fast. It really helped that we had Sylvie's baptism to prepare for, that kept me really focused and not freaking out at the fact that I have no time left. The baptism was just....perfect. Absolutely perfect. Everything went smoothly, Sylvie was SO excited, and the Spirit was so strong. Just absolute, pure happiness--the perfect way to end a mission. She found the perfect apartment to live in, and everything worked out just like we had hoped. She even got offered extra work so that she had enough money to pay for it (sewing ninja turtle costumes haha, she's a seamstress). It was so special, because we had asked Simona to give the baptism talk, and it was the first talk she's ever given. And she bore her testimony about how much her life has changed for the better since her baptism in April, it was so special. Such a gift for me to see how happy she is, to have been a part of her whole conversion from the beginning, and to see Sylvie start on the same journey. Sylvie bore her testimony as well, and it was also perfect. Such a beautiful day. Even the weather was perfect. Aaah. So much happiness. 

It's such a rollercoaster of emotions.Yesterday was rough, even members that I didn't know too well were tearing up saying goodbye to me. Phew, 6 months is a long time. Plzen just spoils you rotten--I've already gotten so many gifts from people, I didn't expect that. Sister Juraskova is going to teach us how to make buchty this afternoon (a dessert). Tonight I'll say goodbye to everyone else at FHE and tomorrow we head to Prague because Sister Rosenvall is training. The triplets will be the hardest to leave, I think. If I don't cry it will be a feat. I hate goodbyes.

Well, it's been the most amazing year and half of my life. It's just not possible to describe how I feel about it. It's been so amazing to see all of the miracles  I remember the first training we had with President McConkie and him talking about how we needed to get the idea that we would only see a couple baptisms because we are in Europe out of our heads. Wow, if anything ever proved that to me it's been Plzen in the last 4 months. 12 baptisms. 12!! It's been a complete miracle. And not only baptisms, but baptisms of people like Sylvie--completely prepared to embrace the gospel in every way. It's been an amazing experience to be a tool in the Lord's hands. Such a privilege.  

Well I think that's about it. Prague will be fun, I get to hang out with my MTC sisters again, and take a last walk around the city, which I'm excited about. Then there is departing interviews and dinner and a testimony meeting and goodbyes. I know that after-mission life will be good as well. It will just be different. Thank goodness for skype and facebook. I am excited to see you all. The future is as bright as our faith!

See you on Thursday!

s laskou,  Sestra Cooper

Week 27 in Plzen

                                                  4 Aug 2014

Ahojte!

Well. I don't even know how to describe this week---best birthday present ever. So many miracles. The biggest one is Syllvie, she has just absolutely incredible faith. We were afraid she would miss her baptismal date because she's living with her boyfriend, but the very night we taught her law of chastity, she explained everything to him and went to sleep at a friends. We had taught her modesty during the same lesson, and the next day she promptly went to every mall in Plzen to buy modest clothes and gave her old wardrobe to charity. It's just been an absolute miracle. She knows that the gospel is true, and she's willing to do anything to follow it. And she's already seeing the blessings--on Friday she got her dream job as a costumer for the theatre, without even asking for it. She was just there because she volunteers sometimes, and they read the names of the new employees, and her name was on the list! Plus her boyfriend proposed, and they are now engaged---in a week her entire life has changed for the better. It's been so neat to see how happy she is. I just can't help marvelling that when we sacrifice something to live the commandments the Lord just showers us in blessings. She's a living example of that principle. That faith is important--but the biggest blessings come through obedience. She is sooo excited forSaturday. We are just praying that she can find an apartment before then! But there have been so many miracles in her story that I don't doubt that something will work out. 

My birthday was awesome as well, (I can NOT believe I'm 23 already....how is that even possible??) Plzen just completely spoils you, especially when you've been here for 6 months haha. I think I had 5 different cakes....1 on Tuesday, 3 on Wednesday and 1 on Thursday. Plus the triplets, the YSAs, Syllvie and the Grays gave me presents, the branch president gave me flowers (that's a typical Czech birthday/name day present) It was just neat to feel so much love. I love this branch soooo much. I gave my testimony for the last time in Czech yesterday, and that was a neat experience. Church was extra spiritual, and Syllvie loved it. It's just been such a tender mercy for me to be able to teach her--it's really helping me to stay focused. I keep forgetting that I go home next week. But I am starting to feel at peace about my mission now. It's going to be a big change leaving it, culture shock and everything--Americans are so different from Czechs, plus the whole not-being-a-missionary thing. But I feel like Heavenly Father has been letting me know, in little ways, that he's proud of my service. That I have made a difference in at least a few people's lives, and that he's pleased with my efforts. Plus I have this wall in my brain that refuses to think about anything past the airport--that's been really helpful. So I'm just going to trust that everything after the mission will work out, even though I have no idea how. That's what faith is for right?

love you!!

Sestra Cooper

Week 26 in Plzen

                                                                  28 July 2014

Ahoj!

Well this week just flew by! Syllvie's doing good, we've taught her everything but lesson 5 and she's still loving it. She's so great. It was cool because she got to meet President McConkie, and he asked her how she met us. She said, well I noticed that everyone was avoiding walking towards them, so I went straight towards them and they were just standing there "jako takovy slunička" like little suns. (Sounds weird in English but it makes sense in Czech). That how she describes the Spirit. It was cool to hear her side of the story, I love that. She brought her boyfriend to Karelštejn on Saturday for the branch activity and we are going to hopefully start teaching him this week, so we'll see how that goes! 

We went to Karelštejn twice this week (it takes an hour and a half by train to get there)...Thursday for specialized training and then Saturday with the branch. It was fun though. Thursday was super surreal, because I had to say goodbye to everyone...aaah. So weird. I was glad that all the Czechs were there though so that I got to see everybody, not just Prague and HK zones. I was talking to Sister Regnier about it and it just felt like a dream. At the end of every transfer people get up and give their departing testimonies and you never think it's going to be you! But it was good. We recreated the dedication meeting like last year and it was short and sweet. 

It was interesting because the sisters in my group all mentioned very different things, but we've all loved our missions. I think that's what I love most about it, that missions are so personal. Everything you learn is tailor-fit to you, and the Lord knows what experiences we each need to have in order to grow into the person he wants us to be. It's amazing how much it has changed me, I feel so different from who I was before. I'm just so grateful for that. Such a privilege. Sister Hicken talked about the power of music and reactivation, Sister Regnier talked about how at the end of your mission, the overwhelming question in your mind, is did I make a difference? And Sister Donaldson talked about how she found the letter she had written to herself in the MTC, and how her expectations for the end of her mission were so much lower than what the Lord had on plan for her--how we should raise our vision of our potential, because the Lord believes in us. It was cool to see how much we've all changed. I talked about President Eyring's quote "A person cannot give a crust to the Lord without receiving a loaf in return" and how most of the time I didn't even realize the start of miracles at the time--we were just doing what we were supposed to, and he guided our steps more than I will probably ever know. 

Well I think that's about it, just a normal week this next week. Oh except my birthday is on Wednesday haha. I keep forgetting. 23! aaaaah. I'm so old. I'm 3 years older than my comp, that's so weird. It'll basically be a normal day anyways, except we are having lunch at the Juraskovi and teaching the triplets--they said they have presents for me, so that'll be fun :) Can't believe it's almost August!! Time flies. 

s laskou,

Sestra Cooper

Week 25 in Plzen--this is just getting ridiculous.--week 25???

                                                                                                                                            20 Jul 2014

Ahojky!

Well another week went by ridiculously fast, I don't know what happens to the time! It's crazy. What even happened this week? Syllvie's doing really well, she came to all 3 hours of church yesterday and loved it! I was sooo relieved, I just just praying the whole time that she'd have a good experience. Plus she was the only YSA there and she still loved it--she's so cool! She's on baptismal date for August 9th, so we'll see! We still have to teach the commandments and she got a job offer in Switzerland, so we're just praying that she stays here! She's seriously so cool. And so prepared. Aaah love it. Our other one got moved to the same day, so we could have a double baptism my last Saturday--we'll see what happens. 

Had a total miracle the other night too--we got back from exchanges with Prague late (I was with Sister Hicken-my MTC companion, it was fun to reminese about how we were together a YEAR ago in Cbud. So weird. Plus it was in Prague so it reminded me of my first transfer, that was so long ago). Anyways so we got back late, about 10 pm and we were waiting at the tram stop to go home, and this girl comes up to us and says do you remember me? We had contacted her a couple of weeks ago and she wouldn't give us her number cause she says she sees us all the time and she'd just wait til the next time. So we said, yeah yeah.... But it was her! And she rode the tram with us almost to our house talking about the Book of Mormon, baptism and what we do--she said she'd been thinking about our conversation a lot and wanted to meet! We have a meeting with her today. It's just so cool how much the Lord guides our steps without us even knowing it. He knew we would be home late that night. Missionary work is the best! We had a goal of at least 7 investigators this transfer, because they had all pretty much dropped us at the beginning, and we passed that last week, plus two more yesterday! So great. 

For your birthday dad, we got to help with a Mormon Helping Hands project! I have always wanted to do that. We knocked plaster off of an old school (pre World War II)--and got completely filthy in the process haha. I had to scrub my hair so hard to get it all out. Somuchdust. But it was really fun. When am I ever going to get a chance to do that again?

 Well I think that's about it--I have to give my departing testimony on Thursday in front of all the Czech missionaries because we are going to the dedication site again. It's been really hard to narrow down what I've learned on my mission into a 5 minute testimony. It's pretty impossible to express how I feel about it either. But I will do my best, hopefully I won't blubber through it haha. But no guarantees--it will only be the sisters in my group leaving and elders always cry too. Blech. I hate goodbyes.

love you!

Sestra Cooper

Week 24

Ahojky!                              14 Jul 2014

Ewww time is going by way too fast....I'm really trying not to think about it or I just start panicking, but this week was kind of hard because EVERYONE asked me about it. President came down for interviews and when he got to me he was like, wait, isn't this your last transfer? That means you don't get an interview until your departing interview when we get to talk about boys and school and stuff...ick. And his brother-in-law was asking me what I studied...and then the new senior couple got here and were asking how much time I had left, blech. It's harder and harder to be in denial but I'm doing my best! ....What are you talking about, I'm staying here forever!....

The Grays (senior couple) are fantastic though! SO great. They will make such a difference in this branch, I just wish I could be here to see it. Elder Gray was the church's architect for 25 years so he designed like 40 temples (including Portland!) and the Conference Center, which means he got to work with President Hinckley almost every day. He's got some pretty good stories :) But besides that they really know what they are doing and how the church should work and everything--decades of experience, so that's a little weight off of our shoulders! They have that spiritual maturity that is hard to find. So that's super cool, we planned a bbq on Friday so that they could meet a lot of the members and it turned out really well. Plus the triplets and the Kynclovi girls sang I'm a Child of God for them in Czech and English and everybody was tearing up. It was perfect. They really are just fantastic. I love this branch sooo much. SO much.

Well this week other than that was pretty good. We have some awesome new investigators--this one YSA, Tomas, we found on a street that was pretty much empty for miles, I think it was on a Saturday too--it's a ghost town on the weekends. But he had seen the Book of Mormon musical in London and was curious to learn more about us--he didn't know sister missionaries existed :) Our first lesson was good but he said he didn't want to pray or anything, just learn the information. But then on Tuesday he came to English and he was like what kind of church is this? You have all these activities, you are all happy all the time, this is completely different from any other church I've seen. The elders had taught Word of Wisdom for the spiritual thought and he was like hey I basically live that already, I'm 3/4 Mormon! And we taught with Magda, a super great girl who has been investigating for 5 years, and she gave the best testimony about daily reading and prayer, so by the end he prayed, was excited about reading the Book of Mormon and wanted to come to church. Miracles! He's so cool. 

We're teaching another YSA named Syllvie, who is also super cool. That was a great lesson as well. She just is blown away by the fact that we serve missions voluntarily (she's 20) and brings it up all the time haha. But we were teaching her and I felt like we should give her a baptismal date. So I whispered to my comp while Syllvie was talking to Jitka (a member) and she whispered back August 9th. So I asked her if she'd prepare for that day, and she said that she'd actually been thinking about baptism all week, since our last lesson, but she wasn't sure. And then she said, plus that day is my birthday...how did you know? Gotta love the Spirit. So she's going to think about it and pray about it :) The best part is that we found her after wandering around looking for inactives for 3 hours on a Sunday when no one was around. And then I saw her and really didn't want to stop her, but I felt like I should....and voila. Tender mercies :)

What else...a inactive girl who hasn't wanted anything to do with missionaries for a while actually texted US this morning and said we could come visit her. WHAT. Miracles! All we did was go by for the umpteenth time and leave a pass-along card with a note on it in her door. So cool. Oh and we've been visiting a part-member family with the elders, and no one had ever asked her if she wanted to be baptized, because her husband was really apprehensive about it (she's been meeting with them for like 8 months or something). So I felt like I really should just ask her. So I did (this was a couple weeks ago) and to everyone's surprise she said yes! And now she's on date for July 26 and they prayed together for the first time. Plzen's so great. Just miracle after miracle. Missionary work is the best. 

Well I think that's about it, this week is a normal one, next week we have specialized training at Karelstejin again like last year....and I have to give my departing testimony...ick ick ick. I might send another package home this week, cause I don't want it to get there after me... We are going to a castle today with the elders, so that should be fun, we haven't done anything like that for a while, everyone's always too busy. 

love you! 

Sestra Cooper

Week 23 in Plzen

                                   7 Jul 2014

Ahojky!

I don't even know what happened this week, it went by really fast. We have some cool new investigators, so we are finally teaching a lot again! We have a goal of 21 lessons this week, so we'll see :) Really nothing too exciting happened. The triplets turned 11, so that was fun, we celebrated their birthday when we came over for the lesson on Thursday. They are SO cute. Nefy has memorized the first 5 articles of faith, they fasted for the whole 24 hours for fast Sunday with their mom and Johy bore her testimony in Sacrament meeting about an experience she had at school--their school serves tea, and she had asked if it was black tea or herbal, and everyone told her it was herbal, but she didn't feel right about it, so she didn't drink it, and then found out later that it was black tea after all. It was so cool to be able to teach her that that feeling she had was the Holy Ghost helping her to choose the right, she was like, really?? It's just so neat to see their testimonies grow--they all came to church with new modest skirts yesterday :) I don't know how I got so blessed to be able to teach them. And they got to go on the Temple trip on Saturday with everyone, so even though they can't go in yet they got to feel the difference on Temple grounds--Nefy told me at church she wished she was there "right now". They are just counting down the days until they turn 12. Aah so much happiness--I love that family so much. 

We are doing singing time in Primary now--can't remember if I've told you that already, but it's adorable. The kids don't know any primary songs because it used to be only the Kynclovi's 3 girls every week (that's how it was when I got here). But on Sunday we had 8 little girls, and we were missing 5 other kids. So cool. Anyways, so we've taught them Love is Spoken Here and they are loving it, started Scripture Power last week :) It's been pretty fun--even the 4 year old learned the whole thing. Plus Sister Rosenvall was primary chorister before her mission so she actually has experience haha. I just love this branch so much. All of our recent converts were bonding in Relief Society on Sunday :)

Well this email ended up being all about little kids haha. This week should be good we are so busy teaching, it's the best when you don't have time for dinner or language study :) Plus we are getting a senior couple on Thursday!! Wahoo. They will help so much--it means that we don't have to run all the activities for the YSAs, like FHE, game night, sports day, but they can be in charge. So I'm excited to have them, they really do make such a difference in a district. 

OH yeah and we have a baptismal date! It's so interesting because on our vision for the transfer we put a wedding, thinking that Petr and Kat'ka would get married so that they can get baptized--but now they are saying it will be next year. So we were kind of bummed about that, but then we started teaching the girlfriend of a less-active, and she's decided she wants to be baptized, and that they are going to get married on August so that she can! Super cool. Visions are just inspired--President Irwin used to quote that scripture all the time--where there is no vision the people perish. It's so true, if you don't have a goal to work towards, then what are you progressing towards?

Love you!  

Sestra Cooper

Week 22 in Plzen

                         30 June 2014

Ahojky!

            Phew. I don't know what to say about this week. It was so schizophrenic--super great experiences and super hard ones. But the work goes on! President is so wonderful. I called him after a disaster of a law of chastity lesson (long story short the boyfriend who introduced her to the church kind of took over and gave excuse after excuse about how they can't possibly accept a date because he's scared, so then she was just confused and questioning everything. It just weakened her trust in us, which was frustrating). Anyways. you know what President said? Sister Cooper, that doesn't sound like a disaster to me! They both still want to get baptized, and you have a meeting set up! A disaster would be them saying that they never want to see you again and that the church is stupid. hahaha. And then he said he'll come down in a couple of weeks, we'll teach it again with him bearing testimony and everything will be fine :) So that helped a lot.            

            Oh on the bright side, one of our new investigators is the girlfriend of a member who we tried to teach my first transfer here, and she wasn't really interested. But we went to visit him on Saturday and he said, oh by the way, she wants to get baptized, you need to teach her everything. And then they came to all 3 hours of church :) So that was exciting ! Plus the people we've been working with to get them to the Temple are both going on Saturday! So great.            

            OH! How could I forget?? The branch had a picnic on Friday at the home of a sister we work with, her husband isn't a member and has never been interested. But we had a goal of getting him to let us teach him, because she said he's been showing some interest, but not enough to admit it. So we were talking to him at the picnic, and he's like no no, I might believe in something, but I'm not going to turn into a believer...etc. So we were thinking ok, maybe we shouldn't ask, don't know if it would be too pushy....And then my comp was like are we doing it or not? So I said, why not let's just ask. So she was like hele, muzeme prijit a vam ucit? (hey can we come teach you?) And he said, sure why not, we can talk, but you'll never convince me, set something up with my wife. Challenge accepted!! He's never agreed to take the lessons even though members have been trying for 20 years. So we are excited :) We'll start teaching him next week. Miracles! He didn't say anything to his wife so when we told her on Sunday she was so surprised :) 

            So things are finally getting moving, I'm excited to teach more. I just love teaching so much--it's definitely my favorite part of missionary work. I'm trying to teach and testify more in contacts about the Restoration and it's making a difference for sure. Church was really good yesterday but kind of hard because I realized that I love the Czech people so much. And the language, as hard as it is sometimes. I'm trying to make the most of it while I have the chance to speak it every day--that is such a privilege. So that was really sad to think that I don't have too many Sundays left. But a lot can happen in 6 weeks, so I intend to go out with a bang!

Love you!!!

Sestra Cooper

P.S. We played softball for sports day on Saturday because Gabca has the equipment--SO FUN. And I'm SO SORE. Everywhere. Haven't sprinted like that in forever. It was awesome. Dad you would be proud, I kept my elbow up and made it on base every time :)