Tuesday, January 28, 2014

January!!

Hey everyone! Jordan sounds like he is doing really, really well! His e-mails have sounded so happy and it sounds like he is having a lot of success :)

January 6th: Jordan is now with his new companion Elder Bennett and they live right in the Zagreb Center, very close to the mission home! They tried to talk to people on the streets on New Years Eve, but nobody wanted to listen so they just went home and did some planning and went to bed. He said it was really weird going to bed on New Years and listening to fireworks going off outside.

On January 13th Jordan reported that his week had been really great. He said " Elder Bennett and I are taking care of business!" They had a less active member named Goran who came to church with them. Goran calls them his "little angels". They talked to him about his smoking problem and told him that he really needs to work on quitting.

Here is a story from Jordan's email:
Ok so here is the best part of the week we have 3 investigators who are from Africa ha. One of them named Felix is from Nigeria and came to Zagreb to study for 3 years, and the crazy thing is he doesn't speak Croatian at all but he is going to a school that is completely in Croatian. We asked him how he does that and he said that he just has to google translate documents and things. I was pretty impressed because that would be so tough. He told us that he had an English textbook and that's about it. So we met with Felix on Tuesday night at the mission office and had a really good lesson with him. We talked about where the BOM came from and the history behind it. Sometimes it is difficult to understand what he is saying because he has a really thick African accent. But I think the gift of tongues came to both of us while we were teaching him because I felt like I could understand him perfectly. Elder Bennett asked him once he comes to find out what we are telling him is true if he will be baptized. He told us that he was baptized already when he was younger. But he told us that he has decided to come to church every week and he was so happy that we stopped him on the street. He told us something really cool that since he has been in Zagreb he hasn't really seen anyone practice there religion, but he said when he got stopped that he knew we were different. He said a great prayer at the end the spirit was so strong and he said that he was thankful that Heavenly Father put us in his path! Ok so that was Tuesday night so he texted us on Friday night and said sorry he has been busy because he found out that his older brother died. It was sad but he said he was still going to come to church. So Sunday morning he called us and told us he was waiting for us at the church, we were really excited and were on our way to church on the tram. He actually came and told us he had a great time. We showed him the baptismal font in the chapel and he thought it was really neat. After church we introduced him to President Rowe and President talked with him and asked him about baptism. He said again that he was already baptized but he was really feeling the spirit. We are going to meet with him this week I feel like he is going to get baptized soon! He also said he has been really sad these last couple of days, but at church he said he felt happy! This Church is TRUE! Znam da je ova crkva istinita. Kind of a long story but it was great!

January 20th: This week they taught 14 lessons! They taught one man named Stjepan who was excommunicated about 20 years ago. They have been having a lot of success with him and they have a baptismal date of March 31st! Felix is also still doing really well. They couldn't have a lesson with him because he had a lot of studying to do for his tests but he came to church and they had a really great and spiritual time! They also had a farewell on Sunday for one of the members of their ward who is going tot he Adriatic South Mission. Goran also came to church with them again and is working on his smoking problem still!

January 27th: "Well again I can''t believe it is Monday and I'm writing another email. I had a great week and miracles are happening. Some great things happened this week for Elder Bennett and I. We for sure saw the hand of the lord in the work here in Zagreb." 

I am just going to copy and paste most of Jordans e-mail from this day because it was so cool and I want you to read it in his own words! 

Zvonomir: So on Monday night we met up with this guy named Zvonomir. I guess he used to be an investigator but got dropped a couple months ago. He called us and told us that he really needed to talk with us and that he would like to meet up. We met up with him and he told us that he has been praying everyday and feels so close to Heavenly Father. He needed some help with a question about his job so he decided to call us. We talked with him about baptism and the importance of receiving the holy ghost. We invited him to be baptized but brought up the concern about how his parents are Catholic like everyone does here. He actually told us that his mom thinks that the Catholic church is the devils church but doesn't have desire to change. So we are working with him I hope he accepts a baptismal date soon.
Exchange students from America: Also on Monday night before meeting with Zvonomir we ate at this hamburger place called Rocket Burger. It is the only place in Zagreb that actually has American hamburgers ha. Once we were done eating there there were kids outside of the restaurant that said "look fellow Americans" We ended up talking to the group of kids and ended up getting three numbers out of it. Amilio, Jake, and Lauren. We called Jake on Wednesday and had a lesson with him he really enjoyed it and could feel the spirit. We tried to meet with Amilio, but he wasn't able to meet up this last week. We are planning on meeting with him tonight. They are sixteen and seventeen years old. I will let you know what ends up happening with them. Amilio is from somewhere in Mexico.
Stjepan: Stjepan is still doing good, but last lesson we had with him he talked for the whole hour and we didn't even have a chance to talk. He was talking about things that didn't matter. We need to figure out how to have a lesson with him where he doesn't talk the whole time. He is still progressing now and is really thinking about March first for his baptismal date.
Felix: Felix is on fire! He is a golden investigator and really loves the church a lot. We invited him to Daniels farewell party and told us he was going to try and come. He ended up coming like 40 minutes late but loved it. He loved the food we were having and everyone was so nice to him. During the party he asked me when we clean the church. I told him on Saturdays and he said "By gods grace I would like to come clean with you" I said of course you can! So on Saturday he helped us clean the church and had a great time.
Saturday night: On Saturday night the Assistants told us to start leaving an hour open in our schedules to call people and invite them to church. As a mission we are trying to get 500 people to attend church. So we called everyone we could think of to come to church and it sure payed off. On Sunday we had 5 investigators come to church! Felix, Tinasa, Dinko, Stjepan, and Petar. We as a companionship had the most investigators come to church so it was great. Calling people sure payed off. Also we are still going over to Goran Prsa s house every Saturday. He came to church and has only been smoking six to eight cigarettes a day, little improvement. Also Robert Perlog another less active member we are working with came to church also.
Friday it actually snowed here and we had some snow removal to do. We ended up helping a couple people shovel there driveways. And one more thing after church Sister Rowe told us to bring our investigators over to the mission home to have lunch. We brought Tinasa and Felix with us. Both of our African investigators ha. They both liked it some much and Felix said this church is great. We had a spiritual thought after lunch about prayer and they both gave their insights about it. Felix shared a very spiritual experience when God answered his prayer he is so great!
Well this is a long email I got a little carried away ha. But this week was really good and I hope you will pray for our investigators. Thanks for the emails
Love Starjesina Stuart      

Jordan also hit his 10 month mark today!!! Please continue to keep him in your prayers. 

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