[Dear family and friends, here is Joseph's letter from this week. We hope you are all doing well. Things have turned to Fall here in Michigan. Fall is a beautiful time in our city! We are getting ready to participate in the River of Time -- which is a historical celebration in our town where different group represent different parts of our U.S. history. Our group is representing the U.S. Mexican War of 1846. This year we are adding some Mexican elements to our presentation about the Mormon Battalion!
If you have any messages for Joseph, pass them along and I will forward them to him.
Much love, Joseph's editor - BWS]
So this is the week's update:
This week we taught Brother J, our new investigator from last week. He is doing well and accepted the message and a baptismal date well. Unfortunately, the day after we invited him to be baptized he got a job in Germany (which is outside of our mission boundaries). He left yesterday for Germany and we are in the process of referring him to the missionaries in Germany. I am really excited for him, even if other missionaries are going to be the ones teaching him. Unfortunately, it will be harder to get so many member lessons this week, but we have lessons on our schedule and I am excited to teach them. For a while Brother J thought my first name was Elder, which reminded him of Haldir from the Lord of the Rings. He thought it was a cool name. I think I should stop telling people my name is Elder, it may not be the best since when someone asks for your name in Czech, they want your first name, not just your name in general. He is way cool though, and I think he thought it was funny at the end.
We also taught Brother D, one of the other new investigators from last week, who is currently preparing for baptism. He has just finished studying in college and is quite busy, and so making time for us is difficult, but he does sincerely want to know that these things are true and I think he understands that he will need to make the effort to come to understand. He knows he needs to read and pray, but this week we will need to teach him about the Sabbath and how he must begin attending church if he really wants to receive a witness of the truthfulness of our message. President Svoboda is planning to teach with us tomorrow and I think the lesson will go well.
So, I had been getting a little proud here in Jihlava, and yesterday I think I received the spiritual side-effect of pride. We were dogged several times [people missed their appointments], then it started raining, and I started feeling rather discouraged. However, Elder Weaver kept going well, and we taught one man we met on the Naměstí [I'm not sure what this is] and then had a wonderful lesson with the recently baptized family here in Jihlava. I came home feeling great. I realized that I need to remember that is not me, nor is it my companionship, who is doing the work here, but that it is the Lord's work and that I cannot be using it to gain glory or recongnition for myself. I need to keep working hard, of course, but I do need to return the credit to Lord. I am just the tool (I personally like to think of myself as an ax, strong, bold, sharp and powerful, but that is just a sidethought). The Lord is the Master.
We had a really good zone conference last week and came home very pumped up for the work. We are going to be reading the Book of Mormon together as a misison, ten pages a day, planning on finishing at the end of the transfer, which is the end of the first week of November. I am already enjoying it and very excited for this month, and for general conference.
Well, I am having a blast. Jihlava is wonderful and I am very happy to be back in this district.
Until next week,
and with love,
Elder Schindler
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