Week 36: WotW Gratitude

 Hello there :) 

I would like to write today about some things I'm really, really grateful for. 

1) I'm really grateful for my family who gives me so much love and support and encouragement. They are a miracle to me everyday and inspire me to work hard.

2) I'm grateful for amazing missionaries that I serve with. They are such good examples to me and push me to work harder and be better every single time I hear about their experiences or teach with them.

3) I'm grateful for agency :) God knows what's best for each of us. He puts amazing blessings around us every single moment and still He lets us choose whether to accept those blessings or completely disregard them. 

4) I'm really grateful for little pastries that you can buy at little grocery markets here in the Czech Republic. Yummy :) actually Sister Zernzach and I are doing a little lent deal where we don't eat sugar...it's been a little rough.

5) I'm grateful for the Holy Ghost and that it fills me with light and warmth when I hear truth. I'm so grateful when he speaks to people who we talk about Jesus Christ with. That's the most beautiful for me to see. I really can't even put into words how much I need the Spirit's influence in my life every day.

6) I am so, so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary. I don't know what my life would be without this. I feel like I learn more about others and the simple fact that they are Children of God. And I learn more about the human being God wants me to be. I know when I'm tired, the Lord carries me. I know Jesus Christ is always right here next to me. He sees me. Really sees me and sees my heart and desires and thoughts and the good and the bad and everything in-between and He loves me so much anyways. I don't even deserve it, but He gives it anyways. That is a miracle to me and I love Him with everything I've got inside me because of it. 

A miracle I saw this week was every chair filled in church yesterday. We had Ukrainian refugees and members to support them and families who haven't come in months and people smiling at each other and loving each other and it was beautiful. 

I love each of you. I hope your week is filled with moments of joy. 

Love, Sestra Call

We went to a pretty castle today and also to KFC 🍗

For St Patricks Day Sister Zernzach made four leaf clover PANCAKES YUM

Week 35 WofTW: Why 🤗🌞

 Ok, so here is some of my honest feelings. (Not that I don't share my honest feelings in my emails, but here's just a little nugget from my brain)

Every week, as missionaries we keep track of how many new people we meet up with to teach about Jesus Christ, how many of our friends who we meet with come to church, how many are progressing towards baptism etc. Every week we keep track of those things and we set goals so that we're motivated to stretch ourselves and be better. And it's a really good thing.

Well, I was stressing about this. I was thinking about how good of a missionary I am trying to be and I was thinking that, that meant we needed to have super great numbers. Anyone who has been a missionary before may understand what I mean. 

I had a little experience this weekend that was a miracle and reminded me once again that it's not about numbers.

So, our amazing friend Alžběta, has a hard life. Really, really hard. And she just had a family tragedy happen and honestly we were at our whits end because it seems as though Satan is working so, so hard on her at times. Or maybe she's one of the strongest souls ever and because of that she's going through the refiners fire. I truly don't understand. But here we were thinking, What can we possibly do for her to help and support her. She lives a far ways out of Prague and we'd never visited her before because she was more comfortable at the church. But, we asked if we could come on Sunday and she said yes. We had nothing we could give her except some origami flowers we made. So, we stayed up the night before and made flowers for her. we took our flowers and drove all the way out there and talked with her and pet her sweet dog and talked about how she'll see her brother again someday. 

And I think it really meant a lot to her. I think she felt that we love her. She smiled and told us she was grateful and it was the best we could do, so that's all we did. 

And it reminded me of why I'm here. I'm here to invite people to get to know Jesus Christ and to get to know Jesus Christ better myself. That means doing what Christ would do and He would take the time to go to His sister who was hurting really bad. And He would sit with her for awhile and tell her He loved her and that everything was going to be OK. And everything will be OK, because we have a Savior.

I feel like all these little things I'm learning are things I've already learned before, haha. But, that's how life is, I think. We learn the same lessons over and over again and God is really patient with us 😊💛

I love you all and I wish you a very happy week. A week filled with so many moments of joy!!!! I'm so grateful to be here. 

Sestra Call 🤠🌞

We went to a concentration camp about an hour from Prague. We got there with only a half hour before they closed but it was sobering to walk around even for a moment. 

We ate some chocolate to celebrate Sister Zernzach's 6 month mark on the mission.

P.s.s. for everyone that I haven't responded to in a very long time, I'm so sorry, p days have been crazy 🤦‍♀️ know that I love you and will soon

Week 33 & 34 WofTW: 1 Neph 14

 Hi 🌞😊💛🤗

This week zipped by so, so fast. We made a lot of plans and were excited about them and then a bunch of them didn't work out, hahaha. I need to be a lot better about taking that and rolling with it 🤷‍♀️ I was reading about Nephi in The Book of Mormon. His family was traveling in the wilderness and having such a difficult time. There wasn't enough food and they were all living in tents and nothing was working out the way they wanted it to....(sounds familiar, eh?🙃)

That's when God helps them out. It says that He strengthened them to be able to eat the wild food and He strengthened the woman who had kids in the wilderness that they would be strong enough to take care of their kids and do all they needed to do. 

I like this a lot. A lot, a lot. A. Lot. 

God didn't take any hardship away or solve any problem, but He made them strong enough to be able to withstand the circumstances they were in. He does that for me, too. At least, when I reach out to Him in those hard moments and ask for His help.

I just wanted to share that :)

Here are some miracles this week. Also, I feel so sad that when you read one sentence that I write, you can't really feel anything because you don't get to hear the millions of other sentences in explanation of each situation and person. Because that's just not possible to write in a little email and also, we each have our own experiences for a reason :) and so everything is ok in the end. 

But, one day we had a lesson with amazing Aneta. Amazing note-taking Aneta who wants to be baptized in the river 🙏 anyways, we ran super, duper late and we prayed that trams would come and literally, every tram came so perfectly and we were late to our next appointment!!! BUT waayy less late than we should've been :)

Our friend, Amen, came to church for the first time in 2 months and he inspires me so much and we were so happy to see him again. He has such pure faith.

One of the members of our ward, Nina, gave us cake and sandwiches three different times this week. I know she has a mansion in heaven being prepared for her, seriously. 

Tonight for YSA family home evening we watched the concert version of Lamb of God. It was really special. I cried a lot. And that means I felt the Spirit a lot. And it was a miracle to me. There's a song that is sung all about hope. And how hope is here because of Christ. He is hope and He is life. I was sitting there watching this song play and as I'm writing these words right now, I feel just as strongly in my heart that, that is true. I know Jesus Christ lives and loves me. I know that with all of my heart and I love Him. I can't bear my testimony in a fancy or beautiful way over a small email that properly communicates how grateful and honored I am to know who Christ is in the smallest ways that I do, but I do. And I can't ever deny that. He has made me who I am today and because of Him, I can be a better Sestra Call tomorrow.

I love you all a lot and I hope your week is filled with light and moments of joy. 

Love, Sestra Call

-We went to a beautiful place called Karlovy Vary today and it has a bunch of natural hot springs that you drink (it was really gross, tasted like turtle or egg...) but! They sell all these cute mugs that you use to drink the spring water. I got an elephant one🐘🐘🐘

-Some vegetables and egg from a Korean restaurant...it was suppose to come with a sauce that made it Korean food but the sauce was hot so I didn't put it on because I am not good at spicy food...so, I ate some vegetables

-sister Zernzach and her mtc companion Sister Shumway who is not Sister HAGBERG's companion, what? 😊🥳🌞🤗🥸🥰