Relying on the lord

This week was pretty good! before I start my letter I'll tell everyone the big news, last Sunday I got appointed Zone Leader (Kind of). The old zone leaders left yesterday, but our branch president wasn't able to come to the MTC during general conference so he told us we would start being zone leaders one saturday since he couldn't be there and we had to check out the old zone leaders district. It was pretty scary and I was terrified at first, but it actually isn't super difficult. I've been Zone leader of Branch 46 for four days, but it feels almost the same as being District leader, just calm down, help everyone as much as you can, try to resolve conflicts as fast as you can, and make sure you know everyone. My favorite part of General Conference (Other than Elder Ballard talk about my dad's mission!) was the quote from Abraham Lincoln. In order to win a man to your cause, you must first make him think you are a sincere friend. I guess leading people isn't always about being someone's friend, but if you know them as a friend it makes it so much easier to help them solve their problems.

Anyways, just like last P-day I'll start with the big plates

Tuesday

So, everything started slowing down. This is the first day i really felt in the groove, which might have been bad because felt a little like I was taking it easy. David Baxton of the 70 spoke at the devotional, but i'll talk more about that later.We played basketball for gym which was a lot of fun and I got a letter from Travis (which was superrr exciting). I wore a crazy tie and everybody loved it, but while i was singing in the choir the camera focused on me for what seemed like 100 years. Everybody made fun of me, and I was a little bit embarrassed, but I can't say that i hated the attention. I really love the choir director. We sang come follow me more about that later though!

Wednesday

Nothing really crazy happened  sadly. I fell asleep in class and i felt super bad about it. I realized that my French is improving though so that's good! We had a mock lesson with our teacher pretending to be an investigator and i felt okay about it, but not as great as I would have liked. I did realize that I need to start losing myself in the work more though!

Thursday

Thursday was amazing, We had TRC which is basically talking to real members and teaching them a lesson in French. The first person we taught (his name was Michael strangely enough) i didn't really understand. He had gone on his mission to Toulouse, but other than that Elder Baldwin did most of the talking (he's pretty good at french). The second lesson we had though was with a lady named sister Woods. She had served a spanish speaking mission, but the MTC didn't need any Spanish volunteers. She wanted to volunteer so badly that she taught herself French. She was amazing and her French wasn't that much better than me and Elder Balwin's (we all spoke like small children), but i felt the spirit really strongly and so I LOVED it! we also shot each other with hornets, which are basically folded up paper shot with rubber bands. It was a lot of fun, but Im pretty sure i have several welts. It reminds me that as much as the spirit oozes out of every corner of the MTC, we're still 18 year old boys who just need to have fun every now and then. We keep each in check though, so there's fun, but we also keep each other in check.

Friday

Friday was also amazing. The first part of the day was a blur, but at the end we did mock street contacting. For one of the scenarios I got to choose what kind of investigators i wanted to be. I chose to be a Frenchman with a girlfriend and a baby. It was really funny, but it was also a little bit sad. After I pretended the teacher told us that we would actually meet a lot of people that had children with girlfriend. It was kind of a sobering moment. It was also sad because we combined with the West-Indies District who were also the zone leaders. I knew it was probably the last time I would really get to talk to them since they would be busy packing up before they left on Monday. It was an awesome day, but it also made me realize that France is going to be full of people who need the gospel, but have a lot of problems and that many of the people I know here in the MTC who are amazing I might never get to see again.

Saturday and Sunday

General Conference all day, it was spiritual, inspired, and amazing, but i don't have time to talk about it all. If you didn't watch it, watch it. It was one of the best ones ever! At the end on Sunday we had a devotional by VOCAL POINT! They were amazing and I'm sure everyone already knows who they are (BYU's amazing singing group). And that about wraps it up

SPIRITUAL STUFF!

Alrighty, spiritually this week was pretty fulfilling, but i don't think anyone could be in the MTC and not think so.

1- Elder Baxters talk on the Godhead was amazing and it actually really cleared up a lot of questions i had. I know that in Europe it will be a tough topic to talk about and so I'm really glad to get as much information on it as possible.

2- Choir. We sang Come Follow Me. I LOVE THE CHOIR DIRECTOR! he's amazing. He always puts a spiritual message to every song we sing and for this one he talked about missionaries singing this song. As much as it sounds like Christ is the narrator, he's not. The song is about missionaries bringing others unto Christ and it is absolutely 100% sweetness to hear about missionary's when you're a full time missionary. I wish i could share the choir directors message as well as he told me, but all i can say is that i know that Christ calls missionaries to bring others to him.

3- Being a leader means relying on the Lord. As difficult as i thought it would be, the lord makes it easy. I kept hearing during conference to cast your burdens on the lord because his burden is easy and his yolk is light. It really is true. regardless of what we do or how hard it is, we can accomplish anything through the lord. I thought that waking up earlier for Sunday meetings or being in charge of a lot of people would be a trial, but really it's been a blessing and I know that through the lord I can only grow stronger and help more people. Missionaries always come home better people than they left, but I'm starting to realize that it's because they don't seek to change themselves, or at least if they do seek to change themselves then it's only so that they can help others. Maybe that's the secret to life, just try to help others and maybe by doing that we help ourselves. Love you guys, keep writing because I've never thought a small piece of paper or a tiny email with two sentences could ever make me so happy.

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Everything Magnified 10X on a Mission

AHOJ MOJE RODINA A KAMARADKY!

 

This has been the hardest week thus far of my mission. Which seems silly because I'm only in the MTC... but I have found out that everything is magnified by 10x on your mission. Your spiritual sensitivity, your emotions, even your HUNGER!

 

I have been feeling really frustrated with myself because I haven't been learning the language. Czech is hard. It's really really hard. But not just that, I feel like sometimes my priorities are out of wack! Which was hard because I don't want to waste a single second wasting time on myself. I have realized this week that this time in my life, my mission, is so great because my relationship with God has been magnified by 10x. Every emotion that I am feeling I know has been for my benefit. As hard as it has been, and as much as I have cried, I have learned so much. And I am trying so hard to remember the motto Joy in the Journey. In the temple today the lyric "I am weak but thou art strong" kept going through my head. I can't even remember what hymn that is from... I hope it's from a hymn... I think? But it reminded me of the scripture Alma 26:16 "I will not boast of myself but I will boast of my God" I don't have much to boast of. My Czech is spatny (bad), my knowledge is incomplete, but I will boast of God because through him and his love, I can became perfect. HE SENT CHRIST FOR US! AND JESUS WANTED TO COME! Isn't that INCREDIBLE! Please don't ever forget that. I have been trying so hard to remember that every second because I have found that when I think about Jesus and all he has done, I think less about myself, and that is a wonderful feeling!

 

 I'm trying so hard to be like Jesus. On Sunday during Relief Society we got to hear from Janice Kapp Perry (the one who wrote that song, and As Sisters in Zion, and A Child's Prayer, etc) And guess what??? She rewrote the lyrics to As Sisters in Zion and now it's called the Sisters of Zion and it's about the mission age changing and about sister missionaries. We were the first ever to sing it! It was beautiful. It talked about how angels will be with us as we share the message of the restored gospel.

 

On tuesday we got to hear from ANOTHER apostle. Elder Russell M. Nelson. It WAS SO AWESOME! He said the same thing.How we can ask people who have passed on to help guide us with the work. We can pray for angels to help us. I know all of you can pray for angels too.

 

It's been a really hard week for you it sounds like and I just want to let you know how much I appreciate all of you! I know if you pray that angels will comfort you. You can feel comfort and security in their arms. If you are feeling lonely or sad PLEASE PLEASE pray. I am so silly. All this time I thought I had to do stuff alone, but it's not true. Heavenly FAther will help you and Jesus Christ will help you. In TRC we taugh a brother and he asked what if God doesn't answer my prayers. I thought about it for like a whole minute and then I said, Modlite se vic protoze Buh dava odpovidet a s jedna odpovidet, vy nepamatuji nic. (Pray more becasue God gives answers and with one answer you will forget everything else) That is how wonderful God is. One answer to your prayers and you can forget your other troubles.

 

And if you really need a laugh just imagine me, probably the goofy-est little girl on the whole planet trying to speak Czech... It sure makes my teachers laugh. And you know what, it's great to laugh! It feels really good. Men are that they might have radost (joy)!

 

Here's my testimony in Czech. I want to share it with you because I love you. Hopefully you can learn something from it!

 

s laskou

Sestra Bruno

 

P.S. I got my travel plans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

SLC to Chicago

Chicago to London (Hethrow)

London to Praca!!!!!

 

CAN YOU BELIEVE I LEAVE THE MTC IN 10 DAYS?!?!?!?!?! UNREAL!!!! I miss you all. Can't wait to talk to you on MAY 27th!!!

Training New Missionaries at the MTC

AHOJ Rodina a Kamaradky!

 

I figured I would just write to all of you about my week because I have been running out of time lately. Hopefully I will be able to send some of you individual e-mails too! Sorry if I don't!!! I'll try to do better next week.

 

This week in the MTC=SO GREAT!

 

We had mission conference on sunday which was so awesome. Some of the topics addressed were reverence and how to become a rescuer. Since being in the MTC I don't think I really thought much about reverence. I figured oh yeah we are in the MTC, it's reverent. But then I realized that sometimes it's really hard because I still want to participate in the things of the world (not singing is probably the hardest part) and plus our district and zone are so close so sometimes we just get really crazy and loud. Reverence is so important in feeling the spirit though. I am definitely starting to tell the difference of when the spirit is strong and when it is just present and reverence has a lot to do with it!

 

Our MTC president talked about how we will have the opportunity to become rescuers and how we should cherish that. I hope that sometime this week all of you will take time to talk to someone that isn't a member about the church. You all are probably better at it then me! We challenged the person that we taught this week at TRC to do it, and I want to challenge all of you to do it as well. Even if it is just mentioning that you are a member, or telling them to visit lds.org or mormon.org or you could just post a mormon message on facebook. The more people that see it, the better. I can't wait to go out and share the TRUTH! And the truth is that the church is true!

 

At this weeks devotional we got to hear from some really cool people. One of them was a former NFL player, Chad Lewis. Look up his mormon.org profile because he is so cool! We also got to be ushers. It was so awesome. I felt like a flight attendent.

 

We also got the chance to be the missionaries that help teach the new missionaries that come in every week. I don't know if they did this when you were missionaries but the first day when the new missionaries come they go in a big room and they teach a member, almost like TRC but with a big group. They start off with two missionaries though and me and my companion were those missionaries! It was soooooo awesome. One of the investigators was an amputee who had an amazing experience with God where he talked to him and heard his voice. His story was amazing. I was just glad to be in the room. I felt the spirit soooooo strongly. I can't wait until I am in the field doing this and expressing God's love for the people. They need to hear it because it's so true!!!

 

Also this week we get to be host for all the newbies at the MTC. I feel like a pro here. 9 weeks is a really long time I am figuring out. The language has been the biggest struggle this week. I feel like I don't know anything. still. Which has been hard because I think I am working so hard, but I retain almost nothing. NOT FUN! Czech is so crazy because there are these things called cases were every noun in a different situation changes the ending and every pronoun does it too. It's so hard, but so good. I am learning so much. and luckily I have two more weeks to learn more!!!!

 

I miss you all. Tell me about your life. Tell meyour summers. JUST TELL ME EVERYTHING!!!!

 

Love you all

s lasku

Sestra Bruno