True Friendship

Happy to be home after 20 hours of flying from Prague

Evan, Elder Nowland, Barrett

Elder Nowland and his Friends

Elder Nowland and Meredith

Welcome Home

Elder Nowland, Garrett, Brad

Last email

The Last Sunday in the Czech Republic

The last city

Elder Nowland

served in...

Ceske Budejovice

Eva

Matejckova

and Elder Nowland

- she is his Czech "mom".

Her son served a mission in Arizona.

She sends pictures to us here at

home when he forgets.

She lives in Prague but went to

Ceske Budejovice to say goodbye

on his last sunday. We love her so much.

_______________________________________

Elder Nowland's last email home:

I have pondered over my thoughts, and what i should write.
I have erased three times already.

I love these people. I am not ready to leave them.

I have learned to love their great qualities and learned to help them in their weaknesses and appreciate the progress that they make. No one can replace your family. But it is also very difficult to replace the people that you have served for the past 2 years of your life. A human heart in all honesty and truth grows close to the person/people that it serves. I stand by what i wrote last week, that if anyone needs to strengthen a relationship or overcome bad feelings towards another, then they need to serve that individual.

I love these people.

I have my second family here.

Serve those in your branch or ward and i promise that those people will become your second family. That is why we call each other brother and sister. We are family. If we dont feel that way, then let us pull up our socks and get to work serving.

I cant wait to see you. The flight home is going to be very difficult for me. I am going to be lost in thoughts of sadness and joy.

I love you all.

(p.s. they cant take my tag away from me. I will fight to the death for it.)

-- Starsi Morgan Nowland

I have been contemplating what I should write about from this past week. Since I have left the city of Liberec I have heard fearful stories about back biting and hatred mixed in among the members of the branch in that city. As I reflect on my time spent there in that city I feel a lot like Paul. When I was there we taught with the members a lot and saw much progress not only in the increase of membership but also in the increase of spirituality of the members. I'm not sure what has happened to cause the current circumstance. Yet whatever caused it my heart is pained because of the fact that I am seeing the warnings that Paul gave in his letters to Rome and Corinth and others, coming to life in that city and others.

If there is any voice of warning that I could raise it would be to Fight against Satan and his apostate ways by turning our minds and hearts unto God. The First and great commandment as taught by Christ himself is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart. The second is like unto it, Love thy neighbor as thyself. When I think about the word love I see happiness and joy I see pure understanding, I see patience and compassion. And most of all I see service. If there is anyone in our lives that causes anger to rise within our hearts, if there ever comes a time when we say to ourselves, “why can't they stop being selfish, why won't they stop thinking about themselves all the time, why won't they just understand that what I'm saying is right and better for both of us?” If that time ever comes I would share a piece of advice that I have learned this past eight weeks...something that I had to do myself and will have to continue doing. Stop sinning in your heart and repent for not keeping the commandments of God. Loving our neighbor is a commandment given directly from God spoken by the lips of the Savior Himself. This is the second most important commandment of all the commands given to us by God. I testify that if we can't learn to keep this commandment in this life, then by what hope do we expect to be able to handle the responsibility that is going to be given in the celestial kingdom?

Can you imagine the frustration to watch your children go in and out of belief and obedience. To give them a great sign...They change and praise your name...then they forget the experience and break the commandments losing the Holy Ghost...and finally they fall complaining that You have abandoned them. God watches this process over and over, yet he remains full of love. The best way to love is to serve. Let us be ever engaged in looking for ways that we can serve our enemies. It is a difficult task because it requires one of the greatest and most pure emotions contained within the human body, Love. If we think that we know what love is then let us go and serve those that cause us the most pain and grief and stress in our lives. I believe that one of the greatest causes of apostasy in any time period is the failure to keep these first two and greatest commandments. Love God and love your neighbor (whether friend or enemy). I look forward to the day when I can say that I have an absolute and pure love for everyone. Until then I will have to give thanks to my Savior for the Atonement He performed because I will be using it until that day comes.

Read the scriptures they are inspired. I testify of that.
Family i love you so much and am so excited to see you again but until that time arrives i will serve the Lord with all my might here in the czech republic. Tell all those who commented last week, thank you for their kind words. With those words they have strengthened my desire to continue faithfully to the end.

-- With LoveStarsi Morgan Nowland

1 Feb 2010

Alright so i have to start by telling you about a miracle that happened just last night. So this whole week we have been putting some effort into finding new investigators. The other companionship gave us a challenge to find 4 new investigators. We received that challenge on tuesday. on wednesday and on sunday we were in prague. We come back on sunday evening to ceske budejovice without any new investigators. We had a great experience when we brought a young man in off of the street and taught him in the church building. Unfortunately he did not know his schedule for the following days or even for the coming week so we were unable to set-up the next meeting. I was getting really nervous by about 18.00 when our plans to visit a family were hindered by the fact that the family wasn't home. I was nervous and the time was ticking. At 19:00 sunday evening we went to visit our baptismal date Karel at his work. When we arrived at the Panelok where he works as a security guard, he was talking to a lady. We asked her if she was a believer and through a series of events, we were led to a man the speaks hungarian. So we enter into the home of this man's family and Elder Horvath starts teaching him while i began teaching his wife and this lady that we met with Karel. It was a very simple and powerful lesson. We taught them the restoration of authority through Joseph Smith. We told them that there exists evidence of the fact that this man really is a prophet, The Book of Mormon. Mid-way through the discussion a man comes in and looks very displeased. He asks if we are Jehovah's Witnesses, we reply no sir, and he quickly shoots out,"then Mormons!" I nod,"yes sir we are, have you spoken to us before?" He told us that he has but doesn't want anything to do with us, he has his own evangelistic faith. It was pretty scary for a moment that the spirit and purposes of the meeting would be ruined. I asked him,"What about your faith brings you happiness?" He quickly mentioned that it saved him from a destructive life of alcohol and drugs. We then found out that this man has the same last name, Horvath, it broke down the barriers and we set up a time to return to teach more and prayed. We walked home that night with 4 new investigators.

I'm convinced that teaching boldly by the power of God is the most effective way to teach this gospel. As we water down the message and the doctrine, we water down the power of the Holy Ghost to carry this message to the hearts of the listeners. The message of the restoration is real and true. All the churches that have thus been on the earth since the death of Christ and his apostles have accomplished their purposes. Which were to maintain faith in God and Jesus Christ on the earth in the hearts of men until the time was again right, that a man could be prepared in faith to receive an elect calling to be raised up as a prophet of God and given the holy priesthood to not simply bring faith unto men but by that power bring salvation unto every soul that would believe.

This is the Last dispensation. We must prepare ourselves to meet God our eternal and heavenly Father. I love this Gospel i Love what i am doing, because i know its true.

-- With love, Your son,Starsi Morgan Nowland

p.s. thank you for being the greatest family ever! I am so glad that we will have eternity together. Stay faithful my family as i also strive to fulfil the commandments of God. We can conquer this life and see the Glory of the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He hast sent. Until next week.