Week 9 - Prague

Like the subject says this has been a highlight week! One of the best weeks of my mission! Besides having a pretty bad cold! Last Saturday we went and looked at a cool monument in Prague before heading to stake conference! It was here at the building and the general authority was visiting from England. He was about 40 and already a 70, had kids, served as a stake president for a while. Really powerful man! He gave a great talk about the atonement and how it is like kids spilling legos. Parents will always help us, and pick most of them up in the end but they try and teach the kids and help them. And that is what Jesus does. Like i said i was not feeling to great. Pretty sure i had a pretty good fever and so we went home but we had 6 extra missionaries staying at our apartment. It was a party!

Sunday we had the main session of conference. We waited at the building at 9 for an investigator. She didn't end up coming but about 30 foreigners came. We were like shepherds. Herding them all to stake conference at the conference center. It was a great conference, so fun to see so many members from all of my areas. We got to have lunch with the YSA and then had the inspirational night.

Monday was a holiday here so we had planned a trip with members and investigators to some really cool rock formations! Its similar to what Narnia looks like! Super cool! Way fun to be with some of the members. Tuesday was my birthday and we celebrated it with a meeting with president, followed by office meeting, followed by district meeting, followed by some finding and then planning our two trainings for this week. Wednesday we had a great service project and then we had culture night. We saw an opera which was alright! It was in the National Theater so it was worth it for the experience. 

Then Thursday up bright and early and off to Brno. We had the first training there. It was a different format than usual. The Zone leaders had us teach the restoration through the different trainings. So the sisters talked about God and who he is. How we can teach people better about our relationship. We gave a really in depth presentation about Christ's Church and how it is organized built and things with a million scriptures. The zone leaders talked about the apostasy and then president did it about Joseph smith. Presidents training was way cool! HE did a role play for the whole thing. And used a power point to teach us about how to teach and good things to do and it was really well done! 

After that training we headed to Trencin in Slovakia. Left our car their and headed with president to Presov. Had great Halusky on the way. Friday morning we had a meeting with president about transfers. Then all the missionaries from Slovakia arrived. We had a big service project in three places across the city and then we had a training there. We gave another training about the history of the church in these two countries, at the end we talked about presov. And how i got here. Its because that's where my ancestors come from and we talked about the gospel. It was a really spiritual meeting. The zone leaders followed it up with a great training about heart might mind and strength. Then president had a presentation with transfers he had each appear on the board until he announced who would get to open the city! It was pretty cool! Then we drove with president back to trencin and talked about every gospel topic you can think of! 

Today we got up and helped get things ready. Today we celebrated the 11th anniversary of Slovakia being dedicated for the preaching of the gospel. At 12 we raced back to Prague and got here at 4:30 because we had a baptism at 5! Kristyna got baptized! We taught her the first half and the sisters here the second! And we have transfers! I am staying here in Prague for my last transfer and I am serving with Elder Carlson. I served with him 3 transfers ago in Brno. Its gonna be a blast! It has been a heck of a week! Hope yours were good too! 

Love you!

Week 8 - Prague

This week has been a busy week! But great! Last Saturday the sisters had a baptism here in Prague which was great! She was from Mexico!Last Sunday we had a great day! Sacrament was all about Temple work and family history. Presidents brother gave the talk and taught really powerfully about how if we want a temple here we better get to work on getting names for the temple! Really cool. That afternoon we had a lesson with two girls in high school doing a project about our church and then at the inspirational nights there was a family from Utah. They lived in Sugar land when i was born and remembers Dad and Mom and Dad being in the stake presidency, They only had great things to say! It was a coincidence to be with them!.

This week We had a lesson with Michal about family history. He got really excited and was just going to town on family search. We spent a lot of time getting things ready for trainings. Wednesday was our zones training. If you have seen the Mormon message, the Hope of Gods light. The story is of Todd Silvester. His son served in this mission about 4 years ago and they were hear visiting. They came to zone training and shared more of his story. The video does a good job of explaining some things, but hearing the whole story was incredible. Just how bad he actually he was and how he changed and what changed was crazy. He taught a really cool principle of prayer from Mark 11:24. When you pray and ask God for something, in the same sentence thank him for giving it to you and go out and believe and know that he is going to give it to you. Tried it and it works! We gave a training about courage and talked about David and Goliath, and peter. Then we had an exchange after!

We had prayed to know What the person was going to be wearing that we were going to find. The answer was a red shirt. We prayed and asked to find him, and thanked him for finding him. Then we went out and talked to everyone. At one point we were in a park and a guy on a run was wearing a red shirt so we took off running with him but he didn't have interest. Then up in this hill was a lady sitting there wearing a red vest. We walked up and started to talk to her. She started crying and talking about how these things in her life weren't going well. We sat down and talked about God and Jesus Christ. We set up for the next day and she read the plan of salvation brochure. We gave her a Book of Mormon and shes coming to inspiration night on Sunday! Super cool! 

We had another training on Thursday. We gave a part about the history of the Czechs. And the church. I love this people and their story. How they made it happen. The gospel matters and is rolling forward. We had another exchange after that and have been busy.

This next week is going to be one of the fullest yet! We Have stake conference starting tonight and tomorrow. Monday is a big holiday so we are going on a day trip with members and things to Czech Switzerland, Tuesday we have meetings all day from the office, district and president, since its the last week of the transfer. It'll be a good birthday too! Wednesday is full and we have a culture night. Then out of Prague to Brno and then all the way to the east of Slovakia doing trainings and opening a new area for missionaries and then the dedication of Slovakia and back Saturday because someone we have been teaching with the sisters is getting baptized! And then mothers day! Things are going great! The lord is in the Work.

Love,