This week, as you all remember, was Easter! In the Czech Republic most of the traditions are Catholic-based (plus a bit of paganism), so they have Green Thursday (I had admittedly never heard of that before coming here), Good Friday, White Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday. It's a bit different than in America. Most of the religious associations are about the same as in America, but they certainly don't have an Easter Bunny. Here on Easter Monday they bring out braided whips that the boys carry around and then they can whip the girls in exchange for painted eggs! It's pretty different.
Easter here was very good, though. During Sacrament meeting yesterday the Bells both gave good talks and President McConkie visited HK for Sacrament Meeting, so he also gave a great talk.
We have been extremely busy this past week! This week we've been really striving to hit 20 lessons taught in a week, because we were promised by a member of the area presidency last year that if an area can teach 20 lessons in a week, their baptisms and success will hugely increase. Yesterday after church and correlation were over we had 19 lessons, and we really wanted to hit 20. We were out all day tracting and trying to visit less-active members. We had no success until 8:40 pm when we met this man in a park. We talked with him for a little bit, and he didn't seem particularly interested, but eventually we asked if we could take about ten minutes to explain the basics of our message. Surprisingly he agreed, we shared the message of the Restoration in ten minutes there in the middle of the park, left a brochure with him, and then were back in the apartment just on time! It was a miracle, but it was also a great reminder of the help we receive in trying to meet worthy goals. (Also for an important aspect is that we didn't just focus on the number; we wanted to help one more person come closer to Christ.)
Behind that we've also been quite busy trying to help our baptismal dates, P, B, P, and V prepare for baptism. I wish I had time to talk about each of them, but we had a particularly great lesson with V in trying to help her recognize the Spirit and answers to her prayers. It was great!
I feel terrible that I don't have time to write more about HK, the people here, more things that happen each day, and everything else, but please know that I do think about you! I hope you all have a happy week and know that I'm praying for you.
Love,
Elder Boyce
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| A view of (not the main) náměstí right outside our apartment and near the church building. The yellow is the Catholic Kostel Panny Maria and the big brown one in the background is the Catholic Kostel Ducha Svatého. The tower with scaffolding is called the White Tower; they're in the process of making it white again! |
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| Detail of the Catholic Kostel Panny Maria |
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| Detail of Kostel Ducha Svateho and White Tower. The process to repaint the White Tower is quite interesting; they appear to be deconstructing it a bit because when I arrived there was a top part (that filled in the scaffolding entirely) which is entirely gone now. |
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| I don't know what this is but it was pretty cool! |
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| This is a plague column. They have them in most cities in the Czech Republic, most of them have the same few saints on them, but they were built to ward the Black Plague away from the city. |
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