September 15, 2014 - In which we have District Conference

Dear family,

There were a couple of really exciting things that happened last week here! We met a man, P, who would be perfect for this branch. He is a family man with business experience, a car, and would be able to fill a leadership position in the branch. Friday night we were able to visit him at the pizzeria which he owns, where he told us most of his life story. He's very considerate and hard-working, and he would just be great. We weren't able to share much of a message then, but he's really excited for us to return to talk more about what we believe!

We also had a couple of exciting lessons with some less-active members. Sister Ř, one of them, opened up to us really well when we were over for lunch. She talked a lot about her concerns and her and her family's story about how they met the church, their missionaries, and why they're not going right now. She was was very open with us, which is fantastic because that means that we can help! With another less-active member, O, we've been talking for the past several weeks about the Temple and the "Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple" pamphlet. Yesterday we made a list of things that are between her and the Temple. She's excited to plan with us on how we can overcome them. It was really positive!

Last month at our training, President McConkie gave a section on perfectionism that was truly just inspired! It feels like almost everything that I've been learning since then has basically been in relation to that. As we all know I am a huge perfectionist, but I think the Lord sent me to České Budějovice to burn that out of me :) I've been working to hard to be more patient and forgiving, and I think each experience has made me more Christlike.

Saturday we had just the funniest day. We had planned to go out to serve one of our member's friends at their cottage. (As a little bit of background, many, many Czechs own apartments in the city and very tiny, old cottages in the country. As a little more background, Czechs HATE being out in the rain.) We were planning to only be out there for three hours maximum, serve a lot out in the yard, and then continue home to work for the remainder of the normal day. Unfortunately, however, it was raining. Our hosts forced us to stop working and then we proceeded to experience Czech cottage eating. Instead of working outside, we were set to work in the kitchen, where we took about an hour and a half to slice up fresh forest mushrooms that the Sisters collected. We then took another hour and half to eat, and another hour and a half for all four missionaries to clean. It wasn't ideal, but it was very Czech! Then we went home and went to District Conference, which was wonderful!

I'm about out of time, but lots of love from over here.

Love,
Elder Boyce