Last week was an improvement over the week before. This week we had a a really difficult time staying organized because we had run out of time to have weekly planning the week before, but we still managed to make a recovery and even saw some more miracles last week.
J and E are both doing well. We met with J a couple of times last week and have started teaching the commandments. He is accepting them really easily; so far we've taught the law of chastity and the Word of Wisdom and we haven't run into any problems. He's still excited to get baptized on the thirteenth, and he also came to church for the first time yesterday! (He lives about an hour away, but we found some steady transport for him to get here on time every week.) He seemed to really enjoy Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School; he got out his laptop and started taking notes!
We were only able to meet E once last week because she was out of town for a work conference. We had a nice meeting in her home with Elder Žmolek and another member. There wasn't too much out of the ordinary with that lesson. Right now our main concern is her travel arrangements to church on Sundays. The first train into ČB from her village doesn't get her into church until 10:15 so she is not able to partake of the Sacrament and comes in late every week to the second hour (and we only have two hours in hour branch). The public transportation schedule has it's yearly adjustment in three weeks so we're praying that there will be some miracle and she'll be able to come into church every week on time.
We were blessed with some great finding experiences last week. On Wednesday we prayed just before we left the building to go contacting again to find someone that needed our help. We left our building and the second or third person we stopped was M. It was a pretty typical contact until she started crying randomly! She had apparently just left some of her friends who told her in a pretty vicious way that she wasn't cut out to study the piano (which is her dream), and two random foreigners being polite to her was too much. She soon collected herself, though, and asked us more about why we're here and what sort of message we have as missionaries. We sat in the entrance area of our building, and very soon J walked in. They (of course) knew each other from school and J started telling her how great it is that she met the missionaries. In short order after he walked in the Sisters, a member couple, and another member all walked into the building. I'm sure that it took Heavenly Father a lot of orchestrating to put this miracle together where M to be able to meet us, some of our most welcoming members, and J all at once!
We also had a miracle tracting out in a suburb of České Budějovice yesterday. We knocked on the door of this tiny tucked-away cottage on the outskirts and met J, who was outside getting his yard ready for winter. He invited us into his home, where he introduced us to his girlfriend J. They were very nice people, very interested in the gospel, and are excited for us to come back on Wednesday. I've never found a new investigator tracting ever before, but they were very pleased to meet us and will be great for the branch.
We are moving forward at a breakneck pace here in České Budějovice! V (the Ukrainian youth that walked into our building just before General Conference) has his baptism on this Saturday, our Christmas concert is Sunday, and we are already pretty packed with lessons this week. We are all really tired (and sometimes a little cranky) but we're doing well.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving this week! Saturday marks a year since I left Camarillo! That's really difficult to believe. IT HAS FLOWN!!!!!!!!
Enjoy the chocolate pie!
Love,
Elder Boyce
Note: Chocolate pie is our family's traditional Thanksgiving Day pie. Daniel has asked for me to send him the recipe as he is planning on making it for a dessert for their concert on Sunday.
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