January 26, 2015 - In which we have exchange miracles

Dear family,

We had a pretty good week last week. We saw a good number of miracles, especially when we had exchanges. I was with Elder Esser in the Zone Leader's area and we had a good time finding. We talked a lot with people about baptism and living prophets, and a lot of the people we met expressed interest in finding out more about baptism and how they can apply our message into their lives. We had a funny experience at the end of the night in an old communist apartment building. Someone miraculously let us in the bottom door and we started tracting. We found people that wanted us to teach them on every floor of the building, and we had time for just one more door. The man that opened the door immediately started yelling at us and saying that we were making a huge nuisance and that he was going to call the police if we didn't leave. We're supposed to leave the building when someone asks us to, so we made our way to the elevator. While we were waiting for the elevator this man held down the buzzer on his neighbor's apartment for twenty seconds or so until the neighbor came out, who also began to inform us that we had to leave the building or suffer the consequences! :) We made it into the elevator, but then the first man wrenched the door back open and asked us in raised tones if we were really leaving. We told him politely that if he would please let the elevator door close we would leave. It was very surprising and it might have been a bit discouraging, but Elder Esser and I both had a good laugh about it

In my area Elder Yentes and Elder Sylvester had some great miracles. We have a few first lessons set up for this week from that exchange, including with a family that was behind the first door that they knocked tracting.

We're working hard on trying to speak more openly about baptism and being more bold with our commitments. The people that we've been currently meeting with aren't all very serious about keeping their commitments or making time for us, and we feel like that this would be best remedied by essentially just being more bold and clear about what they need to do to live the gospel and why it would bless their life. We put a particular focus on that during a first lesson that we had on Friday, and the investigator accepted and understood everything really well. He had called us earlier in the week to remind us that we said that we could teach him more about the Church, and during our lesson he said he really wanted to know for himself if Joseph Smith's story and the Book of Mormon were true. Unfortunately he called us Saturday to tell us to forget about him and to delete his phone number, but during the teaching setting our clarity and boldness helped him a lot.

Yesterday B was confirmed a member of the church! She wasn't able to be in Brno the week after her baptism, so she couldn't be confirmed until yesterday. It was also Branch Conference, so she asked President McConkie to confirm her. She is doing really well.

Our area needs a lot of love and care right now. We need more people to teach! I'm hoping that I'll be healthy enough to keep on top of it. Yesterday after church I was starting to feel really feverish so Sister McConkie grounded Elder Yentes and I. Our landlord is a priesthood holder so he and Elder Yentes gave me a blessing. I didn't feel feverish anymore afterwards, but I'm still not feeling quite 100%. I should be feeling better soon, though. I want to have the energy to work hard! When our landlord gave me a blessing he also bustled around our apartment showing us all the homeopathic Czech treatments that we needed to follow. Examples: always have fruit or herbal tea in arm's reach, have EVERY stitch of clothing on yourself possible, and most especially eat honey mixed with grated onion (which is NASTY). I'm feeling better today, though. I should be back up to speed soon.

That's about all I've got time for! Lots of love,
Elder Boyce