August 3, 2015 - In which I have a Samuel the Lamanite moment

Dear family,

Last week went pretty well. We had some interesting ups and downs! We met some great people that were really nice, and at those times it was really easy to be a missionary. On Friday we had a funny experience where a lady was really apologetic as she was hurrying away from us for an appointment. We gave her a pass-along card, and she was so grateful and promised us to take a look as she hurried away. It was the most validating pass-along card handoff ever :) We met some other great people that we're set up with and we have a good-looking week ahead of us. We had some more difficult moments, though. For example where we were stuck in circles not being able to help someone understand that prayer actually does work or more than half of our current investigators going on vacation for two weeks and so on. Friday was a really difficult day, and it was difficult to keep going. We decided, to though, and as soon as we went back out someone threw beer at me from across the street. I felt like Samuel the Lamanite, though, because it didn't hit me and even though it landed right in front of me all that splashed on me was one drop! Even though this week has been difficult, it made me think that the Lord is definitely aware of me and not letting me go through something that I can't handle without His help. While there may be crazy or upsetting things flying around me, I still know who I've trusted.

I don't have time to go into too many details, but we did teach Sister D this week. We talked about having help from the Savior while changing, because she sometimes shares feelings of being overwhelmed. I think it was good, and it's great to hear her testimony. We hope that she'll make it to church next week.

We taught J on Tuesday. We had a great discussion about the Sacrament, why we would want to remember the Savior in the first place, and how we can remember Him during the Sacrament. He and M had some great insights about the Savior. He just needs to make his own decision to be baptized, but we're doing our best to help him.

We're working hard here in Zlín. We're praying a lot and always trying to fine-tune our finding and the other aspects of our work. Thanks for all of your love and prayers! I'm out of time, but have a great week!

Love,
Elder Boyce

The sunset on Thursday over downtown. We were coming back from tracting

Sunday after church we had a BBQ to send off our missionary. We made a lot of apple muffins, which were a hit! :)

The spread. We had an opekání like during my first week in Zlín. Behind me was the fire for us to roast špekačky (sausages).

The most gourmet fruit cake that the world has ever seen. M made it for our missionary.

Today we went to see this cathedral/former monastery, Velehrad. Every year thousands of pilgrims gather here because it has a connection to the patron saints of Europe, Cyril and Metoděj (I don't what there English names are), who introduced Christianity (and literacy if I remember correctly) to this end of Europe. I only got some exterior photos because photography inside wasn't allowed, but it was a pretty cathedral. There was an interesting exhibit about how many thousands of pilgrims even managed to gather here in 1984 during Communism despite lots of government opposition.

I liked this statue because you don't often see statues of the resurrected Savior here. The inscription is "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!" Matt. 11:28

July 27, 2015 - In which we go to Karlštejn!

 Dear family,

We had a great week last week! The beginning was really good and the highlight was definitely going to Karlštejn. I don't have too much time, unfortunately, to go into the nice details, but here's the rundown :)

Monday: P-day! Normal. We went to the gym for P-day. It was exciting.

Tuesday: We met some good people during the day while we were out contacting. We had a good lesson with D, though he didn't get to come to church this week :( Only one person came to each English class, but Elder Page and I both had really good experiences during English. I taught at beginners' an older man named M who came for the first time that week. After English we had a great spiritual thought where we talked about strengthening our faith in scripture. I talked about how I first came to know that the Book of Mormon is true, and how ever since then I have feelings from the Spirit whenever I read the Book of Mormon and the Bible. M is a believer that's always taken the Bible for granted, and had never really had a feeling from God where he said that he could know that the Bible is from Him. He didn't accept a Book of Mormon, but he said he wanted to try praying about the Bible and then is going to tell me how that goes :)

Wednesday: It was HOT. We wanted to meet with J and K again today, but they cancelled later in the day. We met some great people though when he had a table on the square. We also man met J, who was walking behind us on a bridge and was making fun of us on the phone to his friend. After he ended the call, he greeted us and found out that he's really interested to talk about faith. It was a great contact.

Thursday: Taught I, had service at Š, went to Olomouc in the evening to go to Prague on Friday, and a bird pooped on our phone!

Friday: Karlštejn! Karlštejn was great. I sent a lot of photos for the blog, but we had a great time commemorating the dedication of our mission. It was a special day because it was the 25th anniversary of the return of missionaries to the Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism. We in a sense reenacted the the original dedicatory service by having a picnic together, going up, hearing some testimonies, having a prayer, and coming down. We heard about how when Christ first called his apostles, that he would make them to become fishers of men, and by simply doing our best and participating fulling in missionary work, Christ would do the same for us. Fifty missionaries had to run to catch the train back to Prague :) We had endless delays getting back to Zlín and didn't arrive until almost ten.

Saturday: I had a twenty-four bug and we were stuck inside.

Sunday: Elder Page had a twenty-four bug and we were stuck inside, though we made it to Sacrament Meeting.

Monday: We went to the castle Buchlov! I sent a lot of photos, and unfortunately I'm really out of time. The pictures say it all :)

I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Boyce

The next few pictures were sent by Elder Page's mother!

Fourth of July preparations

Selfie! Daniel and his companion Elder Page

Elder Boyce is ready for the day!

Now for the pictures Daniel sent today...

This is some guláš I made a couple of weeks ago :)

A really interesting thunderhead that we saw when we were coming home from tracting.

The night before Karlštejn (so this last Thursday night) we stayed in Olomouc for the night. The sunset was great :)

Olomouc is so pretty

This is in the train from Prague to Karlštejn. The train was full of missionaries! It was a good time. On the way up I sat with my MTC group.

All of the missionaries hiking up the hill!

Then coming back down the hill we stopped at the city limits sign; Elder Page and Daniel.

The castle Karlštejn! This is the main tourist attraction in that town, but this is actually the closest I've ever been to it. The site where the dedication originally took place is more to the side.

Today for P-day we went up to this castle - Buchlov!

The castle.  We didn't go inside because it was really expensive and we didn't have time for a tour.

We were entertained by the unlikely spot in which this tree is growing!

Pretty!

That's real happiness :)

Whenever I see this kind of field I just have to do the Sound of Music pose!

Pretty flowers in the field!

We all had to conquer the hay bale, naturally.

The story behind the picture: On the way up to the castle we found these wooden animals and felt the need to take a stupid photo with them, so we did. Just outside the castle we stopped to eat at a picnic table before we went in, and I left my camera on the table (first time ever losing my camera). This was the most recent photo on the camera with people on it, and so by recognizing me from this photo I was able to get my camera back from the restaurant that the people who found the camera took it to. It's super embarrassing.

July 20, 2015 - In which I eat coffee (oops)

Dear family,

Last week went pretty well. Some funny things happened! When we were a visiting a less-active member with another member during the week, we got fed a cake full of coffee. We had no idea that there was coffee in it until we, of course, took huge bites, when we definitely knew. We weren't quite certain what to do with the remainder of the cake, and after a series of irrational thoughts the first idea that seemed good was to hide it down my sock. Which was also irrational. The second idea that I had was to eat the rest all in one bite as fast as possible, which is what I did. (I think that was also a rash decision because I spent the rest of the lesson freaking out that I ate coffee!) President McConkie assured us that we didn't sin, but it was a pretty funny experience :))

We had a pretty good meeting with J again after church yesterday. J and M invited us over for lunch and we talked about how despite the fact that the individual members of the Church aren't perfect, we can still know that we're led by a prophet with priesthood keys. It ended being pretty difficult for me, at least, to teach well but it was good because the Spirit was definitely present when we bore testimony and J said that the discussion helped him a lot. We also decided with him and M that we could pray every day together so that their daughter will be more tolerant of their decision to be a part of a church. We looked at each other's family photos and it was a nice visit.

We met with both Sister D and D V during the week, also. Those meetings went pretty well, though I won't go into detail at the moment.

We had some good experiences finding people that our branch needs. We've been dedicating days to finding particular people (for example on Wednesday we focused on finding a young man our age or so the whole day) and had some success. We tried some early-morning contacting and found a Catholic dad that is pretty eager for us to come over to his home and talk about the Book of Mormon and on the Wednesday when we were looking for a student-age man at the very end of the day we taught a group of five of them that are all friends a first lesson (three are interested in learning more, though we didn't get to set up a specific return appointment).

Things are going pretty well, overall. On the 24th of July we're all going up to Karlštejn like last year to commemorate the dedication of the Czech land for the preaching of the gospel. We're pretty excited, because it was really fun and uplifting last year! We'll get some good pictures :)

Thanks for all the support, help, and prayers!

Love,

Elder Boyce

July 13, 2015 - In which the assistants come for exchanges

Dear family,

Last week was pretty exciting! On Wednesday the assistants came for an exchange. On Thursday when we worked together each of our companionships taught eight lessons. We've been teaching a lot in general during the last week, more than thirty. Our exchange was a real testament of how much we can do in a day; we each had only two lessons set up beforehand but talk six from teaching people that we met. It was a great exchange and we saw how much the Lord placed people at every hand that we needed to talk to. I can't say all that happened because of time, but we met all kinds of people, and they definitely needed something from. We weren't able to set up with almost anyone that we met, unfortunately; many of the people that we talked to ended up not being interested to find out more, but we felt that at the end of the day we definitely were supposed to meet all of the people that we met.

I feel like we're really at the breaking point for something wonderful to happen here in Zlín. I think the day that we had with the assistants showed it, but also how hard it's been since the exchange. Since then it's been, I feel, harder than before to talk to people and teach but at the same time we've been finally able to set up with some more people to teach them. I feel like I've been talking to so many people that my head is spinning a little bit, but I think we're in a good place.

During the past two weeks the investigators that we have as a goal to get baptized this transfer have all been on vacation, but this week J J and J and K should be back in Zlin. We are really excited to meet with them! :) We're praying for miracles there.

We've also seen during the last week some good progress with S D. We had a lesson with her last week where we went through a spiritual self-evaluation. We adapted the questions that Elder Ballard asked during priesthood session of general conference we're he talked about raising the bar. We left that list of questions and later in the week she told us that she had looked at them and realized that there was a lot that she actually can do to improve herself. We walked her to church on Sunday, and she's doing well.

I'm just about out of time, but we're still pushing forward in the work here, because we have great things going on!!

Love,
Elder Boyce

July 6, 2015 - In which we mELT

Dear family,


Last week went well! We had some great experiences, especially while teaching J, D (a less-active member), and Sister D (another less-active member). We taught J last Tuesday and had a really spiritual meeting. He and M had some questions for us about the Atonement and grace, but it led perfectly into talking about his concerns for getting baptized. He's mentioned a small concern about being able to know whether or not the church all around the world is true because he can't possibly see every congregation, but he's shared with us that the bigger concern is the rift that he perceives that baptism would cause in his family. There's been some conflict with other family members already because of M's and A's baptisms and J doesn't want to cause a further problem with her, and so he doesn't think it's a good idea to be baptized until it calms down with her. We definitely understand his concern, but Elder Page and I feel after praying that he can get baptized in August if he wanted to. We told him and M this on Tuesday. They seemed to be thinking about it pretty deeply and commited to pray more about August.

Last Wednesday we taught Sister D and D. D is a potential Elder that is on the branch vision to be reactivated. We told him that we wanted to help him be ordained to be an Elder, and he started taking notes about what he needs to do. We set some goals with him so that we can help him come to church on Sundays. It was a good meeting. Sister D is an endowed member that recognizes that she's missing something spiritually but hasn't quite realized that she's missing church. Last week she seemed to come to herself a little bit, though, and we're excited to be working with her.

Last week we had some interesting days, some where we felt like we accomplished a lot, and some where we felt like we didn't as much. We're learning, though, how to testify more effectively and and be better. Yesterday we spent the whole day out contacting, but Elder Page and I both really enjoyed it. We set the goal to try to talk to every person as long as we possibly could, and going that extra mile helped us do much better overall. I felt the Spirit working through me as I tried to help people understand why Jesus Christ is so important for them. It was a great day.

I'm out of time, but I wanted to of course let you know that I'm doing well. We don't have any photos to send, just selfies of us melting because it has been SO HOT!

Love,
Elder Boyce

June 29, 2015 - In which we meet everyone in Zlín

Dear family,

Last week went really well! Elder Page and I have been teaching a lot. We're doing pretty well, though I don't have a lot of time to go into details, I'm afraid. Sending all of those photos took a lot of time.... :)

During the last week I was able to meet a lot of the members and some of our investigators. Thursday and Friday we had branch activities, which were really nice. I sent photos for the blog :) We're working right now with a great couple that Elder Page and Elder Yentes found, J and K, who would be great for our branch. They have two small children and last week ate up the message that we shared about the Restoration. They both are excited to learn and strengthen their little family. At one meeting before I got here J apparently shared a thought that it's importantly for one to everything once in a while step back and make sure that you don't need to make changes in your life, and that seems like the approach he's taking to learning about the gospel.

We're excited to also be working with J (another investigator). His wife and daughter have both been baptized during the last six months and we're working with him to make the same step. He and his family drove us to the branch activities that we had last week and we appreciated the time that we were able to spend with them. J, M, and A are great. J is already living exactly as a member would, he just hasn't made the decision to be baptized yet. From what I understand there is some family opposition that makes things difficult, and I think he's concerned about making his other family members upset, but other than that we think that the main thing holding J back from being baptized is simply the decision to do it :)

I'm enjoying working with Elder Page! He's very diligent and is great. The branch here is also wonderful, but I'm going to have to say more next week because I'm truly out of time.

Love,
Elder Boyce

Last Friday we also went an on approved trip out to Kroměříž to see some world-famous gardens with a part-member family that we're teaching and some other members. I took a ton of photos, but I'll try to send you the prettiest.​

Oooh

Aaah

We totally played tag in this maze!

Tree of life!

Pretty

Gorgeous

This is a famous shot (this is a UNESCO World Heritage Site)

It looks like we're really red because I left my camera on a weird setting for this photo. Elder Page and I!

Making svičková last Monday before I left Olomouc.

A candid photo of me making svičková.

The result (I was working on the sauce)

District conference in the hall.

​I tried to do a panorama of the crowd at conference and failed a little bit... we had a full house!

Our church building.

We have a Star Trek pulpit!

Last Monday on the way to emailing there was a HUGE cloudburst with sideways rain... our front halves got soaked!

​Elder Petersen and I leaving Olomouc, with the other missionaries, our luggage, and the branch president.

Elder Smith and I as I'm leaving :(

Last week a missionary that served here for a long time was leaving and his family picked him up. The branch threw a BBQ for them, and we went. It was a nice chance to be able to meet all the members.Here's some Czech BBQ for interest (plus some dessert!)

I've taken almost 100 photos during this week!!!!!​ Zlín is a very atypical Czech town. It was established in 1920 by Tomáš Baťa. He had his shoe factory here, and got people to come by building them these brick cubes. They are all over the city! Because it's so new there's very little traditional Czech architecture. In fact 90% of the city is the red brick and white that you see here.

Zlín!

Baťa cubes on the hill

​Our favorite old factory town

When we were tracting an older gentleman asked if we wanted some cherries. We said, "Sure," then he came and cut off three whole branches from his tree!! We weren't quite expecting that.

June 22, 2015 - In which I'm transferred and cry a lot

Dear family,

A lot has happened during the last week! I'm not in Olomouc anymore. I'm now serving in Zlín (pronounced Zleen) with Elder Page. I'm follow-up training again. I was really sad to leave; I loved the branch and the missionaries that I was serving with, but I'll talk a little bit about that later. Last week we also went to Prague for District conference. There were two sessions, one Saturday night that we watched in Olomouc through the Internet and one Sunday morning that wasn't broadcasted so we all went to Prague. We didn't become a stake, but President Kearon was there, and it was wonderful. Once again, I'll talk a little bit more about that later. As you know missionaries write their mission president every week, and so I write President McConkie everyMonday along with you all :) Most of the thoughts I want to share I shared in my letter to him, so I'm including a large chunk of it today:

"I have a lot of thoughts from the last week that I feel like I should share but can't quite glue together. There have been a lot of little things that have had a curious ring to them that make me feel like they're important.

"Sunday night was a really difficult night for me. This has been the most emotional transfer weekend for me by far. I've really come to love the people in Olomouc and the positive influence that it's had on me. I've felt that in Olomouc I've come to understand and love the Czech people more than ever before. I've been blessed by my association with the members and especially in being able to help L, H, and L make the covenant of baptism. Sunday evening I made goodbye calls... and it was harder than saying goodbye to my family at curb of the MTC! [Sorry, family.] There were no tears there. I was pretty emotional most of the evening and at one point, while we were praying with L over the phone, I said to myself, 'I wish that leaving didn't hurt so much. I wish I could sever the attachments that I've made here without so much hurt!' I was worried that I wouldn't have any room in my heart left for Zlín and I wouldn't be able to serve them there. I realized, though, that that's not right, and that honestly I need to leave all the love that I have for Olomouc in my heart and I somehow knew that the Lord would make more room in my heart to love Zlín. Even know I think of how much I love Olomouc and know somehow that I'll be able to love Zlín at least as much as I love Olomouc. I think that this is an important lesson to learn, but it's been making me cry a lot.

"During the past few days I've been also learning really important things about the Savior. Saturday morning during personal study I read Mormon's account of the destruction of the Nephites. I was struck by his empassioned plea immediately after his account of this destruction for the Lamanites to believe that they're part of God's covenant people and for them to repent. He teaches them basic truths about Jesus Christ, that He is the Son of God, He suffered and died for our sins, He rose from the dead the third day, and because of Him we will live again and can be saved through our repentance. It strengthened my testimony of the Savior and it made me feel the importance of every person I meet knowing also that they are a part of God's family and about the Savior.

"District conference also taught me a lot about the Savior. It's always impressive to see how timely the messages giving during General Conference are, but the same thing was true during district conference. I loved the talks about living water and light, how we ought to forgive, and the importance of gaining a testimony of how Christ is at the head of the work. I felt spiritually fed by being there with all of our wonderful, wonderful members. One of the people that I baptized, P from HK was sustained to be ordained as an elder in the Melchizedek priesthood. I was so excited! I think I hopped about a foot out of my chair when I heard his name read. I felt at the conference that Christ is leading us.

"Elder Petersen and I had an exchange at the end of last week. It was a pretty good exchange, but we made some dumb mistakes in planning that were a good example of what NOT to do. We didn't exercise and felt like we were crawling through most of the day. We made some good goals to improve.

"It's so difficult for me to express why I think these experiences have been sticking in my mind and why they feel so important, but I think I'm seeing the Lord teach me what I need to be taught. I'm excited to be able to love the people of Zlín, to serve with Elder Page, to teach people about the Savior, and to work hard in the Lord's vineyard. I'm excited to improve, but I feel that the Lord is happy for what I'm doing. I'm praying that I can feel a sense of urgency in my chest, like Elder Holland said."

There's a lot more that I could tell you! This has been a wonderful week, and instead of the normal letter I wanted to share more about how I've been feeling. Olomouc is doing pretty well. It's in good hands. Our mission is down on number missionaries for the next several months, so our area was combined with the other elders'. (Eight Czech missionaries left the mission, plus I think six Slovak missionaries, and no replacements came this transfer. That's a big hit in a mission where eighty is maximum force.) Elder Smith and Elder Nelson are serving together, and Elder Petersen left for Prauge. L is doing well, though she didn't make it to conference over the weekend. Neither did H. I'm confident, though, that Elder Smith and Elder Nelson will do well to keep Olomouc strong. I'm excited to be here in Zlín. Elder Page and I have already taught a great family that they've found and I'm excited to be serving in such a great area. I've got some pictures that I'll want to send you of the conference and of Zlín, but that will have to wait until next week. I'm out of time again. Just now that I'm doing well and am happy and am to be here.

Love you!!
Elder Boyce