September 21,2015 - In which it gets brisk

Dear family,

This week also went pretty well. We've been working really hard and have been putting in a lot of effort!

The Lord has been sending us lots of little things to help us know that we're on the right path. For example, yesterday a member took us on a visit to a very ill less-active member in Hulín to give him a blessing. On the way home we transferred in Otrokovice (the city that shares borders with Zlín and shares the trolleybus system) and we were about to get on a trolleybus back to the center of Zlín but we remembered a less-active member that our branch president had wanted us to try to find that we had never been able to look for because we're almost never in Otrokovice. We tried to go looking for him but we got dreadfully lost on the way. We finally found the (extremely long) street that we wanted but we had no luck finding the correct address. We met this nice, old Seventh-day Adventist lady that was out riding her bike. She stopped and asked us if we were Mormons and got to talking for a little bit. After she found out what we were doing she decided to help and rode ahead to see if she couldn't find the house number that we were looking for on her bike. She left and we soon saw her again. She hadn't found the number but she talked with us for awhile again as we headed back the way we had come. She invited us to come to her church (and we of course invited her to ours). She gave us some candies and we headed back the way we came.

We eventually miraculously found the right address (we had missed it the first time), and the name of our less-active member was on the bell. We tried ringing him a couple of times, and then with time everyone else in that apartment building. No answer. We were starting to write a note for him before we left but then the son of the landlord came and told us that our less-active member didn't live there nor had he for a few years. He didn't know where he had gone and we started to leave. We went around the corner of the house and saw an older, bearded man with long, gray hair and no shirt leaning out the window. We asked him if he knew our member and he seemed to know where he had moved to! He gave us directions to a new address near the bus stop where we could catch a bus back to the center of Zlín (by now it was about 4pm and we still hadn't eaten any lunch). He didn't live there or in any of the surrounding buildings, and we had a whale of time trying to get around, but we were grateful for all of the people that had been placed by the Lord in our path.

We weren't able to teach J again this week. He didn't come to church, either, yesterday. We're concerned for him but we're not certain what to do to help him. M was at church and said that he wasn't able to come because he needed to help K before she left for school in Prague later that day, but we hope to be able to see him again soon. He's so close to being baptized, but we just want to be able to talk to him again properly about what's going on.

There were some exciting developments in our branch last week. A member, E, came home from her mission last week. She spoke on Sunday and our branch was SO EXCITED to see her. There was a buzz in the air all of Sunday from her presence. After church we had our first correlation meeting with Brother Š in his new calling as branch mission leader. E asked if she could sit in and she was a huge help. During the last week in 12-Week Elder Dean and I have been watching training videos from the District about working with the branch specifically and during correlation we tried to bring up some ideas about how we could work together (for example that we could send him miracles once every couple of days through text) and when Br. Š didn't seem to quite get what we were going for. E leaped right in and talked about how much working with the members helped her during in her mission. We had talked about a promise that President Hinckley said that if we would work more closely with members our mission work could double in rate, and E talked about how in her last area that promise was literally fulfilled during the course of two or three months. E being there in correlation and otherwise made a big difference to the members, because instead of these ideas coming from just the missionaries or President V it came from one of their own. We've been struggling to work with some of our members lately but I think that E will make a difference in our branch through her example.

Sister D is still doing pretty well. She was at church yesterday and E told us that during Relief Society she mentioned that we had given her the idea to get visiting teaching going again in Zlín and she was apparently really excited to work to get that going again. I think that as we continue to visit her we'll be able to help her move toward activity, but I think her new calling is perfect for her to move along.

Love you!
Elder Boyce

PS Dad mentioned that you're trying to get a family mission plan going... Good work! :) Don't forget the most basic thing in missionary work is loving the person that you're talking to. Don't stress about what you're going to say to someone, just try to love your neighbors and friends and you'll know what to say.

PSS I realize I haven't sent any good photos in a while... I'll try and send some good ones during the next week :) I got some cool new sweaters today (it suddenly became fall!) and maybe I'll send some photos of me modelling them (because I know that's what you all really want to see ).

September 14, 2015 - In which we're given talks and get looking for people

Dear family,

Last week went well! We put a big focus on trying to work with members and helping our branch get excited about missionary work. Last week I mentioned that we had some interesting conversations and we felt like there was something we needed to do to spark excitement in missionary work. Elder Dean and I had a strong feeling that we needed to talk to the branch to share something about enthusiasm, and so last Tuesday we called our branch president and talked to him about it and told him that we wanted to talk to the branch about it. He was excited for us to speak, and gave each of us talks yesterday. He told us that we could take the whole sacrament meeting if we wanted to, and that he would fill time afterwards. Elder Dean shared a thought for about five minutes and then I took almost the rest of the time. I talked about how love for the people around us gives us the ability to see what can happen in the lives of our friends and families and gives us the enthusiasm to try to keep serving even when things are difficult. I'm not certain what kind of effect the talk itself will have, but President V was grateful that we did that. We're trying hard to try to get things set up where we can teach with our members, but we were blessed with opportunities to serve with a member couple and teach Sister D with them afterward. We feel like we're at least making progress on trying to get working with our branch more often. Elder Dean and I at the beginning of the transfer both felt that we need to put work with the members up at about the same level of priority as helping J get baptized and Sister D reactivated.

Speaking of them, we STILL weren't able to meet with J but he was at church and we had a chance to at least chat with him and M after English. We're itching to talk with him because we haven't been able to have a proper sit-down lesson with him in quite a while, but we're praying that an opportunity will finally go through. We know that he knows that he needs to be baptized and he says that he knows, also, so we're just trying to help.

We had a good lesson with Sister D on Friday. We felt that we needed to talk about service and callings, since we figured that's something else that she needs to be reactivated. It was a good lesson, and we taught with M and V, members who moved recently into the branch from Olomouc. We were going to invite her to ask to be a visiting teacher on Sunday, but during the lesson that ended up not working out to invite her, (because we found out that visiting teaching isn't functioning right now in Zlín ) and so we changed the commitment to something else related to service. We were REALLY surprised, though, because Sunday she was sustained to be a counselor in the Relief Society presidency. We had no idea she had a calling coming already. There's still a road ahead of us to help her be reactivated (she wasn't at church to sustain herself in her new calling), but we're excited for the progress there by her accepting a calling.

Overall we feel that things are going well here in Zlín. Elder Dean is still doing well. His Czech is improving, but I'm trying to find more ways to help him get integrated into the conversations that are going on around him because he feels like he gets lost. I'm kind of struggling how to involve him more in that way, but overall he's doing well and growing and he loves our members a lot. We're looking high and low for people on our branch, and we found a couple of people last week that are according to it. We're just trying to keep adding to that!!

That's pretty much everything that's been going on, but we're doing well and are happy :)

Love,
Elder Boyce

Out favorite missionary!

Just a bit lost...Daniel is the one with the map!

September 7, 2015 - In which we want to spread some vision around

Dear family,

Last week went well, like always we've been working hard and are seeing good from it. We taught more last week than we did the week before and though a lot of things fell through, we were still almost always able to find someone to teach by searching in the area where we were going to teach in the first place. We're trying to get some gears in place and some people preparing for baptism!

Unfortunately last week J wasn't able to meet with us, he came to English, though and it was nice to see him there. He didn't come to church Sunday because he wasn't feeling well, but we hope to be able to see him again this week. We fasted about how to help him and to a certain degree we feel like he needs to come to baptism himself, but we want to encourage him this week to perhaps get a calendar out and start praying about dates so he'll have a goal that's his.

We also met with Sister D last week. She's doing well. We had a good discussion about the Atonement and how justice and mercy work, and she came to church on Sunday. We think that she needs to just be encouraged along. We're thinking that the next step with her is to teach towards receiving a calling of some sort; to be active she needs to accept a responsibility and we're thinking that perhaps talking to her about her potential in that way will motivate her to attend sacrament meeting more regularly.

We're looking and working hard for a young couple that is according to the branch vision, but unfortunately we didn't find any new investigators. We're hoping to have more going on this next week on that end.

We had a couple of interesting conversations yesterday and we feel like there's something that we should do to spark some more excitement for missionary work in our branch. We got the impression from a couple of members that they feel that there's something missing and we feel like we as a branch need to set our eyes back on the ideal of of what's possible in Zlín and to especially help each of the members see that they are capable of doing something that will make a difference. We feel that the members can have a huge impact on what we do to help people come to Christ, but we feel like that idea could maybe use some reemphasizing now. We're hoping to talk with our branch president tomorrow about this vision and ask for him to give us talks or 20 minutes after sacrament meeting or something like that (whatever he wants, really) so that we can talk to the members about it. We will see how it goes, but we feel that this will help the branch.

Elder Dean is doing well. He's finding out that missionary work (and learning Czech) takes a lot of constant persistence, but he's learning a lot. We're learning a lot together while preparing for our teaching appointments and the other things that we have going each day. His Czech is improving, though he seems to want it to go a little faster. On Saturday we were coming back from an appointment and he felt a little down because he couldn't understand an old man that we were talking to and I told him that at day 10 or 11 in the country he shouldn't be worrying about it (at least not until he gets to day 600 or so...). He's a hard worker and he's already really dedicated to our branch. We've been learning a lot together about the Savior during our studies and it's been great to use that as we teach people during the day. He's also really excited to help the branch get more excited for missionary work.

We're both doing well and are trying to just stay yoked with the Savior here. We're out of time, but have a great week!!

Lots of love,
Elder Boyce

August 31, 2015 - In which I pick up Elder Dean

Dear family,

Last week was pretty crazy! I don't have a lot of time, unfortunately, but it was really crazy.

I mentioned that after Elder Page left on Monday morning I had to find some way to have a companion for Monday and Tuesday until I got to Prague so I had to bounce between Uherské Hradiště and Zlín before I connected with Elder Nelson in Olomouc. We traveled to Prague together Tuesday afternoon, where we had trainers' training, a nice dinner with the McConkies, and stayed in the one of the elders' apartments in Prague (there were nine missionaries in that apartment... crazy). The next morning President McConkie paired us with our companions (mine is Elder Dean from Eagle Mountain, Utah) and then we were on our way. It was an ordeal Wednesday morning because we kept on getting shuffled from place to place to keep us out of sight of the new missionaries. Then there was a big reveal where President paired us together as if it was a game show. We sat in the McConkie's living room with the new missionaries on the front row on the couches with us on some chairs behind them. President called each of the new missionaries up one at a time and started telling them about the city where they're going. The trainers knew instantly who they were going to be with so we were all whispering intently in the back row. Since we got to Zlin we've had a great week, we've been working hard. I met the secret goal from President McConkie and worked hard enough to get Elder Dean to fall asleep in church yesterday from sheer exhaustion :D

Elder Dean is a great missionary, he already knows how to be courageous. He contacts whole bus stops of people and the other day leaped up onto a planter to try and talk to about ten people at once. If we lived in the days of preaching on top of soap boxes, he'd get along just fine! He is doing really well in his Czech and yesterday bore a pretty solid testimony at church. He told about when he first came into our chapel he felt really strongly that this is where he's supposed to be.

We made some pretty specific goals for the transfer for trying to help people prepare to be baptized and reactivated, and we also want to find a younger couple that can be a strength to the branch, and we set goals for trying to work with members. We put a focus on obedience and hard work, and I think it set a good tone for the transfer, especially since it's Elder Dean's first. We were also able to coordinate with President V about a few less-active members, which was a great blessing.

We weren't able to meet with J or Sister D last week, which was too bad, but we still found some great people that we hope to be able to meet with this week.

I'm doing pretty well, and am excited for the new transfer! I'm just about out of time, but have a great week.

Love,
Elder Boyce

After dinner and trainers' training last Tuesday we went up to this lookout point in a park near the church building in Prague. This is where President McConkie took me and my group our first day in the country and told us all about the history of the city and the Velvet Revolution. It was cool to come back again.

Karlův most -- Charles's Bridge

This is my new companion! And it was first time drinking Kofola!!!!!!!!! (I was so proud it's our national treasure)

August 24, 2015 - In which the Lord hath granted me a son, as the saying goes

Dear family,

Last week, while not a banner week for finding or teaching results, was still a great week. I loved training and got a lot out of it. Not very many people stopped to talk with us last week, but it was still a good week.

J is doing pretty well. I mentioned last week, that though he didn't have a set baptismal date, he agreed to have a baptismal interview on Thursday. His interview was successful, and at the moment were mostly praying about how to help him accept a baptismal date. He's shared with us personally that he knows that baptism is the correct step eventually, and we don't want to just drill "You need to be baptized" every lesson, so we're trying to think of different ways to help him strengthen his faith and see how the gospel will bless him. We're going to try to get some other members involved with him to help him strengthen relationships with members that he might not talk to as often.

Sister D is doing really well. She's definitely at the critical stage where she's either going to be reactivated really soon or not for a long time. Lately she's realizing that she needs to change, which leads to interesting lessons because she's not quite certain how to deal with this knowledge at the moment. She's doing well, though, because she's continuing to study the gospel and the messages at church seemed this week to be tailored right at her. She wants us to talk about the atonement when we come next week, which we'll, of course, be happy to do :) As for other less-actives D isn't making a lot of progress right now. Last week the misisonary that baptized him came to visit and talked with D for a while about the Melchizedek Priesthood. We hope that it'll help him. President V also gave us a list of about 20 less-active members in Zlín to look for, which we spent a fair amount of time with last week. Not too much came out of it, but I think that it's a signal that he's trusting us a bit more... or testing us :)

We had Zone Conference last week and it was SO GOOD! President and Sister McConkie's trainings helped me a lot, especially as I've been applying them together. President McConkie talked about having a higher vision even when things are difficult and Sister McConkie taught us about prayer. I learned a lot that helped me personally We talked about the characteristics that we want to have when we become parents and then talked about how God perfectly fulfills each of those characteristics, and how since each of us as children of God are more than just His creations (like how the child of an architect is more than just the skyscraper that he designed), He wants to just to be involved in our lives. Sister McConkie's training helped me realize that God is already present in our lives, but I can talk to Him just as much as I could talk to my best friend. I've been trying to remember that as I pray since then it's been in a word wonderful. I feel like when I pray now that God is there, like a second companion! It's helped me to be better (you're more motivated to be better when God is walking with you side by side). It's helped me to do what President said, to have always have my eyes high, because when God is with me it's easy to remember that. I haven't felt like that 100% of the time since training, but it's helped me so much. I've been praying a lot more to involve God in the details of our work, and I know He's listening.

On Friday we were tracting the apartment building next to a less-active members home when they weren't able to talk to us, and we weren't get a lot of answers through the downstairs bell. I prayed that someone would talk to us, and before I could even start to say amen in my heart the bell crackled to life! I jumped about a foot in the air (Elder Page can testify of that) and then started to talk to them. I know that God is with us, and I'm so grateful.

Today were transfers! Elder Page is gone to Jihlava! I'm training a new missionary!! (I'm a dad, so to say.) I'm way out of time.

Love,
Elder Boyce

August 17, 2015 - In which we find some people

Dear family,

We had a great week! There were some pretty unusual challenges, a lot of praying, and a lot of talking about how to help J. We really baked here in Zlín, but we were still blessed with some miracles.

J has been the biggest topic of conversation and thought this week in our companionship. He's SO CLOSE to getting baptized. We weren't able to meet with him at all during the week, but we talked to him last night and he said that he feels like Saturday is still too early. There are still a few obstacles for him to overcome. Though he's not planning on being baptized this Saturday, he did agree to have an interview on Thursday so he can talk with Elder Shepherd (our district leader) about whether he's actually spiritually prepared, even though he doesn't have a firm date set. We're really hoping that he'll soon resolve concerns and are sort sitting on pins and needles for the moment. We still feel like he's doing well, and know that the decision to be baptized is his alone. He came to sacrament meeting yesterday and when he found out that we were going to Prague today for visa work he offered to drive us there. He picked up one of his daughters from the airport a little after we had to be there, but we had a good time during the three-hour ride to Prague :) One of his tires went flat on the way and we helped him get the spare on, and you can't come out of that experience without a stronger relationship!

We found a couple of really great people during the week. On Tuesday we met P and M. P is about 25 years old and is here from Zlín. We met him in an interesting way. It was boiling hot on Tuesday afternoon and we were out contacting on family history. There was NO ONE out and we weren't quite certain where to go. We felt inspired to hike up the hill that we were to try and follow up with an investigator that we hadn't heard from in a while. On the way up the hill we P. He was really interested in finding out more about family history, and we found out that during some English contacting a couple of weeks ago he met Elder Shepherd and gave him his phone number for the reminder text that we send. He had received the text that we sent out earlier, and was planning on not going, but because he met us he said he that he changed his mind and he came and had a good time at English. We met last Friday and taught him how to start with family history and we told him that we could tell him how his family can be together forever. He set up with us to talk about before English tomorrow!

We also met a woman named M on Tuesday morning. She is originally from Guatemala but met her Czech husband in Chicago and has been living in the Czech Republic for about seven years. She said something to us that I've never heard before: "My family are all Mormons back in Guatemala. It seems like being Mormons makes a really big, positive difference in their life. How do I go about joining your church?" We told her that we could take care of that :) She committed to come to sacrament meeting on the 23rd, but unfortunately we wouldn't set up to meet or able to exchange any contact information. Though we weren't able to set up with M, we felt really blessed by the Lord to meet her and P and the others that we were able to meet during the last week.

We were also really blessed to spend some time with our branch president over the weekend. He was the only one that came to game night with his kids, but we spent some time being able to chat with him about the branch and some needs that we have. After church we also went through the entire branch list and he gave us assignments of people to look for.

That's pretty much everything that's new for now. Sister D wasn't able to come to church, but she should be coming next week. We're trying to push forward through the last week of the transfer (somehow it's week 9 again)! We want some new people to teach! Thanks for the love and prayers, and sorry for no photos again this week :)

Love,
Elder Boyce

August 10, 2015 - In which we bake

Dear family,

This week was pretty interesting. Zlín was extremely hot and we baked here! Despite the heat we tried our best to maintain a positive attitude. Lots of people have been hiding inside during the day so we made an adjustment and went knocking on their doors even more than normal. Lots of our plans fell through and didn't turn out quite the way that we expected. Though we taught a lot, we only managed to get one member lesson set up, and we weren't able to get too much set up in general, actually!

The main great news is that J agreed to work together to be baptized on the 22nd of August. We weren't able to meet with him at the normal times last week, but we stopped by last night. We talked about how Peter first met Christ. We used Luke 5 as a base. It was a good lesson. At the beginning of the lesson J told us that he feels like baptism is the correct decision, but is mostly praying about the timing for when he should be baptized. We talked about faith and how it seems to us that his situation is very similar to Peter's there in Luke 5. I'll let you read it yourselves, but it shows how Peter left EVERYTHING to follow the Savior, because he felt something and knew that Jesus was something more than a normal man. The Spirit was there very strongly. We feel like J needs to make a similar decision, like Peter did. We invited him to be baptized on the 22nd and he immediately answered by saying that he would pray about it and also said that he would need to speak with his parents and his older daughter, K, about the decision. I don't think that his parents know much of anything about how he and his family are religious now, and we know that K isn't very supportive. I think that he'll go for it in the end. Even if he doesn't make the 22nd, Elder Page and I agree that if it won't be that day it'll be soon.

We had a few other great successes. Sister D came to church again, we met some really interesting people on the street, and so on :) We met a man from Rome who was here with his wife on vacation. He had heard a lot about us, but a lot of it was wildly inaccurate so we had a fun time answering all of questions about how we actually do believe in Jesus Christ. We had a meeting with a new investigator, M, who also had a lot of great questions. M is from the United Arab Emirates, and talks pretty fast in pretty garbled English. He doesn't speak any Czech. He doesn't have much of a Christian background, so it's exciting to see him hear and put together in his head for the first time a message about Christ.

The heat has been adding some excitement to our work here. And when I say excitement I mean extreme awkwardness. Czechs typically loose all of their clothing when it's hot, and so when we tract we often meet people in their underwear. I've seen more old men in only their underpants than I've ever wanted to see. Sometimes you have to look really closely into people's eyes! :)

Today we went to the Zoo for P-day. I didn't have time to photos, but it was a lot of fun :)

I'm out of time, but we had an exciting week and we're excited for the next one.

Love,
Elder Boyce

Today we are at the zoo! We just fed stingrays.