October 27, 2014 - In which the part of me accustomed to warm weather dies

Dear family,

Last week went pretty well! Yesterday we had record attendance at Sacrament Meeting; 36 people came! Normally only about 20 come. We were packed into our little chapel and it was a great meeting. The Ř and their grandchildren came to participate in the Primary Program, which was wonderful. The primary our branch is quite small (only one boy comes every week), so the program was only about ten minutes but everyone enjoyed the children and the six missionaries pretending to be children! (We were all briefly Primary children; for example I was Honzik, age 7.)

The Ř are getting back into the habit of coming to church once every other week, and their grandchildren are having a great time with the other little boy in the branch. Sister Ž told us yesterday that the oldest grandchild said the closing prayer during Primary and was really pleased with himself because he didn't need any help. They add quite a bit of life to the branch! Unfortunately all of our investigators backed out of coming at the last second, but if they had come I don't think we could have seated them!

We had quite the finding experience on Saturday. We were coming back to our apartment to finish lunch after visiting a less-active at his home, and to get home we arrived at a bus stop that's closer to our apartment but that we had never noticed before. We were about a block away from our apartment, then Elder Cowley called "Dobrý den!" across the street to a group of people that were standing in front of their apartment building. We were going to continue on, but they called back to us and told us to come into their home for tea! We went in and were able to teach a first lesson, and gave three people baptismal dates. It was quite the miracle, and if we hadn't gotten off at the new bus stop, we wouldn't have walked past those people or met them. They weren't able to come to church because they got sick, but we'll see them again this week.

This past week the weather has become freakishly cold. I had never realized how nice the weather in Camarillo actually was. I suppose I'll get used to it, but I've already had to start wearing gloves and thermals. This will be an exciting winter!

We had quite the whirlwind week. I feel like I'm missing a ton of information, but I'm going to be out of time soon. I suppose I'll have to fill it in next week!

Happy Halloween! (We're having a party tonight at FHE)


Love,
Elder Boyce

PS H is doing well. I don't think I've mentioned her yet. We met her last week by giving her a building tour. She has a lot of questions, and is pretty interested in finding out more. We weren't able to meet with P or H last week. V is doing really well.

October 20, 2014 - In which I strive to keep up

Dear family,

Last week was really exciting! We worked really hard. Pretty much everything last week went well. It was a whirlwind of a week, though. We are super tired (more than usual, anyway). Today for P-day we are taking naps!!

We had some really interesting first lessons last week. Elder Cowley is fearless at talking to everyone and inviting them to learn more, and we've contacted quite a few exciting people on the same street as the church building and then given them building tours right then.

We also had some great lessons with some of our investigators. We had a great lesson with P P last week and she came to both hours of church on Sunday! She hasn't come to both hours in a while. (There's only a two-hour block in České Budějovice.) P's wife, H, came to our lesson with P last week, which surprised us (pleasantly). Apparently she has been reading the pamphlets that we've been sending home with P the whole time, and she and P agreed that if they found out that the message was true, they and their children would get baptized.

Our conference miracle is doing well. He's natively from the Ukraine, and his name is V. The Sisters are teaching him at the moment, mostly through Skype with a Ukrainian YSA member, I, that lives in Prague. He has a baptismal date for sometime during November, and he came to church on Sunday. I also decided to come down for church and he translated for V. Overall it's a definite upgrade over communicating through Google Translate! :)

The weather here is going, for lack of a better word, topsy-turvy. Yesterday was a really nice day, above 70 degrees probably, but then today it has been rainy and windy and we heard that it might start to snow tomorrow!! The Czechs tell us that November will probably be worse. Today I finally broke down and bought a coat and some nice gloves. The Californian I-live-ten-minutes-from-the-beach part of me is starting to die away.... I suppose it happens to all of us.

I'm doing pretty well. Half the time I don't feel like I can keep up with Elder Cowley! He is a great missionary. If I can just learn to do half of the things that he's learned to do, I would be a much better missionary very quickly.

That's probably about all for this week!

Love,
Elder Boyce

Game night!

Náměstí (town square) at night

Fried cauliflower! Tasty :)

Elder Jaynes ready to leave for Prague

October 13, 2014 - In which I don't win Conference Bingo

Dear family,

Last week went pretty well!!

Monday: We were in Prague for my last visa appointment. As we recall from last week, I am now legal. We had FHE at the building, with a really good turnout.

Tuesday: District meeting and a district singing display. We were singing and inviting people to General Conference, and handed out a bunch of flyers. We also had a lesson with P P and gave her a new baptismal date for the 8th of November. We put a focus last week back onto the basics of the Restoration, which seemed to provide her a really good foundation. We seemed to be moving too fast before that. We also had English that day and a lesson with P, which went fairly well.

Wednesday: We had a meeting with our Jehovah's Witnesses again. They were very nice, but don't seem very interested in our message. We also had a sucessful Family History course! This city hasn't seen a family history class that someone came to since last spring. We are working on trying to make that better and then find people that are interested in eternal families :)

Thursday: We went out with the Sisters to our couple in the tiniest village in the world to serve. We neatly stacked a veritable mountain of wood, had some lunch, and then had a great discussion about the Restoration.

Friday: We saw a miracle! We were just finishing up cleaning the building for Conference, and a young man walked into the building. He's here studying, but speaks almost no Czech or English, only Ukrainian and Russian. He said that his father is a member, so he searched out the Church. We were only able to communicate a little in Czech (mostly we had to speak via Google Translate), but he came to four sessions of General Conference (spoilers for Saturday and Sunday) and is meeting with the Sisters later this week. It's funny because we can speak with him hardly at all, but he's nice.

On Friday we also got our transfer calls! Elder Jaynes got called to serve in Prague, while I am still here in České Budějovice (with my new companion, Elder Cowley). President McConkie called us about transfers earlier than normal (normal is Saturday night), but that was really great because we got to use what we learned from General Conference to plan for this new transfer.

Saturday and Sunday were General Conference, which was wonderful. I felt like all of the talks were pretty much exactly what I need to here. I really appreciated how much of conference focused on having increased spirituality and being a stronger disciple of Christ. I learned a lot that informed some goals that I want to work on this transfer and into the future. In many ways I feel like I simply need to work on changing and purifying my heart, but I feel like there were a lot of great resources that I can use from General Conference. I also have more goals for seeking gifts from my patriarchal blessing and learning the language (listening to Conference in Czech was hard), but I don't have too much time to tell you about them!

Today we sent of Elder Jaynes and Elder Cowley came. I'm excited to work with Elder Cowley. He is REALLY excited to be here! It should be a great transfer :) I'm sure that I'm going to be learning a lot from him. We are going to get a lot of great work done this transfer.

I love you all a lot!

Until next week,

Elder Boyce

PS Meet the Mormons sounds great. It's not in the Czech Republic, but maybe we will get to see it later.

District conference - Brother and Sister Zmolek, Sister Dubois, Sister Scerra, Elder Boyce, Elder Jaynes

District lunch after the conference

Contacting while singing "Come to General Conference" on Lannova

Playing Vecer Her (similar to American Settlers of Cataan)

Beginning English class

Teaching a Family History class

October 6, 2014 - In which we work really diligently and are blessed

Dear family,

We had a pretty good week last week! I feel really satisfied with the work that we did. After our slow week last week, Elder Jaynes and I put a real focus on trying to reach the goals that we had set just before he got sick for this week, and I'd say that it kept us really focused the whole time.

We had a couple of really great meetings last week. We were blessed to find five new investigators last week. All of them are pretty interesting people, from our two Jehovah's Witnesses to our couple in the tiniest village in the world to a funny lady that has an opinion about everything. They're all pretty unique, but exciting!

Overall we're getting a lot of really good things into the fire. Last week we visited a less-active family, the Ř, which went really well. The family hasn't been coming to church for a long while because Sister Ř smokes, but we introduced her to the LDS Family Services' Addiction Recovery Program and she and her family came to church for the first time in several months yesterday! P P is keeping the Word of Wisdom, but it's still moving slow. P is also doing well, and told us that he wanted to find out if the Book of Mormon is true and then he said that he would start reading it right away. We went out to the home of our couple in the tiniest village in the world and they told us that they want to learn more, and so we'll be going out with the Sisters and Elder Žmolek to serve and teach on Thursday. Sacrament meeting yesterday was really wonderful. Six of our people came! All of the testimonies were really spiritual. It went super well.

Somehow we've come to the last week of the transfer again. I don't know how this sort of thing happens, but it has somehow. Time is just flyying by. In unrelated news, I was in Prague again today for visa work. I now officially have my long-term residence permit with biometric ID card, both good until the middle of January in 2016. In layman's terms, I'm legal :)

I'm doing really well. I'm feeling really productive and diligent. We had so many great experiences this week. I'm always so excited to find people that are interested in having a new and a better life, and it's always great to see them choose to give the gospel a try.

This weekend we're going to watch General Conference, and we made a bunch of visually appealing flyers to hand out this week. It should be great!

Love,
Elder Boyce

PS We woke up at 4:30 today to catch a 6:00 train to Prague. The sunrise was really pretty from the train. :)

September 29, 2014 - In which we have our concert

Dear family,

Last week was pretty interesting! Last night we had our concert. The theme was what sort of characteristics God has, and so each hymn that we selected had something to who He is, from "Our Savior's Love" to "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" to "A Child's Prayer". (Mom should get a kick out of the fact that women sang and I accompanied "O, My Father"!) It turned out really well. A lot of members came and a couple of the sister's investigators, as well. We were really hoping that a lot of brand new people that we had contacted on the concert (we handed out several hundred flyers) would come, but no one came that we didn't already have contact with. It still went really well, though :)

We didn't have the chance to teach a lot of people last week; of our investigators we were only able to meet with P P. This is mostly because Elder Jaynes got sick and we had to spend 42 hours inside the apartment... and during these 42 hours was when were scheduled to meet with half our other investigators and a couple of other members :) Exciting sutff. I went a little insane from staying in our apartment. I failed the quiet patience test there :)

Our lesson with P P went pretty well. We taught the Word of Wisdom to her. I don't know where our communication barrier broke down, but for some reason during the lesson it wasn't immediately apparent that not drinking any alcoholic beverages at all didn't rule out drinking socially. I'm still trying to figure out how that one happened, but we should be meeting again on Wednesday. We still have a lot to teach her before her new baptismal date on the 11th.

Frankly I don't have too much additional news to relate! The weather here is still changing in fits and starts. When we were out running with a member this morning, he pointed out that some of the trees' outer leaves are turning yellow, which means that soon fall colors will be arriving. I've never seen fall colors before so that will be exciting.

Suzie asked me to share an experience when my faith had been strenghtened and when it had been tested; Mom and Dad mentioned to me in each of their letters, also, that they had been noticing situations or experiences. This is funny, because I've been thinking and studying a lot about faith since Elder Jaynes got sick on Friday, too, because in many ways that experience when we had to stay in both tested my faith and strengthened it.

I'd like to share what I learned about faith recently. In a BYU Devotional talk that I have ("Remember Lot's Wife"), Elder Jeffrey R. Holland described faith this way: "...faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives." I love this description so much. The Lord has promised great things. He has promised us His Spirit, He has promised us the strenghtening blessings of the Atonement if we live faithful to the promises we've made to Him, He's promised us that He is hastening His work (which is difficult to believe when you have to sit in the apartment for 42 hours while your companion is sleeping off the flu), He's promised us eternal life (again based on our obedience) and on and on and on.

He has promised us these things. He cannot retract His word. However, He always sends us promised blessings after we are patient for them. We have to wait for "blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives." I've seen how that's true because of how missionary work works, because at one instant it will feel like we have no success and the next it will seem like everything is going unbelievably well.

I'm all of a sudden out of time and I don't know how to finish my thought quickly, but I know that the Lord loves us and He helps us. What I was getting at was that we have to wait, and we have to learn how to see blessings in the way that the Lord has actually sent them, not in the way we expected to see them.

Enjoy General Conference!



Love,
Elder Boyce

September 22, 2014 - In which we have training and an exchange

Dear family,

Last week went pretty well! I don't think I mentioned last week, but we had to go to Prague again last Monday. I had even more visa work. I think that I have one more appointment on the first Monday of October, but that should hopefully be the last appointment for my visa work! I'm sure that that just means that I'll serve with a younger missionary next transfer and have to go for all of his visa stuff :)

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty good days. Tuesday night we had our normal English classes and afterwards many English students stayed for our Intro to Mormonism presentation. We had a great discussion about the Great Apostasy and teased the Restoration a little bit. One of the Sisters' students even started to meet with them last week and came to church on Sunday.

On Wednesday we also met with P P. We had a reasonably good meeting. We moved her baptismal date back a couple of weeks because we haven't been meeting enough to teach everything. We didn't get to meet with E last week, either, and so we're going to have to move her baptismal date back, at the next meeting that we have with her.

Thursday we had a great training in Prague. There was a great section on finding where President McConkie talked a lot about how the Lord is gathering His people. It was a great testimony builder! I love going to trainings because it helps me stay out of a rut and keeps me improving.

I had a great exchange with Elder McOmber Thursday after training. He's super excited to talk to everyone and a great example. Elder Jaynes and I had been struggling to get to people to stop for us, but after our exchanges and training we were able to a lot better. The difference that we noticed was that when we had the expectation that people were going to stop and talk to us, they actually will! I don't if that's a product of faith or what, but contacting is more fun because we're able to talk to more interesting people that way!

Thursday night during the exchange we met with P again. We had a pretty good lesson at his restaurant. He's so great!

Meanwhile we are getting a concert ready for next Sunday as a creative finding tool. We're hoping that that will be really good!

Thanks for all the support and love. Until next week!


Love,
Elder Boyce

Note: The Elder McOmber that Daniel talks about is my sister-in-law's nephew so Daniel's 1st cousin by marriage.

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