October 3rd - Pictures and Audio Files

This has been a great week! We had an amazing training on Tuesday in prague. President and Sister Pohořalicky taught us about how to teach the first lesson and the importance of starting from the bottom and working up with our investigators. Sometimes we forget how new religion can be to some people. They taught on how it is important to start with them first understanding fully who God is, and what this means to us. From there we can work our way up teaching simply and with the spirit. It went very well with our Zone Leaders training about improving our teaching skills, especially on how to teach simply. Sometimes as we learn the language enough to get complicated, we feel like we need to teach things differently, but the best way to teach is simply, with easy words, and expanding the scriptures. They showed the importance of why we need to teach simply by using a very cool example. They asked a new missionary who has been in the country 3 weeks, to explain to President Pohoralicky american football in English. Sounds simple, but when it isn't his first language, and american football isn't something he is familiar with, it made for a perfect lesson on how easy it can be for us to expect what little words mean such as quarter back, defense, offence, line of scrimmage (not sure how to spell that one....) and other things like that. I really learned a lot and it has helped me and changed the way I look at teaching.

Fall is coming, which means that its still the season to harvest. I'm very excited to continue working through and finding the people who God has prepared to hear his gospel. The trees are beautiful and the air is getting colder, I love fall. I've seen more and more people out during the day, maybe because of two reasons, one is college here is in, and two its not so hot, but either way I believe that God is preparing the people of the Czech Republic to hear his gospel more and more. I love the work, I love the Czech Republic. Thank you for all of your prayers.

Today we went and saw a ruined castle, here are a few pictures from that.

Audio files from Blake...

Blake Recording

Another Blake Recording

And Another...

Great week!

Well this week has been great. I got my new companion Elder Rees on Monday, and ever sense then has just been great. We had the opportunity to do a lot of finding this week which is awesome to start off a transfer. We are learning how to work and teach together in unity and it is helping us in the work so much. I am blessed to serve with him, he is in his last transfer and I have so much to learn from him.

He also just came from Ostrava, so I was able to get an update of the amazing people there and how they have all been doing in the last two months. It's so great to hear how they are doing and how the Lord is continuing to bless them. 

We had the opportunity to teach a recent convert on Sunday. We taught her about the priesthood and how its a selfless gift from God. She really enjoyed how we told her that its like an umbrella, that one man can stand there and hold it, but everybody surrounding can receive the benefits and blessings of it. She really liked that and now understands better that not every member man and women needs to hold the priesthood. It's literally a selfless gift, we can't lay our hands on our own heads and give ourselves a blessing, its only to help bless others. 

One huge amazing experience this week, was being able to participate in the Toronto Project. We were able to help clean out an old hospital which had some pretty random stuff in it. We were able to help there doing that and other odd jobs that needed to be done. The place was for physically disabled people, they plan on using the old hospital for something, so we helped them get a jump start on preparing it. It was a great day, there were members from all over the Czech Republic, and working with them was so great. I was able to hear several conversion stories and see how the church has changed these people. We are looking forward to a great week, very excited for what it will bring. Also i got a camera charger so here are some pictures =) I got a hair cut 

What a great week.

This has been another great week, just like the title says haha. The weather is cooling down a little bit so that's a blessing. It's sweater weather I guess you could say.

This week we were challenged by our zone leaders to call at least five people a day. I'll explain why this is important. The main way of finding people here, is street contacting. Lots of times on the streets, people will give us their numbers so we can set up to meet, however with time, for whatever reason, if these people loose contact for a while or say call me in a month of so, communication with these people gets lost. So when we go through old records and find these people and call them again, we get back in touch with them and get them thinking about God again. It's really awesome. We were promised blessings if we would call these people, and we have been diligently calling people and seeing the blessings. One blessing paid off today. We just had a lesson with a man who was contacted by missionaries about 6 months ago. He had interest so we set up and met with him, and had a great lesson today. He wants to keep meeting and we are very excited to keep working with him. 

Our mission is really focusing on working with faith. I am very excited for this. I have seen how much of an impact faith has in the work, and how much we need it as missionaries. We often hear that people don't need faith in life to be happy, but from the way I see it, everybody needs faith in some way or another. Faith the bus will come on time, or that the sun will rise, or that the other drivers on the road will do their best to be safe. Tons of things, and I've noticed that when we have faith in God, there is literally no bad thing that can come from it. There is no point not to have faith, not to better and strengthen your faith, it only does good things for us. I love helping people realize that for themselves, its the best feeling. 

That's about all for this week, thanks for all you prayers and support, your great. I love you tons.

Our district after district meeting, and i found a cool bear on the road and took a picture with him

Fall is here

Well, like the title says, fall is here. The leaves are falling the its getting darker sooner and not as light in the mornings, but the fields are white and ready to harvest. This has been a true missionary week, we experienced a lot of ups and downs with invistigators, but, the Lord is in the work, and the goods always outnumber the bads. We see blessings everyday that God showers down upon us. One of the best things about that, is when we work our hardest doing His work, He never leaves us. We always are blessed in so many ways that we can see, and always that we can't see.

We had the oppertunity to go and offer service on saturday to a place that works with blind people. We as missionaries had the oppertunity to serve with the ward and help clean the place and get things ready for fall. It was an amazing experience to be there and serve people with the ward, those are the best kinds of service projects. 

This week we had a great church meeting, Honza is leaving for his mission to Manchester Englad on wednesday! We are all excited for him, he gave his homecoming talk about being greatful for things in life. We are always blessed in so many ways, and I really ike how Honza said that the more greatful we are, the more we see our blessings in our lives. I really have been trying that latley. Counting blessins and seeing them is one thing, but then being greatful for them is totally different. I encourage all of you to not only count all of your blessings this week when you are having a tough time, but also to be greatful for them. Realize what a blessing is, and where and from who they came. I promise that they will brighten your day and bring a smile back on your face. I love you all, thanks for all of your love and support. 

Amazing way to end the transfer

This transfer with Elder Andiarena has flown by so fast. It was a very fast 9 weeks of my life. At least we can say that the week went out with a bang. We had tons of great full days of finding and working hard together. On saturday, we went service tracting with the other Elders, and that basically consists of going door to door and asking people if we can help them in their yards doing free service. It's a great way to get people to like the missionaries and build a trust relationship with them. We had gone through a whole town of people and nobody wanted/needed any help. (czechs love to do things on their own) Once we were leaving the city, one man came back on his bike and said if I feed you lunch will you help me? We said we will help you without lunch. So he agreed to give us some lunch and then we spent an hour and a half digging up his potatoes. It was so awesome to get out and help and have a great time doing it. His wife cooked us an amazing lunch of some kind of soup and then a fruit dessert which was really good.

Sunday we had the oppertunity to go and see the re-dedication of the Fryberg Germany temple, which is the closest for the Czech people to go to. It has a crazy history behind it, and is now opened again so that God's children can be sealed together forever with their own families. Such a huge blessing for the people here. It was origionally in German, with President Uchtdorf and Bednar there. It was translated into czech and we were able to watch it with some of the members. It was such a great experience. The spirit is always so strong when the temples are involved in any way, shape, or form. It's one of my favorate lessons to teach because the spirit never holds back. 

This week, there was a celebration in Hradec Kralove, I guess a long time ago a king loved his queen, so he commanded a city to be built for her, and well, the reslut was Hradec Kralove! What an awesome gift! I hope someday ill be able to give my wife something as cool as this city. 

I now have my new companion..... His name is Elder Rees. We had the oppertunity to serve around each other in Ostrava, and now we are companions here. This will be the last two months of his mission, so I have tons to learn from him. I'm very excited. We have a lot of work to do and I know that we will be blessed with finding the people that God has put into our paths. 

Here is a flash back to Ostrava because its a picture of my companion and I before we were comps, and hes the one off to the left. =) 

WOW! almost over already.

I realized this week, that we are now starting our last week of this transfer! It's way cool that our transfers are 9 weeks, but somehow they just blend together and it feels like 2 or 3.

This week, I went on an exchange with an Elder in our disrict, he is way cool. We were able to contact together and teach a few lessons with members and invistigators. I love being able to go on exchanges and learn new ways of teaching people and how I can apply those teaching methods to help people come unto Christ. One thing I really loved about that exchange, was the interview at the end. We also talk and discuss how it went. The idea was brought up about missions being difficult sometimes, but how they are so worth it, and how we receive so many blessings, that it's impossible not so see our trials as blessings. We are always put into situations to learn and to grow, not only ourselves, but to help others learn and grow as well. I love how we both agree that there isn't anything about our missions that we could change or do away with. Not waking up early, or following every little rule even though sometimes we don't know why. We have everything we need to learn and grow, to improve and build. I am so thankful for that in my life as a missionary.

This week we witnessed an amazing miracle. We were going through our contacts with people we have met in the past 8 weeks, and we found a name of a lady in her 40s, her children are all grown up  and she is living alone. We tracked into her and taught her the Plan of Salvation. She said she would come to church, but never got around to it and over the weeks contact was lost beacuse of the business of her schedule. We saw her name and decided to send a txt and invite her to church. She responded saying she would love to come even though she is very busy at work. Sunday morning while we were greeting members, she walked up and was all dressed and ready. We went up and I had the oppertunity to sit by her. Church and Christianity were totally new to here. I was able to explain the basic things like why we sing and pray, and why we have the sacrament. She thought it was all interesting, but she said she would stay and see. It was fast Sunday yesterday, because next week there will be a temple dedication. We sang and prayed and she absolutley loved it. We sang If the Savior Stood Beside Me, and she loved the hymn. She stayed for the rest and absolutley loved it. For class, we talked about baptism, and she said she especally loved relief society. She had to hurry out after church to catch her train, and we weren't able to talk with her after that. We had on plan to call her at night after our contacting block. As we were contacting, we received a call from her. She asked if she could speak for a minute, and she expressed her loved and thoughts about church and how much she loved it! It was so amazing. She went on for five minutes about the special light she felt in her life. We can't wait to meet with her again

Thank you for all of your prayers and support, the next time I send you something will be me telling you about my new companion and where I will be serving. Wow that was a fast transfer. 

A great week.

This week has been great. We were blessed to have our Mission President and his wife with us for our district meeting on wenesday. We talked about how we can become like children so that we can help others come unto Christ. We often are told that we need to grow up, and start acting like adults through our lives, but the scriptures remind us several times, and in Mosiah 3;19, that in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven, we need to become as little children. We had a great distrit meeting, then we had the oppertunity to learn how we can better touch the hearts of the czech people by the way we speak. It's so crazy how little words can make a big difference. Switching up little words can change how a person looks at you and how they will react to the message about Jesus Christ.

We were able to go contacting with President and test out the new ideas. They worked amazingly. It was so great to see what happens when small changes are made. Like we all know, small changes will lead to big ones. One of the small changes/improvements we are all working with is to love the people more. I have personally seen that when I love the people I am serving, I love serving them that much more, and that the effort we put into it goes up. 

Saturday we went to prague again, because a group had visa work. When we got there, I went with another Elder on an exchange while both of our companions went and did visa work. We went and contacted in Prague and had the oppertunity to learn from each other. We both learned tons about how to let the spirit guide conversations and contacts, especally when you don't know your companion well and what your talking about is something new. It was so amazing to sit and let the spirit guide and teach. I am very excited for this week and continueing the new ways of contacing and sharing the gospel with my brothers and sisters here in the Czech Republic. Thanks for all of your love and prayers, I love you tons. Have a great week! 

i had enough battery to take a picture of the pizzas we made at home, not bad right?

Another great week in Czech Republic

This has been a great week with tons of blessings and a tons of new things learned. One thing I really learned this week, is that everything is in the Lords timing. I had heard that so many times before in my life, that we need to accept the Lords timing. This week, I have really started to get a glimpse of what that means.

Simply, it means that sometimes, we just have to wait and be patient. We have to accept the fact, that other people have agency haha. Sometimes I think missionary work would be easier if people didn't have agency, then at the second, I realize that there was a war fought in heaven so that people could have agency, so I accept it, see the good in it, and head back to work. I say that because I love how when people are motivated to do something by their own desires, wants, and thoughts, I see how much more it means to them. When we have sombody show up to a lesson that we had on plan, I can automatically see that it means something to them, and that they are sacrificing time and other things they could be doing so they can meet with us. That is amazing to me. That's why we have agency, so we can choose and learn and grow at our own speed. I love agency. 

Last week, we were able to go to prague again. We got there early, so we decided to go and contact outside the Prague Train Station. There were tons of people hurry to catch their trains, or going all different directions hurrying and such. Well, we started talking with a man, who listened to us because he heard our church was rich. Well, our church is rich, we didn't tell him that, but it is. (we hear that all the time so its no secret) well, this guy auctualy beleived that we arn't paid to come and do missionary work, and that we fund ourselves to be here, and to learn a new language, and try and help peole. After we told him that, he listened to our message about the Restorations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and had a ton of interest to learn more. We reffered him to the missionaries in Prague, and I'm very excited for him, that now he has the oppertunity to find the truth in his life. 

On sunday, the other Elders here baptized a lady, it was a great experience to be there and see that happen. Im so excited for her and all that she has coming!

This week, like we do every two weeks, we got to clean a very old catholic church. We do it as a service and its very cool. This friday, the lady took us up to the top to the bell tower and it was very cool, here is a picture of that =) 

Thanks for all of the prayers and support. I love you all, have a great week. 

Great week in Hradec Králové

Just like the title says, It's been a great week. The weather is nice a hot and my tan is coming along nicley. This week, we went to Prague for Elder Andiarenas knee, and our train was delayed, as soon as we found out there would be a delay, we called the Medical place and told them and they said it would be okay. We get there a half an hour later than our planned appoitment, and we weren't able to meet with the doctor, so we hurry and caught a train back, and were able to make that one because it also had a delay. So that was an interesting morning. We got back and went to work. The morning was a little upsetting, because now we have to go to Prague again this week, but the rest of the day was great. =) Wednesday we had a great district meeting, and we all decided to speak czech 90 hours this week! That means only speaking czech! I'm way excited. Often it's hard because it's so much easier to say things in engish, but those are the situations that will help us grow and learn czech better.

On thursday, we had an amazing lesson with a man, and we invited a member with us who just got his mission call to Manchester England. He is very excited. Our lesson was about the Plan of Salvation. It was an amazing lesson, the Spirit was so strong. At the end of the lesson, we asked if he had any more questions, and he asked if he could read the Book of Mormon! It was such an amazing experience that I'll never forget. 

Friday we were able to meet with a Less active who is just swamped with work and would love to come to church but can't. It was great to meet and talk about how prayer can play a huge role in our lives. She shared her testimony with us about prayer, and how she knows that we are really talking with God, our Heavenly Father who loves and cares about us so much. It was great to know that we can all have that personal relationship with God.

Saturday was an interesting day, we got invited to go mushroom hunting in the mountains with an English student, and so we said of course. What we didn't know, is that we were hunting for mushrooms on a old battle field that took place in the 1800's. There was a huge battle with about half a million men. It was really cool. They had tons of memorials everywhere and signs of what took place where. After that, we went home and hit the streets to find the people that God has prepared to hear His gospel. 

During Sacrament meeting yesterday, a testimony was shared about how 1 plus 1 is more than 2, It was shared because of how when we work together, we are more than just two, because in D and C, 6:32, we are promised that when we gather together, Christ is with us. That's one reason why missionaries go two by two, and why we meet all together on Sundays. 

This has been a great week here with another great one on plan. Thanks for all you support and Prayers, I love you tons. 

We also found a sweet picture of Jesus in the Catholic section of a book store today.....this picture looks familiar. 

Great week here in the Czech Republic =)

What a great week. This week started good, and ended good as well. I love my mission. This week we were able to go service tracting which was a very awesome. We went with the other Elders here in Hradec Králové, and we went door to door offering service to help people in their gardens (Czechs love their gardens) and random yard work and odd jobs that we could help with. It was a great time and we want to start doing it more so we can help the people and open up oppertunities to teach them.

We also went to Prague again as well, beautiful city. Wednesday, during companion study, we got a call saying that the MRI they did for Elder Andiarenas knee didnt work, so they needed us to come back in that day at 6:30 for another one. So we rescheduled a few things, and caught a train after district meeting. After our meeting, we were in the Metro and in a city of 2 million people, we met an american working in the Air Force, who was a missionary here in 2002-2004. It was very cool to talk to him and see how much the church has grown here. He opened up an area where we now have a very strong great branch. 

Sunday, there was also a returned missionary who served here with his wife about five or ten years ago. They weren't required to learn czech to serve their missions, but he had interest and taught himself a little. He wrote, and then translated a talk by himself, to give in sacrament meeting. It was a very neat experience to see and hear that talk. 

Today, we were able to go to a place called Kuna Horá, which is a small tourist town. They have a few old Catholic churches that were very interesting to see. One contains, and is decorated from the bones of 30,000 people who died during the black plague. Way crazy. The other big one, took about 500 years to make, and it was way pretty, and also kinda eary. I was trying to take cool pictures of it, then I rembered all the amazing pictures that have been taken of our temples, and this just looked a little eh. But it was still cool to go see, but that strengthened my testimony of the Lords work. The Salt Lake City took 40 years to make, and this took 500. The Lord is hastening his work. (Especally when it's his work) =)

Karlstejn

This was a great week. We were able to go up and have an amazing fire side with all of the  missionaries in the Czech Republic in memory of our mission being dedicated on July 24th 1929. Amazing oppertunity and experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. I don't have a ton of time today, but I would love to share my testimony about God's will. He loves us all and knows us personally. I love my mission and what God is giving us to learn here. He gives us everything in life so that we can learn, we had a great discussion with a nice lady this week about this. Her ideas of God were different than ours, but she agreed that we are all here on earth for a reason, and that we all need to learn something. She is absolutley right. I really enjoyed how she said that we need to choose weather or not we want to learn from those opperunities that we are given. I know that God loves us and that we are here for a reason. I challange all of you this week to look on the positive side of negative situations and find out how you can learn from them and have them befefit you in your life. Thank you for all that you do.

here are a few pictures.