Wow, what an amazing week

This has truly been an historical time for the church in the Czech Republic. On May 15, 2016, the Czech Republic had a stake established by President Uchtdorf, who by the way, was born right here in Ostrava =). May 15, is also the day of Pentecost, and the same day that John the Baptist restored the Aaronic Priesthood keys to Joseph Smith, and Oliver Cowdrey. We now have 6 wards here, and 7 branches who are all working to wards, and yes Ostrava is a ward. It may not seam like a lot, but now that we have a stake here, we have something huge. A stake patriarch. That means that now all of the Czech people, can get their patriarchal blessings in Czech, and now German or English. The most spiritual part of the whole meeting, was when the called the name of the new patriarch, the whole congregation went still and it was so amazing. They now get to understand what their blessing is while they are getting it. This also means, that the Mission President, is now just the Mission President, not the President of the church in the Czech Republic, but he still is of Slovakia. This week, while we were working and trying to prepare spiritually for the conference, I had an interesting experience I would like to share. While we were contacting, we were telling people that we are sharing a message about Jesus Christ, and then we ask if we can share it with them. All day, we had people tell us no, and it was hard not to get into the ruts of saying okay, and then trying to rescue the contact. One man was standing on the other side of the tram stop across from us, and we yelled to him and told him we were sharing a message, and asked if we could share it with him. Having no faith, I was expecting a no, and I had already picked my next person to contact. To my surprise, he said yeah sure, why not. I couldn't believe my ears, so as we crossed to go talk to him, I asked the spirit to fill my lips as I opened them and testified about our savior, and it did. We weren't able to set up with that man, or even get his number, but I learned so much from that one contact. That was a huge miracle in my eyes and I learned so much from that one contact.

There were so many returned missionaries here at this conference, it was so great to see them all I was able to meet my trainers trainer, which was a really cool experience. I also was able to see Elder Karjalainen again! It was so cool to see him again, its not every transfer when you send your companion home, then see them the next Sunday. All the missionaries who are currently serving in the Czech Republic were at this conference, it was so great to see all of them.