Oct 31, 2016 - Great Week

This has been such a great week, it started with being able to teach English. We had two people there, and the spiritual thought about the Plan of Salvation was an amazing way to end it. One of the students has so many questions, but will only talk with us after English, so we usually talk for about an hour or so about it all.  Its so amazing how the spirit works. Always being with us, doing all the teaching, helping the people understand and accept the things we teach them. This week we had a goal to really focus on teaching by the spirit, and as we did, we saw so many times and situations where the spirit taught the lesson, building the testimonies of the investigators and ours.

Today we were able to have a small Halloween party, mainly we carved pumpkins and made pizza. The caramel for the apples burnt, but its okay, caramel gets stuck in my teeth anyways haha.  

Also, on Tuesday, we had the opportunity to go to Prague for a zone training. We learned so much about how we can help our friends to Christ, by going with them, and showing them the way. President had a great example about how sometimes we go upriver over rapids and big rocks. Sometimes we are scared, but when we go first and show them the way, and help them every step, the start to be able to trust us and then do things we ask, and all the little things start to come together, and then we are upstream to calm water, a beautiful little pond, but one of the important things, is that they need to see the pond, and the blessings that await them there. 

We also learned about how we can use members to teach with us. We were showed a couple of cool websites to invite members to make cool memes, about their favorite scripture verse or quote by apostles. Its on pixels.com and picmonkey.com. There you can find some cool pictures and edit them and share them on social media to set a great example of how the gospel helps you. I encourage all of you to take a loot at it and try it out. It's amazing how fast social media spreads and the example it has on people. 

We had a member from Taiwan, ( I think that's how you spell it) come to visit us in Hradec Kralove. He is so cool. His name is Mark, and studied in Ostrava a couple years ago and came back to visit and wanted to go around and see all the towns that the church is. Well, he was here in Hradec and it was very cool to go contacting with him and get to know him a little bit. It was very cool listening to his testimony and hearing about how he met the missionaries and how his testimony has grown in his two years as a member. I know that the gospel changes lives, and that God loves us all. thank you for all of your prayers and support, have a great week. 

Oct 24, 2016 - Miracles Everywhere

Recording from Blake

This has been a great week. I chose the heading Miracles Everywhere because we have been blessed so much this week. Of course we have miracles all the time as missionaries, when we do our best and work our hardest, God always blesses us. However, this week we really wanted to prove to God that we were ready to do everything in our power to keep the miracles that he gives us alive and going. It might not make sense at first, but what we wanted to do is see the miracles, and then take them and run with them. We know we can never do enough to deserve miracles from God, but he gives us miracles as much as he can. He wants to bless us, he wants to help us, and when he know that we will do our part, he always blesses us more and more because we are prepared and willing to work with him.

This week, we contacted a lady on the street, who didn't have much interest about the Gospel, but had interest in our English class. Well, she showed up on Tuesday, and at the end when we share our spiritual thought, we talked about the first article of faith, which is that we believe in God the Eternal Father, in Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. It was something very new to her. Just the Idea that they are three different people was totally new to her. She said she knows that something exists and that lots of people believe that its God/Jesus Christ. Lots of people think they are the same person. It was so great to be able to speak with her and help her understand that we have a Loving Father in Heaven, and that He sent His son Jesus Christ down to the earth, and that he atoned and died for us, and that we can know all of these things for ourselves, by the power of the Holy Ghost. 

On Thursday we were invited to present a family home evening thought at the Bishops house. It was an amazing family home evening, we had a ton of fun and were able to share a spiritual thought about how we can stand as an example at all times, and how we can let our light shine for all. 

We saw miracles all week, and we did our best to always recognize them. Especially the small things, like how God always puts us and other people where we need to be. I know that God is always here for us, and that his hands are in the work. It's so amazing to be here representing Jesus Christ, and loving and serving my brothers and sisters. I encourage all of you to continue being good examples for all around, for everybody to see you. Thank you for everything you do, have a great week. 

Oct 17, 2016 - Great week here in H.K.

Recording from Blake

Mission Newsletter - Get's one every week


This has been another great week! We are always so blessed to see the lords hands in our work. We recently have seen two of our former investigators while we were on the streets contacting people, both were total miracles, and one of them even set up to meet again! We are way excited to meet with her next Sunday, it should be great. Sadly, the other one didn't have interest, and so we will give him a while before we try again. Sometimes, we need the opportunity to find salvation 1, or 2 or 500 times before we accept it, but we want to make sure its always there so when God has prepared his children, they know where to go to find it.

For district meeting this week, we talked a lot about why missionaries work hard, and what their motive is. One thing we really centered it on, is working hard because these people need the gospel, not work hard because its something that we should just do. Of course, we always need to give our best, but I have personally noticed, that when my heart is in it for the right reasons, it is always a better day for me personally, and for others around us. I took the challenge personally, and have really been focusing on working hard because I want the people around us to have the gospel, to have the truth and light of Christ. When I do this, I notice so many promptings of the spirit always telling me what to say, leading and guiding out conversations and lessons, its such an amazing experience and I have totally changed the way I go about missionary work. 

Today, we had the awesome opportunity to make some great Czech food, one of our members was so nice and taught us how to make fruit dumplings, and some great potato and mushroom soup! It was way good!  here are some pictures of that, sorry about the shortness of the E-mail, kind of ran out of time without realizing it haha have a great week. 

Oct 10, 2016 - Recordings and Conferenc

Recording 1 from Blake

Recording 2 from Blake

Wow, Conference was amazing

Well, like the title has, I absolutely loved conference. It couldn't have came at a perfect time for us as well. Most of our mission (including almost my whole district) is sick, so to be able to have 8 hours reserved to sit down and rest, and spiritually reload for times to come was truly a tender mercy for us all. One of my favorite talks was the very first one given by President Uchtdorf. For those of you that don't know, he was here a while ago and was able to establish the first stake in the Czech Republic, and I was able to help assist in him returning to his small home when he lived in Ostrava. While he was there, I had the opportunity to meet him and talk with him some, it was truly an experience I will never forget. 

One of the things I love most about his talk, is that it applies to us all, the young and the old. We are never to young to help others understand what we know about Jesus Christ, even though I'm told that almost daily, that I'm to young to tell a full grown man how to live, I know that it's not coming from us, but that its coming from God, and that we are simply his messengers, his helpers, helping bring the message to every one of God's children. I could not be more grateful for the opportunity that I personally have to do that. 

Well everybody, fall is coming, that means the cold and the ice is sweeping in and wanting to take us down a level before the holidays bring us up. I encourage and challenge all of you to always look for the small ways in how we can always have Joy. There was an amazing conference talk focused on joy, and how we can have it and the ways we can always invite it into our lives. Never forget that's why we are here, and that it's on us weather we want to only endure life, or enjoy it as we go. 

Thank you for all your prayers and E-mails, I love hearing from you, have a great week. 

Here's some pictures of a small trip we went on today with a member, we were able to see some old bunkers made in the 1930s and the beautiful Czech mountains.

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