Olomouc

Pretty normal week. Kinda short because we have Pday on a Saturday.
Last Pday Sister Bowen cooked 80 donuts and we had a donut eating contest for FHE. My companion Elder Vickers won. I got 10 and was out! haha We had an exchange on Tuesday so I was with Elder Cardon for a day and that was a lot of fun.
On Tuesday we started a fast with some of our investigators to help them receive their own personal answers so that was really cool but Wednesday and Thursday were pretty rough because almost all of our lessons bailed on us, but we were able to contact and find some really cool people. Friday was Elder Vickers year mark so we went to lunch with a member and he paid for us which was pretty sick. Today we went to a car museum full of all the old czech cars. It was really cool to see some different cars made here.
We get our transfer calls next Saturday so we will see what happens.
Other than that not much is new.
I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Paxton

Olomouc

This week was great but not too much happened.
President Pohorilicky and his wife came to our district meeting and to check our apartments. When they came to check ours they were like wow this is pretty nice lets have district meeting here. So we did and it was pretty great. I got to contact with president and learned a ton from him. The same day we got a text from one of our old investigators that just dropped off the face of the earth! Turns out he was travelling the world and will be back next week so way are way pumped!
On Saterday Sister Kopecka cooked lunch for us. She made us a huge meal and we had a really good lesson with her. She absolutely loves the missionaries so it is the best when we can go over there because she gets so happy.
We were in the park and saw some of our slacklining buddies so we went to talk to them and practice our slacklining. I finally got my shirt from them so I think I am officially in there gang! haha
Other than that it was just a normal week.
I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Paxton

Olomouc

This week was great. It was kind of hard because all of our YSA went to the conference all week so we had nobody to teach with us but that's alright. We had two really spiritual experiences this week. The first one was when we were looking for less-active members, we went to the address listed but turns out they don't live at this address anymore so we just started tracting the building. One lady eventually answered and at first she said no and started to shut the door, we quickly handed her a card before she closed the door. Suddenly she opened it again with tears in his eyes. Her parents recently passed away and she started drinking because of that. She has been looking for help but hasn't been able to find it anywhere. We shared with her the Book of Mormon and told her how it can change your life for the better. The second was when we got a random call, we were at sports night playing volleyball with some investigators and members when we got this call from a random number. We answered it and this guy said "I was just walking around and saw this sign for your church, I've done some bad things in the past and I want to make things right. Can I come tomorrow?" We met with him and had a really spiritual lesson. Turns out he was born in Mongolia but moved to Detroit when he was young. In Detroit he got mixed up with some bad things so he decided to come to the Czech Republic. He has been here for about 6 years now and is still looking to fix his life. He was a believer when he was young but just fell off the path. When he came to our lesson we asked him what he thought of when we said prophet and he answered Joseph Smith. We were way shocked! Turns out he had read quite a bit of stuff about our church before he came to our lesson unfortunately some things weren't so great that he read but by the end of our lesson he said he knew that this was exactly what he was looking for and he felt like our message gave him a purpose in life.
We also stopped 2 young guys on the street and they said we don't believe at all! You have 15 minutes to convince us. So we taught them about the Book of Mormon and it ended up being way longer than 15 minutes but they left with a Book of Mormon. It was really cool to see how our message fit to each one of these people individually. They were all struggling and found hope and peace in our message.
This reminded me of a scripture in John and about how lucky we are to share the message with people so that they can find this for themselves. "Peace‍ I leave with you, my peace‍ I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

I hope you all have a great week!!

Elder Paxton
/br> We saw some pretty sweet Catholic churches this week and I am actually getting pretty good at cooking.

Olomouc

Another great week in Olomouc. We had some really cool experiences with the members this week. One of the YSA males called us the other day and was talking to us about some decisions he has to make and so we talked with him about how he can know what the right decision is. At the end of the call we prayed together then I told him to pray on his own after. The next day he came up to me and told me that he got his answer and told me about how he got it. It was a really good experience for me to see the Lord answer prayers. A YSA female got her mission call this week and will be leaving next month on a mission. There aren't a lot of YSA in the Czech Republic that have support from their families which makes it even harder for them to stay active. This girl is the only member in her family and has such a strong testimony.
We were tracting last week and met a girl that was 17 years old, it was raining a lot and nobody was home so we said we would come back. We met with her this week and turns out that she is battling breast cancer for the 3rd time and she is only 17!! We talked a lot about how we can turn these trials into a learning experience and how we can use it to help other people. It was awesome to see so much hope in her.
Also last Monday we had our FHE bbq and played badminton but lost the birdie over the fence. Other than that I just had an exchange with Elder Page and we also found out that one of our investigators is in the mafia and in bad with some loan sharks so we will see how that goes.
I hope you all have a great week.

Elder Paxton

Olomouc

This week has been pretty good. The weather has been crazy and we get soaked everyday. The weather is just like Utah where one minute it will be raining and the next it will be super hot, the only difference is that it is really humid here.
This week we have had some really great lessons and opportunities to do service. A lady from our English class asked if we would come do service for her so we went over and painted a bench. We ended up teaching her all about the book of mormon and we are going over again this week. People here are super closed off but as soon as they start talking to us and start opening up we are able to talk to them about the gospel and they see for themselves how it can really help them. It is cool to see people finding these things for themselves and really knowing the truth of it.
We had a lesson with a guy we have been meeting with and he wanted to show us some magic tricks so we let him and they were actually really good. Then he told us that he could change our clothes without us even knowing but we told him that both of us are already wearing the same clothes just a different tie so he didn't do it.
We had our sports night on Saturday and met this guy that plays rugby. We were able to get some of the members and play rugby and volleyball with him and a few other guys that joined in. The rugby player asked us if we would join his rugby team but sadly we had to tell him no.
Sunday we went tracting and had some success. This guy answered the door and because he already knows the missionaries he brought us nonalcoholic beers and chocolate! The entire time we were tracting it was pouring rain so we got drenched. One guy gave us his umbrella that had elephants all over it but my companion broke it because he walked between two poles that were too skinny for the umbrella so it snapped. Haha now we have to buy him a new umbrella.
It was a great week though. I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Paxton

These are all within about a 3 hour difference.