Hradec Kralove

Well it has been interesting serving with a companion that speaks Slovak but it has been a lot of fun. Way more people stop and listen because they are confused as to why we are both speaking different languages. We have been meeting with a lot of people and they are making really good progress. We met with a girl that has never done anything with faith and doesn't believe in God at all but we had a lesson on the nature of God, who He is and how He wants to be a part of our lives. She was crying and sent us a text saying how excited she is for our next meeting. She is the one that a member invited over to her house for FHE then invited us as well and now that same member invited his friend and her family to come to church. He is doin some good work here in HK. Elder Flindt and I went to a leadership training in Stamberk and stayed there over night with a few other missionaries, all of the Ward Mission Leaders, Ward missionaries and the Stake Presidency. President Pilka was there and gave a training on how to do missionary service as members then Brother Sedivy talked about an Inspiration Night that they have been doing in Prague and we actually had an Inspiration night in Stamberk while we were there so that was really cool to see how that works. Missionary work is changing a lot here in the Czech Republic which is really cool to see. This last transfer when we started reading 17 pages from the Book of Mormon every day we almost tripled our baptisms from the transfer before. One of the coolest things thought was to see a member named Zdenek Novotny. We baptized him in my second transfer so it has been over a year and a half but on the second day of the training he showed up and turns out he is now a ward missionary. I was so pumped to see him and see that he is strong in the church and helping others. On our way home it was pouring rain and we saw this guy on the side of the road fixing his car so we stopped to see if we could help. I don't know why because neither of us know how to fix a car. But he basically just wanted someone to talk to cause he had been there for 45 minutes and we were only the 2nd people to stop and the first person left as soon as he found out what was wrong. He was pretty pumped that 2 guys from America were helping him fix his car. haha So things are going well. If you have never read the book called The Power of An Everyday Missionary I would recommend it to you. It's pretty short but I have learned a lot about how we can bless others by just being who we are. Have a great week! Sbohem, Starsi Paxton Sorry I don't have my camera so I will have to send other pics next week.

Hradec Kralove

This week was good. Because it was Elder Beazers last week we got invited over to three different families houses for dinner so that was something new for us! We had so much going on because we had an activity at the church building where we showed the movie Joseph Smith Prophet of The Restoration every night for a week and we ended up getting about 30 people to it so it wasn't too bad. We also got to mushroom hunting with a family in the ward. Czechs are like way into hunting for mushrooms. It was pretty fun, we found a ton of mushrooms but the first two I picked up and took them to the members and asked if they were good and they were like no actually those are the two most poisonous, I probably wouldn't lick your fingers. ha After we picked them, they asked us to come back and eat them for lunch but we had apartment checks so we went to our apartment and with the senior couple were 2 Slovak Elders and Elder McCallister wanted to contact with us while his comp and the senior Elder went to check other apartments so he came with us but the other Elders were taking too long while checking other apartments so we brought him with us to our lunch. He was way pumped because in Slovakia they have even less member visits than we do. On Sunday President asked us to go to Liberec for two days this week to help out the area there so on Wednesday right after lunch with the members, we drove to Jaroměř to have a lesson then we went to Liberec and slept at the Elders apartment there and then just contacted all day there to find them some new investigators.

Elder Beazer and I got to go visit Kutna Hora which is a city that has a bunch of really cool Catholic churches. One of them is filled with human bones so that was interesting. We saw a really big miracle this week, last Sunday a members niece came to church with him and he gave her a Book of Mormon then we asked the member if we could have FHE at their house and he could invite her over so he did and when we showed up she told us that she had a really weird experience with the Book of Mormon. When she started reading she got really tired so she closed her eyes and started getting a burning feeling then she couldn't move or talk for a couple of minutes so she said she was scared to read anymore. We taught her about opposition and how Satan tries to stop us right before we are about to receive something great. We talked about Joseph Smiths experience when he saw God and Jesus Christ but right before that, Satan tried to stop him. The member was able to testify about how the Book of Mormon has blessed his life and helped in his family. It was interesting because Elder Beazer and I have actually been preparing for a lesson like that so we were completely prepared to help her find her answers. She came to church again and agree to meet with us regularly so we are pretty excited to see how the gospel with help her. We all have opposition in our lives but when we overcome these oppositions the reward is much greater than if we were to cave.

Like I said it was Elder Beazers last week so it was pretty sad seeing him go. I am still in HK but I am serving with a companion that was called to speak Slovak. His name is Elder Flindt. It will be interesting to have a companion that speaks a different language than me. I hope you all have a great week!

Sbohem, Starsi Paxton

Hradec Kralove

This week we got to visit this family that is half American which was fun because I finally got to speak to some natives in English which felt good. We also had an exchange and I was with a younger missionary. While we were contacting he started talking to this lady while I was talking to someone else and after he comes up to me and says "I think I just told that lady that my mom died of cancer" haha
We had a service project with the ward for a center that helps blind people. I was in charge of cleaning the windows and they looked way good when I was done with them.
We also visited another family last night which was way fun. We don't have a GPS though and they live pretty far away so we went early to make sure we could find it and then we were going to tract around their house but when we were driving past their house the daughter saw us and came running out and we had to tell her that we would be back in an hour. It was pretty awkward but it ended up being fun once we actually visited them.
Things are going pretty well here. Its Elder Beazers last week so that is pretty sad. Who knows what will happen with me next transfer.
Here is a really cool quote from Pres. Hinckley about the true love that God has for us.
You are in very deed a child of God. He is your Eternal Father.
He loves you.
You can go to Him in prayer.
He has invited you to do so.
What a wonderful thing this is.
He is the greatest of All.
He is the Creator and Governor of the universe.
And yet He will listen to your prayers.

Sbohem,
Starsi Paxton

Hradec Kralove

We had training this week and Elder Beazer and I had MLC the day before so we stayed in Prague for the night with Elder Chadwick and Elder Carlson. We had dinner with Sebastian at this way nice restaurant where they would bring out a new piece of pizza every couple of minutes and you could try it. That night it was pouring rain and we got back to the apartment of the Elders in Prague and when we walked in we noticed water dripping from the ceiling so we went upstairs and the floor was soaked! They left the ceiling windows open and it rained all day so we were got all the towels we could find (only one) and tried to clean it up before we went to bed. One thing that was pretty funny, Elder Beazer wanted to try a new way of contacting so we go up to this couple and he says "Today we are asking every Czech one question" The couple says "Good thing we are from Slovakia" then started laughing and walked away! haha I was laughing so hard but Elder Beazer just stood there way embarrassed. There was also a big festival on the square so they had a buch of markets which was fun. It was right outside our window so it was pretty loud all weekend.