More Miracles, More Opposition

It has been a rollercoaster of a week for us, we started out with visa work for Elder Murley on Tuesday in Prague. The only reason I brought that up is because I ate a Subway sandwich" :D It has been a while since I have had an Italian BMT. But to the more important, and spiritual aspects of the week. 

Best Home Teaching Visit of all time. We went with Brother Tmej, he needed a companion, to go visit a less active who he is home teaching. We taught about the power of Christ and shared "Because of Him" video, but we then started talking to one of the people that his sister takes care of about his smoking in the house. We encouraged him to not smoke in the house, and he said "Alright, on one condition, you beat me in an arm wrestle"…now this guy is pretty big guy, but we figured if we did win, that he really would stop smoking inside of the house. So Brother Tmej starts to arm wrestle him, and it may have been the most intense arm wrestle I have ever seen. It ended in a draw, but because of how well Brother Tmej fared against him he agreed to try it for a week. 

We also had a meeting with a less active woman and her family. They are incredible, and have three kids that really are dedicated to the gospel. They have been coming weekly to the U-nites that we have been holding at the Martincovi, and have chosen a baptismal date for the 15th of July. They came a little late to church, but it was the second week in a row that they have made it. They are facing a little of bit of a trial with one son, that had recently been in an accident and had a surgery. The surgery went well, but the cut that he had, opened up again and he had to go back to the hospital. We are praying fervently for them that he will heal quickly. We are so excited for them, and are hoping that their baptism will be a catalyst for their family in coming regularly to church for now on. 

It has been overall a good week, even though we had one very solid investigating family drop this week due to some family opposition. I don’t want to go into detail about the situation, but it was very hard, and an even harder choice for this family to decide not to continue because of this opposition that they faced. 

The gospel is true, and it blesses lives! Have a great week!

Elder Belshe 

So these are pictures of me playing the cello on the town square! :D, Elder Murley and I and our evening chess games, and one of the greatest Czech delicacies...smažený sýr.(fried cheese)

Opposition in All Things

This week all of the good stuff happened at the end of the week! So I will skip to that. Wednesday night to Thursday I had an exchange with Elder Pickett! :D I love Elder Pickett! He is a great example of love and diligence in missionary work, and I am very grateful for the friendship that we have been able to develop as we served around each other (he has followed me around his entire mission ;)). We taught a less active member that lives in the nearby city of Nova Paka, and she LOVES music so we have started a really good relationship with her which I am excited for. We have a new investigator named Kamil, a guy that finds it very difficult to believe in God since he is an engineer. It was very interesting teaching him, and we are excited for the other meetings that we will have. Friday, President came to District meeting and helped us in strengthening our contacting skills. Both of the scenarios we practiced were used the following day! Practicing as a missionary is important! It was also nice to have a short interview with him before I have my final interview with him in a few weeks.

Church this week was VERY interesting, unfortunately, a investigators father came and decided that he did not like that his son had decided to get baptized in our church. So, he came and in every moment he could, tried to counter any of the doctrine taught at church. He was almost asked to leave, but thankfully, he left on good terms. It reminded me of the scripture in the Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 2:11 "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility." With any opposition that comes, a great blessing follows. Our district is very excited for the upcoming blessing :)

Have a great week!

Elder Belshe

Pictures at Prachovske Skaly (The Prachov Rocks are a rock formation in the Czech Republic approximately 5 kilometres west of Jičín, and are a protected natural reserve since 1933)

Last Zone Conference

This week was terrific! It started out on Tuesday with my last (official) zone conference before we have the mission dedication conference in July. President Pohorelicky spoke and inspired us as he talked about faith. It was quite incredible! I learned a lot, and it helped me realize the true power that comes from faith. The mission has had some real booming weeks in the last few weeks. The push during the conference was that of having faith for our goal of 100 baptisms in the year. We are currently at 20. It was really quite nice to just sit and listen to the training, and not have anything to prepare this time. I really enjoyed what the spirit taught me.

The rest of the week we spent helping Otakar, finding new investigators, and trying to help out the new bishopric. Mostly, we are helping Brother Tmej, the ward mission leader at his house to finish building a patio before he has his family reunion next week and the preparations for their departure to England in August. We are currently working with another woman whose name is Vlaďka. She is great! She has taken the first few discussions. She has a hard time with coming to church, but we feel that she is prepared and open and has a great understanding of the spirit. We are excited also for her progress!

Overall good week, and we are excited for this upcoming week. Interviews with President, and an exchange with the zone leaders (Elder Pickett and Elder Beazer, both are studs, love them both! :) )

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Belshe 

Baptism, New Bishopric, and Smoke Alarms

We had a miraculous week this week! Here are the stories I want to share:

1. The smoke alarm. Wednesday we had District Meeting in Jicin, and the Sisters called that morning telling us that their smoke alarm had been going off for no apparent reason. No fire, just maybe someone smoking in the floor below them, but once they turned it off the first time, it came back and sounded again. Every 9 minutes it would go off. So they brought it to Jicin and we tried to turn it off...but we also could not figure it out. So our solution?...wrap it in toilet paper, under a blanket, in a box, under the bed in our apartment Then the next day, the Scotts, (the office couple), came and brought them a new one.

2. Otakars baptism. Otakar is awesome! He was baptized this weekend, in a river just a little bit outside of Mlada Boleslav, and there was lots of member support and it was a great experience! In bearing his testimony in the end he said the joy and peace he felt as he was baptized was incredible. I played the cello for the special musical number. A member recorded it, I will get it and send it to you next week. Such an awesome day! The following day, a new bishopric was called, and a new member of the bishopric was able to confirm Otakar a member of the church.

Otakar was baptized in the river where he had a very spiritual experience even before he met the missionaries. He had a very strong spiritual impression to jump into the river, an impression that he had never felt so strongly before. So he jumped and then noticed a small kid drowning in the river, but he could not see very well because the water was dirty. He said a quick prayer, and was able to grab the boy and bring him out of the water saving his life. It was then that he knew there was a higher power. Soon after that, he met the sister missionaries in Mlada Boleslav. After a year on and off with the missionaries, he really changed his life and was baptized. A wonderful weekend!

Other than that it has been a pretty normal week! We are excited for an inactive family that we will be teaching. They have several kids that have not been baptized, and after a tragic experience they realized they need the gospel back in their lives. It has been wonderful to meet with them and remind them of the joy of the plan of salvation.

Have a great week!

Elder Belshe

Inspirational Nights

So, I hope I gave a good description of this before, but if not I will do it again. In the book, Power of Everyday Missionaries, there is a section that talks about "U-nites". When I was an assistant, we worked closely with President Pohorelicky, and a family in the Prague ward to start having “inspirational nights”. We had two baptisms just months after it started, and now my main focus has been to help start these evenings here and get them rolling and productive like we were had in Prague. After our second week, a member family has invited two Ukrainian men to come to church this week, an inactive part member family came that we are meeting with next week, and some of our investigators through our personal finding have really started to find some friendships. One of the Ukrainians, is a very solid evangelic believer, and he gave his testimony of Christ at the stand. Probably the best testimony of the meeting. He needs to be taught some more things, but they both have great potential.

Otakar is a boss. He is doing great. We are really excited for his baptism this week. He passed his baptismal interview, and had a really good discussion with the Czech Sealer (who lives in our ward) about enduring to the end. We are really excited for him!

Things are going well. This week, I’m giving a talk about member missionary work, and the plan is for two new families to be at church along with Otakars confirmation. We have been praying and have fasted for a miraculous turning point for the branch.

Have a great week!

Elder Belshe

Pictures:

1. Me standing next to Sister Jirku, she is pretty hilarious.

2. Pictures from our hike that we went on today, way pretty.

3. Fancy socks playing squash

4. Romantic dinner with our ward mission leader, Brother Tmej at the sunset...haha he is awesome!

Jičiněves

This week is full of stories, I want to tell three that describe the highlights from the week. 

1. First the funny story, this week we were tracting in a small town called Jiciněves with literally translates to the child of Jicin. We were tracting in the evening, and were waiting for the bus. When we saw the bus assuming it was going to slow down and pick us up we got up and waited at the curb and then watched it drive on by. We were way frustrated thinking the bus driver was just discriminating against us I quickly looked at the bus sign read it again closely and figured out the bus only came to another stop, unbeknowest to us, so we went to the restaurant next to the bus stop got dinner to eat away our sorrows and caught the last bus of the night at 8:40 and barely made it home on time :)

2. Iva- in the midst of our less active finding in a neighboring city of Nova Paka the first woman we visited was Sister Samkova, who no longer lives there. However, we walked up to the house and it was pretty rundown and we werent sure if anyone lived there, but we rang zvonek "Czech doorbell" usually outside of the gate around their garden (Czechs love their gardens) :), and a woman answered asking who was there and we said obviously, missionaries of the church of jesus christ. Nothing. So we sat there for probably about a minute thinking is she calling the cops, is she coming to the door, what, and then we started walking way. Then as we were about halfway down the street she comes yelling "You rang my doorbell you might as well come and sit and chat for a minute"...so we did. Iva lived with the member that formally lived there, and has been struggling a long time with diabetes and a form of skolosis. Missionaries had come in the past weekly to visit, sing songs with her, and do service with her, and after the branch moved to Jicin, she was forgotten. It has been almost 6 years since someone from the church had contact with her. So we are going to return with some members and help her fix her garden and clean her house. Huge miracle!

3. Otakar- one of the young ysa guys, 28, and he had a baptismal date towards the end of July, but we had a lesson about President Monson talking about prophets, and after our lesson he said "Yea, I feel good when he speaks, he must be a prophet" After that he brought up baptism, and we asked him how he felt about it. He says he felt really good. Then, the spirit prompted us to recommit him to an earlier date, and he accepted. Assuming all goes well with the pohovor, he will be baptized on the 10th of June. I have a talk about member missionary work on the 11th of June. It will be a perfect opportunity to gain the wards' trust. 

Awesome week! Wish you all a good week!

Elder Belshe 

Jičín

Best ward ever...:) Lots of the first members that came into the Czech Republic live in this city. It is the smallest area in the mission, but lots of miracles have already been coming. We found 5 new investigators this week, and although a few have already fell through, one of them named Petr has been meeting with us and we are excited to see how he progresses. Vladimir and Otakar are both investigators that have baptismal dates for July, and both were at church which was terrific! We are planning to meet with several of the members this week, and help them grow their faith in missionary work, so that they can understand their role. We also are starting the inspirational nights, that we did in Prague in order to give the ward an opportunity to invite their friends to come in a very informal setting, and get good relationships with the missionaries. It will be a great week, and a great transfer! 

I am out of time already! I will send some more info next week, but I have some pictures! I have a goal to take a picture every day this transfer, mom will appreciate that.  :D

Elder Belshe 
So there are pictures of me with Elder Murley, our district, a Czech breakfast of eggs, toast, and mustard, but the mustard is better than any other mustard I have had before because it is mixed with horse radish...heavenly!