Tuesday, May 31, 2016

The Power of One Smile

Zdravim Friends and Family!!

SHOUTOUTS:
V Š E C H N O  N E J L E P Š Í to....

Julie Ruby Marchbanks
Elder Little John Graves
Sebastian Skinner!
I wish you all the best and hope that you had a perfect birthday. :)

PRAGUE PŘEKVAPÁNÍ--MLADÁ MYSTERIES:
---> They have been doing door and window work in the Prague chapel.
---> We live on Pod Karlovem in Prauge.
---> We live on Vaclamenta in Mlada Boleslav.
---> Sestra Cade and I had some epic falls this week.
---> There are 2 new baby boys in the Jicin Branch!

B.O.M. INSIGHT:
1 Nefi 17:8-11
 8 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters.
 And I said: Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me?
 10 And it came to pass that the Lord told me whither I should go to find ore, that I might make tools.
 11 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did make a bellows wherewith to blow the fire, of the skins of beasts; and after I had made a bellows, that I might have wherewith to blow the fire, I did smite two stones together that I might make fire.
We shared these as part of our training for Zone Conference. Notice what Nephi does. 1. He is commanded. 2. Asks for direction. 3. Receives answer. 4. Acts.

STAKE FOLLOW UP:
Alright, forgive me for all of my scattered thoughts about the stake! It has been a couple of crazy weeks since it occurred. Here are some of the more statistics and feelings that I had while there. There were 6 wards created. Praha, Brno, Plzen, Ostrava, Hradec Kralove, and Jicin. Last weekend they called the first Bishop of the Czech Republic in the Ostrava ward. SO COOL.

In the upcoming weeks the Stake Presidency will be very busy visiting these new wards and getting the Bishoprics set up and functioning. I am not sure when it will be happening in Prague, but I believe that President Pilka will be in Jicin on the 12th of June in Jicin to call the Bishopric. So exciting! 

As President McConkie conducted all the business at the conference he asked all of the members from each of the areas to stand and raise their hand to sustain the creation of their own wards. To see the members from Jicin, Mlada and Prague to stand and be the ones to really "create"their own ward was a very precious sight. 

I felt very fortunate that day to be among so many good, faithful saints. I also got to catch up with members from C-Bud and Uherske Hradiste, which was such a gift for me. The Kamradovi from Uherske Hradiste strongly encouraged that I come back with my future husband one day and stay with them, ha ha they are so great. I also got to see Pavel Jelenek! Sister Smith and I taught and baptized him. Ha ha he is still a nut, just with longer hair. He has got the surfer look going on. 
All in all, it was an amazing day. Mom and Dad I will tell you more when I come home. ;)

HENRY+ SMILES:
We have been SO extremely blessed in our missionary work this past week. 
We have been working so hard and we are starting to see our hard work pay off.
On the way home from church last Sunday in Prague we were contacting on Tram 18. 
Sestra Cade was with me as we made our way from person to person contacting on the Sabbath day. We approached this man and asked him how he keeps the Sabbath Day Holy. He responded by saying that he wasn't much of a believer, but thinks that there could be something greater up there. Conversation lead to who God is as our loving Heavenly Father and how we can communicate with Him through prayer. We asked Henry if he had any experience with prayer and this is what he said, "Well, sometimes if I have a hurt in my stomach I will pray to, well whoever is up there, and ask that the pain will go away." Ha ha it was the most tender answer. I LOVED it! We were nearing our stop so we asked if we could meet on Monday evening and he said yes. We quickly exchanged numbers and wished him a good day. Later that evening he texted us and told us that we was looking forward to our meeting the next day and that he was so glad that he met us. THAT WAS A MIRACLE. Usually people NEVER text US "nice to meet you" texts. soooo that was pretty awesome. :)

Fast forward to Monday evening:
We had him come to FHE and then we had a lesson with him afterwards with Ondrej (RC). He came, DESPITE the pouring down rain and loved it! At the dinner table he brought up BAPTISM on his own. When it came to the lesson, we did HTBT and taught prayer. We also gave him a baptismal date for the 25th of June and he accepted. Simply amazing. After the lesson we were walking with him to the tram stop and we asked him why he chose to come and meet with us. He said to us, "I came because when I met you on the tram I was impressed by the way young girls would do what we do, we had an interesting message and most importantly, he was drawn to the fact that Sestra Cade was smiling the whole contact even though she didn't know what was going on most of the time. I LOVED that. It was a reminder to me that we must always LOOK the message as well
as preach the message. Henry is doing great and is progressing so well! We are so excited for him! 

PRICELESS MOMENTS:
We got to witness 2 children of God pray for the first time ever in their lives, kneel down in prayer and pray to being that they are even sure is there or not. We had these experiences with Henry and our other investigator Isaac. I think my absolute favorite part of missionary work is witnessing someone kneel day and pray to Heavenly Father for the first time. Their struggle for words, the pauses of unsurety, yet pauses where the Spirit is teaching this Child of God how prayer works and brings them closer to God. I am not able to express my thoughts or feelings clearly about it, but I am so grateful that I get to witness people go from not knowing God at all to being able to find him through prayer. It is a miracle in and of itself. 

EXCHANGE MIRACLES:
We had a challenge from the Praha Zone leaders to extend a baptismal date to someone you meet and teach on the street. Sestra Cade, Heap and I were able to do that on exchanges in Boleslav this week! Zdenek is his name and he is awesome!
Meanwhile Sestra Hale and Andersen went to visit a LA family in Boleslav that I felt strongly prompted they should go see and they got invited in for dinner and were able to figure our their concern. Therefore we know how we can better help them.
MIRACLES AND PROGRESS is happening! God is so good.

That is is for this week! I love you all. 
H a p p y M e m o r i a l day. :)

Srdečně,
Sestra Fred 🌻

While on exchanges we surprised Tomas and showed up as 5. Ha ha he pointed me out as the culprit of such surprise. Guilty as charged.


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