August 29, 2016 -- "Bits and pieces"

Sestra Baxter had transfers this week.  So there was no "general" email to share.  We've grabbed these "bits and pieces" from some short emails Sestra Baxter sent to her mom and little sister.

"Matko, hello.  I wondered why you sent me a white handkerchief.  But we will have a temple dedication on Sundayyyy. IOt is soo happy.  It is only 2 hours away for member's in Liberec."

* * * 

"I am doing great.  My year mark was last week. I wouldn't even have remembered it, but my district leader has it on a paper somewhere. They threw a party and bought me a way old camera from here.  They are probably the best district ever."

"Also Sister Huylar is such a good companion. I will miss her so much. She made this transfer fly. We will be wayyy good friends after the mission. . . . I remember the first day I got to the MTC perfectly.  And when I got to Washington and the Czech Republic. Sister I hope you serve a mission."

"We have this man on date named L____.  We are helping him quit smoking. He was smoking twenty cigarettes a day. Then we had to cut down to eight and now five. It is sooo good. He is changing his life. It is the best seeing the Atonement doing some magic. Jesus is the best .  Like, literally, there were many before Him, and also there were many afterwards. But none were greater. I am so convinced that this is His work. I know He lives, walking these streets of the Czech Republic."


-- 

Save the Trees and Pray Always

Sestra Baxter

August 22, 2016 -- "The connecting tree"

Something I have learned being on my mission is to be connected--which people might think weird for a missionary to say, because we are not allowed to: watch tv, read magazines, get on the internet

unless it is to email their mission president, family, and friends once a week. People might say that we are the most "disconnected" people on the whole earth. I would beg to differ. I have never felt closer to, earth, God, Jesus Christ, family, and friends than on my mission. This connecting factor for me is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. I feel it the highest honor to learn and help others be connected as well. 

There is this show that I used to watch when I was younger, AVATAR. In it there was this huge tree. It connected everything in the land.  And if you would try to connect with it, it would help you know where people are or show you things you need to know. I know that this is exactly what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for me and people around me. I truly believe that there is a spiritual connection that most people know about but are afraid of naming it, or just careless with what it's called. I love it a lot that we as humans--we know so much about this world, scientists these days are amazing. It is unbelievable, truly, what we know about this earth and mankind! But there is a connecting factor in all of this--that is that God exists and as sent us here. 

As written in Joshua 1:3-4:

Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you. From the wilderness and unto the great river, all the land and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun.

This week I really have enjoyed sharing what I know with people here in Liberec, as we try to help

everyone get connected with the higher power, the energy, or with our glorified Father in Heaven. We have seen him guide our path to places we needed to be so we could find people that are ready to hear his Gospel.  I know that He loves us and has sent us here to live on a beautiful earth so we can learn and gain experiences. I also know He sent his Son so we never have to be alone on our path, and as we follow in his footsteps we can experience lasting happiness that will stay with us through sad or happy times. 

JSTE Užasný!!!!!

Save the Trees and Pray Always

Sestra Baxter

-- 

Cause it's a good book.

Our friend moved to Dankso.

Chalk display.

Scriptures "rebound" because of the flood.
(Only 100Kč krouns.  Don't worry parents.)

August 15, 2016 -- "Animal Crossing"

Ahoj,

Jak se máme? or in otherwords "How do we have ourselves?"

This week has been a great one here in Liberec. If anyone has played the game

"Feed My Sheep."

 Animal Crossing I think it could be related a lot to here. Literally, the trees are filled with fruits of all sorts that are ripe this time of year. Just walking down streets or paths you have have your choice of Cherries, Apples. Plums, or from the bushes wonderful raspberries, blackberries, or even blueberries depending how high in the mountain we are tracting or contacting. It is pretty blissful, I would say. Wow, I love the Czech Republic. I love these people soooo much. I could never explain.

This past week we had Prezident and Sister Pohořeličtí come to Liberec for a district meeting which consisted of us and the Elders in Liberec with us. I was amazed because they are truly Czech People, and they know what they need. Haha. I feel like I have been teaching people wrong my whole mission and am starting over. But I trust that God really has known what He was doing in the past with this place and knows now and will continue to know. Somethings they told us was that, people don't know what missionaries are or what we even do. So to them it sounds weird. So we say that we are here as volunteers and we are not from here.  We are trying to learn Czech and the culture, and we have something important.  Prezident related to the scriptures in Alma when Ammon teaches King Lamoni.  He didn't even know Ammon was a missionary till a long time into their relationship. They said in first contacts your main goal is to set up with them. They said that the first lesson can literally be building the relationship and talking about the nature of God. People here don't know even know anything about him. They said they need to grow a relationship with God before they can know that God called Joseph Smith as a prophet. They said the main goal of the first lesson is for them to be a Successful Member.

Prezident and Sestra Pohořelická (and Sestra Baxter)

For me some of these things were really different. We decide to go apply the things we learned. At multiple times of my missions with my companions discussed how being a missionary would be a Czech's worst nightmare, getting rejected, yelled at, and talking about God. But we went out with sweet Sestra Pohořelická.  I can not think of a better word, but she slayed it. Literally every person we talked to wanted to know more. One lady even said there is such a positive energy, she didn't want to leave. After they left, it really felt like I started all over again for a day--learning how to talk to people instead of just sharing things we know. 

But yesterday on the street we saw our neighbors, this couple. They are sooooo cute. They live one floor down from us. We talked about everything.. possible. They started asking questions and things about why were here we asked if we could maybe talk someday and they said they were pretty busy but I am pretty convinced our golden investitgors have been one floor down from us this whole time but we needed to learn to contact like Cesky ("Czechs"). We are going to make them cookies and deliver them to them this week. Wish us luck.

This week, though, we really are low in the investigator pool. I feel like we were always running, though: pushing 2 dead cars out of the road, helping people carry their bags, showing a German man who flew in to Liberec by his own plane to his hotel, pushing a man in a wheelchair to his doctor and to the main street again, brought a member food who lives in a cabin in the mountains, got her water, and washed her clothes. So that has been good. I think we are really opening these people hearts, though.

I love you all. Thanks for everything.

-- 

Save the Trees and Pray Always

Sestra Baxter

The destroyed shoe.

August 1, 2016 -- "Ahoj, so the email place is closed"

The email place is closed, so here is a recording. 

Audio file

I can barely listen to it because my voice is like....not so good. 

The funnest thing we did this week was we contacted our neighbors out our window. Ha ha. The people on the street below us were looking up, like "What?" Also during our dinner hour, we usually have a jam session with Tomas and his friends. He usually is playing while we are contacting. 

Save the Trees and Pray Always

Sestra Baxter