Sestra Baxter & the New Bohemians: November 2016

Cinte Pokani ja nevim co mam rict tady tak rikam to -- November 28, 2016

Cinte Pokani ja nevim co mam rict tady tak rikam to. ("Repent: I don't know

what to say here, so that is that. ")

Tady je Sestra Baxter.

This week has been so spiritual! Last Monday we wanted to go back and visit

this family from Romania that told us to come back on a couple different occasions and wanted us to return. When we returned we rang their zvonek. They kind of just heard it was us then hung up. We were so sad, so we decided to contact, and the second girl we ran into was so darling. Her name was M___, and she had just been traveling around the states that summer so she was in Utah! She said she loved it there, and the people, she thought they were different, maybe happier. We asked if she maybe thought that was because there are a lot of people who believe in God? She thought maybe but never has tried to get to know Him. But she decided to meet tomorrow, and we are so excited.

We also met with our investigator R___. We have really been struggling to get him to understand who Christ is and His role because he is Muslim. He believes He was a prophet. But is lacking that knowledge that He is also our Savior and is vital in returning back to our Heavenly Father. We hadn't really talked about baptism much before because we wanted him to understand who Christ was but we decided to talk about it a little bit and the spirit was so there. I started to testify to him that there is more we have to do to return to live with God. We have decided to move on and teach all the other lessons.

On Wednesday we met with, like, all the members in the ward. It felt like they all set up for appointments on one day. Haha. But it was totally fine with us. It just meant we were on a spiritual high all day long. Wow! I can't believe the faith of these members. The N______ family, 7 kids. For example we tried to give a really good spiritual thought but then Brother N______ comes comes in the spiritual tornado and it was impossible to leave without crying. He talked about how these people in the Czech Republic are not hopeless. They just need work, and he told us we truly need to believe we are on the Lord's errand. We met with Sestra K________ as well; she is so precious. L____ as well. He is so kind and always gives us huge bags of food so we don't go starving, even though I never have even got close to going starving on my mission. Also met with the H___ family again. Sestra H___ come a sweet little Amalka. We talked about the Plan of Salvation, and Sestra Hale said she has 180 names found that she needs to do work for, and she wants to start working on getting her temple recommend. We could have not been happier.

Thanksgiving was a super and also our Preparation day. Starsi Holt made us SUCH GOOD FOOD! He is a superstar and did it on his own. We also wrapped 3 boxes Book of Mormons for our finding activity on Friday for when we had interviews.

Friday was so cool our whole Zone had interviews with President. So we all met in Hradec Kralove and did "finding" together why others were waiting on interviews. It is always so fun being with a ton of missionaries. It is like the Armies of Helaman. So we handed out 3 big boxes of wrapped Book of Mormons (Shoutout to Hayden and the Taiwan missionaries for the idea.) Also the new Christmas video the church put out was playing. It was so good! The atmosphere was amazing because the pretty music was playing, and now the Christmas light are up around this beautiful city in the Czech Republic. It was cool to see our mission President literally just step out of his car and talk to two girls who watched the video and have interest. He is so awesome. We all hope we can be as good as missionary as he is!

After that we had exchanges with the Sisters in Liberec! They are so great and perfect together! Sister Minarikova--she is 27 years old serving a mini mission for 1 month. But she is the "Missionarska." I was so blessed to be with her. We had a lesson with one of our investigators, R____, about the Word of Wisdom which is always kind of hard to have a really deep strong testimony of because most of the things on the list I have never even thought about trying or had reason to want to. But I was so glad she was there. Being a young adult Czech, she was able to testify that she has seen a difference in her life when she has stop using these substances. It must have been an exchange planned by God because I could no have managed that lesson without her. What a blessing it has been to have her as a missionary, even if it just has been a month. We needed her, and I know the people in Liberec needed her. I think she will be well prepared to start spreading the Gospel on her own with her friends, clients and people around her.

Another wonderful member missionary story is G_______ from Romania who got baptized here last year. He has decided his friend is ready to learn about the Gospel. He set up a meeting so we could meet with his friend last week, but it didn't work out. So he made sure he and his friend made it to church on Sunday. It was so good to have them both there even though they are still learning the language and Czech is hard. We know they can feel the same spirit as the missionaries even if we don't understand everything.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.... because if you will do this you will want to save the trees and pray always.

S Laskou,

Sestra Baxter

"What more could I want right now?" -- November 22, 2016

This last week has been amazing and spiritual. I love Pardubice more and more. I love these people and everything. One of the best parts of last week was being with our mission President and his wife and a President Sabin and Sister Sabin, a member of the seventy, and the missionaries. I feel that whenever we have trainings they are so perfectly timed by God. Not only did I need to hear their words, but all the sisters and all the missionaries in general. I could never thank them enough for this three year period where they have given their lives to the Lord. I read something in the Liahona that I 100 percent agree with. Ezra Taft Benson said:

“Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace.”

I know you will see these blessings as you serve the Lord and it applies to all of us when ever we are in the Lord service.

One thing that I loved to hear at conference was that "people need time." It might take them 7 or 8 contacts with the missionaries or member friends before people will even listen to us. How blessed are we to be even one of the times. Every person we talk to is one step closer to their conversion. How special is that! Sometimes I think about what if my companion and I weren't here and they didn't talk to missionaries till like 10 years after? They would be so behind in their conversion process. Even though people are not flocking to us, I truly believe no effort is wasted. Sister Sabin talked about her mission she served in Taiwan and said she is overwhelmed how many people have to decided to follow Chirst since she has been there.

An amazing experience we had this last week is we were weekly planning and we wanted to find some less-actives to teach. So we called some on the phone, and it wasn't too long until we came upon the H___ family. They set up a time we could meet. And on Wednesday we were able to meet and talk. The dad was from Kentucky, and the wife was Czech. They are so awesome, but kind of just got lost along the way with work and things. So we are meeting with them every week, and they are starting their way on the path to the temple. It is so happy!!

One of the other happy things was today I got some news from K______ who Sestra Huylar and I met in Liberec. She said:

"I just wanted to inform you that I got baptized yesterday and it was amazing. Thank you for helping me on this journey towards God and Jesus. I already know it is very important decision I made in my life. And I am soo happy you could be part of that. I am soo thankful for that day we met at the post office, that day changed my life."

Ti jo. What more could I want right now?😊 I hope we can have such a wonderful week full of gratitude.

--

S Laskou,

Sestra Baxter

"Give me All" -- November 14, 2016

Sestra Cade & Sestra Baxter

We have had another wonderful week! Something we did totally out of the ordinary was taking someone's engagement pictures--with permission from our mission president. WHAA? When we were at the women's conference in Brno I saw Zuzka Jelickova. Her family are all members in Liberec. She asked if we could take her pictures. I said, "Like that would be way fun, but I am not sure if Prezident would be down for it." Luckily Prezident was like standing 5 feet away from us, and she went and asked him and it was cleared. Haha. It was so fun! So we took pictures of Zuzka and Peter I am not sure his last name. They were so cute and made their way out to Pardubice and we found some darling back streets. When I first came to the country I got to see Peters baptism because my trainer found him in Brno. . It is awesome to see that they will be getting married in the temple next summer and starting a eternal family! It gave me a much bigger view of missionary work!

There is this quote I heard this week it says:

"Give me All. I don't want so much of you of your time, so much of your talents, and money, and so much of your work: I want all. All of you. I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man but to kill it. No half measure will do. I don't want to only prune a branch here and another there; rather I want to whole tree cut down. Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them all over to me and I will make you a new self in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you myself. My will. My heart shall become your heart." (C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity. Read more here.)

I think my whole mission I am always striving to become better, to improve, to make progress, to change my nature. I am not looking to just change my behavior--I want to change my nature. It is not enough for me to go back the same selfish person I was. I truly want to be like Christ, to turn outward in all things! Although I truly feel like I could do so much more, I am so happy to say that I feel like I have changed but I am so so so thankful I even have more time to be with my Czech, Ghanaian or Romanian brothers and sisters. To help them learn to change their nature. I often think back to Alma 26 when him and his missionary friends get together. I pray and hope that I will be able to have this conversation with missionaries in the future.

For our brethren and sisters, the Czechs, were in darkness, yea, even in the darkest abyss, but behold, how many of them are brought to behold the marvelous light of God! And this is the blessing which hath been bestowed upon us, that we have been made instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work. Behold, thousands of them do rejoice, and have been brought into the fold of God.

I am so thankful to be an instrument. I pray everyday I will become the perfect instrument. And though I see do not see thousands coming to the fold of God and least I know on the streets or in lessons the marvelous light of God will be present and even if they don't accept that light, at least I know that they will have felt it. I know we were all made to be children of light. Heavenly Father has made each person on earth a plan to know and feel that light and to stay in it.

S Laskou,

Sestra Baxter

Zuzka and her finance, Peter.

"Transfer call once again" -- November 7, 2016

Sestra Baxter sent this link to a YouTube video of a talent show at their branch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NTYfMnkuKg

Sestra Baxter said, she couldn't watch the video, but you could. If you want to go directly to portions with Sestra Baxter, look at minute markers 18:30 and 28:00

* * *

Transfer call once again......... And I am staying in Pardubice with Sister Cade, and we will be the sister training leaders for the Hradec Kralove and Praha Zone. I am so thankful that I can serve this transfer with Sister Cade. She will be such a good leader and example for these sisters, though she is not much younger than me in the mission. I am so happy to be serving with a younger missionary again. They have so much fire and love-zeal. I am also so thankful I can be among and serve the sweet sisters again this transfer and am looking forward to the new things I can learn from them or maybe be able to apply past mission experiences. Crazy to think this is my 7th transfer?? Jak ten čas týka! It is also great we can be with such a wonderful and strong ward another transfer and also that I can work in such a great hopping area. We found 9 new investigators last week! Pardubice is on fire!

Some things that went one the last week of the transfer?

I went to Ostrava on exchanges with Sister Morgan. She is so precious and has such a sweet heart. She knows that places and was dragging me on trains to trams to buses. We were able to do some solid contacting, teach some bomb lessons, find some new investigators, and visit with some wonderful less-active members--one that I might drive down to St. George in the future if she comes to America.

The Starsis were contacting here in Pardubice with us and met this man named R____. He just got out of prison and wants to feel that his past is behind him and really feels like he need to be baptized again, even if he was baptized when he was a baby. For some reasons he can not be in Hradec Kralove for two years, but we put his date two years from now, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to follow Jesus Christ. It is really humbling.

We had a wonderful lesson with yet another man from Ghana named B__. We talked about God because he was already a believer. We talked about how He leads and guides our lives. It was so comforting to hime that others agree and can feel his influence as well. He randomly asked if we believed there was a living prophet, and he got so so happy when we joyfully said, "Yes." He is down to come to church every week in Hradec Kralove and shines the Light of Christ.

In contrast we had a lesson with yet another man from Ghana named J______. He also brought his girlfriend named M______. For the first 10 minutes of the lesson, he told us why the Book of Mormon is wrong and that God only has one book. "The Bible, the Bible; he has his Bible." He wouldn't even let us explain where it came from. And as we were explaining, he and M______ would throw out things like, "Why is this prophet's name this?" "Why did Joseph Smith write this book?" Literally, we could only start saying two words. The wonderful spirit we had in B__'s lesson was totally gone... We were wanting to share 2 Nephi 29 so bad with him, but we needed to go to another lesson. We invited him to pray about it and ask God. We hope that he will, but he kind of still seemed on the fighting side. I just know that we really can't have contention. If the spirit is going to be there, we need to be willing to learn ,as well as others. When we are humble, it will be there with us.

So this last Sunday was so special because we had Stake Conference--first one yet! Why am I so lucky ja nevim? But I got to see my greatest friends: friends Trebic, friends from Brno, friends from Jihlava, friends from Liberec, and friends from Pardubice and Hradec Kralove! Like my joy is so full every time I see them. Also I couldn't help but crying seeing the sweet little children singing in Czech a song I-can't-even-remember-the-name-in-English. I love this place so much!
Until next week so much love I send in this email....

--

S Laskou,

Sestra Baxter