A Visit to Slovakia

P-day with the district

Visited an open air museum

In the tunnels underneath Velehrad monastery

Underneath Velehrad

Bones underneath Velehrad monastery

Last district meeting before transfer week

A picture of Uhersky Brod

Entering Slovakia!

Service project: tearing down a wall

Another successful project!

April 26, 2016

Ahoj!

Another great week! And we are coming up to the end of the transfer here! Next week I might be in a new area with a new comp, but we'll see! Highlights from the week!

On Tuesday, we had a "culture night". We get one day a transfer where we get to go to some cultural event and learn more about the Czech culture. For ours this transfer, we went to an open air museum. They had recreated a settlement from the 1200s or something like that and we toured around that. We also went to the massive church, Velehrad, but this time, we went underneath it! It was really cool!

On Thursday we had our last district meeting as the 6 of us. We had a testimony meeting at the end of it and it was great. I have come to love the Elders in my district!

We have been doing a lot of service recently and still have a ton of people that want some. But this week, we helped a member in his garden. He had a bunch of small trees and bushes that he wanted us to dig out of the ground. It was good work and I even got a blister from it! My hands have gotten pretty weak haha. We also did service in Luhačovice this week for another member's parents. We tore down a wall of an old shed, which was pretty fun work.

On Friday, we decided to try and do a little less-active finding and contacting in a city near ours called Uherský Brod. It was cool to go into another city and contact some new people.

And on Sunday, we had church! It was great as usual. That evening we contacted and then tracted in a small town called Kněžpole.

Yesterday (Monday) was an awesome day! Training is always the best, and this time it was in Slovakia! Czech missionaries don't get to go to Slovakia too often, so it was a fun experience. We took a train to Bratislava and had training in the church building there. The entire training was focused on learning how to baptize! It was an inspiring and much needed training. I came away knowing what I need to do more and feeling more excited about the work.

Love you all! Have a great week!

-Starší Shirley

{Here are some of Elder Shirley’s responses to questions that his mom sent to him}

Hi Mom! Thank you for asking people to email this week! I had so many people send Happy Birthday emails! It was nice to see how many people are still thinking of me :) I will definitely miss my traditional birthday turkey dinner this year. A member knows about my birthday and invited us over though. So it'll still be good! With transfers coming up soon, I don't know if I'll be able to Skype for Mother’s Day. I know I can at least call you on the phone. We drive on the same side of the road here thankfully. We drive an Opel; I wish we had a BMW haha. We use the car probably every other day. I get my hair cut at a local place; they do a pretty good job!  We email from a library and we have 90 minutes.

Nationwide Service Day - Let's Clean Up the Czech Republic 2016

Elder Shirley talking with a young helper at Let's Clean Up the Czech Republic day

Participating in the national "Let's Clean Up the Czech Republic 2016" day

Elder Shirley and his companion purchased local soccer team scarves

April 18, 2016

Čau! 

I apologize for the lack of an email last week! Here is this week:

We have switched up finding a little bit here by going bus contacting! On Tuesday morning, we jumped onto a city bus and contacted everyone riding it. We have met some pretty cool people on the buses, but a lot of the time, there are just lots of old people haha.

We had district meeting in Zlín this week and we talked about Christ-Like attributes. It is a section in Preach My Gospel and it is really good! After district meeting, we got a car! The zone leaders drove it to us and we took it back home from there. I am now driving again after almost a year!

We also had English that night and we had a potential investigator come. After the class, we invited him to stay after and learn more about us. He stayed and it ended up being a really spiritual lesson. We felt that we needed to commit him to baptism, so we did and he accepted! It was awesome! 

On Thursday, we weekly planned and had dinner at a member's house. I love going to member's houses! They are so great! And they cook really good food haha.

Friday we had an exchange. I was with Elder Chapple, who was in the same group as me in the MTC. It's pretty fun to serve around an Elder that started with you and is at the same point in the mission.

Saturday was service day! There was a nationwide service project called Let's Clean Up the Czech Republic or something like that. We put on the church Helping Hands vests and helped clean up trash. We met some really cool people! I'll send some pictures. We also did service for our neighbor in the garden and then finished the day on a sport's night with the young men.

I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting on Sunday and I found out about it on Saturday. I was really surprised with how well it went. At least I think it did! It was cool to realize, from last time I gave a talk, how much more I can express myself without writing out my whole talk. We also had someone show up to church that we met on the street during the week. We did a little tracting in the evening as well!

I ate something pretty different this last week. It is called tatarak. It's basically raw beef and egg on bread. You'll have to look it up! Weirdly, it was pretty good.

{Here's the description of tatarak that we found: Taking cues from the French steak tartare, tatarák—technically short for tatarský biftek—is fresh, minced raw beef with a number of mix-ins: egg yolk, diced onion, mustard, salt, pepper, paprika, maybe some diced cucumber, and usually Worcestershire sauce or ketchup (unlike the French, you won’t find capers here). Sometimes it’s served pre-mixed; other times you get all of its myriad ingredients fanned out around the plate, so you can mix it to taste}

It was a successful and fun week! Every week as a missionary is a blessing and a spiritual experience. I am thankful for it and love it! God is in the work!

Love you all!

-Starší Shirley

General Conference in Czech and Driving Internationally

An awesome member family here. We ate dinner at their house on Monday

We tracted to the top of this hill

Elder Shirley's new Czech-made Prim watch

April 11, 2016

{Elder Shirley said he was running short on time this week, so he didn’t get to do his normal big email, but I put together some pieces of information from the short personal emails that he sent to us.}

Transfers will be the week before Mother's day, so I don't know at all if I will stay, or at what time I will be able to Skype. I won't know until the week before! 

I watched General Conference in Czech with the branch this past weekend, so I'm not 100 percent sure who my favorite speaker is yet haha. But as far as I could tell, I really liked Elder Uchtdorf's talks! 

The contacting is great! We have really good conversations with people on the streets, but it has been hard to find new investigators. But, the solid investigator we do have, we put her on baptismal date this week! It was an awesome lesson and the member teaching with us really helped. She also came to conference which was great!

This week I officially get a car! I’ll be driving internationally! Has Dad ever even done that? Also, my next training on the 25^th of April will be in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, so I’m getting to visit the other country!

I know sometimes I don't send the longest responses back, but I love hearing from everyone! Pictures are the best so keep sending them please! I'll try to send more! 

-Elder Shirley

I Find That I Am Happy All The Time!

Elder Shirley and his companion Elder Lovell

Elder Shirley still loves a good meat and potatoes meal

April 4, 2016

Čau family and friends!

This week went by so fast! Time continues to just fly by. 

Tuesday night, Elder Lovell and I took a bus to Brno to start our exchange with the zone leaders. I came back here to UH with Elder Tingey and we started the exchange that night. 

Wednesday was a day full of contacting people in the city. We also taught English that night. 

Thursday was district meeting in Zlín. We talked about giving people commitments and follow-up on the commitments that we give. We contacted in Zlín for a while about our English class to see if we could get more people to come. The rest of Thursday was more contacting in the city! 

Friday, we started the day with a small service project. We helped a lady in her garden. The rest of the day, we tracted and contacted. 

Saturday we weekly planned, contacted, and then in the evening, we had a sports night! It has gotten pretty warm here and with the time change, it is light enough outside to play sports in the evening. We played a little softball and soccer. It was a blast! I definitely have missed playing sports all the time.

Yesterday was fast Sunday for us because we don't get to watch conference this week. Because of the time change and the translation, we just wait a week to listen to it. I'm super excited though! Conference has to be one of my favorite times of the year. Yesterday we had a good testimony meeting in church. The remainder of the day was spent tracting and contacting.

After writing that summary of the week, I realize how much we go contacting and tracting. But this last week, I have started to realize how much I actually love my mission. I find that I am happy all the time and sometimes, I have no idea why! Haha. The mission really is the greatest learning and growing process that everyone talks about. I wouldn’t trade it for anything! Serving the Lord is hard work, but definitely fulfilling. 

Love you all! I hope you enjoyed conference and were uplifted by it! Ahoj!

-Starší Shirley

Easter Week in the Czech Republic

Elder Shirley and Elder Lovell

Enjoying P-day!

A cultural celebration we happened to find

A church at the top of the hill

A view of Uherske Hradiste

Service project - "before picture"

Service project - "after picture"

European soccer season is beginning

Branch Easter egg hunt

Some booths set up on the town square

Making Easter whips

A variety of Easter whips

Traditional Easter whips - Elder Shirley made the small one

Making another visit to the local castle - this time it was open!

Entering the castle

March 29, 2016

Ahoj!

There has been a lot that has happened this past week and a half! I'll try to fit it all in!

We had branch conference at church 2 weeks ago and a ton of people showed up. The district president spoke as well as President McConkie. It was an awesome Sunday.

The next day, we went to Brno and had zone training. We talked about finding ideas, which was exactly what Elder Lovell and I needed. Training days are my favorite! 

This whole last week, we shared the Allelujia Easter video with everybody, members and investigators. It is a great video and everybody enjoyed it.

Tuesday and Wednesday were almost the same. We did service in the morning for an investigator. We stacked wood for her and it was good to do work like that again. 

All the remaining time during the week was spent contacting on Easter! We got to testify of the Easter and of Jesus Christ all week. 

The Easter traditions here are a little different. Everyone makes or buys a whip made out of braided willows tree branches. On Monday, the men go around and "whip" the women. So of course, we bought whips and we also learned how to make them. There was a big Easter festival thing this last weekend as well and everyone had booths set up on the town square. It was really cool! I have a lot of pictures this week so make sure to look at them. 

Just a good week all around! Still loving missionary work! Hope everyone had a great Easter!

Love you all!

-Starší Shirley

Through Goals and Faith, We Can Achieve Anything!

Elder Shirley with his companion Elder Lovell and two of the McConkie children

In front of the church

One of the "awesome Czech neighborhoods" where Elder Shirley was tracting this week

Another Czech neighborhood

Elder Shirley with one of the YSA's in Uherske Hradiste branch

March 21, 2016

Ahoj!

So this week we have training in Brno on Monday, our usual P-day. So P-day is moved this week from Monday to Saturday! So this week's recap isn't too big since it hasn't even been a whole week since last time I wrote. 

For the most part, this week was normal good missionary work. We are trying to mix up some of our finding ideas to attract different people. We went tracting as well. Pretty much a normal, good week.

Yesterday though, was probably the coolest day of my whole mission. I went on an exchange with Elder Lanham, my district leader. We received a challenge from President McConkie the day before to hit standards in member-present lessons and in church attendance this week. So, in response to that, Elder Lanham planned our day around that. We didn't have anything on plan, other than contacting in the city, so we decided that somehow, we needed to get a lesson with a member present to hit our goals. So we set that goal, without knowing how we could do it. We went out the next day, needed to find investigators, and invite everyone to church. The first man we talked to right outside the apartment didn't really have time, but he gave us his card and told us he wants to meet. Five minutes later, we stopped a girl and taught her a lesson on the street and committed her to church tomorrow.  Right after that, we were in a hurry to get into the city center to check something. As we were walking pretty fast, we had the thought to stop one random girl. It was an awesome lesson. She about started crying on the street. We got her number and she should also be at church on Sunday. We then met a lady on the town square that had been given a Book of Mormon about a week earlier. She told us that she loved the book and was already 40 pages into it. She'll keep reading and said that she will pray about it. We wanted to try a little bus contacting yesterday as well. So we went to the bus station and prayed right there to know which bus to take. We both thought of the same bus, so we went to catch it. But it had started to pull away. An old man though, stepped in front of the bus and stopped it so he could get on. We ran over there and got on right behind him. We rode this bus around for a while, and on our last 5 minutes if the ride, we contacted a guy about personal revelation. He really liked what we were talking about, and asked if we had more time right then to sit down and talk more. We said “of course” and started taking him to the church building. On the walk there, we were both praying that somehow, a member would be at the building so we could teach a member-present lesson. We got into the building and our branch president was there! He had just finished a meeting and he taught the lesson with us. It was so awesome! We contacted the rest of the night about church and we are expecting a lot of people to be there this week.

That was our amazing day. I know it is a little hard to explain what it was actually like, but I did learn a few things. The Lord is in the work! Through goals and faith, we can achieve anything. Prayer works! Specific prayers, often, show our faith and help us receive blessings. Follow the Spirit! If you are in tune with the Spirit, and trying to be obedient, he will guide you. Just an amazing day full of miracles!

By the way, I am getting my international driver’s license on Monday. Pretty scary!  I can’t drive yet, because we don’t have a car in our area. But if we get one, I’ll probably be driving haha. It’ll be weird to be back on the road after 9 months.

Love you all! The church is true!

-Starší Shirley

{This morning we received a surprise email from Sister McConkie, the mission president’s wife}

Dear Lovells and Shirleys,

Yesterday morning in Uherške Hradištê, my husband left our hotel very early to go to the church for interviews. So when my boys and I stepped onto the town square with our luggage, feeling kind of nervous that we wouldn't remember how to walk to church, we were happy to see Elder Lovell and Elder Shirley who were waiting in the cold to walk us in the right direction. I guess my husband sent them :). It was awesome to see them and walk with them.

They chatted with Hyrum and George so easily, and started our morning off with enthusiasm and love. (We had been traveling from city to city for member visits, interviews, a zone conference, etc. so our family was pretty sleep deprived and in need of some cheerfulness :))

They are just wonderful young men. After the branch conference was over, the members had a meal together and I watched how well your sons interacted with the members who they serve. They seem to be getting along with everyone and the members are lucky to have them there.

Thanks for all of your support and for raising young men who are so enjoyable to be with!

Wishing you a lovely week! May you be blessed!

With love from Czech Republic,
Sister McConkie