The Gospel Just Makes Sense

Elder Shirley with Elder Gunnell (a senior missionary from his first area of Jicin)

Elder Shirley's companion (Elder Hudson) while they were doing a service project this week

The soccer field where Elder Shirley and his companion play almost every morning

August 22, 2016

Hi!

We ended up dropping that lady that we tracted into last week. She didn't really want to progress unfortunately. District Leader responsibilities are pretty easy. I just get to go on a lot of exchanges and train at district meeting every week. This week will be our last district meeting in this transfer. Next week we have zone training in Bratislava, which is in Slovakia, so I get to go there again. And the week after that will be a new transfer.

The new mission president is great. Not much has changed in the mission yet, but I assume that those changes will start happening soon now that he has been here a little bit and is used to the missionaries. My companion is great; we've been together for 16 weeks already so we know each other pretty well! We work hard and we get along. We both like sports too. I actually think tonight we are going to go shoot a basketball around.

This week was another pretty normal week. We actually had a musical number in church yesterday! The 4 of us missionaries here sang. We sang the Army of Helaman song. It ended up being alright. I have found out since being on my mission that whenever I have to do anything musical in front of people, I get super nervous. My legs literally just start shaking. So during the song, I had to keep moving around so nobody would see haha. I'm not meant to perform in front of people :) 

I had an exchange this last week with Elder Andersen in my district. He is super knowledgeable about the gospel. Since being around him this transfer, I have really felt like my understanding of the gospel has grown. On our exchange, we had a street contact with a really cool mom. We talked to her for about an hour about the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. From that conversation and from Elder Andersen, I have really how important the doctrine of the nature of God is. That he is our Father and that he has a body. Literally everything stems off of that knowledge. It is awesome to know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who gives us scriptures, prophets, his Son Jesus Christ, and allows us to communicate with him through prayer. The gospel just makes sense! 

That's super cool that Abrea started in the girls soccer game! How many girls are on the team? I can't believe she is playing varsity high school sports. That is pretty crazy!

Dan is still playing defense huh? Who else is on the team? Dan is an upperclassman now; that’s exciting! How did he get involved in doing orientation? I'm glad you guys have found a new normal with me being gone. And I'm sure Dan and Abrea are a lot closer now! And they'll be in high school together this year. Wow, it seems like there are still tons of people getting mission calls! It's weird to already be out so long and to hear about some friends getting their calls now. I'm glad I went out early! I've become quite the chef while I’ve been out here;) I don't know if that (baked goods from his mom) would make it here and still be good haha. Thanks for the offer though! :)

Love you all!

-Elder Shirley

God Blesses Us At The Exact Moment We Need It

I didn't have any pictures of me this week so I decided to just take a couple so you could see my face

We decided to make cookies last P-day because it has been months since I've had homemade cookies. I think we made around 100 or so.

The main intersection in UH. The church building is the pink one on the right. I've been on this intersection literally probably thousands of times.

August 15, 2016

That is awesome news that Dan and Abrea both made the soccer teams! Congrats! Especially to Abrea for making her first high school team! I'm excited to hear how the games go. It'll be interested to hear how the team is this year. I can't believe another soccer season has already started! 

It's good to hear that you look forward to getting my letter! I'm sorry that sometimes I probably disappoint. This last week, not a whole lot happened. It's funny how everything kind of just becomes a normal thing. 

This week we had usual district meeting. We went out on the town square, the 6 of us, and we sang hymns and contacted people. We do that about once a week. We also taught our usual English class on Wednesday evening. We usually get about 5 people there and this last week we had 8 or so. We showed them the Restoration film at the end and they liked it.

Thursday was a pretty good day. We had nothing on plan, so we had a day of 8 hours on the street. We studied until 10:00am, contacted for 3 hours, ate lunch and then contacted for 3 more hours. And then, just to switch things up, we went tracting for 2 hours in the evening. We didn't have really any success throughout the whole day. We taught a few lessons on the street, but nobody was willing to set up a meeting with us. It is cool to see though, and we see it quite often, how blessings are received when we work through, when we keep going. And for us, last Thursday, that blessing came in the 7th hour of finding. We were tracting in some houses that were kind of close to our house. One lady answered the door and said, "I know you. We've talked before." We asked her what we had talked with her about and then introduced her to the Book of Mormon. She said that she knows the book, has it, and knows that it is from God. My comp and I were both pretty surprised so we immediately said that when people know the Book of Mormon is true, we baptize them. And then we asked if she wanted to be baptized. She said maybe. And so we set up a meeting with her the next day. It was awesome! Miracles come when we are obedient and when we are working hard. God is always there and blesses us at the exact moment when we need it. We had a meeting with her the next day and taught the Restoration. Just a cool experience!

Church was especially good yesterday. We had a lot of people there! I think our number hit around 45. The sacrament meeting talks were great too! 

Love you lots!

-Elder Shirley

Battling Sickness and Bats

Spending a day working in Zlin

One of the two bats captured in the apartment

A bit hard to see, but Elder Shirley's pants have been faded by the sun after a year of hard work

A baptism at a lake near UH

August 8, 2016

A few interesting things happened this week:

On Wednesday, I wasn't feeling 100%. Contacting around the city is a little tougher when you aren't feeling well haha. But in the evening we had English class. Right afterwards, we went and got ice cream with an English student. I still wasn't feeling good so I didn't get any. On the walk back home, my stomach was acting up pretty bad. I had to stop walking and lean against a building. I then realized that I wasn't going to make it back home. So I walked down an alley, found a garbage can, and threw up. It was a lot of throw up. I felt a little better after that, but we went home and I just layed on my bed. That's the first time getting sick on the mission! I layed on my bed and fell asleep for the night but I woke up at around 2 o clock in the morning to a weird sound. I looked around the room and I saw something flying around. It ended up being 2 bats! They had flown in the window and were stuck in the house. We weren't sure what to do so after flipping the lights on, we decided that we just needed to get them out somehow. The bats were sitting on the cupboard in the kitchen. We armed ourselves with couch cushions and scared the bat out of its hiding spot. My comp, Elder Hudson, swung and connected with the first bat with his couch cushion. He then proceeded to smash it on the ground a few times. We took his lacrosse stick, picked up the stunned bat, and threw it out the window. We took care of the second bat the same way haha. It was pretty funny. We've been bat free since then, thank goodness. 

As for the rest of the week, I went to the city of Zlín and spent the day there on an exchange. Zlín is a city that does not look very European. But it’s a good city and it was a good exchange. I got to do some bus contacting there because they have city buses.

We had 2 baptisms on Saturday. Two 8 year olds in the branch were baptized in a lake near UH by Elder Shepherd, a missionary who served here previously and was back visiting with his family. It was a good experience and our branch just grew by 2 members! I got to give one of the talks before the baptism. My comp gave the one about baptism and I spoke about the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is one of the greatest gifts that our Father in Heaven has for us. We can be warned, comforted, and have guidance thanks to the Holy Ghost. What a great gift! It guides us in this work here in the Czech Republic because Heavenly Father wants us to find his elect children. The Holy Ghost is real. God is real. Jesus Christ is his Son and our Savior. What wonderful knowledge and a wonderful message to share to the world.

At church on Sunday, I translated for Elder Shepherd’s family at church. Translating is quite a bit harder than just giving a talk. I sat in the back of the chapel and translated into a microphone and they have personal headsets on so they can understand the meeting. Testimony meeting is always the hardest to translate for because you never know what people are going to talk about. 

Love you lots!

-Elder Shirley

We received an email from Elder Shepherd’s family this week, telling us a little bit about their visit to UH (see below):

Brother and Sister Shirley,

I just wanted to let you know that our family met and talked with your son today in UH. My son, Matt Shepherd, recently returned home from his mission to the Czech Republic in March. We as a family decided to go on a vacation to the Czech Republic and England where are other son served.

While in UH at a baptism we met Starsi Shirley. He gave one of the talks today and did an outstanding job! You should be proud of him. His Czech is amazing! He is so kind and thoughtful! He is happy and looks great! The members here are wonderful and we are anxious to meet more of them at church tomorrow. The three other missionaries are all exceptional young men!

It was fun to meet another Idahoan since we live in Idaho Falls. I just wanted to let you know he is doing well.

A Couple of Noteworthy Experiences

Elder Shirley with the other Uherske Hradiste missionaries on a tower that they climbed on P-day

The tower

Climbing the tower

View from the tower

August 1, 2016

Hi!

Most of the week was the same old stuff, but I have two stories that I would like to share. 

On Tuesday, we went to a little village outside of UH. The person that we wanted to visit couldn't meet with us. So we thought of a second person that we had tracted into a few weeks before. We drove to her house to see if she had time. This lady is like 70 or 80 years old so she was home and she let us in. She has a history with the church that goes back about 20 years. She had met with the missionaries many times and had even gone to church. As we talked about the Book of Mormon with her, we found out that she has one and has already read it. Twice. We asked her what she thought about it and she said that it was the second time she read it when she realized it was true. She believes that we have the true church on the Earth. So right away we said that when people find out that our message is true, they get baptized. We asked if she would be baptized. She said “no”, only because her family goes way back in the Catholic church. But it was a cool experience because I realized how powerful the Book of Mormon is. When people read it with real intent, the can know the truthfulness of it. 

The second experience happened on Friday. I had an exchange with an Elder in the district. We had a pretty successful day and taught some pretty good lessons. We met with one guy in a bar, (because that is where everyone goes), and taught him. We were about to leave and it started dumping rain. So we waited under the little tent thing outside the bar for the rain to stop. One guy that was in the bar saw us and came out to talk to us. He knew a little about our church and just wanted to talk about why we have the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. And of course, you can't get too far with a man that is completely drunk. He wanted us to drink a beer pretty bad, so he bought one for us and put it up next to our mouths so we would drink it. Of course we just kinda turned away. And then he was looking at my tag and decided that he wanted it. He grabbed my tag and put it in his pocket and wouldn't give it back. Pretty annoying guy haha :) Our investigator, though, stole it back from him and so I got my tag back. Pretty fun experience haha. 

In answer to your question about what some of my best teaching experiences have been, one that stands out for me was about 3 or 4 months ago when I was training. We met a guy on the street and he had some really weird beliefs, but Elder Lovell my comp felt impressed that we needed to call and set up another meeting with him. He knew we taught English on Wednesdays so he said he would come to that. He came and we stayed with him afterwards and had a lesson. As we talked and discussed more about what he believed, you could definitely feel the Spirit. I couldn't even tell you exactly what we taught, but I remember feeling that the lesson felt really good. In fact, in the middle of the lesson, our investigator Jirka talked about how to know what church is true. We had an impression to just kneel down right there and have him pray. So mid-lesson we got down on our knees and he prayed. Right after the prayer we asked him what he felt, if he felt that our church is true. He said yes, your church is true, I feel it. And so we invited him to be baptized and he said yes. It was an awesome experience.

Overall, this was another great week! Love you all lots!

-Elder Shirley

A Special July 24th Commemoration

Hiking up Priest Hill

Karlstejn Castle

Monument commemorating the location where Czechoslovakia was dedicated for missionary work in 1929 and again in 1990

The new mission president (President Pohořelický) and his wife

A neighborhood where Elder Shirley recently worked

July 25, 2016

Hi Everyone!

This week was great! Elder Hudson and I are still going strong at 12+ weeks together haha. We had a little more success this week in finding investigators and things should start picking back up. We were only in our area 5 out of the 7 days this week though. We had an exchange in Brno with the zone leaders on Thursday and then we went to Prague (Karlstejn) the next day. Karlstejn was a really cool experience because that is where the country was dedicated for the preaching of the gospel. All of the Czech missionaries gathered and we went to the spot in the forest on a hill above the Karlstejn Castle known as Priest Hill. We conducted a program that was mirrored after the same program that was conducted there in the year 1929 when the mission was dedicated by Elder John A. Widstoe. In that day, there were only something like 11 missionaries, the mission president, and 6 members of the church. Now we have 3000 members, 70 or so missionaries, and a stake of Zion in this country. This commemoration is something that is done by the members of the Church in the Czech Republic every July 24^th. It was a really cool experience and it was good for me to focus on the heritage of this mission and of the Church in this country. The history behind it and it reminded me that this work is so much bigger than me.

This country is a special place and God is preparing these people for us as a mission. The gospel with go forth boldly and independently. And that is why I am so grateful to be serving here. I have the opportunity to let the Lord work through me. Through my obedience and through my testimony. I go forth and preach the gospel every day because I love these people and they need it. Something that I have realized recently is that faith promoting experiences can be found if we search for them. God will answer our earnest prayers if we do our part and study it out. I have felt his hand in this work and know that He is guiding this church through the prophet. The true Church of Jesus Christ was restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith and we can find answers to any questions in life with this knowledge. The gospel makes sense. We are so blessed to have it. I know it's true. And I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Love you all! Hope you have a great week!

-Elder Shirley

Some additional pictures of the commemoration on Priest Hill:

Elder Shirley with Elder Gunnell (a senior missionary from his first area of Jicin)

365 Days to Go!

In the tunnels underneath a church in Uherske Hradiste

The chapel in Uherske Hradiste

Finishing up a study session in the apartment

7 ties for $25!

The elders in the Uherske Hradiste district

A picture of the mission countdown timer that we keep at home

July 18, 2016

This week went well; pretty normal again. On Friday though, my companion had to go to Prague to finish up his visa work. So I stayed in UH and was in a threesome with the other two missionaries here for a day. We had an awesome day and taught a ton of people on the street. It was a little weird being in a threesome so I was happy when Elder Hudson got back at the end of the day. 

This whole last week, it has been raining quite a bit. It reminds me of Washington weather. It was a good change from the normal burning hot. A few of my pairs of pants are actually sun-bleached pretty bad from being worn for a year and through all this sun. My black pants are turning a kind of orangish color and my gray pants are going pink haha.

But, because it was raining on Saturday, we had a pretty cool experience. We had on plan to go do service at a member's house, but because of the rain, she cancelled on us. We weren't sure what to do. So we decided that we should either tract in the city or go to a different city and tract, offering service. So we decided to pray about it. We all felt strongly that we should go tracting for service. So we got in the car and prayed again about where we should go. We felt impressed to go to a specific city so we went there and started tracting. The very first lady that we tracted into said that she didn't need help, but she told us to tract the street behind her house and ask people for service there. So we did and after about half an hour, we knocked on one house and an older lady answered the door. She said she didn’t need any help, but she recognized that we were Mormon. She started asking us all the typical questions that everyone asks us like "What state are you from?", "How long will you be here?", "How long have you been learning Czech?" and so on. She said, "You can come in, but I don't want to talk about faith." We said okay, but of course, we had to bring it up :) We ended up having a really good conversation with her and at the end of the conversation we gave her a Book of Mormon. It was an awesome experience. 

It is amazing how sometimes you feel like the work is so hard. But every so often, we are blessed with certain experiences that help us keep going and help us to keep that faith.

Miracles happen often when we look for them. With faith, they happen always when we seek them. The Lord is in this work! We are blessed in so many ways that we sometimes don't recognize. I know that this Church is true and that the message that we share brings happiness and peace to all who will hear. 

This coming week we will actually be going to Brno for an exchange with the zone leaders and then the next day, we are going to Prague, and then on to Karlštejn to celebrate the anniversary of the mission opening up. It should be a really good week! I totally believe that this entire year will go faster than the last one, so I'll make sure to keep working harder! 

By the way, I ate cow tongue today, just a little piece for fun. It was really soft and I have to admit, pretty good. But the texture and just the thought of eating cow tongue made me feel a little weird haha.

{We asked him what we could send him in a package} As for what I would like in a package? I actually don't have bad allergies at all now, so you might not have to send the medicine! I'm probably still good on clothes. And I actually bought 3 ties this last week for about 10 bucks. You can get clothes for really cheap here! As far as requests go.....candy of course. Reese’s, Butterfingers, another box cake, boxes of Mac & Chees, etc. Whatever you like really; I’d appreciate anything!

-Elder Shirley

Everything is Great in Uherské Hradiště

Another successful service project in the forest with some members

Elder Shirley and his companion Elder Hudson at the start of another transfer

July 11, 2016

This last week was great! Honestly, nothing really new to talk about. There haven't really been any new adventures lately. But hopefully, there will be more to write about in the upcoming weeks! District Leader isn't too hard, there's not a whole lot to it. But I hope I can do it well!  My responsibilities are basically to teach/train at district meeting every week and do call-ins with the other companionships and with the zone leaders during the week just to talk about the progress of the missionary work in the areas. I'm doing great still in this area. At first, I was a little disappointed to not get transferred to a new city, but then I realized that I just needed to get over myself haha. Missionary work is essentially the same no matter where you serve or who you serve with.

The new mission President (President Pohořelický from the Czech Republic) is great. The only interaction that I have had with him is this last week when we had new district leader meeting over the phone. He is great though! My companion, Elder Hudson, is also great. We're already used to each other so we didn't have to worry about the first few days of the transfer being a little weird. Usually when you get a new comp you have to adjust to each other, but where we didn't switch, it made it easy.

We did a lot of tracting this week. At the start of this transfer, we decided that we are going to attempt to tract the entire city in these next 9 weeks. We'll see if we can get it done!

The branch here is great as ever. I've been here long enough to where I know them all really well. I actually gave a talk this last week at church. It was on 'How can I fulfill the commitment to always remember the Savior?" It was a pretty simple topic and I enjoyed giving it! I feel comfortable enough giving talks now so I wasn't too nervous. I didn't even write a script this time!

We don't get too many dinners fed to us; most of the time we just cook on our own. Sometimes we eat pasta. We also have rice and pork a lot, grilled cheese, and halušky. Got any other ideas for something to make in 30 minutes? 

Love you all lots! Good luck with everything this week!

-Elder Shirley

{With the latest terrorist attack in Nice, France this past week, we received a brief letter from the Czech/Slovak mission office regarding missionary safety.  I’ve attached the letter below.  It is nice to hear of the great care and concern that the mission president has for his missionaries!}

Dear Parents of the Czech/Slovak Mission:

As we hear about the different tragedies that are happening around the world, President Pohořelický has expressed concern for you as parents, and that you might be worried about the safety of your missionaries.  He wants you to know that the Czech/Slovak area is a safe place and that your missionaries are safe and happy here. We are always praying for their safety as I know that you are as well.  May the Lord bless you for your willingness to have your young people serve here in Prague.  We love them and we thank you for raising such valiant servants of the Lord.

Warm regards,

Sister Tricia Scott

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints

Czech/Slovak Mission

Executive Secretary