New leadership. Czech.

I know it's been a fortnight since last I wrote. I'm happy to report that we have just been too busy to write anything down. Because of that, this will be just a newsletter this time and I hope you find something interesting from it.

Let's go back to the previous week and our most recent zone conference. We were happy to welcome our new Mission President, David Chandler, Sister Stacy Chandler, and their family. They shared their vision for the Church in Poland during their time of service and talked a lot about building on the work of leaders who have gone before. President and Sister Chandler both served as missionaries in Poland when the mission was brand new, 1990-92, that time-frame. They confirmed to us that they will do great things and have been prepared "for a time such as this."

Note the size of our zone. This is pretty typical for the zones in Poland, meaning very small. We had a large group return home last month and just one new elder to replace them. I think that in addition to the 5 senior couples, there are 36 young missionaries currently. It's nice that every missionary knows all the others and the small size makes for a very close-knit group.

After returning home from the zone conference (a 3 hour train ride, as everything seems to be) and getting through another Sunday of uncertainty relating to what church will be combined with certainty of what the church is, we left for Warsaw to meet up with the young adults traveling to Czech for a multi-country YSA conference there.

We chartered a small bus to take the two of us with 10 young adults to the conference hotel in the middle of Czech. Of course we would've loved to have double that number go, but lives are busy in the summer, well, and all other seasons too. The ride lasted about 11 hours with a stop in the city of Wrocław to pick up another contingent.

It was a superbly awesome conference. The countries represented, as far as I can recall in order of most attendees were: Hungary (by far the biggest group), Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia.

It's hard to describe the activities because they were so numerous and all of them good, so I'll just throw them in here. We enjoyed: scripture study every morning at 7:30, (on the last morning I counted 23 senior missionaries there and 10 young adults, which, after listing the other events will make sense), morning devotional, Institute (choice of several teachers from across Europe), workshops, futball, volleyball, zorb futball, tennis, disc golf, canoeing, ax throwing, swimming, ping pong, choir, firesides each night, geocaching, we saved a hostage by solving an escape room, lip-sync battle, talent show, dance instruction, fire pit, dances every night past midnight, we made blankets, wrote testimonies for copies of the Book of Mormon in several languages, and ate a lot of good Czech food.

We got back to Warsaw on the bus Saturday evening, too late to catch a 3-hour fast train home, so instead took a slow overnighter getting us back to our home in Gdańsk at 4:30 this morning (Sunday). Whew! What an awesome week.

Can't see much of the bridge we're on, but you see what pretty surroundings this hotel is in. 

We had several profound and spiritual experiences. I want to share just a couple, but I fear I won't relate them well enough. Both that I'm thinking of relate to the Church in Czechoslovakia during the communist era, but we had many other impressive lessons about the role of these young people in gathering Israel.

The socialist government in Czechoslovakia did a good job of eradicating religion during what we hear a lot about, "the communist era," or "during communism." Poland is unique in that the Catholic church was allowed to continue because the government knew it would have caused great unrest, being so entrenched in the culture of the people. Czechoslovakia did not have that advantage. We got to hear from two of the original members from Czech during that era, Olga Kovárová and her friend, the current Prague stake president joined the Church in 1982. She wrote a book Saint Behind Enemy Lines, detailing how she was able to share the gospel very carefully. What she longed for as a student at university was a message of hope. That message was purposefully omitted from any of the "doctrine" in communist Czechoslovakia. When she found it, interestingly through a friend's yoga instructor, she also decided to learn to teach yoga. Her teacher, who she later learned was a member of the Church, encouraged her to share a brief, 5-minute message of hope after her yoga classes, using quotes from communist officials. She was able to find quotes to do this, and if anyone questioned what she taught, they assumed she was a good communist because of who she was quoting.

A side note, our friend Natalie, the wife in the young couple we have talked about getting baptized here in Gdańsk, is from Czech. She said "This probably sounds strange to you but my grandma always tells us 'You should get out and do something useful. When I was your age I was building socialism!'"

Several years ago I came across and snatched up a copy of the Czech Book of Mormon from that era because it is unique. It is printed smaller than other copies, is red, and has the initials of the book "KM" Kniha Mormonova embossed on the cover. There is another book that looks like this which has the writings of Karl Marx (KM) . If anyone noticed you carrying the book, they assumed you were just being a good, studious communist.

This leads to the other experience I want to share. A young man from Czech described the method Church members used to worship during that time. Remember that this was between 1982 and 1990. I know we're old, but this was not that long ago. At the conference we divided into groups of about 15 and re-enacted what these people did. A few things to note. During that time, children were taken to socialist school by age 5. Among other doctrines drilled into them, they were taught to spy on their parents and report anything they did. Religion was strictly forbidden. No meetings of more than 5 people were allowed. Talking about anything related to a religion or ideology other than that of the government would lead to arrest, interrogation, intimidation, threats, and up to 11 years in prison. As a result, Czech is now one of the top three atheistic countries in the world.

We sat silently in a room representing our apartment with the shades closed and the lights out. Two home teachers arrived unscheduled. Children were not allowed to be in the room, parents could not let their children know what they were doing, effectively stopping any family involvement and breaking any trust between parents and children. Apartment buildings were built purposely in such a way that you could hear what your neighbors were doing. People were given special concessions if they reported on their neighbors, or they and their families were threatened if they did not report on their neighbors. In this circumstance the two home teachers arrived. Everything was a hushed whisper. They had us whisper together the song "I am a Child of God." One of the young men who was our home teacher whispered a thought centered on the story from the Book of Mormon about the people of Alma who had heavy burdens placed on them by the government. They were even forbidden to pray. These people prayed only in their hearts and increased their humility and faith and the Lord made their burdens bearable to them. He eventually miraculously freed them. Our home teacher encouraged us to continue in faith and to not lose hope. The other home teacher then whispered a prayer and they left us praising God in the silent dark.