PIONEERS

On the 24th of July, Utah celebrates the arrival of the Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley. We have always loved celebrating this summer holiday and remembering those who went before and made it so much better for us. This week we didn't just remember pioneers but spent 5 days with more than 250 of the pioneers and future leaders of the church in central Europe. The theme of our young single adult conference was; "Be an instrument in the hands of the Lord." Although the native language of the participants may have been: czech, russian, polish, hungarian, romanian, serbian, croatian, albanian, slovakian, slovenian or english, we learned that all could understood the language of the spirit, English was the official language of the conference and so in all the firesides and workshops there was always a low rumble as they translated the message for each other. One of the great messages we came away with is that it isn't enough just to know about the Savior. We have to KNOW Him. We have such respect for these young people: they have to be so strong to resist temptation all around them and often disapproval from friends and even family. The future of the church in central Europe is bright and positive because of these young people.

The conference was held in the beautiful farming village of Sec in the Czech Republic. The facility was built by the communists as a youth indoctrination camp, but we changed all that this week as the restored gospel of Jesus Christ was shared!!

The camp was next to this beautiful lake and was quite close to a castle where the service project was held. As a participant from Brazil said to me, "This is a dream to do a service project at a CASTLE."

We cleaned out the moat, painted and helped move stones!

Yellow vests with the Mormon Helping Hands logo.

(Elder Waldo doing his part)

The huge bonfire to burn up our labor.

With some of our young adults. . .
(Wonder what Elder Robbins is thinking?)

We're wearing t-shirts that the kids made for us!!

This is Janos from Hungary who just received his mission call to the Czech Republic. He joined the church three years ago. He is the only member of the church and was brought up in an atheistic family. He told me his first missionary was Johann Sebastian Bach!?! He started taking piano lessons at the age of 10 and first felt the stirings of the spirit as he learned Bach's music. He will arrive in our mission in December and I told him I wouldn't be able to give him a hug as a missionary so we got our hugs in now!!