Dear Family,
Well, I'm finally here in the Czech Republic. I got to call my family before I got on the plane that headed for Austria. That was fun but I couldn't really find much to say. However, we talked for a good little while. So, we got to the Mission home in Prague at about noon on Tuesday (Uterý) and had lunch with the mission president. Then we had pictures taken and then Sister Slovaček sent the photos to my dad, so maybe he put them on the blog. I'm not sure. Anyway, the president's assistants took us out for a "Prague Walk" and we went to see the city. Sad thing was, I had already seen most of the things they took me to see from my Europe tour two summers ago. But it was still way awesome to see everything when there weren't any tourists! Yay! Anyway, we did that walk and that took quite a while. At about five o'clock, we went out and did contacting for our first time. That was super intense. They basically gave us a phrase or two that we could use to try and talk to people. They gave us "Prosím Vás" (literally: I ask to you/meaning: excuse me) and "Proč máme vanoce?" (Why do we have Christmas?). Anyway, we were out with Elder Williams and Elder Mittanck. Mittanck was with me and Elder Jones and Elder Horváth went with Elder Williams. The entire time I don't think that Elder Mittanck could stop a single person long enough to talk to them. Seemed like only Elder Jones and I could stop them. One guy that I stopped gave us his number so that we could contact him! AWESOME! He said that his family was Catholic so the idea of God wasn't new to him, but he didn't really seem to believe in Catholicism. He seemed pretty interested in what we had to say. Anyway, then we went to this little cafe thing and had dinner. I had Svičkova which was really interesting. Most missionaries are like, "Oh, I love Svičkova" and I didn't really see what was so special about it. Yes, it was good, but why the big deal? Anyway, it was good. Don't get me wrong. Then we went "home." President let us go to bed at seven, when the missionary bedtime is ten thirty!
Then the next morning President woke us up at seven thirty, so we basically slept twelve hours. That morning we had orientational things with the AP's and the president and then we had lunch. We were told that we were going to get our new companions after lunch, so I was anxiously awaiting lunch. At lunch, they had the three greenies line up with the three trainers opposite us. Then President called up Elder Nowland and said where he was and gave a small overview about the area, and then said that Elder Horváth was going to be with him in České Budějovícé. Then he pulled the other two trainers up and talked about each of their areas. Elder Jones was called with Elder McLaughlin and I was called with Elder Price. Elder Jones is going to Ostrava and I'm in Zlín!
It's awesome here. I asked Elder Price how we were going to get back to Zlín, and he told I'll be spoiled because we get a car. Yeah, we have a car. It's a funny little thing called a Škoda Fabia and it's red. Fun little thing. Anyway, he then told me because we're losing ten missionaries and only getting three this transfer, we lost a companionship in Zlín so I get a phone too. Crazy. Also, since we lost a companionship, there are two apartments in Zlín, so we took the larger of the two and it's way nice, except that it looks like it hasn't been cleaned since the church was founded. So we spent most of today cleaning the thing.
The people here are awesome. They have a little bit of a wall around them because they lived through communism and stuff, but once you break through that wall, they're probably the nicest people I've ever met. Yesterday we went to a town called Kroměřiž to give an inactive lady a blessing. She's going in for cancer treatment tomorrow, but we went in and we spoke for a long time, and she was so increadibly nice. At the end of our visit, she gave us each a big box of chocolates. She's so sweet. Also, it looked like she painted her own eggs. Ya know the kinds of eggs that are really stereotypical for Russians where the egg is brown and then it has the brown and white patterns all over it of ropes and flowers and stuff? Yeah. She did those and they were amazing. I only saw a few when we were talking with her, but when we got up to go out the door, I saw that there were boxes and baskets full of these eggs. She's awesome. That's just one example of the people here. They're all so increadibly nice. I love them all to death.
I think that I'm going to get myself into trouble as far as the language goes, because I think my accent is better than my speaking abilities, and far better than my comprehension, because I always say "Dobrý Den" to the members or any other people and they think that I speak better than I do. Then they go off talking a million kilometers a minute and I can't understand anything. It's frightening. So, either I need to dumb down my accent, or really work on the language. I can pick out about one or two words out of every sentence, but sometimes I hear a word and I analyze it and then they're already two sentences down the road. Gah! This language is going to take some getting used to. My speaking is already much better than when I left the MTC just a short week ago. I cannot believe it. It's truly amazing.
As for my companion, we're getting along very very well. He's awesome and I can see why President wanted to get to know us, the greenies, before he assigned us to a trainer. He wanted to find someone who would really match us. Elder Price is in his last transfer and will be going home in a few months. So, in missionary terms, he's my dad (because he's "raising" me), Zlín is where I will be growing up, and I will be killing Elder Price (because I'm his last companion). :)
Anyway, I can now use something other than myldsmail.net for email, and I have more than thirty minutes. Right now I'm at forty-two minutes, and it's going to cost me 28 Kč which is about 2 USD. I have a new email, so if you don't want to pay one dollar to send one piece of (physical) mail to me in the Czech Republic, which would probably take about a week to a week and a half to get here, then you can write me at either monka90@myldsmail.net or at czech.monk90@gmail.com. Either one is good.
Woah, first couple days gone - Crazy!
Love you all,
Starší Monk