Dear Family,
All's well here in the Old Zlíner. I'm happy and my companions are happy as well, however our time together is coming to an end. Oh no! Just when we've started getting comfortable with each other. What a shame, but we need to go to our other places of service. I'll tell you about that a little bit later, but I want to share a few experiences that we had this past week.
So the first one was on Friday when we were at the Blue Café to see Denisa at work. Of course being a Friday, it was very busy but we decided that it didn't matter and that we'd be able to speak with her at least a little bit - also, she likes to see us because she doesn't really have friends with the kinds of people that come to the bar. So we came in, and almost immediately we stood out. Duh, we're wearing suits. Anyway, one guy who was sitting at the bar, probably in his mid to upper twenties, pretty big guy, probably around six foot three or four, and 220-230 pounds of muscle points me out and asks me who we were and what we were doing. I couldn't really understand him because he was pretty drunk. I try and put him off by not really looking or paying attention to him, but he kept beckoning me over to him, so I went over and he read my tag, and was very friendly. Luckily he was a happy drunk. There are lots of those in the Czech Republic. Maybe someday I'll tell you all about the different kinds of drunks I've run into here in the Czech Republic.
So we sat down at the bar, I didn't really want to talk to him, so I grabbed a stool and sat at the opposite end of the bar from him. I sat there for a little while, but he's still trying to talk to me. And then he insisted that I come and sit two stools down from him, on the other side of my companions. Between me and him was a girl, who is at the bar pretty often and who I've seen a few times before, but hadn't really spoken with. Anyway, he starts talking with me, and I'm being as nice as possible, and basically that means I was just holding conversation, laughing with him, and trying to speak as much as possible to practice my Czech. Why not get some good language practice out of it? This proved to be really difficult because he was really drunk and he'd drop whole syllables all the time. Probably half the time the girl would turn to me and translate for me from Drunk to Czech. He introduced himself to me as Čuky (Chucky) and he shook my hand which was basically him squeezing my hand and looking at me as if to say "Squeeze back. I want to see if I can beat you even if I'm drunk." I did and he was pretty impressed with me. He became my "friend" and he kept offering me his wine and his cigarettes. I'd keep turning them down and he'd ask me why I didn't drink. I'd just tell him that I didn't want to and that I probably wouldn't like the taste. At one point he said, pointing to his shirt, "Znaš MotorHead?" (Are you familiar with MotorHead?) I said "ano" because I was and then he got a big smile on his face and offered me his wine again. I turned it down and then he asked me another question. I wasn't sure what he was talking about so I said, "Ne" and he looked a little dejected, but offered me his wine another time! He was pretty insistent on trying to get me to drink his wine. Then he ordered a double shot of cognac and a shot of bourbon and put them both into the wine glass and then offered it to me again! This guy was really giving, but didn't realize that I didn't want to drink it.
He was a really nice guy. I found out that he works at a bar and that he had work the next morning at 5:30, and I knew that he wouldn't be out of it by the time he'd have to work again, but that's his problem. Anyway, then our girlie friend left because she had to go sleep before work the next day, and then he moved over into her stool so he was closer to me. He started asking me about girls and if I had a Czech girl yet. By the way, everyone asks this - the old men and women, the middle aged men and women, the teenage guys, but thank goodness not the teenage girls too. It seems that the older Czech people always ask it the same way, "Libi se vám naše holky?" (Do you like our girls?) What do you say to that? I just kind of try to finagle my way out of those questions. Anyway, back to Chucky. He was asking me if I liked the girls and if I had one yet. I said no, and then he got the idea that he had to explain to me that the girls here and the ones in America are the same. That got way awkward, but I didn't know how to stop him without offending him - I have no idea how drunk people act. So he started nudging me with his knee trying to get me to look at one girl in the bar, and I kept ignoring him saying, no I won't look! Then his friend came over, who was also drunk, and wanted me to come and sit with them at the table so that they could talk with me. This guy's friend decided to give me a history lesson about how the Vikings found America way before Columbus. Then he had me tell them about Columbus. This lesson took about fifteen minutes and I was having a really hard time understanding, but I was understanding. Anyway, they were way funny and I learned that I can even understand drunk Czechs when I'm paying enough attention!
Then the other story is about Alena, one of our really strong investigators. We've been having good lesson after good lesson and she's making lots of progress. It's a little bit of a shame that I have to leave and just hope that she continues making progress. I know that she will and I'm looking forward to the phone call from Elder Mills telling me that she got baptized. Anyway, we invited her to church this last Friday, and she got really excited and accepted the invitation. She asked if she had to wear anything in particular, and she asked what kinds of things would happen there. We answered all her questions and we knew that she'd be there at church on Sunday because she's really committed and solid when she says she'll be there. So Sunday rolls around and we're really excited to see her come. But the meeting started, and she didn't come. She didn't even come late. So church ended and we sent her a text to see where she was and ask what happened. She said that she came right at 9:00 like we said, and she even waited a whole hour for us. She said that no one was there except for one person who was getting christened. We were like, "What? Christened?" We found out that she had gone to one of the Catholic cathedrals. We've been meeting with her in our meeting house and figured that she knew that we'd be meeting there for chruch. Anyway, it was a simple misunderstanding, so we are very sure that she'll be coming to church next week, and we know that she'll have a great time there.
Now, for the news that you've been waiting for. Next transfer I'm going to be moving north to Olomouc and am going to be follow-up training Elder Kreitzer. I just finished being follow-up trained myself, so I am very afraid of this next transfer. But he's also a very smart and solid missionary, so I'm sure that he will help me a lot and that the new city will give me some new energy for the work. I am very excited to go into this next transfer, and President has very high hopes for me. I just hope that I can keep up with this new elder.
Anyway, I love you all and hope that you enjoyed these few little experiences that I've had this past week. I love you all very much and look forward to hearing from you all again.
Starší Monk