I have come down to one simple truth: the beer here is the root of many of the experiences that I will bring home. I'm sure of it. I've already had probably 10 - 15 really funny encounters with drunk people. One time we were at the train station going home, and it was after dark (with Elders Thompson and Mills) and a drunk Slovak guy stopped us and started talking and was really funny, loud and happy. We came away smiling. Even though alcohol is a bad thing, and we know that, sometimes they're a little tender mercy from the Lord, because after those ridiculous encounters, you always come away smiling, no matter the day you've had.
In this past week I've had a few interesting ones. Two Fridays ago, we were walking through the park and were stopped by a guy drinking on a bench. He asked us (in English) if we were the Mormons and continued to talk to us after we told him that we were. He said that he had spoken to us before and that we never got back to him and that he still wanted to talk to us. Turns out that he was a Jehovah's Witness and I'm sure he just wanted to have someone to bible bash or just speak religion with. Many times we find people who just want to talk religion because no one else will. So this Jehovah's Witness guy starts talking to us about his beliefs and that when Jesus Christ was on earth, He didn't establish a church, and many other things that didn't really make sense. If Jesus wasn't here on earth establishing his church, setting the new law for the Jews and the Gentiles, what was he doing? Just speaking and doing miracles for fun? That didn't make much sense to me.
Anyway, at one point he accidentally said the F word and was immediately taken aback and was like, "Oh I'm sorry... but, I don't think that's a bad word if you use it in the right places," and then he continued to talk about how there are certain instances when it's ok. His example was, "If you see some old woman on the ground getting beat by some bad man and he is taking her purse, that is ********." Why wouldn't you just help her instead of cussing him out? Anyway, this guy had a few interesting ideas and he was kind of gone anyway because he had been drinking. He said that he didn't drink too often, and then he was really proud to tell us that this was his first drink in seven days! He was so proud of that. So, we ended up getting his number and we called him so he'd have ours and it turned out that we already had his number! Funny, huh? So the elders in our area had contacted him before and probably didn't call him because he seemed like a dead end, but we'll give him a shot.
Then on Saturday, we had probably one of my funniest experiences to date. It was getting a little late and we were really hungry. It was like 8:00 and so we were thinking of going home, but I had the feeling that we could go to the náměstí (town square) and see what we could get. So we headed up the road and we were looking around and there weren't a whole lot of people out. One funny thing about Europe, or at least the Czech Republic, is that during the week people are out and about, but on the weekends, they all disappear. Strange. Anyway, so there's basically no one on the náměstí but there's this one girl walking right at us. She was having a hard time walking in a straight line, so we could see that she had been drinking. So she got up to us, and we guessed she was about 17 or 18 years old, and she said right off the bat to us, "Ahoj Kluci, jsem opilá." (Hey boys, I'm drunk.) Oh great. And then about five seconds later her friend comes up and we could see that she was drunk too, however, that girl came up and hugged Elder Kreitzer right off the bat. So we've got these two drunk girls talking to us and they're not really talking about anything. They were more giggly and flirty than actually saying anything worthwhile, which is understandable, because 17-18 year old girls don't really know what to say a lot of the time when they're not drunk. So these two were talking, talking, talking and we were piping in just to make the conversation interesting, and they started asking us if we party and if we like to do that kind of stuff, and we said no. They asked if we party at home, and I said maybe, but then I made a correction statement that we maybe party back in America. Oh gosh, I don't even know what to say, they were all over the place. Then they asked if we spoke English and we said yes and they broke into English, and badly at that, and they were all screaming at the whole square and at us that they love America, they love English and they love us. They said that they loved us a few times and that was weird. So they're going off in English now and still not making a whole lot of sense. Then they got the bright idea to invite us to a party or so I assume. They just left it at, "you should come with us," and they kept repeating it over and over, and we'd just keep saying that we couldn't. Then I told them, in English, that we needed to go and they said, in English, that they didn't understand me. I tried that a few times, and then I switched it into Czech and said, "Musíme odejit," which means we really need to go, and they responded, in Czech, "We don't understand." Oh gosh... these girls are just being flirty. It was way weird. I didn't really know what to do with the situation. So they kind of agreed to let us go, but the second one came up and hugged Elder Kreitzer again (this is like the fourth time - she'd hugged him a few times during the conversation) and then wouldn't let go and kept saying "kiss, kiss, kiss" and moving closer and closer to his face. Elder Kreitzer tried to get away, but it amounted to his face just stretching away from hers, so she settled with kissing him on the neck. And then the other girl went and gave him a hug and kissed him on the cheek. And then they both went after me! Oh no! I was petrified. I had no clue what to do, so they hugged me and got me on both my cheeks. That was way weird. We walked away thinking, why did I get the feeling to come to the náměstí? I still don't know, but we came away laughing. So how's that?
Oh gosh, there are more stories about drunk people and they're all funny. I need to get going, though. I love you all, and hope that these little stories brightened your day as they did mine when I had them. I love you all very much, I miss you all very much, but I know I'm here for all of you.
Much love from the Czech Republic,
Starší Monk
PS - the picture is of a little basket that one of our investigators (not the guy in the photo - he's a member named Laďa) found at the building and was thoroughly convinced it was a hat.