Monday, January 25, 2016

Week 5 in Liberec

This week was another good week! Before i forgot i wanted to ask for ideas on tabling. I am sure there are pictures of other missionaries and cool things they have done! We need some ideas! This week was really cold to start and we had snow almost all day every day until Friday. We were freezing and spent most of the time out side. We had district meeting this week and i talked about asking inspired questions. We took about 15 minutes to come up with questions to use in contacts on the street and i challenged us to use different questions and a different approach overtime we talk to someone. That helps rely on the spirit more instead of only getting in a routine and staying comfortable!

We had some trying experiences this week! We went to go tracting and were riding on a bus. On my side of the bus there were only two old ladies. I went and talked to one about family history and she was nice but not interested so i left and started talking to the next one. As I started talking this guy started yelling at me to stop harassing old women. He was not happy. He got off the bus at that stop and so i started talking to the old woman again. He saw me and lost it. He got in front of the bus and the bus driver came out and gave me an assigned sit for the remainder of the journey! It was pretty fun! Later this week we met an interesting man on the way home from Prague.. I'll save that story for later. As well as on Saturday we were service tracting and going door to door offering to shovel driveways and help. We stopped one guy and when we said have a nice day didn't take too nicely. He ended up trying to throw some dirty snow at us... Lets just say we were like Samuel the lamanite and he won't be playing in the majors anytime soon. We just get to hug it!

As for some other great things this week! We had exchanges with the APs in Prague. They were awesome! I was with Elder Brown who is actually a Slovak elder. It was pretty fun because he speaks Slovak and me Czech. I could almost always understand him. It was a great exchange and learned loads. We had a killer run that included a never ending flight of stairs and some great times. It is so fun to work in Prague. There are just so many cool people everywhere! I had my interview with president and it was good but really short. I had no questions mainly because i was ready to go out into Prague. We didn't have too much time. We got home Friday night and ended up setting up 4 people for the next day which we have really been struggling with. They all didn't come but we felt like things were beginning to turn and we now have another person on baptismal date. we will see how things go there! Other than that this week was really full and didn't begin to scratch the surface. I am about out of time so ill talk to you next week!









We have to warm our feet at lunch time!








Monday, January 18, 2016

Week 4 in Liberec -- cold and exchanges

All,
We have had another good week here in Liberec! We hit a rock wall with teaching this week but on the bright side our investigator we met last week and knew everything met with us again. This time he showed us this binder he had printed out... He had printed out Preach My Gospel! It was crazy!
He had highlighted some things and it was so cool!! District meeting this week I talked about Becoming a Preach My gospel missionary and then we did lots and lots of practices about teaching people not lessons! It seemed to work pretty good because we also had exchanges with the Zone leaders and our practice with them was on that. We seemed to pass! Also we had a district lunch this week. The soup that we had with it (every Czech meal includes soup) Was Pea soup. I got a good chuckle as i thought of shad and his favorite Joke. The other missionaries didn't laugh as hard as we have!

As i mentioned we had exchanges in Hradec Kralove this week. Wednesday night we took a bus there. On the way there we contacted and it was so hard to get up and start talking to people. But finally did it and i met the coolest girl. She asked what the book of Mormon was because i was holding it and then asked to look at it and began reading it. She read a lot in the Index and different things. It was a really cool experience! We were then in HK for the day and I had a great exchange with elder Earle from Alaska. We took a good run in the morning, in the snow, and then had a full day of contacting and lessons. It was nice to be the junior companion again and get to learn some good things. We were setting up a lesson the first night we were there and texting someone. She had been texting pretty regularly and then stopped. As we prayed to start planning, I prayed for our investigators and right as i said investigators the phone went off! Just a little miracle.

Friday we were back in Liberec and i was exhausted and a little sick. It was a pretty rough day but got through it and got better! Saturday at a bus stop we started talking to this guy who proceeded to tell us he was not a believer and then asked every single person that came to the bus stop if they were believers or not. It was a great experience! We just stood there and testified that we knew god lives! We were backed up to the wall of Testimony but it was great! We have had quite a bit of snow over the past couple days and it will be -20 C' tonight. We were able to buy some new blankets today!

Sunday was a great day and we had a great branch council, my first on my mission. We have been working on a branch vision for missionary work but our branch president basically did it all! It was s a great meeting. We may be small here but everything is working and it feels like things are about to take off! There is a lot in store!

Today we had a great p-day! We started off running out in the snow and had a little snow ball fight, and we then played some squash. I got a good stretch, but my companion got a good workout! It was fun to make him run! We spent the rest of the day getting some things ready for this week! However we did go back to an RCLA house. He is an older guy probably close to 80 who we visited yesterday. We ended up forgetting a bag at his house and he called us and told us we could come by and get it. We showed up walked in and the bag was gone. We searched his house for 30 minutes. His girlfriend (yes) had come over and the door had been open and we determined someone must have taken it. We ended up singing a song and then prayed. I prayed that we could find the bag and we searched a little more and left. As we walked out of the house We were leaving and i turned around and off in the distance in the forest in the snow was this little red thing poking out. It turned out to be our bag!! Our food we had was gone but the clothes we were supposed to give to another member were still there! It was really cool! Other than that it has you up to date! This week will be a busy week! We have exchanges with the APs and will be in Prague for a day. Other than that I hope all is well!

Love you


Our buy this week, For about 2 dollars we got a huge map of the country!




This is where the church building is in HRadec Kralove




We end up throwing a few snowballs each night... I usually win

The church is above the vodafone


Monday, January 11, 2016

Week 3 in Liberec -

What a week! We have had another good week here! It was pretty dang cold all week! We had snow every day and some bitter wind. There is nothing better than contacting in the snow! However this weekend temperatures warmed back up again and today was about 40 so almost all the snow has again melted. But this week will bring some back! Liberec has a lot of hills! We had snow for less than a week and all of the missionaries here had already fallen... Ice is not our friend! We have a hill by our house that has lots of kids sledding on it. We are still waiting for the OK for us to go sled too! However our church shoes do make good ice skates and skis... We have been known to "ski" home on occasion. This week we got to go over to a families house. She has four kids. One of them is probably about 7 and just wants to be our friend. Shes a single mom and the kids love us. HE just wants to sit on our lap, hang out and be buds. So hard that we cant just wrap him up! IT is really fun to have more kids in this branch. It is small but all of them are families which is really cool. This week we had some really cool experiences. A lot of people here say they know things about us. And try and catch us in awkward spots. It has been interesting to see how we always have something to say and are not confounded, yet this people generally our confounded after we talk! Generally i would say its what we say although on occasion it is how we say it.. (did i mention the language is still tough) Wednesday morning this week i had a call in training with President McConkie with all the new district leaders. It was a great training and always great to here from president.

This week we have done p90x every morning in the exact order the suggest! Man we are getting fit. District meeting this week was pretty good and i talked about making things a spiritual work, Finding people and teaching the restoration! It seemed to go well. On Thursday we had one of the coolest experiences! The elders here before had received a referral but he lived about an hour and a half away and unless he showed interest we were going to leave him. However he had time to meet in Liberec on Thursday. He showed up and has pretty much read the entire website. He wanted a book of Mormon and we had a super cool lesson, Extended a baptismal date, had a member present, and had a kneeling prayer. HE texted later telling us how excited he was to work towards baptism. and today we got a text from him telling us that it is his birthday and the best gift he got was the Book of Mormon. there is lots of not great stuff on the Internet about us. It is a miracle that he didn't come across it or wasn't shaken by it! This thing never happens here! It was a crazy experience. We did everything right and were blessed! We had been teaching a lot . Over 60 lessons the last two weeks and no new investigators until then! It was so cool! I also had a Book of Mormon with my testimony in it. We had been trying to give it to investigators that all didn't come. It was cool to see how the lord saved it for him. Speaking of Book of Mormons we have gone through a whole box in the first two weeks of this transfer! The work is fun and going well! We did a really cool tabling display this week and built a statue of a temple out of Book of Mormons in all the different languages. I have also begun reading it in Czech trying to read it again this transfer. I am in Mosiah and had a lot of time to read due to the fact that my companion was sick on Saturday and Sunday again. I promise i didn't feed him anything! But he seems to be better now and we have a busy week! Sunday i did give my first real talk in church on recognizing the spirit and Czech continues to get better. I understand about 80 percent mostly know and the language is coming. I can also learn faster! Pretty much there is no better place to be right now! The work is good and we are having fun! I hope you all have a great week!
S Laskou
Elder Hanis









Monday, January 4, 2016

Week 2 in Liberec -- COLD

I can start off by saying it is cold here! We had a warm December and 5 minutes after it became January the snow started and weather changed. It is been pretty cold recently and we are having fun. Our toes and fingers are pretty numb most of the time since we had contacting pretty much all day every day. We have had to take some thawing breaks. The building here in liberec is right on the main street in the town center which is really cool! The branch is pretty small but strong! we Had 5 of us in priesthood and everyone bore their testimony in fast and testimony meeting. They have a lot of kids though which is really cool! After getting here last Monday it was a little dreary but Tuesday we got out and got to work! Nothing is better than just doing it! This week we had an explosive week! We taught about 39 lessons on the street and in the end had no new investigators. So we have different focuses this week! On Tuesday we were at a members house and she fed us ovocne knedliks. Which are like fruit things wrapped in dough with yummy sauce on top! 

Liberec is a really pretty city! We are in the "mountains". It is pretty hilly so we get some good workout! we have done a lot of p90x since my companion has a bad knee and cant run too much. It has been a really cool city and is gorgeous! My companion is great! he grew up in Texas too and we are getting a long great. He is super bold and speaks pretty great Czech already. It'll be a fun transfer. The sisters arrived on Wednesday and one is a greenie. It is pretty interesting to see what the first few days look like! 

We had my first district meeting this week! We are working on branch visions for the year which is pretty interesting  right now to be setting goals for everything we want to accomplish. Afterwards i gave a training on astonishing! We are a really young district. I talked about smiling, talking to everyone and standing out! It was a lot of fun! New years eve here didn't feel too much like it. We had rules to be inside by 5:30 and had dinner at the church and played games and then we were home at 7:30. We cleaned things up and went to bed. Set an alarm for midnight and watched some fireworks. They were everywhere. We live on the top floor here and our neighbors were shooting them off. They were blowing up literally ten feet from our window. The whole sky was alive with lights. It was pretty cool! 

Thinking about what is in store this year. I will be a missionary the entire year. My schedule will be the same every single day and I get to spend an entire year talking about our message of happiness. It is pretty cool! That's about got you caught up! Did i mention it is freezing?
S Laskou,

Our church building is to theleft of me!
New years in the Czech Republic
It was cold!!