Week 7 in Ostrava - ***SNOW***

All,

It is getting cold here! We have had some light snow today and yesterday was really cold. I am learning how to layer. This week was a great week. The days have been really long. I don't think we got home before 9 or 9:15 once this week and no break for dinner. 

We had a really cool visit with a member this week. She loves to feed the missionaries but often if she is not in the room missionaries begin to speak English which is really hard for her to come back in. Apparently she has talked to president McConkie about it before. We spoke Czech the whole time and have a really big focus on that around members. At one point she left the room for about 10 minutes and we continued to speak Czech. She came back in and said she just wanted to listen to see what we would do and gave us wonderful compliments. It was cool to hear how much she appreciated that little bit.

This week we also had exchanges with the zone leaders. I have become pretty bold on the street but i had a goal to learn to be more bold. We had a great day on exchanges and got someone in our area on Baptismal date! Which was really cool! we also had quite a bit of contacting. The elder i was with was really bold with the three expectations we lay out for people. Meeting regularly, studying on their own, and coming to church. Just saying we expect you to do this with people on the street. IT was cool to find a new way. Everyone you try and stop on the street says they have no time. But! they always do. I have become bold in that regard and told the elder i was with to not let them get away so easily! We both learned quite a bit. 

However we met back with our companions in olomouc and our train their had a 45 minute delay. We didn't get back to Ostrava until about 10:20 plus a 30 minute bus ride. So we contacted! Both me and my companion taught a lesson and got a new investigator who is now progressing! Super cool!

When we got home i went in the bathroom and there was water everywhere... I asked my companion to come look and something was dripping. However as we inspected under the sink the pipe proceeded to explode!!! Everywhere. We had quite the experience! It was a pretty funny night! But had we gotten home with our first train we would have been asleep when this happened and could have really had a problem. It was a tender mercy to be able to stop it. However we didn't have water that night and called our land lord the next day. We got to go to the store with him and fix it. 

Saturday and Sunday we got to watch conference. in English! IT was great and great to hear the words of the leaders of the church. I was impressed by the focus on the sabbath day and something i felt we really needed. As well as how answers for everyone can be found. It was pretty uplifting. Other than that not much is new. I understand more and more of the language and can speak better and better. We only have two weeks left in the transfer which is pretty crazy! Hopefully we can kill it this week. WE have lots of great things on plan. Hope things are going well at home! Have a great week\

Week 6 in Ostrava - Sickness and Castles

All,
My companion was sick last Monday though Wednesday and hasn't really gotten better. It was a slow couple of days. Tuesday he was supposed to rest, but we had district meeting at our house and then we had language study together. I got to do lots and lots and lots of calls while he slept later. That night however we had a lot of people coming to English class, at least we thought and decided to sprint for a bus. Needless to say he had a strict order from Sister McConkie to stay home Wednesday. Another day full of calls and organizing around the apartment. But around 4 the other elders came and let me get out with one of them. We went to the center and contacted for 4 hours and had a blast. We taught about 5 lessons on the street and had new investigators. We talked to everyone we saw and had so much fun. At one point we were on a running path and we stopped a runner and then started running with him and taught him a lesson. It was a pretty cool experience and so much fun. Right after that we started running with another guy but only for about 3 minutes. The first guy we ran with for about 10 or 15 minutes. We had a little confidence and decided to stop the next guy on a bike and he stopped! and set up again after we taught him. Really fun day!

I gave my companion a blessing this week and during it for the life of me i could not say the word missionary. I tried and tried but it just didn't work. SO instead i used a little Czech. The language is coming. I understand more and more but still miss a lot. I cant really use the cases correctly yet but i am working on it. It is so much to think about. Other than that we didn't have too much this week just a lot of contacting and not too many lessons. We have lots of potential investigators but no one really progressing or meeting with us. We ended up not having exchanges with the zone leaders because my companion was sick and instead Friday and Saturday had exchanges with the other missionaries. We had a really successful Saturday. All we had was contacting and taught 10 lessons on the street which was pretty incredible. But everyone either didn't want to meet again or bailed on us... 

It is really hard but we have another week ahead. Yesterday a family in the branch made chili for us and wanted me from Texas to be the Judge. It was pretty pretty good! It did have beans in it but still was great Chili. My favorite food though is Svickova. It is meat and sauce that you eat with a special type of bread. Dads second meal that he gave me was today and was svickova. We went on a vylet to a castle today which was really fun. We had a great time as a district and walked around the castle. Took some really cool pictures. Everything here is closed on Mondays so we could only walk around the outside but it was really pretty in the country side. It was called Hukvaldy and we had a great time there.

Other than that we had a really successful weekly shopping today. We got so much food and spent under 1000 crowns which is pretty good. They have the best cereal here.. Breakfast is great and delicious.

If Carrie is sending in packages from Europe or anything like that my BYU sweatshirt and my grey Khaki shorts. Neither are too important but would be nice. Mostly the sweatshirt. We met with one of our friends in the branch last night and he showed us all the different types of skittle wrappers from America that they don't sell here. It was pretty awesome! The favorites were riddles, blenders and crazy corns. I had never heard of them but apparently only in America. Besides that we had a good week. This week we should have exchanges with the Zone leaders as long as my comp finally gets better. It was a pretty rough week but we keep going. Hope all is well.

Love 

Elder Hanis