Week 27 in Brno - Happy Halloween!

Last day of October time is flying faster! This week has been a good week! On Tuesday and Wednesday i was in Olomouc a city about an hour north on exchanges with elder Nelson. We served together my first transfer in ostrava. Lots has changed in a year. We had a great time though. WE got to teach a recent convert who really likes Catholicism. It was a pretty spiritual lesson. We also had the opportunity to teach the guy who i did a baptismal interview for. It was a good exchange and then Thursday we had training here in Brno. IT was a great training. President trained on baptism, how to talk about it better and sooner. There was a lot of information. WE talked about referrals, and blessings. It was a good day. The biggest thing was the issued a challenge. For every district to baptize one person before Christmas. IF we all achieve it we we will have a two day training for the entire mission in Prague! Lots of work to be done! WE also have transfers coming in a week!

We were able to have a lesson with Martin this week, he has a baptismal date but probably wont make it for now. We talked about Jesus and read from the Book of Mormon. He even gave us a ride home after! On Saturday we had 4 hours of service. We shoveled and swung pickaxes for those four hours. we are sore. It was with the neighbor of the person we helped last week! It was great! We took out another tree and a stump. With only pix axes.. It was a lot of cutting. We also had sports night. Sunday we had fast Sunday because we have our first stake conference this week! We will be in Prague for that! We also will be singing with our ward . It will be fun. Daylight savings time happened here! That was the first time i woke up feeling rested in a long time! Sunday night we were invited to come to a fireside with the ward a couple that got married a year ago talked about their marriage. They are great! Ivo the husband was baptized in 2012 and found the gospel and his wife at the same time. HE scored! He is a stud! Its been a pretty good week. This week is already pretty busy! Lots of things on plan, culture night, service, Halloween party, stake conference and transfers! We will see how it goes! Love you all!

Week 26 in Brno -- sick companion

Well pretty much everyone of my companions gets sick and this transfer is no different. Tuesday and Thursday we had to stay inside because my companion was sick. I finished reading a history of the church this week that i have been working on for about 2 months. The Church's history is always interesting. I know that Joseph is a prophet and we can all have personal experiences with god. A fraud can not create an experience! we had a good week! On Tuesday we had a lesson with an almost blind man. It was very interesting! He was very humble and open to learn. Also we headed to olomouc and i did a baptismal interview there unfortunately we still have to wait a few weeks until he can be baptized. Friday I was on an exchange with elder Shirley. He was in the MTC with us and he lives with us here in Brno. We had a fun day together. We had a couple of lessons. on the way somewhere we ran into one of our investigators. HE said he had got on the wrong bus and that is why he was in that area. It wasn't a coincidence that we met him!

We did service Friday night and then we had a lesson with a new investigator. She didn't have the greatest expectations but we ended up having a really good lesson about the restoration. We taught in a čajovná . It was basically a tea and hookah hang out place. IT was definitely interesting!

On Saturday we did a little more service and finished taking out that tree we started last week! We had a fun sports night and then Sunday we had the primary program here. I was translating for the little kids and they sure speak fast! We went tracting Sunday night and had a few people say we could return so we are excited. We have two weeks left in the transfer. This week i will be in olomouc on an exchange and then we also have training on Thursday! Hope you all have a great week!

Love, Tyler

Week 25 in Brno - exhausted

As the title suggests we are exhausted. This week has been a good one though, Tuesday the weather was pretty miserable. just drizzly and cold but we had a lesson with a guy from Georgia. HE is actually a member and is interested in looking into the church again. We tried this week to tract the richest houses we could find. We weren't too successful in finding big houses so we are trying again this week! With four missionaries together it has been a party and we talk a lot and have covered a lot of topics. It is a blast.

This week we had the chance to go over to the řezačovi for dinner. It is always a privilege to get to be in the members homes/ We had lasagna and played jenga! IT felt like home in some ways. The members here in BRno are amazing. Thursday my companion got blessed by a lady on the street, we met with our investigator and believes everything and knows that baptism has lots of advantages but just doesn't want to get baptized yet! Friday we were on exchanges with elders from Jihlava i had a great day  with elder trythall who was roommates with Ryder Markwalter at BYU. Then after a lesson on Friday night we helped clean the building and got to play around the world ping pong with the youth! 

Saturday we returned to someone we met service tracting and began taking out a tree. ITs been fun! WE had a good sports night and played more floorball. Sunday was also a great day! 

There were a couple of really cool experiences this week! one night on the way home i was talking to someone in the bus and we didn't have too much time and she had no interest at all until i said we can talk with God and her eyes got all big and she was stunned that we believe we can really communicate with our heavenly father. It was really cool. also on Sunday we went to visit a shut in with another member. The member visiting was really struggling to get the right key to the door. After about 5 minutes the wife turns to the husband and just says we should pray and without even hesitating the husband was praying. 

Today we had an awesome pday we went to Breclav which is about a 30 minutes train ride from here and rented bikes. We biked to a few castles and some really cool things. WE biked about 30 KM - More than a year since i have used those muscles, i am sore! That's about got you up to date! Love ya!

Week 24 in Brno

Another week flew by here! Last p-day we had a fun time with a member here. HE took us bowling and taught us how to throw darts. IT was pretty fun! At FHE we play games and one of the games we have played is jungle speed. It is a Hanis style game. It's about cards and speed. Also a good time. On the way to FHE we were waiting for a tram on a busy stop and one tram came and a less active member got off right where i was standing. We had been trying to contact him for a while to invite him to General conference and it was cool to see how we were in exactly the right place. 

On Tuesday we had lunch from dad and ate tatarak. That's the raw meat and egg! Pretty good! Our English classes are continuing to improve and had 30 people there between the three classes! Wednesday was cold! We had to bust out the thermals.. WE had a cool experience we were contacting and we met a partially blind man. We ended up walking with him to a tram stop and then traveled with him and he was really open to the gospel. We will see how it goes this week! 

Thursday we were in Prague for MLC. IT was a good one and training should be pretty good! I also got shad and dads package which was a big surprise! Thanks! We came home and had a lesson with a guy and put him on baptismal date.Friday we did service and i picked grapes for two hours. Good experience. Finally we got to watch conference which was awesome! My favorite talk was from President Uctdorf about the plan of salvation. The themes of conference for me were about the plan of salvation, prayer and the book of Mormon! IT was a great weekend! Sunday night we went tracting for a little bit and we started to talk to guy on the street with two kids. Turns out he is practicing polygamy and when we said we were Mormons he said "me too. Or at least everyone tells me that" IT was pretty interesting! Other than that not too much else going on here ! We are excited for a good week this week! 

S laskou,

Starsi Hanis

Week 23 in Brno

Well the fall is beginning again here in the Czech republic, the weather is cooling off and the leaves are changing. WE have had a great week! On Tuesday, we went on exchanges with the other elders here in Brno. This time We led the exchanges as the zone leaders and in the future it will be the other way now. I was with Elder Hymas, We had a lot of fun, talked to a lot of people but in the end no one would set up! In our English class we talked about thanksgiving. Just around the corner! 

Wednesday we got to help someone in the ward move. From a fourth floor to a second floor and small tiny staircases. Only four missionaries showed up to help! And we only had an hour. We got it loaded in an hour and a half and then was a little disappointed that we were leaving the job undone so we said we could go and unload for 20 minutes. We pounded it out. We were so busy on Wednesday that we didn't get lunch until 1800 which was a lot of fun. We have been teaching a guy from Ghana. He was the most open and prepared guy. We had a lesson later in the week and he had three questions about the resurrection, the Sabbath day and polygamy (my favorite topic) . At the end he said well this is great, I think we are at the point where the next time you could talk about salvation, forgiveness and heaven and hell. Pretty much the plan of salvation! Funny how things go in order! We had some other interesting visits this week! We had one woman who gave us hot chocolate. I think it was half chocolate and half coffee. Another guy made us eggnog and said it was just rum flavoring. I think it was more rum than flavor.

Thursday night we went to that bible study again for comp study. It is an interesting place! But cool to have people see us in a new light. Footnotes make us seem smart ;) On Saturday we helped a guy in his yard and he made us Czech sausages over the fire at the end. After that we had a really cool first lesson with a girl from English. It was a really spiritual lesson about God and prayer. We played floor ball again at sports night. Way fun! 

Sunday was a great fast sunday here for us. WE had 8 investigators in our district at church and we had three of our investigators there which was pretty great! WE made a great big pot of halusky to end the night and we are excited for a good week this week! Hope you all enjoyed conference! 

S laskou

Starsi Hanis