Today was the beginning of my 2nd transfer here in
C-Bud. My first one was an amazing experience, I am already excited to see what
the next one brings. Elder Galbraith is with us until Wednesday when his
parents arrive. The C-Bud missionaries will have dinner with the Galbraiths on
Thursday. My new companion arrived today. His name is Elder Dean and he is from
Eagle Mountain, Utah. He has been in the country for 6 months. We are going to
be having a lot of good times together and do lots of great things here. The
Sister missionary who came to replace Sister Birkeland is Sister Manners. She
has also been in the country for 6 months. Sister DeMann (from my MTC District)
is still here also. (note- transfers are normally 6 weeks but they are 9 weeks in this mission)
And, as always, I have the weekly highlights:
Elder Dean and Elder Pickett (deep thoughts?) with Sestras Manners, DeMann, and Birkeland.
- First off.
The weather here needs to make up its mind. Last week was warm. We went
out on Monday without coats, just sweaters. Then it rained most of
Tuesday. Then it snowed a little Tuesday night, but none stuck. Then it
was cold and cloudy. Then it was sunny again. And today it has rained
non-stop. We're not even sure what to think anymore. Every day is a new
adventure with being outside all day long.
- Also, we attended an excellent Zone Conference in Prague on Wednesday. This is something we do every month, and it's pretty fun. We get a lot of good instruction, and we get to see a lot of the missionaries who serve here in the Czech Republic as well. It's kind of like a little reunion of sorts. So I got to see 7 of my 9 MTC district friends. That was great. We also found out who our new mission president is: Jan Pohořelicky. As you can probably tell by the fun little addition to the r in his name, he is a native Czech! That is super awesome. It really is a huge step towards the Czech Republic becoming a self-sufficient country in terms of the church. We are all really excited. He already knows English well, but he is practicing over skype with a return missionary from the Czech Republic to learn some more.
I am buying postcards! Cesky Krumlov (pday a few weeks ago)
- To give an
example of how ridiculous Czech is...I have explained already, I believe,
about casing. It is when you change the ending of a word based on the
ways, grammatically speaking, it is being used in the sentence. It is one
of the most challenging parts of the entire language for English speakers,
or anyone coming from a language that doesn't do it, to learn. Here is an
example of just how hard it is. We were in a lesson on Saturday with a
member who has lived his entire life in the Czech Republic. He is a grown
man, married, with several children. He was trying to case a word,
struggled for about 30 seconds with it, and then literally gave-up and
just explained the meaning of the word instead. This is what I am dealing
with here. It is great fun, but also absurdly difficult.
- To
follow-up on my challenge to myself to be fearless...Phone calls are so
hard. I have done a lot more of them this week, and I have no idea what
people are saying. But I go for it anyways. So I would say I did decently.
Also, I tried to engage people in conversation in Czech at church. Also a
little bit challenging. But some good times. I find that the more I open
my mouth, the more that I can feel the influence of the Holy Ghost helping
me to know what people are intending to say. Even when I don't understand
any of their words, I can start to understand the emotion behind it. Every
week I find more and more that I understand what people say. It is really
fun to be able to look back and see the growth that I have been making.
- The work is coming. Slowly but surely. We have so many pieces here in C-Bud, we just can't quite seem to get them to all fit together. But we'll get there. The language grows and grows every week. Really every day, it's just hard to measure language progress by the day. I am getting really comfortable here in C-Bud, which is good because I now have to lead my new companion around the city, and take a much bigger role is talking to people because I already at least know them. Elder Dean has only been in the country for 6 months so his Czech is good but we are always learning.
- It may seem
to many of you that we have a District of very young missionaries here in
C-Bud. Which is true. But it would be more accurate to say that we have a
very young mission actually. We are not entirely sure why that is as
missionaries, but we think it probably has to do with needing to prepare
for the new mission president coming in this July. We want to have a lot
of missionaries who are comfortable here already.
- Since this
has been Elder Galbraith's last week, it has been his last big opportunity
to enjoy Czech delicacies. We have not eaten very healthily...But that's
okay.
From Elder Galbraith: "My final Game night as a real missionary... so
strange.
I love these people so much!" Making visits to our members to say goodbye.
-Elder Pickett
The entrance to our church building.
The chapel. Also, we move the chairs and put up
ping-pong for Game Night on Friday.
A picture from Věra.
It is the Angel Moroni visiting Joseph Smith.
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