Oh my, fam-a-ram-damly! It's so good to hear from you! Twice! People just have no idea what it does to a missionary, seeing an in-box full of so many little informational goodies! I love you!
Before I forget, here's an email that I received from Petr Bandik, who is now in Canada:
Hi there.
I know I am supposed to write letters, so will make it quick 8]. I was to church today. So many gr8 people. Stayed to single ward, was invited by some girls to a party to their house today. My landlady supercool, always cooking something for us [am living with one Saudi Arabian and one Korean student]. I went to church with her today, she is also a member. And the best of all. I got a job already. Am starting from monday as a landscaper. Will have 3.000 CAD a month. Am giving thanks to Lord for every minute I can stay here. So have a nice time only and let the Lord send lot of blessings to you. Say my hello to sisters.
Petr B.
PS: am missing all of you much
Sounds like he's doing great, right?
A few notes:
I think that woman you're referring to is Sister Renata Blombergova, an AWESOME member here in Ostrava who makes the MOST DELICIOUS FOOD I'VE EVER EVER HAD. EVER. She promised she'd give me the recipe. She's amazing--loves the missionaries so much and is so willing to help with everything. Incredible story--she was baptized FIVE days after her first spiritual contact with the missionaries (she'd been coming to english for 9 months before that)--man, was she prepared. BUT! Tomorrow, she and another angel-woman-member are flying to AMERICA! They are going to General Conference and visiting as many temples and missionaries as possible. The two of them together are something of a comedy routine, especially when they try to speak English. I'm sure the United States will never be the same again.
Yes, my grammar is slowly morphing in to an awkward hybrid of Czech and English--Czenglish, I suppose. But in a way I don't mind it--speaking Czech feels much more natural. It hit me in the middle of church yesterday that I understood almost everything the teachers were saying. The way I see it, laugh at my grammar all you want--I live the the Czech Rep, baby.
Soooo YESTERDAY WE HAD TWO BAPTISMS!!! WOO! Rosta is the world's most adorable man. Really. After the baptism he bore his testimony (here the word testimony has a slightly different connotation...it's more like the events and things that happen to you that have led you to believe, rather than the things that one believes...interesting..) and I couldn't help but shed a few happy tears. I'd never heard the entire thing before. It was basically this: all his life he's been searching for something, but he didn't know what. He's read hundreds of books with all sorts of different advice and none of them have filled that hole in his life. One day he finally even went into a Catholic church and tried praying, asking God for direction, if He even existed. Shortly after that, he met Sister Laws in the park while I was doing phone calls trying to set up appointments. He says that he looks back on these past few months as the happiest of his 47 years of life. He knows that this is what he was looking for. He told us that he read the Book of Mormon every chance he gets. And he's a completely different person now--our first few meetings he was afraid to read out loud in front of 3 other people, and on Saturday he stood up in front of 20 or 30 and bore his soul. It was utterly beautiful.
Kaja was baptized as well. It was really great to see both of those people we've been working with for the past few months finally make that covenant with the Lord. I LOVE baptisms!
Something funny: Czech people love their dogs. Really. It's unreal. Every morning, at 6:30, when we go running we see the same people walking their dogs. It's kind of become a game between S. Ganby and I to tell people that they have a nice dog (mate hezkeho psa!). As missionaries we talk to people often about the purpose of life and ask people what the purpose of their lives is. Quote from Sister G: (hezky = pretty/nice/handsome/etc) "In Czech Republic people's purpose of life is the dog. Really. So when we tell them 'mate hezkeho psa' they think, 'Oh, I have a hezky purpose of life' and they are really flattered. So we need to tell them that." HA! I don't know if anyone else will think that's funny, but I couldn't help laughing my name tag off. The next day I met someone who told me that her dog gives her purpose in life. Shortly after that, we visited a less-active woman whose life is falling apart because her dog is sick. Really, she told us that she is willing to lose her job in order to take care of it. She stopped coming to church because someone told her it wasn't appropriate to bring the dog inside the chapel with her and she got offended. She visits the vet every day (EVERY DAY!) because of this dog. It costs a lot of money. Her daughter is off throwing her life away and she's worried about the dog. The dog's not even dying, it just has a hurt foot. As much as I love dogs, the more she spoke about it, the more I wanted to throw the dog out the window. Then I made Sister Ganby promise me that if that ever happened, she'd shoot my dog.
Anyways...I just love this life. It really is the best. We will watch conference the week after you, april 9/10. AAAND we will have another baptism in between sessions!! (Not us, the elders, really.) BUT it's this awesome woman we really want Rosta to marry (well, first we want him to baptize her and then marry her). But it will make it the best Conference ever! We'll just watch it on a TV at the church, but I am already SO SO excited for it!
Life is just graaaaaaaaaaaand.
s laskou,
sestra dean
P.S. Not a ton to say about Michal right now....his purpose of life is his job, which is bad. Keep praying for him. Isn't it interesting how we can choose to throw away a real miracle with our stupid decisions? L-AME.
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