First week in Czech Republic

So my first week here... it's been interesting definitely. I've learned a lot since getting here, and the Lord is testing me it seems. I know that he is there... wow this is driving me crazy, the keyboard is different here in Czech. anyway, this week we arrived in Prague, after flying from Salt lake, to chicago, to London (which took forever by the way), then FINALLY to Prague. When we arrived in prague we met our mission president, President McConkie and his Wife as we exited the airport secure area. as soon as I saw them I knew who they were, not only because they were wearing nice clothing but because I recognized their faces from pictures that I've seen. me and the rest of my MTC district had been wearing the same clothes and had not brushed our teeth or anything since the early morning of the day prior. also, walking around in a suit in europe where it's Hot, and me, being who I am, I sweat a lot. So we got to Prague and were all completely exhausted. we went and met the mission president's family and I must say, their children are some of the coolest kids I've ever met. their youngest child, his name is George, he's just so cool. he's 10 I think and he's just awesome. my instructor in the MTC, Bratr Knapp was actually the one who baptized George. they've got lego's all over their house. so after we met the family we had a quick breakfast of oatmeal and yogurt, and then we went outside and went on our "Prague walk" which is what it's been called forever. we basically went around, got a cool tour of the sites around the Prague Castle and over some of the cool bridges crossing the major river in prague. i'll send some of these pictures with more emails. after our Prague walk, we came back to the mission home and were not surprised to find that we were all almost falling asleep just standing or sitting around. President told us that we should probably go to bed early, and brought us to a hotel and got us each (companionships) a room for the night. it was before president brought us to the hotel when we took the pictures each individually with president and his wife and they sent them to you (mom and dad) that night, after showering in the european shower, and laying down in the small bed (seriously this mattress was like 3' by 6'...) I thought it would be a good idea to start writing in my journal and when I did I found that I just couldn't write... I was so tired that as soon as I would start writing, i'd doze off and Begin drawing a random line across the paper. it's actually quite funny i'll perhaps have to send a picture next week. went to bed that night, woke up after having a good night's sleep, realized where I was... heh... "i'm in Prague... i'm on my mission... this is actually happening..." and other thoughts of the sort. we went back to the mission home. we walked in and sitting around in the living room were a bunch of other missionaries. president had us gather around in front of everyone else in the room and take a seat. he then, after a prayer of course, asked us each to come up one or two at a time and had us stand next to him, he put his arm over our shoulders and proceeded to tell us about the area where we would be assigned to labor. Now real quick... the first day we got to the mission home, President called me aside and interviewed me, he asked me a few questions about how i was doing and what my reason was for coming here and stuff like that. after this interview he asked me to go grab another elder and get him to go talk to him, guess he was doing interviews right there, so I went and got my mtc companion, Elder Chapple to get interviewed. now, that was important because apparently president did that so that he could decide where he wanted to put us, and just as importantly, who would be our trainers. so back in president's living room... he had his arm around me on one side, and my other mtc companion, elder Hanis, he had on his other side, and president was telling us about where we each would be serving. then president told me that I would be serving in Zlín, which is a city near the south/east of the Czech Republic. I had no idea what that meant but I was super excited. then he said that my companion and trainer would be Elder Boyce. Elder Boyce is a great trainer. he's a hard worker, very organized, is very genuine when it comes to talking to people. he puts others before himself, he knows a lot of good dishes to cook, his czech is amazing, he's been out for over 1.5 years, he'll be going home here in about 4 or 5 months, and he's great. after meeting him I was not worried at all about not getting along well with him. we all left, Elder Boyce and I hoped on a bus and headed to the train station with all my luggage. i don't want to have to explain how difficult it was each time we loaded and unloaded my luggage from either a bus or train so just imagine it for me when I tell you what is happening throughout this journey to Zlin (that's a long 'i' btw, i'm just too lazy to type the czech letter, it's too hard). after we got to the train station, we boarded a train to Zlin. on the train, several people sat next to us and I "spoke" to them in czech. we talked with about 3 people on the train and each of them were interested in what we had to say because my czech was so... noticable... and so it opened up the conversation of, "how long have you been learning czech?" and that kind of stuff. needless to say, I didn't understand anything that was going on, and frankly, I still don't, but i'm getting used to being so lost, that there's no point in worrying about getting more lost at this point. so we show up in Zlin and unload my bags into the appartment, and then we went out onto the streets to talk to people. talking was... well i'll just say it's very difficult, not difficult to start cause i KNOW how to begin a conversation, and make Statements, but as soon as people begin talking back to me all i hear is alksdjf alskjdf alsjdfalsjfhghgqauhrgioauwawhojoc mlsfpaowuhtuihgadlfjasdflj????????????????????????????? "ano"... then they walk away... "super" well it's gotten better, I'm able to listen better now than I was 6 days ago. it's hard to see progress in the language but I suppose that I should just not get worried, it's only been 6 days after all. other than the language, i'm doing awesome! it is so pretty here! MOM you should SEEE some of these building and places! so now after a lot of contacting, and seeing JUST HOW DIFFICULT it is to get people INTERSETED in the message we have to share.... something like 60 percent of the people are considered athiest.... we say, "dobry den!" and people say, "ne mam cas" which is basically saying, "good day!" and then "I don't have time" but the Lord is very involved here... me and my companion are the only two people in the entire city, and within 20 miles of this city, who are called representatives of the Lord in proclaiming his work, that is a big responsibility! we have often had slow hours whilst contacting and then just when we're about to give up in our efforts in that area, we meet somebody who is willing to go out of their way, talk to us, and even accept a book of mormon and give us their phonenumbers. we met two people who i'm really excited to talk to more. their names are, Soňa, and Lanka. both of these young women were touched by the spirit when we spoke, and I found my tongue was loosed with them!!! because they both asked us to speak english... but still my tongue was loosed. yeah we'll see how they're doing later. Excerpt from Elder Boyce email:The next morning President McConkie paired us with our companions (mine is Elder Dean from Eagle Mountain, Utah) and then we were on our way. It was an ordeal Wednesday morning because we kept on getting shuffled from place to place to keep us out of sight of the new missionaries. Then there was a big reveal where President paired us together as if it was a game show. We sat in the McConkie's living room with the new missionaries on the front row on the couches with us on some chairs behind them. President called each of the new missionaries up one at a time and started telling them about the city where they're going. The trainers knew instantly who they were going to be with so we were all whispering intently in the back row. Since we got to Zlin we've had a great week, we've been working hard. I met the secret goal from President McConkie and worked hard enough to get Elder Dean to fall asleep in church yesterday from sheer exhaustion :D Elder Dean is a great missionary, he already knows how to be courageous. He contacts whole bus stops of people and the other day leaped up onto a planter to try and talk to about ten people at once. If we lived in the days of preaching on top of soap boxes, he'd get along just fine! He is doing really well in his Czech and yesterday bore a pretty solid testimony at church. He told about when he first came into our chapel he felt really strongly that this is where he's supposed to be. Edit from mom: I love hearing updates from both sides.