September 7 2015

Elder Dean is doing well. He's finding out that missionary work (and learning Czech) takes a lot of constant persistence, but he's learning a lot. We're learning a lot together while preparing for our teaching appointments and the other things that we have going each day. His Czech is improving, though he seems to want it to go a little faster. On Saturday we were coming back from an appointment and he felt a little down because he couldn't understand an old man that we were talking to and I told him that at day 10 or 11 in the country he shouldn't be worrying about it (at least not until he gets to day 600 or so...). He's a hard worker and he's already really dedicated to our branch. We've been learning a lot together about the Savior during our studies and it's been great to use that as we teach people during the day. He's also really excited to help the branch get more excited for missionary work.-Elder Boyce wow, I can't believe it's already September, Clayton's birthday is coming up! and so Is my Dad's! heh... so they both missed my birthday cause I was at the MTC, and now i'm missing their birthdays becasue i'm in the mission. guess we'll have to put up with that for now, i'll make it up later. So our appartment is in the middle of town, and each city in the Czech Republic has at least 1 "namesti" which is the same thing as a 'town square'. on these Namesti's they host public events and anyone can gather and sell things or play music or... really, anything. they just need to have a permit to do anything that would draw attention. for example, sometimes we (starsi boyce and I) will go out on the Namesti next to our appartment and will have a table set up with Book of mormon's on it and such, then he'd stay next to the table and contact people while I would walk 20-30 feet away and contact people and try to get them to come over to the table and take a look at what we have to offer. we have stores all over the place over here and it's quite funny because right next to the Namesti there is a McDonalds and a KFC of the opposite side of the Namesti! perhaps i'll have to get a "small fry" one of these days, huh Mom?! We go to this grocery store called KaufLand, which is German for "BuyLand". we just went there today and spent over 1600 crowns! (that's the currency over here) just to give you an idea of just how much a crown is worth, I had about $140 in 20's about an hour and a half ago, I went to the exchange place and turned all $140 into crowns the and conversion gave me a lot of crowns: $140 - converts to about - 3000 Kč we each spend about 1000 crowns a week over here and so that'll give you an idea. we have no trouble walking to the grocery store, about 10 minute walk. the Cobblestone... THERE IS COBBLESTONE E V E R Y W H E R E OVER HERE! it seriously is quite amazing really, we have asphault in the US and instead of asphault they use cobblestone, i'll send you more pictures next week. the branch over here is the Zlin branch, there are about 20 people that come each sunday the church building is on the 2nd floor of a building about 4 minute walk from our appartment. Elder boyce has been here for a year and a half and has 10 baptism under his belt 2 were people that he taught, and after he left they got baptized, so he counts them as his. there are about 80 missionaries total in the Czech Slovak mission, and only 20 of them are in slovakia. anything I need? hmm... my golden toe socks are shrinking... think i need to be more carefull about the temperature at which i wash them. my ear is fine. we currently have... i think 7 investigators but i've only met 2 of them becasue everyone is so busy. have not tried peeing on my ear yet, no... have not ate at a memeber's home yet... we'll see... i'm not sick of the questions but i'm definitely running out of time... we eat chocholate granola with banana slices and apple slices with milk (for me) and yogurt (for elder boyce, he's lactose intollerant). we eat lunch at home 6 out of 7 days of the week. (elder boyce is a good cook). we have a maly (small) washing machine, it's litterally the size of 3 microwaves stacked on top of each other... but it works, sometimes it gets stuck on a cycle and just goes and goes and goes until we stop it hahaha! we went to a resturaunt just the other day and ordered pizza... cause there are pizza places EVERYWHERE over here. have not had any authentic czech food yet though other than the svíčkova which was the meal photos i sent you last week, was really good! we travel Everywhere by foot, but we also take a bus about 1 time each week to go to district meeting. we wake up each morning at 6:30am we have taught a few lessons but nobody is making much progress, the people are very hard hearted over here... just gotta keep looking for the Elect... have not met james bond yet.....