December 14 2015

This week has been really cool, I've been learning a lot, and I am going to start keeping a Gospel Study Journal... I probably should have been keeping one of these for quite some time now. But I have not been, and I think that is leading to some stress for me, but I think that when I am able to write stuff down, I will be able to keep better track of my thoughts and my concerns, and I will be able to write down spiritual things that I will be able to turn back to later. Yeah I think this is gonna be a good thing to do... Anyway, this week the city of Jíhláva just set up their Christmas Turchý (small shops) on the main town square. The Turchý sell a variety of fun things for Christmas, and I just know that this is going to be a fun Christmas. We just got a new sister missionary in our city, she has just recieved her Visa, and she is now here in the Czech Republic after having to wait a couple of weeks to get her Visa, she's luckier than a few other missionaries who still have not gotten their Visas. The Members here are great, and I will be skyping home on Christmas day thanks to one of our awesome RCLA (recent convert). He has told us that we'll be able to skype from his home. Czech is coming allong, it's actually not the hardest thing anymore. I am finding that the Lord is helping me to get this language very well, and I have the resources at this point, so that I can almost talk about anything in the Gospel and get the point accross. We had District meeting the other day, and my companion had to practice contacting in English, and we found out that it's actually very hard to contact in English, because our brains are being trained to contact people in Czech. I can already see that my english is being destroyed. the Grammar for English is significantly different, and the Grammar for Czech is completely new, so I'm just having a hard time as it is keeping up with english as well as Czech. For Christmas (Vánoce), We're going to likely spend it with the other missionaries from our District. We'll buy a Carp... yes carp.. the trash fish in America, and we're going to eat it. The Czech people Love their Christmas Carp, and they cook it in many ways. The Czechs eat carp soup, fried carp, baked carp... Elder Page and I have been doing Even more English presentations for the High School over here (střední škola) and we've learned that the Traditional Czech christmas looks like this... Everyone comes together on the 24th of December, and they have a big meal together. This christmas meal consists of Carp, and Potato Salad, and then after the dinner of Carp and Potato Salad, they go into the other room where the christmas tree is and underneath, Ježíšek (baby Jesus) has placed gifts for the Children. Everyone opens their gifts on that Day, our Christmas Eve. Nobody knows what Baby Jesus (Ježíšek) looks like because he's never been seen. And if you were a bad child during the year, then the Devil comes around and puts you in his bag and carries you away to hell. There's a few christmas Traditions that we're likely going to try, the first one is when we Cut an apple, if we see a star in the apple (the core) that means that we're going to have a prosperose year the next year. However if we see a Cross in the core of the Apple, that means that we're going to die. Another interesting Tradition... cut open a walnut, use the shell as a ship, and then put a small candle in the ship and float it in a bowl of water. If the boat sinks, or drifts away from the other family member's boats, that either means that you will go Traveling the next year, or it means that you will die the next year.