November 30 2015

This week Elder Page and I had Exchanges with our District Leader and his companion/greenie. If you have not figured it out by now, I'm no longer the "new missionary". This now falls to Elder Carlson, our district leader's companion. On Wednesday morning the Elders from Třebíč came to Jíhláva, and then we split off for our Exchange. I went to Třebíč with my District Leader, Elder Huffaker, and Elder Page remained in Jíhláva with Elder Huffaker's greenie. "the greenhorn" is what they both call him. (so glad I'm not dealing with that anymore haha!) When I arrived in Třebíč, Elder Huffaker and I went tracting at some houses that he and The Greenhorn had seeded earlier that week. Now when we say "seeded" I mean they took letters (typed/printed letters) into a neighborhood and slipped them into mailboxes and such, and then the plan is that we come around a couple of days later and tract the homes of those places where we "seeded". I found myself in this very european neighborhood, and we just walked around and talked to as many people as would open the doors to us. Which was none... two hours later we had talked to almost every home, and nobody wanted to hear our message, but that's okay. I'll explain more in a minute. After that, we went to a less active member's house and she was awesome. She is this older lady who is slightly less active, and when she saw that I was a semi-"greenhorn" she took it upon herself to make sure that I was confused by the end of our visit, she's so funny. She started asking these questions about temple reccomend interviews. questions like, "if I lie in a temple recomend interview, what's the punishment?" and then when we answered that, she asked questions like, "Why is lying a sin? Everybody lies. Have you ever told a lie Elder?" I had no choice but to answer, "yes, I have told a lie." Then she told us, "well then, lying should not be a sin if we all do it!" I did not know what to say, let alone, HOW to say it! (Czech) I looked to my "wise" district leader for assistance... he just stared at me as if he was confused. I didn't realize until after we had left, that THAT ENTIRE LESSON was focused on confusing me. It was super funny when I realized that. I'm at the point now, where I can usually understand basically what it is that people are saying, however if people try to use ANY bit of sarcasm or hinting to things with language... I cannot grasp anything like that in Czech yet... ah... Uvidíme jestlí Ja budu se lepšit někdy jíndy. Anyway... On Thursday we had the crayiest Thanksgiving... On Monday however, Elder Page and I were searching for food to bring and we couldn't find a turkey, so we eventually found a place where they sold whole turkeys and we saw them... they seriously looked like a joke. they were all wrapped in Red White and Blue plastic, Frozen Solid... but here's the funny part... they each were only like 7 or 8 pounds... so we were debating what we should have done. as missionaries we each have about 6000kč (crowns) to spend each month, and one of these turkeys cost over 350Kč. now... if that doesn't seem like a lot... you're right... that is only about 8 USD... but for us.. with our budjet... that is a lot of crowns! Elder Page just mentioned to each other... "maybe we're gonna have thanksgiving Goose this year." Then we just looked at each other and then there was a pause and then I said, "I dunno... I kinda just wanna drop 600Kč right now on two turkeys." then Immidiately I hear from Elder Page, "done" and I see him to a fake table flip gesture with his hands, and then we walked out of Kaufland with two turkeys. Later on Thursday (thanksgiving), we went to the mall and each of the Elders in our district bought a thanksgiving sweater... it's also gonna be our Christmas sweaters so... looks like I'm not going to be buying another sweater for Christmas thank goodness. then on Friday, Elder Page and I went on Exchanges with the AP's to Prague. The original plan was for me to go to Prague on exchanges with Elder Prohaska from Switserland, and for Elder Page to stay in Jíhláva while the other AP came to Jíhláva to be with him. But that Plan changed when we recieved a call from the AP's when they said, "yeah the plan is changing, you're both coming to Prague this weekend... elder Karielienen (an AP) got a concussion while playing football (american) in the Turkey bowl that we had here in Prague." long story short, we went to Prague for the weekend! Now here I sit, in Jíhláva again after a long P Day of going to Telč. We went to Telč today... look it up, it's too hard to explain Everything and I don't have any more time... if I'm going to send pictures and stuff I need to do so now. Love you all!!!