Month: October 2019

Ahoj! This week we had some really good experiences with the people we’re teaching, and I would tell the full stories, but the law here prevents that. In short, we taught some amazing lessons to a really cool man named Jirka, and also met some other cool people. We also got to go to a different farm and do some more service. We also tried to explain an english joke to some Czechs, and it didn’t work very well, but it did lead to us trying to explain what the abominable snowman was, and then figuring out how to say it in Czech, which is where the subject line comes from.

This week an international documentary festival was hosted in Jihlava, which brought all sorts of interesting people to our normally quiet town. They built little theaters and other buildings in the various naměstí (squares) and streets, where they showed documentaries and had panels with the creators. We used this opportunity to talk to a lot of people here. I even met a lady from Ohio!

We spent a lot of Saturday on a farm. This farm is a super old farm in a little village outside of Jihlava. It felt very authentic, with chickens, ducks and geese running around, and a huge dog chewing on a hunk of meat. We moved a lot of wood, and then helped to waterproof the foundation of a new barn. It was a lot of work, but at the end they fed us some chicken soup and roasted rabbits from the farm. I had no clue what I was eating until after, but it was good.

Today is a holiday here as well. From what I understand it’s kind of like a Czech Independence Day. It’s the day that Czechoslovakia gained its independence from Austria-Hungary. This isn’t a holiday they really ‘celebrate’ with a festival or anything, but all the stores are closed and nobody is out.

Pictures from this week are really just from this walk we took in the forest. We got out there by taking a bunch of logging roads way out into the hills. Also me sitting on a log.

Another week gone here in Jihlava, and things are still pretty good. We stayed pretty busy this week with meetings and phone calls. In most of our meetings we didn’t get to teach much, just kind of talk about the church or about other things, but we are hoping this week that we’ll be able to teach and testify a lot more now that those people understand a little more about what we do and our mission here. Again it’s difficult to say too much due to European privacy laws, but we met some pretty cool people from all around this week. One of our meetings this week was a farewell party for the Hamons, who were a senior couple that came here from New Zealand, and served in Jihlava for 18 months. The whole branch of the church came to love and appreciate them, and they loved the branch back. It was amazing the good they were able to do here, and the friendships they were able to make with the people here, when neither of them speak the same language. There’s always a way for us to help others if we will sincerely look for it. The Lord will help us to help those around us.

As for the subject line this week, I just wanted to highlight one of the funnier things that I’ve seen a lot here. Jihlava has a lot of young families that live in it, and so there are always a lot of little kids running around. We see a lot of them as well because we live right next to an elementary and preschool. I guess they like to take the preschoolers on field trips a lot, or perhaps they’ve decided that if they just walk them around enough the kids will be too tired to misbehave, but you always see these groups of 20-30 preschoolers and a couple of teachers just walking around the town. All the little kids wear these bright neon vests so they don’t get lost. I was watching these teachers corral the kids on to a bus this past week when the phrase “Czech Child Herders” just popped into my mind and I couldn’t stop laughing about it. It’s probably not as funny as I think it is but something about watching the teachers chase little kids in neon vests, and frantically try to cram them onto a busy city bus just seems so ridiculous to me. I love it so much.

The other fun thing we did this week was we went and visited the ruins of this castle out in the hills surrounding Jihlava. It was the first real castle I’ve been to here, and it was quite the experience. It was so foggy when we got there we didn’t even know the castle was there until we were almost to the walls. It was amazing. That’s it for this week, hopefully I’ll have some better stories for everyone next week.

Well, I finally completed my first transfer in the field. It feels like time is simultaneously flying by and crawling along. Its weird to think I’ve already been here for 9 weeks. I’m staying here in Jihlava for at least one more transfer, or until shortly before Christmas. My old companion, Elder Papworth, headed back to Canada this morning, and my new companion, Elder Beckstrom, got here shortly after that. Elder Beckstrom already served in Jihlava a few transfers ago, and he’s excited to be back.

This week we had a good number meetings, as Elder Papworth was trying to say goodbye to as many people as possible before he went home. We had some good opportunities to talk to members and teach in their homes this week. We also tried some random restaurants around town, just because Elder Papworth won’t get any European food for a while.

Sorry that this email is so short, but most things I can’t talk about due to privacy laws, and nothing else noteworthy happened. Don’t worry though, I’ll be sure to write some more for next week.

Nashledanou,
Elder O’Barr

Well, we’ve reached the last full week of this transfer. I don’t know what will be happening quite yet, but chances are I’ll be staying here in Jihlava, Elder Papworth will be heading home, and I’ll be getting a new companion. No real fun stories from this week, sorry folks. We went to Prague for zone training again on Wednesday, and our bus got stuck in traffic for 50 min. Theres an old story that Czechs sometimes tell that during the Second World War, the only thing that could stop the US Army was Czech traffic. Hitler couldn’t keep the US from reaching Prague, but an endless line of cars could. We still made it on time, but just barely. We spent the rest of this week around Jihlava. We talked to a lot of people, but it suddenly got very cold and rainy here a couple days ago, and people aren’t normally out and about in that.

This week, we finally delivered buchta! Buchta is a Czech dessert that kind of tastes like a flat muffin, but with some flour-sugar covering. It’s really good, and not very hard to make, but we found that it doesn’t travel well. We kept making it in hopes of bringing it to some members of the branch here in Jihlava, but we always messed it up somehow. We’ve tried 3 times now, and it wasn’t until this last time that we finally felt it was good enough to bring to someone. It still could use some work, but like I said, baking is hard.

General conference was this weekend, and we had the opportunity to listen to it with a couple other members of the branch in the church building. It was great to hear the words of the prophets and apostles, and to hear their counsel they have for us in the modern days. Something that stuck out to me and my companion were all the comments on the lasting joy that the gospel brings into our lives. If you haven’t gotten the opportunity to read or listen to any of the talks given, I would recommend it.

Starší O’Barr