Author: Starší O'Barr

Howdy folks!

It’ll be a short one, cause I really don’t feel like writing too much. My companion and I started talking in southern accents, and we been talking like that for too long to stop now. I guess that’s what we get when we spend too much time together. It’s ok, because quarantine finally loosened and we are once again set free to speak and hug and gather in groups up to 6. It’s a party. Lots of calls and planning sessions this week, but we survived and we did a good bit of teaching while we were at it.

As always, if you have any questions, go ahead and ask! I’m more than happy to answer. This week, President Nelson gave a short and powerful thought this week on gratitude, and challenged us all to post about what we are grateful for. If you want to watch it, its readily available on the Church’s Facebook page. It was important council. Gratitude really does cure a lot of the spiritual ills of the modern day.

Enjoy some assorted photos of our first human interaction in a month, and also me celebrating my 20th birthday with some koláč.

Love,
Elder O’Barr

Ahoj všem!

This week will be a quick one, as things have started to get repetitive in quarantine. We had another virtual exchange and then a zone conference, which meant lots of time staring at a screen. Our zone conference went better than expected though, so everyone was happy with that.

We weren’t able to have as many lessons this week as we would’ve liked, but still got to teach some. We finally got permission to visit with members for short periods of time to bless the sacrament for them. We immediately took off to visit an elderly lady who lives on the other side of the mountain, which is always a wonderful trip, and she was so grateful for the opportunity to partake of the sacrament again. We should always be thankful for that folks. It is a blessing.

That’s it for this week. We took a trip to a nearby valley today for some recreation. Pics included.

Have a wonderful week folks!
Starší O’Barr

Welcome everyone!

Things have continued to move here in Liberec. We are still very much involved helping our friend Petra prepare for her baptism in December, as well as continuing to produce ads and teaching everyone else we are working with. This week, we also spent a lot of time preparing for a missionary conference next week.

Outside of that, I also went to Prague to renew my visa, which was a fun excursion. Today we took a 30 minute drive to the Czech/German/Polish border, and then tried to hike a mountain in the vicinity. We made it to the top, but because of clouds we literally couldn’t see more than a couple of feet. That’s two weeks in a row that we’ve gotten lost in a foggy forest. We’re on a roll!

Have a good week everyone, and get excited for Thanksgiving! It’ll be here before you know it. So thank some people, tell your family you love them, and enjoy the beautiful fall colors.

Čus kaktus,
Starší O’Barr

Čau čau folks,

This week flew by, lots of long calls and meetings, but lots of good stuff happening. We were able to have multiple lessons with the people we are teaching, and we were able to have calls with members of the church here as well. We are fully prepped for lockdown round 2, this time in the winter. It’s reached the point of the year where the sun sets at 4ish again, which makes our leg-stretching walks just a hair more depressing.

Today we tried to get out into the mountains, but the everpresent rain clouds made our trip a little wet. By the time we had actually gotten up to a spot where we could hike from, the fog had become impressively thickkk. We were trying to find a lake, but instead ended up muddy, completely surrounded by trees, slightly lost, but very happy. Included are some pics.

Have a good one folks. If you’ve got any questions, be sure to let me know.

Starší O’Barr 

Ahoj ahoj!

This week I’m quite short on time, but it was a really good week! Two of our new friends are now on date for baptism, and we are really excited! We had a lot of lessons this week, probably more lessons than any other point in my mission. Facebook is a really good tool!

I also don’t have any real photos from this week, as everything is closed due to Coronavirus😕 But we are still living and happy.😁

Have a wonderful week everyone,
Starší O’Barr

This one will be short folks, so don’t lose focus yet!

Unfortunately (but also fortunately) most of this week was spent inside. We had at least 2 hours of calls and/or videos to watch Tue-Fri. I got awfully tired of walking from the apartment to the church building. We did get to have a meeting with Elder Sabin, who is a leader of the church for all of Europe, and let me tell you it was amazing! If you’ve ever wondered about how to get motivated to improve yourself, you should start with understanding who you really are. It’s powerful stuff to understand where you came from.

We had a good number of lessons this week, with a variety of different people in a variety of situations. Hooray for variety!

That’s all the time I have, but have a wonderful week everyone!

S láskou,
Starší O’Barr

Ahoj všem!

This truly was an amazing week! Long with plenty of ups and downs, and I am still tired, but it was incredible!

The start of the week was a little slow, but we had a lot of people who had responded to our ad that we needed to respond to, including a bunch of spam messages and a lady who asked if she could join our ‘club’ but we’ll come back to that. Wednesday evening was when things started to get exciting. We finished up a lesson, and then ran into this guy that my companion had been messaging on Facebook, and he recognized us and struck up a conversation. He had his friend with him, and we started to have a really good discussion. In the middle of it, 2 other elders we were about to go on exchange with rolled up. We had a really good exchange on Thursday, and got handed a bunch of free, high-quality potatoes by politicians (Czech elections were this week).

On Friday, we went down to Jičín for district council, where we met one of the new elders who just got here after 8 months or so in another mission. A really funny waitress let us know that Donald Trump has Coronavirus. Afterwards we ran to visit a member of our church who is sick and facing some other problems.

On Saturday, we were able to watch the general conference of our church, which is a wonderful opportunity for us to hear counsel and testimony from the leaders of our church. It’s always an inspiring event. I’d highly recommend looking into it if you haven’t gotten a chance before.

Ok, so if you flash back to the lady who asked to join our club earlier this week, we actually set up with her for Sunday morning, and managed to get a member there for the lesson. Even with a race cutting through the middle of town (literally running right outside the door or our building, no barricade) she managed to find us. We had an incredible lesson with her, and she shared with us that she had been looking for a new church, but she had been to afraid to look into ours. She had been praying one day, then almost right after saw our ad, and thought that she would at least give it a shot. It was amazing, she was so willing to hear the voice of the Lord calling to her.

Sorry this one is so long, I promise to keep them to their normal length going forward, I was just too excited this week to make it short.

Mějte se krásně, milí přátelé
Starší O’Barr

Ahoj všem!

It’s me, back again! This email will be another short one. I never seem to have enough time, but who’s gonna read a long one anyways?

This week sure was exciting! I got to go back to Prague for an exchange with my favorite Latvian missionary, Elder Janševskis! It was good to visit, and we got to see some of my favorite members there.

We were going to have a baptism here on a farm, but it was delayed because of rain, and the rain hasn’t stopped for 5ish days now. Woohoo! Welcome to winter! It’s starting to look and feel like fall here too, and let me tell you I am excited. Fall here is unbelievably pretty, and I cannot wait!

This week we visited a couple of nearby castles, one of which was built in the 13th century, abandoned by the 16th century, and left to rot in the forest since then. It’s amazing what time does to a place. The massive structure that once lorded over the countryside, was now completely hidden by trees. It was a good reminder of how short our time on earth really is, and how grateful I am for the security that comes from knowing what happens when I die.

I appreciate your support y’all, and if you have any questions, as always, feel free to ask them.

Čau,
Starší O’Barr

Ahoj všem!

I realize I forgot to write last week, but for the sake of time, I will not go into detail about that week. Also for the sake of time, I will not really go into detail about this past week either.

Things are going really well here! Coronavirus has begun its long foretold rebound here, which means masks, cancelled meetings, shortened church, and all that jazz are back. We’re real disappointed about not getting to teach our English class anymore, but we are still finding ways to be in contact with those people. We are still teaching fairly often, which is quite good.

This past week we had zone conference! I got to help train the other missionaries here, and conduct the meeting. It was a real blast! It was our last time seeing a lot of the missionaries before they go home, which was sad, but we were happy for the opportunity we had to see them one last time.

The pictures attached are from a couple hikes I’ve done in the past 2 weeks, me catching a lizard, and zone conference. Have a wonderful week everyone, and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask!