Author: Starší O'Barr

Welp, I’m 19! Thanks for all the birthday wishes everybody!

Everything else this week was very normal. We reached out to members a lot this week. Most of the members of the church here are some of the only members in their family. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was meant for families, and so we’re trying to help encourage people to reach out to their families and share the happiness that it brings to their lives.

We also spent a lot of time trying to find older members of the church that live around Jihlava. That meant we walked around in the dark for a good few hours, but it was good because we were able to get contact with people who hadn’t talked to missionaries in a long time. We didn’t actually get to visit with any of them, but we’re hoping to try again soon.

That’s the theme for this week, hope. I have a lot of hope for the things I’ll be doing this next year, and I’m grateful for the assurance that I have that even if things don’t work out how I expected, they’ll work out in the end. Our Savior loves and knows each one of us, and we’re each prepared for the path we have to walk.

Pictures:

• Me being 19
• Havlíckuv Brod, a nearby city
• Same
• A random grim reaper skeleton on top of a building
• Some cool Latin inscription on the side of a Kostel

This week was probably the busiest/most exciting/most eventful week of my mission so far. I’ll just include a collection of little stories. Unfortunately there aren’t too many pictures this week, but there’ll be a couple at the end.

Temporary Exchange:

On Tuesday, Elder Beckstrom and I took an early morning bus to Prague to start our week long exchanges. We had to wait a long while for the Elders serving in Prague to actually get to the Mission Office, but it gave me a chance to catch up on my Old Testament reading. Once they got there, Elder Williams (my MTC companion) and I hurried back to Jihlava to teach English.

Svatý Martin gets it right:

Well, last Monday I mentioned that it was Saint Martin’s day here in the Czech Republic. When Saint Martin rides through town, he supposedly brings winter, and it kinda marks the start of the winter season here. Well, he rode through town last Monday, accompanied with plenty of fanfare and literal torchbearers. And then on Tuesday it began to snow. By the time we had left our English lessons on Tuesday night about an inch of slushy snow had accumulated on the naměstí. By the next morning, things were pretty well plastered white, and it was still dumping snow. Elder Williams and I took the opportunity that morning to go for a very long walk in the middle of the snowstorm, cause there were people we needed to visit. Unfortunately, no one was home/opened the door for us, but we were able to talk the few people that were out that morning. The pictures I got were actually from outside of Jihlava where the snow was a little deeper, on our drive to Prague the next day.

Just remembered I didn’t send finish this, so sorry, but it’ll be shorter than intended.

Zone Conference:

We got there late due to a car accident (that story will have to wait until later) but we got there nonetheless. We had the opportunity to hear from Elder Kopischke, who is a leader of the church here in Europe. He taught us about walking the cycle of faith described in Alma 26-43. God only asks us to take that first step into the unknown. Even if we can no more than to desire to believe, and if we try to act on that desire, God will help us grow our faith. This applies to the people we teach as they begin to learn and believe for the first time in their lives, and it applies to those of us who are a little further along the path. We will all be faced with unknowns and uncomfortable things, but as long as we walk in faith, and allow that faith to guide us, we will walk safely and securely to where we need to go. It is definitely something we are trying to work on as a mission here. Afterwards, I had the opportunity to meet with him individually and talk. It was incredible.

I lose my nametag:

This week we returned to one of the farms to help clear the top floor of a barn of junk and hay. It was a lot of fun. We pitch forked a pile of hay the height of the first floor of the barn! And I only fell through the rotting wood once! Unfortunately somewhere in the process, my nametag fell off. Now I love my nametag, but I was not about to swim in a haystack larger than a house to find it. That was a tragedy, but it wasn’t sad enough to offset all the other awesome stuff that happened this week.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

Čau,
Starší O’Barr

Things have gotten busy this week, and I’ll be spending most of next week with one of my companions from the MTC, Elder Williams, on a sort of extended exchange while Elder Beckstrom does some office work in Prague. We also all have to go to Prague for a couple of days this week for a special training and devotional with Elder Kapiška(?), an area seventy.

I spent a day in Třebíč this week on an exchange with Elder Thomas, which was my first time being the older missionary, but it went pretty well. We moved wood for service on Saturday, for about 5-6 hours. Afterward, they fed us some more traditional Czech food. I was given a healthy portion of sauerkraut. Then, as soon as I was finished, the babička (czech grandmother), immediately asked me if I wanted more. Of course, I only sort of misunderstood the question, and ended up getting another heaping plate of sauerkraut. I don’t have pictures for reference, but it was a LOT of sauerkraut.

Today was a big holiday here in the Czech Republic. They set up by far the largest markets I’ve seen, and were selling all sorts of food and warm drinks and little trinkets and light up things. They also had a full concert going on somewhere on the town square. It was packed with people. At the end of this all, a man representing Svatý (saint) Martin rode through the town on a big white horse accompanied by people holding huge flaming torches. His arrival signifies the start of winter here, and accordingly, it was freezing here. I tried asking more about who Svatý Martin was, but apparently most people don’t know at all.

We had some good lessons this week, especially with this older member whose son is leaving town and she’s having a real rough time with it, and we are trying to help her get through it. We’re still trying very hard to teach the people we have been, but they have also gotten very busy lately, and are struggling to find time to meet.

Čau,
Starší O’Barr

Picture 1-2: Random pictures of Třebíč

Picture 3: The town square about a half hour before Svatý Martin came through.

This week was busy, but it also felt like not a lot happened. I’ll try and hit the highlights.

On Tuesday, Elder Beckstrom and I had to go to Prague in order for him to do some visa work so he can stay in the country. It was wonderful, and it really made me want to live in Prague. Elder Beckstrom had some other business to take care off in the mission office, so a senior missionary, Elder Whitehead, and I went to do some things in Prague. He and his wife had been really craving some American food, so we went to the American Candy store in Prague. It was interesting to see some things there that I hadn’t seen in a while, like non-ketchup flavored Cheetos, candy corn, root beer, and marshmallows. I hadn’t even really noticed that they didn’t have those here, but it was still cool to see them again. Elder Whitehead went ahead and bought a bunch if it to take back with him, and I helped him carry his stuff back to the building. By that time Elder Beckstrom was done with his business, so we hurried off to our lunch appointment with someone he had taught when he was serving in Prague, and then we headed home in time to teach English.

Some of you might remember me mentioning the Vietnamese children that frequent our English class. Well this week, we decided to invite them to our Halloween Party! They all came, and it was great opportunity for one of their moms to meet the members here in Jihlava. We’re hoping we can get them to come to more activities in the future. A lot of people carved their first pumpkins and tried their first rice crispy treats! The Halloween Party went well, we had many non-members show up and it was an all around good opportunity for the whole branch to get together.

Halloween was also the day that that ominous-sounding European law I’ve been referring too went into effect, which meant I got to shred a lot of papers. I didnt realize how fun shredding things is, but I also didn’t realize how fragile paper shredders are. It was a learning experience.

Also, the day finally came. I’ve been waiting for this since I first found out I was coming to Jihlava. Jihlava’s town animal is the hedgehog, and there are hedgehog decals on everything here. Even the hockey team’s mascot is a hedgehog! And this week, I finally saw a real life wild hedgehog. I had been told they were out there, but I had yet to see one with my own eyes. It was among the most exhilarating experiences of my life. I’ll include picture evidence at the bottom. Also, daylight savings time exists here as well, and now it is pitch black around 5PM. Those photos were taken around 6:30.

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