Category: Jihlava

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Communism is no match for cool music

This week was pretty solid, despite being fairly open and devoid of meetings. Elder Papworth and I tracted for a long while this week. We also spent a good amount of time just talking to people on the streets. No one really had much interest but it was still a good opportunity to talk to people and to get the name of the church out there. 

Our coolest experiences this week came from interactions with members. We had the opportunity to go out to a members house in a vestnice (suburb/farming town) and spend an evening with them talking about how they came to know that the gospel was true back in the early 1990s right after the fall of the communist government. It was a really cool experience, and they want to have us come meet with them again in a week or so. We also talked to this wonderful older lady in our branch here, who loves to bake and cook, and she gave us all sorts of wonderful tips and recipes for Czech foods like buchta and goulaš. We’re excited to try them out. On a pretty unrelated note, we also found out about the only spiritual music allowed under the religion ban that existed under the old communist government. It’s by a band called Spiritual Quintet, who apparently were so popular, the government was afraid of revolt if they banned it. Of course I can’t really confirm that but it’s a sick story. 
We also visited the Jihlava Zoo this week, which was a super cool experience. It was way larger than we anticipated, and we had a good time exploring it. 
Its wonderful to have a branch as welcoming and involved as our branch here in Jihlava. Many of the members of the church here have such powerful testimonies, and it’s an honor to work with them to bring the gospel to others in Jihlava.

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Bananas on the bus

Real quick email this week due to time restraints. We went on exchanges this week and got an unplanned tour of Jihlava from this man who only wanted to speak broken english to us. He did tell us some interesting stories that I might relate in another email though. Today we went to a nearby town called Třebíč, where we toured a gothic basilica, which is where the pictures are from. We also got to tour their old Jewish Quarter, which was very pretty. I also spent way longer than intended in an antique shop there. I’m running out of things to put in the subject line, but this week we had a wonderful old Czech Babička come up and give us bananas on the bus this week and say that it was for our health. Sorry that’s it for this week folks, we were running around all day.

Starší O’Barr

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RIP Turkeys

Howdy! This email will probably be pretty short this week as I don’t have a lot of time. I’ll try and post some things on my Facebook account in both Czech and English about what is going on during the week if you want to see more.

This week was crazy busy with member visits and lessons. For the first time in a while in Jihlava, were actually teaching new people! We’ve been trying very hard lately to find more people to teach and we are slowly starting to find more, and hopefully this week we’ll be able to continue to find more people. In the coming weeks I might have some more stories to share from our lessons, but none right now.

One quick story from this week comes from a turkey farm. Elder Papworth and I missed out on turkey slaughtering day thankfully (I think), but we were just in time to help with turkey slaughter clean up. That means we got to do all sorts of things like empty buckets of bloody water and sweep up feathers for a few hours. It was certainly an experience. I will probably not send the photo from that since it’s a hair gruesome, but it was certainly a learning experience.

Tak, mějte se krásně, a Nashledanou!
Starší O’Barr

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Spiderman and service

Howdy folks! It’s been a pretty busy week for us here in Jihlava. We almost spent more time outside of Jihlava than in it! Last Tuesday we didn’t really do much exciting. We taught English class, which is always a blast. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before but our English class is mostly Vietnamese children under the age of 10, and then about 2 adults. Having that many children who don’t always want to learn English is sometimes a challenge, but it’s also fun to see what they can do when they do decide to learn. They certainly keep us on our toes. On Wednesday we had to return to Prague for a meeting with all the missionaries being trained in the Czech Republic. It was good to once again see my friends from the MTC, as well as missionaries who had been waiting in the states because of visa problems, and to see the progress we’re all making. We ended up spending most of the day in Prague. Thursday morning we started exchanges with the other missionaries in our district, Elder Rice and Elder Reed. Elder Rice came here, and he and I got to be companions for a day. We ended up teaching a couple of interesting people and even had a cool experience where we attempted to teach a man who only really spoke Bulgarian. Neither of us really spoke the others language, but by some small miracle we managed to communicate about our message. Now he wants to meet with missionaries again, although hopefully over Skype with Bulgarian speaking missionaries this time. On Friday, Elder Papworth came back to Jihlava, and then we caught another ride to Prague. We spent the night in Prague, and then headed up to a town called Liberec on Saturday morning. Liberec is built essentially all over some hills, which means that the typical crazy European roads were even more confusing. Half the roads there also double as tram tracks, which makes driving there very exciting. Liberec is a gorgeous city though, with some wonderful views. It is also, apparently, where the Spiderman movie was filmed, but I wouldn’t know about that. We went to Liberec to take part in the Wallace Toronto Project, which is a wonderful organization that goes to one city in either the Czech Republic or Slovakia and does service all over the city. Elder Papworth and I had the opportunity to work with members from all over the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and other missionaries. We got to do work on a school and residency for disabled children and adults. It was cold and drizzly, but we got to work and did a lot of service. It felt good to work hard with our hands and do some good service. That’s about it for this week! Things should finally calm down for us for a little bit now, and we should be doing a lot more working and teaching in Jihlava.

Nashledanou,
Starší O’Barr
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Trains Planes and Automobiles

Things are busy, but not really in Jihlava. Also I lied, there will not be any planes involved in this. Elder Papworth and I had a lot of things scheduled last week. We spent all of Monday in Znojmo or in the surrounding area, and had to hurry to get some groceries and other essentials for the week. Nothing really happened Tuesday, but Wednesday we taught some people and then began packing for our early morning trip on Thursday. We got up at 5:30, then caught a ride to Prague with the senior missionaries that live in Jihlava. We spent all day in Prague with the rest of the missionaries on this half of the mission talking about goals and new ideas and things to study. It was an inspiring meeting. Immediately after that, we rode with the leaders of our zone of missionaries up to a city called Hradec Kralové. We spent that night and then the whole next day with them there, working with different companions. It was interesting to spend time with other missionaries, and see different approaches to the same situations. That night we caught a series of trains back to Jihlava. We accidentally got off at the wrong stop, which made it a little longer, but we met some really cool people, and got to see a beautiful sunset on the Czech countryside. We got up the next morning and did service on a farm again, this time moving wood and shoveling potatoes for turkey feed. We also got fed some very authentic Czech gulaš, which was very good. Then it started raining, and then rained some more. Now it’s a little chilly and it feels a little more like fall might actually be on it’s way here. This week we get to do even more traveling than last week. I’m actually writing this from a train right now, and we took a bus this morning. I’ll save the details for next week, but theres a lot going on.

A thought for this week: What does it mean that God loves us perfectly? I know that He loves each one of us more than we can comprehend. His love does not fluctuate nor is it dependent on our skills and talents. Of course, we must in return, be humble and submissive to His will for us to truly receive all the blessings of His love, but it is there nonetheless. I know that God will bless and direct each of our lives as we seek do what is right.
Starší O’Barr 
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Small Miracles and Spicy Food

This email probably won’t be too long, I’m writing it from the car as we drive to a city called Znojmo, which is on the Austrian border, but I’ll try to include the important stuff. There are also a lot of pictures from this week that I’ll send when I have WiFi later today.

This week Elder Papworth and I had a lot of open days, so we spent a lot of time tracting and contacting people on the streets. Our mission is having a big push to find new ways of talking to people, so we tried a couple this week. The most bizarre one was Ping-Pong on the Náměstí(town square). We just hauled our Ping-Pong table out onto the street and asked people to play with us. We were surprised at how good some people were! Elder Hamon, who is a senior missionary from New Zealand was there helping us and he is also a Ping-Pong master.
We also attended the local Kostel this week with a friend who is currently taking lessons from us. Kostel is what they call their Catholic Cathedrals. It was an interesting experience, and the building was gorgeous. It was also a good opportunity to interact with our religious people in a mostly non-religious country.
Due to poor planning this week and some moldy bread, Elder Papworth and I ended up not having any food left for the week on Saturday. We somehow made it through, but that’s also where the subject of this email comes in. We decided to get kebabs for lunch on Saturday because we didn’t have any food at home. It just so happened that both kebab shops in town were closed. We decided to just go to this little Indian restaurant down an alley, and just so happened to run into a really cool man who was quite interested in learning more about what we teach. That’s a rare occurrence here in Jihlava, so we were very excited that we actually found someone with interest. The spicy food part came right after that. I was told I would not be able to find any spicy food in the Czech Republic,  because Czechs just don’t like spicy food. I had assumed it was true because up to that point the “spiciest” food I’d eaten was some poppy seeds. We decided to ask and then order the spiciest dish in the restaurant, and we were not disappointed.
Well, that’s about it for this week. We spent a lot of time talking to people this week, trying to find ways to help them in whatever way we can. For most people that means they just talk to us for a couple of minutes about their life, but some actually want to hear about the blessings that the Gospel can bring to their lives. It’s a great opportunity to really share how much the Gospel of Jesus Christ has changed my life and why I’m thousands of miles from home trying to teach people about it.
Nashledanou,
Starší O’Barr
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Ahoj from Jihlava!

I’ve finally arrived in the Czech Republic! I’ll try to include a good amount of detail in this email, so it may be a little long.

My last few days away the MTC were pretty unremarkable. We said goodbye to our teachers and began packing for real. Monday morning at 9am, we packed up and left the MTC for the first time in 9 weeks. We took an overnight flight from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam. A couple hours later and we were on the flight to Prague. We landed in Praha around 2 in the afternoon local time. We immediately go back to the mission home and drop off our luggage and our suit coats and headed out into Prague. A short walk got us to this beautiful overlook point a hill, where you could see almost the whole city. We talked about the history of missionary work in the Czech Republic and Slovakia for a little bit, then went on a short tour of Prague. We saw some amazing sites, like the beautiful Prague Castle and some other impressive buildings. We walked down the hill to the famous Charles Bridge, and then crossed into the old town to see the astronomical clock. We ate some quick dinner at a little restaurant, and then got to work. On the metro ride back we all attempted to talk to people about Christ and His message. It was interesting to really try to speak Czech with Czechs for the first time. We spent the night in Prague, anxiously waiting to find out where we’d all be going. After a quick breakfast and a short presentation, I met my trainer, Starší Papworth, and my area, Jihlava.

Jihlava (pronounced ye-H-lava) is a small city in the countryside on the border between Bohemia and Moravia. It’s an old town, that at one point was known for its silver mining. It was also considered important enough that they put a large wall around it. The picture I’ve attached is the large Kostel right of the main square. We took a couple hour bus ride to Jihlava from Prague. Right after we arrived here, Starší Papworth and I had to run and visit a nearby member, who we’re helping prepare to go to the temple. The next morning we got up and had to go and meet the nearest missionaries to us in Třebíč, which is about 50 minutes by train. Even traveling here is gorgeous, as the train runs through miles of forested hills and rolling farms. We came back and spent a lot of time studying and preparing lessons for the next day. At the end of that we had Inspiration Night, which is a weekly activity where the members here get together and play some sort of game and eat some food with a spiritual thought. It’s a wonderful way for people here to learn about the church and meet members and us, the missionaries. On Saturday we had service all morning long at a farm just outside of Jihlava. On Sunday we got to go to Church, and then spend some time visiting members around Jihlava.There were lots of other little stories, but my time here is short, and I’ve got too go.

Things are good in Jihlava. I’m incredibly excited to actually be out serving the people of the Czech Republic.

Starší O’Barr