Starší O'Barr

Zdravím vás!

This week was transfer week, which is why you’re all receiving this email today, instead of on Monday. Elder Williams and get at least one more whole transfer together in the office! Hopefully we’ll be real good at this stuff by the time we actually get out of here.

Plenty of other missionaries moved around, but our district here in Prague stayed pretty similar, not too much shuffling around. The Coronavirus restrictions make it hard to move around too much. There IS a light at the end of the tunnel for us, as stores started opening back up yesterday. It will still be a long while until everything is back to normal, and we can talk to people outside, but the process is exciting. In the meantime, we’ve learned some important things about how potent and effective Facebook is for talking to people. Elder Williams and I didn’t have a whole lot of time to contact on Facebook, as there was a lot of work happening in the office, but it has proven to be a very effective tool around the mission. People are a lot more willing to talk to us online than in person, and things are going well!

I personally have found a lot of peace this week from Matt. 11:28-30, and the promises contained it. Christ has promised us rest, and shown us the path to it. As I’ve tried to be more like Him, and engaged myself in His work, my life has become infinitely more peaceful. I still face a lot of trials, and I’m still always working, but the work never seems as hard as it did before.

Have a wonderful week!

S laskou,
Starší O’Barr

Hello!

Another quick email this week, but I have some actual updates! We got some guests! The elders serving in Liberec moved here to Prague, which is a real blast. Elder Williams and I will have been companions for 6 months this week! We bought a steak to commemorate it. Elder Williams and I had a couple lessons over Facebook, and we also spent some time talking and meeting people on Facebook. I am so grateful that we are still able to be here and serve and live in the Czech Republic, even in these times.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Elder O’Barr

Hello everyone!

This email will be quick as there really isn’t a whole lot to say about this week. General Conference was amazing! It really contained answers to some of the things I’ve been praying for, and it honestly soothed my soul. Several of our friends here were able to watch it as well, and they really enjoyed it. We have continued working here in the office, and things are much the same. I replanted my indoor garden and ate an unknown vegetable(?) this week. Also, the weather is now warm!

If you didn’t get a chance to watch General Conference yet, watch it! This gospel that we have is evidence that God still lives, and He is still actively concerned in the lives of His children. There is no requirement, no prequalification, for prayer. We only need to desire to communicate with the Creator of all, and He stands ready to respond. Answers exist, peace can be found. I know I have found it in my own life, and I hope you all can do the same.

Have a wonderful week,
Elder O’Barr

Well, another week gone. We are finding lots of ways to cope with this quarantine, and we are starting to learn and adjust to life with all this going on. Like I said last week, we are a little spoiled here because we aren’t stuck in our apartments for the whole day, and we get to travel to the office, but honestly we are enjoying the extra bit of study time, and we’re starting to figure out how to use all this extra time effectively. We were kept extra busy in the office this past week, and we’ll be extra busy this next week as well. We have a lot of small projects in process here in the mission that we are slowly chipping away at. For example, we are in the process of putting WiFi in all the apartments here, which is quite the process. But I won’t bore you all with the details. Things are going well here, and everything has slowed down. We took a quick walk today through some of the city, and it was so quiet. It was an amazing opportunity for reflection and peace and quiet in what is usually one of the most crowded areas of Prague. God provides opportunities for us to feel His love and to partake in the peace He has promised us, even in the most bizarre of times. I was so grateful for the opportunity we had to fast this past weekend. Fasting provides such a wonderful experience for us to refocus our souls and our minds on that which is most important. I cannot wait for general conference this year.

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Elder O’Barr

Pics from the walk today

Things continue on happening here in the Office. We have been busy with our normal duties, and then we’ve spent a lot more time with the APs who now no longer have anything better to do but bother us. Just kidding! We’ve all been working hard on finding through Facebook. We’ve actually seen a lot of success talking to other people who are trapped inside all day! The people we are teaching have also had more time to meet, and we’ve had more time to prepare lessons for them. It has really been a good experience so far. Of course we are a little spoiled here, as we get to go to the office almost every day rather than being stuck in our apartment. Elder Williams and I got special permission to get up early one day to catch the sunrise in a park in Prague, one of the only excuses to break quarantine. A lot of other things are on pause right now for us, so I don’t have too much else to share.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Elder O’Barr 

Well, it certainly was an interesting week in the office! We started by mass-reimbursing missionaries for purchasing their 2 week supplies. That was a good bit of work, but we figured that was probably the only weird thing that was gonna happen this week, so we didn’t let it get us down. I had an exchange with Elder Henderson in Kladno. We had a good time together, even if it down-poured for the whole day. When I finally got back to the office on Wednesday, things started getting crazy. I honestly don’t remember the order things went in, but by Saturday morning when we got up to go weekly shopping, we discovered that only essential stores were open. On top of that, all of our senior couples were hurrying to Prague so that they could fly out. The borders are closed, a lot of the missionaries in Slovakia are on government mandated quarantine, and we need to wear masks on public transportation now. It certainly was a chain of events.

After all of that, we are still quite hopeful. We are still allowed to go to work in the office, even if the country is on quarantine. We are getting a lot done in the office. We are discovering new ways to talk to people without physically talking to people. We are also still looking for new ways to spend our preparation days. Today we played district monopoly (ended poorly) and tried to do a puzzle (never ended).

Now for some other things we did this week:

• Carried 17 jugs of water up some stairs
• Walked across Charles Bridge, twice!
• Got soaked by the rain
• Spent all day waiting for emails that never came
• Had 27 phone calls in one day
• Made Potato Goulash with a recipe from a Czech
• Got the keys to a new apartment
• Helped find places for the senior couples to sleep
• Walked around Prague almost completely devoid of tourists
• Cleaned out a lot of junk from the office (A LOT)

Anyways, life is crazy, but good as always. Things have changed, but thanks to the advantage of a modern prophet and the guidance of the Holy Ghost, we were prepared. Elder Williams and I were completely prepared to take over all the responsibilities of the office before this even happened, which meant our mission president didn’t even have to worry about what to do without a senior couple in the office. Look for the ways the Lord is blessing us in this time, and you will find them,

Starší O’Barr

Pics:

Me on the empty Staroměstské Náměstí

Us in Letná Park, overlooking Prague

My potato guláš

You can buy straight melted chocolate in a cup here! It is really good! Not very good for my growing chocolate addiction though. We’ve also continued to run into members of the church on Charles bridge. I have yet to cross the bridge without running into a member of our church who is here on vacation. Coronavirus hasn’t scared off the tourists!

Coronavirus has made it a lot harder to meet with some of our investigators. One is on quarantine and the other has gone back to his hometown since the university is closed for Coronavirus. But, other than that, things are going well here! We have had a lot of good meeting with people here in Prague, even with all the extra office work we’ve had this week. We also got a lot done in the office, including closing a deal on a brand new apartment here in Prague, and dealing with a lot of problems with our current apartments. We were also asked to purchase a 2 week stockpile of nonperishable food just in case. That created a lot of headaches as we had to reimburse all the missionaries for their purchases. That’s all for this week!

Starší O’Barr

Pic: Prague Castle and Charles Bridge

This week Elder Williams and I were very busy in the office, and so I don’t have a whole lot to share from this week. We have officially taken over in the office, which means we get to do all sorts of things like go to the bank and pay rent and keep track of cars. Sometimes it is a little difficult to see the value of the work we’re doing, as it’s so different from regular missionary work, but it’s also essential to help the other missionaries work in their assigned areas. We had a real good zone conference where we spent a lot of time practicing what we do everyday as missionaries, and discussing ways to practice better. In other news, Coronavirus finally reached the Czech Republic, and so we have jokingly started stockpiling puzzles in our apartment just in case we get put on quarantine. There’s really no threat here, but people already bought out all the masks and cheap pasta here, which makes me sad cause I really like cheap pasta. We were able to meet with a lot of the people we are teaching this week, and we had 2 of our friends come to church on Sunday. That’s all I have for today!

Starší O’Barr

Pic 1: A book tower in the městská knihovna

Pic 2: Me, Elder Mangum, and Sister Draper in front of Charles Bridge

Hey y’all, it was slightly less hectic week then last week, but still pretty busy. Monday night, we said goodbye to all the missionaries going home the next day, and they gave us some solid advice. All the new missionaries going to Slovakia got here on Tuesday, and so we were wrapped up in getting things together for them and doing some legal registering and what not, and then spent some time with the new missionaries trainers, including Elder Webb, who is also from Ohio. Wednesday morning we got to eat breakfast with all the trainers and new missionaries, and got to give the fun financial information presentation. Not sure they all paid too much attention to it, but I don’t blame them. We also had to check out some apartments for the new senior couple that will be coming to Prague soon. We had some really good meetings with people later in the week, and we even had time to step out of the office and talk to people in the metro a little bit. We spent most of Saturday cleaning our apartment and planning for the week, and the weather was really nice so we had the windows open, which felt very good. It’s been very windy here in Prague lately, and it’s brought a lot of fresh warm spring air. We spent today working the office, but we had a little bit of time to run to Vyšehrad, which is the large defensive structure in the middle of Prague. It has some great views of the city, and some amazing history. I would recommend looking it up.

Čau for now,
Starší O’Barr

Pic 1: Us on Vyšehrad

Pic 2: A nice photo of the part of the city in the valley. The metro runs through that bridge in the middle