Starší O'Barr

Ahoj všem!

It’s another wonderful windy and wet day here in Prague! So windy our windows blew open during the night, which was a pleasant surprise! This week we had a lot going on, so I’ll give ya a quick run down. On Tuesday we honestly didn’t have too much, but that meant that we got trained on a lot of different financial things around the office. On Wednesday, we spent all morning paying rent for all the apartments in the mission, then spent the entire afternoon taking a group of missionaries to the Foriegn Police to do some visa work. It was slightly stressful, but good to spend some time with the other missionaries. On Thursday, I had an exchange with Elder Clayton. We got to do some car work in the morning, which was a welcome relief from the office work, and then we played basketball in the afternoon with some people he and Elder Mangum are working with. Friday, he and I went on a really cool run through a beautiful park by their apartment. They live in a much older part of town, so it’s a really pretty area, but the trade off is their apartment is pretty old too, and not necessarily in the best condition. Elder Williams and I had to catch up on things in the office on Friday. On Saturday, Elder Williams and Elder Clayton went to Jičin to accompany some Sisters at a ward music night, so Elder Mangum and I got to do some work in Prague. We taught some amazing lessons to some amazing people this week, but we also had some really amazing people fall through, which wasn’t the best feeling.

This next week is the last week of the transfer and also really busy, so my email next week might be short or non-existent, but keep an eye out for it anyways cause it will probably be exciting.

Love you all,
Elder O’Barr

Picture 1- A really good donut I had today. Waaaaay good.

Picture 2- Every day Elder Williams and I take a selfie in the elevator as we’re leaving just so I have something to send home in case I don’t have anything else. Here’s my favorite from this week.

Bit of a crazy week, lots of things changing and happening, but almost all of it good! First off, we had zone conference on Wednesday! Since most of my district was involved in preparing trainings, there was a good amount of stress and running around to try and get everything prepared. Sister Jarvis got tonsillitis, and so Elder Williams and I had to step in and help get things ready for her and Sister Ray, as well as teach two English classes. Luckily, it all went well,and we were actually prepared for zone conference. The next morning, we had a really good zone conference, where we had some really good trainings on goals and planning. Elder Beckstrom stayed afterward, and got to help us teach a lesson with someone he taught when he served here. Elder Williams and I also had some other really good lessons with people this week, including several new people! We also started our new schedule, where we split our preparation days between Saturday and Monday, because we have to be in the office on Monday mornings.

This week, I had a lot of thoughts about the importance of loving everyone around us, even those we don’t particularly think need it, or even care what we think. As missionaries, we certainly attract the attention of people who might not be the friendliest towards our church or religion in general. In all things, we strive to follow Christ, and His example of perfect love. There is so much good we can do when we look for opportunities to reach out to those in need of love and support. It’s not very hard either. There’s plenty of small moments where our patience and support, or even just our smiles can change someone’s whole day.

Elder O’Barr

Pic 1: We took a walk in the park by Prague Castle

Pic 2: The Lennon Wall

Ahoj všem! I’m sure you’re tired of me saying this, but we had another long and busy week here in Prague. Elder Williams and I are busy preparing to take over for the senior couple when they leave the office, as well as take care of the other responsibilities we have in the office. Our busy schedule often leaves little time for finding new people to teach, but this week we created a new plan to hopefully get more time out of the office and talking to people on the streets or in the metro.

This week had some real trying moments, as well as great successes. For instance, the post office stole Elder Williams’ power of attorney (which is essential for picking up packages), but we also had members at every lesson we taught. Some of our activities also had very few in attendance this week, but we also started teaching a new person. We had dinner with a very lively Russian family and their children, most of whom only speak Russian. It was a lot of fun and it was a good excuse to practice my Russian!

This week, after I read the talk “It’s true, isn’t it?” by President Hinckley, I was thinking a lot about why I’m serving a mission. Our zone also had a discussion about why we came on a mission, but almost more importantly, why we stayed. I am here, in the Czech Republic, because there is nothing more important in my life than the knowledge I have, and I’m glad I have such an opportunity to share it with people, even if all I do is have a short conversation with them.

Pics 1-3:We went on a hike today! It was really cold and misty, but it was beautiful as well.

Pic 4: I went on an exchange on Saturday, and on our way to a meeting on the other side of Prague, we poked our heads into the largest cemetery in Prague.

Another busy week this week! Elder Williams and I had to spend a lot of time in the office this week, as all the other missionaries in Prague had to be elsewhere. There was a good bit of unexciting work, but we got caught up on the little tasks we needed to take care of. Also, halfway through the week, we found out we needed to move a lot of missionaries around due to some mostly unexpected problems with visas. Elder Webb, who had been serving with us here in Prague, had to go back to Slovakia on very little notice. It was a chaotic couple of days, but it was all ironed out by Sunday. We did have time to have some amazing lessons with some of our friends, and one of our friends came to church with us on Sunday. It was weird to be the only missionaries here when normally it is so busy, but it was a good week! I also found a quote I really like from Thomas S Monson, a former prophet and president of the church. He said “A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder, never likely to reach home port.” In this life we need to know who we are and what we want to accomplish if we are ever going to accomplish anything, and especially if we want to return to live with our Heavenly Father.

Now for some stories or stuff:

Bone Church! (Kutná Hora Ossuary): So some people might have heard of this, but here in the Czech Republic, there was once a graveyard where a man scattered a jar of dirt from the Holy Land. Everyone thought that was so amazing that they wanted to be buried there. And so they were. Thousands upon thousands of plague victims and Hussite soldiers chose to make that their final resting place. However, when the city started to grow, they started to run out of room. And so they decided to dig up all the old bodies and turn them into some art pieces. And now the bodies of more than 60,000 people decorate this church in various shapes including huge pyramids, a full chandelier, and a coat of arms. All made of bones. We weren’t allowed to take photos, but you can look it up if you want, it was very interesting. We did take some photos in another area of town next to the most breathtaking cathedral I’ve ever seen. Pics 1-4 are us in the town

Česka Pošta HQ- Elder Williams and I accidentally stumbled into the coolest post office in the Czech Republic. Most of them are in the bottom floor of worn out communist buildings, but this one is huge with skylights and gorgeous art nouveau murals decorating the inside. I got pretty bad pictures, but it was cool. Pic 5

Hey everybody! It’s been another busy week here in Prague. Not too much to say about it, but we had some really amazing moments this week.

Only one story, but I’ll list some of the other things that happened really quick: Elder Williams turned 20! Shout out to his parents for sending us stuff to make a cake! I bought unidentifiable honey and the Czech word for sharp is written on the top. Everyone got the same cold. I learned how to conduct while conducting. Elder Williams bought a sword.

Baptism!- A friend of one the other missionaries here took a big step on his path to his Heavenly Father this week by deciding to be baptized! It’s the first baptism I’ve seen on my mission, and it was a beautiful experience. I can’t go into too much detail, but this man’s life was changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it was a blessing to see how happy he was after his baptism.

Honestly, this week was amazing, and it would still be even if the only thing that had happened was the baptism. We preach about the change that can be brought about in someone’s life thanks to their belief in Christ, and to see someone go through that process is faith-building in and of itself. I can add no more to it then my simple testimony that there is joy waiting for anyone who chooses to follow Christ.

Elder O’Barr

Pictures:

My SHARP honey (very flavorful)

Cool building we accidentally found, still not sure what it is

Me in the nearby town of Kladno with another missionary on exchange

Us with the an American family here and our friend who got baptized

Well, this week was very busy, but a lot of it was spent filling out visa paperwork for other missionaries, so not too much to tell.

New Year’s: We did normal work for most of the day, then around 6pm we went to the mission president’s house and played games for a little bit, and then hurried home in order to avoid some of the crazier new year’s festivities. By the time we left, fireworks were already going off all over. Their laws are a little more lax here than in the US, so people were just launching fireworks out of their apartments and in the streets.

New Year’s Day: One of our friends started the new year off by moving apartments, and then deciding to be baptized! He’s an incredible man who’s been meeting with missionaries for a while, and he finally felt ready to make this next step.

Sunday: We had a lot of our friends come to church with us, and we were able to invite a lot of them to our other friend’s baptism next week, and we also talked a lot about what we believe with some of them. It was also the first Sunday of the month so we had the opportunity to fast. It was all around a very good day here in Prague.

Thanks for the support and the emails everyone! Have a wonderful new year!

Elder O’Barr

Pic 1-2: Fireworks!

Pic 3: Cool Sunset in Prague

Pic 4: Us with the other Missionaries in Prague

Pic 5: The last photo I took in 2019

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody! We had quite a busy week, but not too much to note. For a quick update:

~The other missionaries here are hopefully going to have someone baptized next week, and we’re all very excited. The man they’ve been teaching is really wonderful.

~I ate traditional Czech Christmas dinner, including carp, řížek (schnitzel), and potato salad.

~I was in the office a lot this week, and also I was sick for a bit, so we didn’t get to meet with too many of our friends, but the meetings we did have were great.

I’ve been reading a lot in the book of Job this week, and I wanted to share just a quick thought from it. Job as a whole is a wonderful book full of powerful statements from a man who had everything, and lost it all. Among the most powerful questions he asks while lamenting his situation is in 14:14 where he cries out, “If a man dies, shall he live again?” He answers his own question later though with the even more powerful, “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”

Elder O’Barr

Pic 1: Us after going to early morning mass with some friends on Christmas

Pic 2: Prague’s main train station. Fun fact Nadraží is a train station, Nazdraví is what you say after someone sneezes. Don’t mix them up.

I moved to Prague! Right from the get go it was busier than Jihlava, and we were running around most of last week. I’ll include some highlights but I already forgot a lot of what happened.

Goodbye to Jihlava: I found out I was being transferred (moving) to Prague a little early, and so I got to say goodbye to everybody in my last couple days there. There are so many wonderful people in Jihlava and I will certainly miss it. It’s amazing how much a place can come to mean to you after only 4 months.

Office work: There is very little down time in Prague. From the moment the other missionaries met me in the bus station to the moment we crawled into bed, we were running around. We ended up dragging my luggage around half of Prague as we attempted to meet other missionaries coming into Prague and get things ready for the missionaries that were going home. Here in Prague we still do all the normal missionary activities like teaching people about Jesus Christ, teaching English, and doing service. We also are in charge of helping other missionaries get their visas and other important legal documents that allow us to live here. We also have to pick up packages for all the missionaries, and prepare orders for the things they need. It is a lot of fun, but also a lot of work.

I ate snails: That’s pretty much the entire story. I just ate some snails.

There are a lot of other random things that happened, but not much worth its own story. Things truly are amazing here. The work here is hard, but we are seeing success. We’re busy preparing a baptism for right after Christmas. To me it has been amazing to see the changes that some of these people have made in their lives in an attempt to draw closer to Christ. They change their entire way of life, but you can see how much happier, how much more full of purpose and hope for the future they are. Over 2000 years ago, Christ was born so that we could have hope in life. Because He was born, I have hope in my life, and I know that change is always possible. There is an indescribable joy that comes from knowing that I don’t have to be who am I today tomorrow, but I can be something better, and we all can be.

Starší O’Barr

Pic 1: We accidentally ended up going to Prague Castle today. We just wanted to get back and the quickest path was through there. Figured I should take a picture

Pic 2: Just a random street in Prague cause it’s pretty

Pic 3: The early morning fog here is intense. We live in downtown Prague, but you can’t see any of the other buildings.

Pic 4: Eating snails with Elder Webb.

Pic 5: Snails in butter and garlic.

Pic 6: Yum, yum!

Pic 7: Streets of Prague.

Pic 8: (no explanation given).

Pic 9: Christmas package arrived.