Letter #5

Ahoj! Well this week has been not that interesting. All I do is study, eat study some more and sleep. Dad you were wondering about mail-- Dear Elder prints them off the day after, so if you write on a Friday I don't get it until Monday night, and we don't get any on holidays. Loved the MTC journal excerpts that made me feel a lot better haha. Maybe someday I'll look back at it and laugh about how seriously I took everything haha. I hope so. Well we are halfway through with the MTC, finally. One of the directors of the Missionary Departement came and spoke to us last night, and he talked about the 4 stages missionaries go through: the honeymoon stage, hostile, grin and bear it and endure to the end. He pointed out that all missionaries go through this everytime they switch areas, or companions or whatever, so it's perfectly normal. That made me feel a lot better, cause I think I was in the hostile stage this week. The newness has worn off and now I'm just sick of the food, tired of not being able to communicate in Czech and my companion's driving me nuts. Haha wow that sounds super depressing, sorry. I'm getting out of it, slowly, but I will be so happy when we actually get to leave for the Czech Republic. I'm glad I have 4 more weeks to learn Czech cause I definitely need it, but I'm kind of over everything else. Ummm positive things--I've learned a ton of Czech this week. We learned all 7 cases, which was ridiculous. Also, I've learned a ton from the scriptures during personal study, which was really cool. I learned that I've always trusted in the Lord, because I know he CAN do all things, but I have trouble with having faith that he WILL do all things. So that was sort of an epiphany for me this week, I've been trying to improve my faith that He really does have all power and that my goals are exactly what He wants too. It was pretty cool cause I realized that I can't do anything to mess up His plans, even if I tried. He would always have a contingency plan, cause he's all-knowing. That was incredibly comforting to me for some reason, that no matter how badly I mess up, he could always fix it. So just think what I can do if I'm actually trying to help him accomplish his plans. So that was really neat to realize, it took some of the pressure off. What else...oh I was reading Alma 26 about the harvest analogy and it reminded me of Ruth, so I went and read that, and realized it can totally be read as an allegory of missionary work. SO COOL. especially verses 7-12. She is promised protection, she leaves her father and her mother to come to a land and people foreign to her, and she toils all day long. Anyways, I thought that was really cool. So then, I was reading the story of Ammon, and realized if you read the scattering of the flocks as a scattering of church members that go inactive, that it is really all about the rescue effort--Dad I thought you would like that. I don't know if that has already occurred to you, but I loved it. What else...oh we started teaching each other in Czech-I'm partnered up with Starsi Howell. It was really hard being the investigator, since all the Czech words I know are church-related I can't say anything normal really haha. But it went ok I think. And I got to do the whole study-plan-teach cycle with a teacher, so I learned a lot from that. He said the way I've been preparing lessons was great, but I learned more about faith. I'll write you about that. That's about it really....sorry this week wasn't really that interesting. We get 2 new districts on Wednesday--one speaking Polish and the others are Bulgarian speaking. So that will be fun to welcome them. And all of us sisters in the branch are doing a musical number on Sunday to welcome them. Sister Jones is singing a verse in Swedish, and Sister Belibi Myna is doing one in French. I know you're jealous mom haha. Sister Jones sings Swedish folk songs in the morning sometimes and they are so pretty!!! K I love you! Sestra Cooper

4th letter

ahoj! Hi!! aaah there's so much to say there's no way I can fit it all. But I will try. This week was ridiculous. First of all there are sooo many new missionaries, more than 1000 came in on Wednesday. Which means that every room is going to have 6 people in it, with 4 closets, that will be fun...we are going to move into the room with the other 4 sisters in our district today, so that will be interesting cramming all of us in that tiny room! Dinner got so crowded on Thursday that they wouldn't let us in to eat for about a 1/2 an hour, so we had to wait in the hallway because there were over 1000 in there and no seats open. haha it's just going to get worse...since we are here for another month. Wednesday is almost the halfway point of the mtc!!! Don't know how that happened, it's crazy. Mom, you asked about the love for the people-absolutely. I feel so much love for the Czech people and have ever since I got my call, it will be so nice actually be able to serve them in a little more than a month. aaah. Oh and you only have to wear the newbie dot your first day. Apparently this January was the coldest since 1949, so we aren't imagining things, it's freezing. The sun finally came out this week though! Dad, you asked about TALL (the computer language program) it's kind of annoying to learn new words because it's just online flashcards and I learn by writing them down, but it's helpful for review. It will say the word for you and you can record yourself and compare your accent. Apparently my pronounciation is getting really good, we had to read out of the KM (Kniha Mormonova) with our teacher and he only corrected me on a couple words, so yay! That was exciting. We finally started cases this week, they are a beast. And I still don't have past tense down all that well, so that should be interesting. Oh yeah, you were wondering about gym- there are two of them. 2M has ellipticals, weights, bikes and a rowing machine with church movies, and 19M has volleyball, foursquare, basketball, a track and other machines. I've been running a lot, which has been so nice. The food is going downhill cause they are cranking it out which is super lame. Luckily I haven't gained any weight yet, but it's hard when the food is so bad to eat healthy. Oh and Starsi Payne broke the MTC sit-up record, it was 571 and he did 1361 in 45 min on Saturday. All of the elders in our zone are hero worshiping him hahaha. But he wants to be Navy seal so it's hardly surpising haha. Thanks so much for your Valentine's package!! Everybody was super distracted cause it felt like a holiday and there was sooo much candy from all the packages haha. It was fun though, we all shared our food and wrote notes to each other. Dad you are judging Mr. Irish? That's awesome! Mom, I loved hearing about your MTC journal entries, that was so cool. Oh yesterday I got called on to talk in Sacrament, every week we have to prepare a talk just in case. I think it went pretty well, even though it wasn't my favorite talk I've ever written. And then I got asked to give the closing prayer in Relief Society, so I was up on the big screen in front of all the sisters in the MTC (they almost fill the whole bleachers and floor now) and I got to meet Linda Reeves cause she was the speaker, that was really cool. Mom I'm glad you read my letters multiple times too cause I definitely do! I've been a little homesick this week just cause Czech got really hard. And one of the sister's mom's in our zone keeps meeting her up at the temple, which you aren't supposed to do, I'm trying not to think about it, it's not like you are close by anyways. My companion is good, we have pretty different personalities but we get along just fine. I think she's normally pretty sarcastic like Annica but she's holding back so she just comes across as super indecisive, which means I have to make decisions haha. Comp inventory has been helpful for that. Mom, you got a Linguistics textbook?? I'm slightly jealous, that would be so helpful. I did learn that Czech is all in the front of the mouth like spanish, so that's been helpful. Oh, the longer I'm here the more I realize I really don't know anything about the gospel haha. I felt pretty good before leaving, but I learn so much from one hour of personal study it's kind of ridiculous. So good though. It doesn't discount what I knew before, but I'm learning so much. Our teacher taught us a method to get more out of scripture study the other week--we all wrote down a personal question and then started in 1 Nephi and stopped at every verse and applied to ourselves as missionaries. It was amazing how much I learned, and my question was answered every time without fail. So cool. Oh Mom- you asked about Dispensations, I have the perfect answer! I asked Bro Thompson about that cause I had the same question and he said that they show us that God will never give up on us. No matter how many times we mess up, reject the prophets and the gospel, he always calls another prophet and gives us another chance. Isn't that cool? I loved that application--God never gives up on me either, no matter how many times I don't get it right. The speaker on the Sunday fireside was from the Missionary Department, so he gets to sit with the apostles when they assign calls, he told some pretty cool stories. But he and his wife talked about Mormon 9, about how God is the perfect father, and he will do anything to help his children have the righteous desires of our hearts. So if we have enough faith, he will perform miracles through us. A miracle can be as small as bringing someone closer to Christ, but if you think about it, that is the most important thing we can do. So the MTC is good. It feels like I'm going to be here forever, but the last month went by pretty quickly. The days are weeks and the weeks are days! Love you!! Sestra Cooper

#3 from the MTC

Ahoj! This week was kind of crazy. There are now 3052 missionaries here--1000 new ones came in on Wednesday! So the lines at dinner are ridiculous-we've been leaving 10 min early so we can actually get food. The food's gone downhill too because there are so many more people, which is pretty lame, but oh well. We just got back from the Temple, I got to be a child in sealings which was super cool, and there were some Coopers, from Tennessee. Don't know if we are related or not but that was cool. And I met an Elder Cooper last night too so that was cool. Monica sent me a photo calendar and I LOVE it cause I didn't have any recent photos of the family, so thanks Monica! We taught at the TRC for the first time this week which was interesting. It definitely reminded me that I really don't know Czech haha. The whole class is convinced that me and Starsi Howell are super good with the language, which I think is funny--it's just because I memorize vocab well. We finally learned past tense this week, which was so helpful. Now that we can actually put together slightly coherent sentences, lessons are a lot easier. Bro Thompson said that we are doing a really good job teaching to "Honza"'s needs, so that was exciting. And Sis Austin said that my Czech is coming along pretty well, so I should just keep doing what I'm doing. So that was really nice to hear. We did have some pretty hilarious mistakes this week though. Sis Hicken called the two guys we were teaching in the TRC "kamaradka" which means friends who are girls, and I asked them to turn to verse 80 instead of 18 haha. The funniest one was Sis Hicken explaining to "Petra" that "God helps us sin" hahaha. (Buh pomaha hrich) she realized right as she said it and was wait no! but 'no' is short for 'ano' which means yes in Czech. haha good times. The Starsi figured out how to say "like a boss" in Czech (jako sef-sounds like yako chef) so they've been adding that to like every sentence haha. I've had the song from the Best Two Years "Will I ever learn this language" stuck in my head all week. But it's coming along. We are planning on only bringing our English lesson plan into the lessons this week with a list of vocab and verbs that we need to use so that it's more of a conversation. We also did SYL for the first time on Wednesday, haha that was interesting cause we didn't know hardly any verbs. But the rest of the week we learned a ton so that should be better this Wednesday. What else...Oh we got to listen to Elder Bednar's talk "The Character of Christ" last night in the films--so amazing. I'll write you about that, he always blows my mind. His basic point was that when we would turn in and feel sorry for ourselves, Christ always turned out to serve others. We have our room to ourselves for now which has been sooo nice. But we are probably going to get new roommates on Wednesday when the newbies come in. I can't believe it's almost been 3 weeks! That's ridiculous. But it also feels like months. Time is really weird here. Oh cool quote that Sis Hicken's mom sent her: from Elder Bowen of the seventy being interviewed about the age change in missionary service: "We always need to remember that Heavenly Father communicates spirit to spirit and these spirits aren't 18 years old. Their spirits have been with Him a long, long time, and if they tune in, he can direct them spirit to spirit." I thought that was really neat. Sorry I don't have too much to say this week. Friday and Saturday took fooorever, we were all so tired. So the week is kind of a blur. Saturday the Starsi counted up how many hours we were in the classroom-- 10 1/2. That's more than the amount of time we got to sleep the night before haha. Ridiculous. We were all falling asleep so Bro Marchado took us on a walk in the snow and we learned our directions haha. By the end of the night I was cracking up about nothing--you know when it's 3 in the morning and everything is funny for no reason? That's what happened except it was only like 8 pm. So Bro Thompson just put on some music and had us study the atonement by ourselves--that was really nice. Sunday's are kind of crazy here, we have sacrament, then breakfast, then an hour, then Music and the Spoken Word, then Relief Society (Cherly Lant came yesterday) then study time for a couple hours, district meeting, the temple walk (except it was cancelled yesterday) then dinner and then we have to get to the devotional more than a half an hour before because there are only enough seats for about 2000 missionaries. I love P-day though, it is so nice. Mom you asked about PMG--I love the chapter on Christ-like attributes, there is a little quiz you can take in the back to figure out which one you want to work on. Also, comp inventory is amazing--that's in the chapter about using time wisely, it's been so helpful. All my RM friends always talked about how they wanted to use that when they got married and now I understand what they meant haha. Anyways...I love it here. It's exhausting but awesome and I'm learning so much. We've gotten to practice teaching in English more this week and that's been super helpful. It reminds me that I actually do know the gospel well, and I can actually explain it simply and powerfully in English. So that's been really helpful-those teaching skills I can translate over into Czech, like asking inspired questions and things. love you all! Sestra Cooper

MTC letter #2

Letter #2 HI! I can't believe it's been another week, I don't know where the time went. This week has been sooo much better than the first one. Everybody kept saying that you just have to make it to Sunday, and it was definitely true. Oh I forgot to tell you last week, we leave March 25 now, not the 26th, so I think I'll still be able to call you from the airport! We just buy a prepaid card here, and then I'm assuming we call at some point--I won't know the time until we get our itineraries. I got the photos, but don't have any way of printing them out, so it would be awesome if you could send a hard copy, also a more recent picture of the family, everybody keeps wanting to see them. Thanks so much for the packages, you are awesome. The trail mix and chocolate were so nice, I'm always hungry in between meals. The lines at dinner are ridiculous, so we've been leaving 10 min early from the classroom so that we can actually get food, I get what you meant about the cereal! My room is probably exactly the same as when you were here, long with 3 sets of bunk beds, the bathrooms are communal and ancient, definitely built in the 60s, same with our classroom building. I live in 3M and have class in 10M if you remember what campus looks like. Oh about the bags rule--it's because there are way too many missionaries, and they take up too much space. I guess my bag is fine cause it's more of a purse size, but they don't want big backpacks in the cafeteria or devotionals. Oh and the collapsable cup was a genius idea, thank you!! Do you think you could find a little thing of dish soap? They don't sell it here and my water bottle will get gross eventually. And I don't think I ever gave you the scripture for my plaque: I think I want Ether 12:6, I think that really expresses the hope that I want to share with others. We have to write a talk each Sunday in case we get called on, and this week's topic was enduring to the end, even though it was Fast Sunday so nobody actually gave it. But, I was looking up the word "endure" since that sounds so depressing, and it linked to steadfast, immovable, hope, and dependable. So then I started laughing and had the perfect personal experience to share with it haha. Hopefully that will translate when I get to give that talk in Czech at some point. Speaking of Czech, apparently I have a beautiful French accent, according to Sister Austin, one of our teachers. I just started laughing-I definitely predicted that one! She said it's not as strong as it was at first though, so that means my Czech is getting better, yay! And I'd much rather have a French accent than an American one--one of the Starsi (Elders) has a terrible American accent--I can even hear it haha. Oh my shoes--I've been wearing either the brown oxfords or my black boots every day since the other 3 aren't worn in and gave me blisters. I heard that if you put them on and use a blow dryer it softens them? So I might try that, no idea if it will work. Oh and we quote the Best Two Years like every day, it's the best thing ever. We were studying the Plan of Salvation lesson to teach it and I started cracking up cause I imagined the greenie saying: "Have you ever wondered where you come from, why you're here, and where your gooing?" hahaha love it. Oh we do still have "celestial service" but no one calls it that anymore, must have been an 80s thing haha. I didn't actually do it this Wednesday cause I was sick and slept in. It was just a cold though, so I was fine in a day or two, luckily I didn't get the flu or anything. What else....Oh you wanted to hear about my district. Can't remember what I wrote last week, so sorry if I repeat myself! I'll send a picture when we go to do laundry in a bit. There are 2 Slovak speaking sisters, Sestra Jones is from Wales and has an awesome accent, and Sestra Belibi Myna is from Lyon, France! Both of them speak French so I've been practicing, that's been really nice since I can actually communicate in French off the top of my head, not so much in Czech yet. However, I can bear my testimony, say a prayer and introduce myself in Czech without really looking which is awesome. Ethan was wondering about the investigators thing--so our first week we had "Petra", which I guessed was our teacher but they didn't tell us--she's actually Sister Austin. But what they do is figure out a persona to act as, usually someone they taught on their mission or someone they know really well, or a mix, so then we teach them as an investigator, and they respond as that person would. I thought it was a little weird at first, praying for "Petra" and asking for guidance from the spirit about what to teach her, when in the back of my mind, I knew that it's actually a member. But I've definitely gained a testimony of it, we had a really cool experience with her on Tuesday. So the lesson before this she had told us that she knows all about God and Jesus, but she doesn't understand why they would let her sister be sick with cancer, and not heal her, and then she asked us how the atonement was possible. So that was kind of hard. So after studying we felt like we should teach her about faith. So we prepared this whole lesson about faith and the plan of salvation, and were going to challenge her to pray. So we get there and asked her if she had any questions about Mosiah 24, since we had asked her to read that. She pointed at verse 15, and said I don't know if I want that. (about Christ lifting the burdens of Alma and his people when they are in bondage. So we asked why (this is all in Czech by the way) and she said pride, but we didn't understand and had to look up the word. But then she said, I want this for my sister. So I went completely off lesson plan and was flipping frantically thorough my TALL book to say what I wanted to say, that God has a plan for her and her sister, and that they can live together forever. So then I felt impressed to skip to the end of the lesson and ask her to read Alma 32, when it says that faith starts when you can only desire to believe, so I testified that that is her, and asked her if that was true, why she was meeting with us, and she said yes. And then Sestra Hicken bore her testimony (she wasn't really following what was going on) and I challenged her to pray and ask God if what we were teaching was true. And she did! She was whispering and I don't really understand Czech, so I have no idea what she said, but the spirit was there and she said it's true. So that was absolutely amazing, and it definitely felt real. I know that I needed that experience to give me confidence, and one day it will help me teach a real investigator in the Czech Republic. So I'm running out of time, I have to save some to upload pictures. The gospel is true! I love it here and I'm learning so much! Vim ze Buh je nas Nebesky Otec! Sestra Cooper (the pictures didn't come through)