First full week in Prague

Ahoj! I can't believe it's P-day already, this week went by super fast. I'm glad you got the pictures from Sister Munro, she's so sweet. They are from Australia and work in the office. We have a bunch of new investigators this week, which we are very excited about, our area was pretty much empty before. So we are teaching a lot of lessons to them, and then also to a lot of less-active/inactive members, because the branch needs the support. Most of the lessons are in Czech, but we do teach some in English because there are a lot of international people living here, cause it's Prague, and English is usually the language we have in common. Oh and this is funny, but remember the silk long johns you gave me? I LOVE THEM. haha. It's been freezing and they get rid of the I-have-to-wear-tights-all-day-every-day feeling. So thanks for those haha. It's warming up a little bit, supposed to be in the 60s next week, I'm just waiting to be able to run! There's a huge park right near us but it's been too cold and Sister Bowler doesn't have any warm running stuff, so I'm just trying to stay in shape in the apartment. Oh yeah we taught English this week too for our service. We have to have the most quirky English class ever. There's a pathological liar (he spent the first few minutes telling me that in 1928 when he was born they lived in trees and couldn't read or write and they were savages and then in 1978 Hitler came and made them cut down the trees and work in factories. No that's not a typo, he said 1978 hahaha.), a Buddist-y guy with long hair, another man, a woman who spent the entire time freaking out about her tooth hurting, and then a super nice member who was taught by sisters so he always has some sort of treat for us. And they are all regulars, so I guess we teach them every week. We do a presentation thing cause we teach the advanced class, so I got to teach them Anthropology vocab! haha that was fun. I wish they were interested in the gospel, but we do a spiritual thought at the end, so at least they get something. I had kind of a discouraging day on Tuesday, we had been kontakting and everyone was just being super rude, but luckily that didn't last too long, and the rest of the week was fine. We taught an AMAZING first lesson to this man named Zdenek, the spirit was so strong, and I was SO glad I memorized the first vision in the MTC, because I was able to recite it with meaning. I know he felt it too, because I was looking at him as I was testifying of it, and the moment the spirit came in super strong he looked down, it was so neat. We have a second lesson with him on Wednesday. Right now he's a member of Ceskoslovenska Husitska (the church founded by Jan Hus), but he was super intrigued by the idea of living prophets, and we told him about conference, so we are going to try to get him to come to a session next week (we watch it a week late). Oh I learned the czech equivalent of "beating around the bush" the other day: chodil kolem horke kase. It literally translates as: walking around hot mashed potatoes. haha. Ok Mom, your questions. It does feel like Europe, but it's different than France. I'm not quite convinced Prague is prettier than Paris, but I haven't done very many touristy things. We'll see if I change my mind haha. We don't really hear English on the street, it always surprises me when I do, it's mostly just Czech. Sometimes Italian or something else. But I'm not really in the touristy part, so that's probably why. When we went to the Easter Markets last week there were a lot more. Food: we really don't have time to cook. But I'm trying to eat healthy, I have trail mix in my bag and I bought a lot of fruit and salad stuff. I'm sure I will get into more of a routine and figure it out. We've had one dinner at a member's house, but we are invited to another one sometime next week or the one after. Dinner just gets planned around lessons, so sometimes it's not until 8 when we get home, or we just grab something on the way. I think I might buy a backpack, cause I can't fit everything into my messenger bag. Usually when we leave the apartment after studies we don't come back until nighttime cause we aren't supposed to waste time traveling home and back. But since I'm a greenie we have studies until lunchtime anyways. My companionship is really good. We are still working out the kinks teaching together, that's hard cause most of the time if they say something she has to answer cause I can't understand their responses. I'm understanding most of what she says now, but native speakers are harder. But we are pretty similar personality-wise, it's pretty funny actually. She was a Linguistics major at BYU! So she speaks Italian and Spanish, (or she did, it's hard to remember when you are speaking Czech). We now get 90 minutes to email, but she doesn't want to have the extra half hour, so we need to work out a compromise I guess. We go to an internet cafe for it, we aren't allowed to use member's computers. Not sure if we will have a P-day routine but I think we will usually email around this time, after lunch. Next week is weird cause we have conference, so we are going to do it in between sessions. My jet lag is pretty much gone, yeah. I still hate mornings, but I don't think that is going to change haha. Unfortunately there are not any flowers or leaves out yet cause it's been so cold. I'm hoping spring gets here soon though. Oh yeah! I contacted by myself on Friday! Luckily no one wanted to talk to me, so I didn't have to understand anything beyond, no I don't have time, or I'm not interested haha. Which I hear so often that I now understand. But that was exciting. Ok I think that's about it....I will send pictures cause I remembered my memory card! The Czech is coming, I know I'm so impatient. But I am improving a little bit, so that's nice to see. I was hoping you would have Annica's email address, so I could send her something. I guess you can just forward this to her. I'm excited for her, I learned so much in the MTC. Mom, I'm glad Swedish is fun! Czech is a little bit like that, you can drop the subject and there is only one present tense and one past tense. However, the cases make up for it, they are ridiculous haha. I wish I had more time to respond to your email, that is awesome that you are teaching the new member lessons--we do that too :) Ok that's all I can think of and I still need to send pictures and write the mission president. Love you!!! Sestra Cooper (Pictures on Facebook)