Week 6 in Praha

Ahoj! This week was crazy busy, but really good. We've taught 9 member lessons and we are on track to have 10 by Sunday! And we should have 21 lessons overall, which is really exciting. My companion said this is the closest she's ever been to 21 lessons her entire mission, and she goes home in 4 weeks. So that was really cool. We had a really interesting lesson with Martin Novak this week, he's an eternal investigator--he's been one for a year and a half, comes to church every week and keeps all the commandments, but he won't get baptized. So we keep sort of trying to drop him--we don't teach him that often, but then he always comes back--it's kind of hard to explain haha. But anyways, he knows it's true, but he can't get over things that don't make sense to him logically--like he thinks that science and religion contradict each other, and he really likes Buddhism. It was a really cool lesson though, because he asked to meet with us to ask us some of his questions, so we went in without a lesson plan, really, just some things we wanted to emphasize. The whole thing ended up being completely guided by the Spirit--things that I studied in personal study were perfect to address some of his concerns, and I actually understood most of it so I was actually able to contribute something. He speaks really complicated Czech, so the other times we've met with him I usually don't understand anything. That was definitely a blessing! He brought up evolution vs creation and he was so surprised when I told him I studied Anthropology and I have absolutely no problem with my faith and science coexisting. So that was really neat--I was actually able to be myself instead of just a missionary, you know? I hoped it helped him in some way. Who knows when he will decide to just make the decision, I hope he does one day, he just needs faith. Oh yeah and English class this week was hilarious. It was just the regulars, Stanislav, Ales, and Petr, (they are all at least 65) but then Charlah came, and Ales whips out Indonesian haha. Turns out he lived there for 6 months. So that was really cool, it made her feel really welcome (she just turned 20, almost same exact age as Annica). And then she said she lived on Papua (same island as New Guinea) and Stanislav goes off on how there are cannibals there and asks if she eats people!! hahaha. I was really glad she didn't get offended, everybody was just cracking up at the ridiculousness of it. She was like no, there are tribes in the mountains that do that, but I'm not one of them!! haha. That was pretty entertaining. Oh it was really cool, cause one of them asked if she was Muslim and she said, no I'm Christian. And I said you're a Mormon! And she got all excited and was like oh yeah!!! Then she asked if they were Mormons, and when I said no, she said well they should be! haha love her. Oh mom, do you have any ideas for English class? We answer questions for the first little bit and then usually do some sort of presentation, so we teach them vocab about a specific topic--we've done anthropology, the names of the U.S. states, acronyms, idioms....so any ideas you have would be awesome!! Oh yeah last P-day we went to IKEA! haha that was really fun. We needed some kitchen stuff for our apartment, so we just decided to go. There are actually 2 in Prague, one on either end. We were going to go to a castle called Karlstejin today, but half the district couldn't go so we will hopefully go the last week of the transfer. Cause next week the APs can't, and then the week after, we will hopefully have 2 baptisms! We'll see what happens with those. Vaclav seems pretty solid, we've taught him almost everything. Jana, we're not sure about...we need to make sure she's not just doing it for her boyfriend, cause he's a member. Sorry there's not really that much else to say...all we did this week was study and teach lessons! Which is how it should be haha. Oh we did have a cool lesson with a guy named Jimi, he's from Georgia (the country) and when we asked him if he would read the Book of Mormon, he said "well I can see that you are really good people, so if this book is what helps you be that way, it must be good." That was pretty cool. Oh and mom, I had the BEST salad the other day haha. It was arugula and spinach with balsamic and chevre cheese baked in honey with cranberries I think. It was so good. hahaha. Oh yeah, we heard about the explosion, it was more towards the center of old town I think. But it was pretty funny cause President called us and said, where are you? And I was like, at home, we're about to leave...and he said ok good, have a nice day. So we were dying of curiosity the whole day until Sister Curtis mentioned it haha. (Senior missionaries have so many perks haha. They can google recipes, news, go to cultural things, talk to their families...basically anything they want). Oh but one last thing--something cool I learned in the scriptures this week. I was reading in Alma 31 and compared the Zoramites' prayer to Alma's, and it was really interesting cause at first glance it seems like the Zoramites are less selfish--they just thank God for things, while Alma is asking for help. But then once you study them, the Zoramites aren't really talking to God at all, they are talking at him, and since they don't ask him for anything, they are actually being prideful. While Alma is acknowledging that he needs God's help and he prays for others as well as himself. Just thought that was really cool. Love you all!!! Sestra Cooper