Week 12 in Brno

16 Dec 2013 Ahoj! This week was pretty good. Nothing too crazy happened, a lot of people won't set up with us because it's right before Christmas and they have to bake things. (Czechs bake sooo much at Christmas) Which is lame, but what can you do? Last night though the Branch President invited us and some of the elders over for dinner and Christmas caroling! He's from England, so they go carolling every year even though they live here. So that was really fun to get to know their family better, they have 4 kids and the oldest is Brigit's age, we sang the alto part together :) She's so cute. The branch president was talking about how important it is for people to be taught in their homes, because if the missionaries don't teach them there often they don't want home teachers to come in later. I never really thought about that, we do most of our lessons at the church because most Czechs don't want us to come to their houses. But it was a good point, we are going to try and do that more. Oh yeah and then we started talking about kinder eggs and star wars, and the mom was talking about how it was banned when she was growing up, along with disney movies, which I didn't know. I never thought about the entertainment side of it. So they knew that those movies existed, but couldn't get ahold of them. I'm sure you guys already knew that, but it was surprise to me. I felt like it helped me understand a little bit more about what life was like for them before the wall came down. Anyways...so then we went carolling. I didn't realize how important carolling was for it to feel like Christmas until I didn't have it. So that was awesome. It was also quite funny because if you bring Czechs anything they have to give you something back. So all we did was sing one song, and everyone was bringing out their Christmas goodies/chocolate/money (yep they tried to pay us) and thanking us profusely haha. It was pretty nice to be welcomed in! Czechs are so nice.. We are going to try and go carolling as a district this week, I'm excited to do that. We're also singing a ton this week again cause the branch has a Christmas concert and we are going to do extra singing displays. So much fun. I'm finally almost better after like a month of being sick so hopefully my voice will hold out! I really don't have that much else to say...nothing really happened this week. We have one investigator on date, he's from the Congo and is super cool, and our other ones are ok, we just haven't seen some in a while cause of Christmas. We did have a really good lesson with Honza on Sunday, so that was a relief. For some reason I was really stressed out about it, but we just ended up reading 2 Ne 2 with him and having a good discussion--I love how the gospel just makes sense! So that was about it.... Sorry this letter is kind of lame, really nothing happened. I'm sooo excited for next week, I can't wait. This one's probably going to go by super slow just because of the anticipation. oh well. We go to Prague next Monday for the mission conference, and we get our presents :) I'm trying to talk to people about Christmas on the trams, and I'm getting a little better at small talk--I never realized how terrible I am at it haha. Well now I'm just rambling :) love you!!! super excited to see your faces next week! Sestra Cooper P.S. Oh, something else cool about Czech culture, they do advent candles here. So for the last 4 Sundays before Christmas you light a candle every week to count down to it :)