1st letter from Prague

Hi!! Well I guess my area isn't a surprise since they emailed you. I'm in Prague! I heard they try to put the greenies away from Prague, but hey I'm not complaining. I wanted to serve in Prague at least once, so now's my chance! My trainer is Sister Bowler, she was actually supposed to go home last transfer but 4 sisters got extensions because the other sisters wouldn't have been ready to train cause of the language, so they got to stay and train us. She is from Colorado (I guess Idaho is sort of a close guess Dad? haha). She's been the perfect trainer for me, I'm really relieved about that. She totally asks for my input in lessons and everything, she doesn't pull any I'm-the-senior stuff. And she's really good about encouraging me to talk to people, but not pushing me so hard that I panic. So I'm really grateful about that. It's still super surreal that I'm living in Prague. And that I'm a missionary. So weird haha. I'm almost over the jet lag I think, which is good. The first day here was rough, we only got about 2 hours of sleep on the plane and then the APs took us all on a tour of Prague and it was SO COLD. I did have my first Czech meal though, svicova (don't remember how to spell it) it was really good, but heavy, like all Czech food haha. So after that we got to go back to the mission office and go to bed early which was really nice. The next day we went to the foreign police so they could stamp our passports, met our trainers and were off! I did get to unpack in the afternoon, which was nice cause it made me feel way less anxious about everything. Something about unpacking makes me feel more at home. So then we just went to work--sounds like it's different from your first day Dad. I was allowed to go to bed a little early that night, but after that you just try to stay awake haha. Our apartment is beautiful--it's on the 8th floor and it's all hardwood floors and windows, totally modern European looking, but I forgot my memory card reader at home, sorry, so I'll have to send pictures next week. So that night we taught a lesson to a less-active member, and had an FHE for some of the adults in the branch. The member said I must have paid attention in the MTC cause my Czech is really good haha. Of course 'really good' is relative haha. It basically means I can say gospel things in a lesson. I can't really understand people or say anything normal beyond thank you and hello and how are you. But that was still nice to hear, Sister Bowler told me that too, but I figured she was just being nice. Anyways. oh and I met a member from Slovakia that knows Daniel, Marek I think? Thursday I got to kontact for the first time, which was nerve racking--since I can't understand anything they say back to me yet. But Sister Bowler took pity on me and let me start the contact and then she takes over when they say something. But I was proud of myself for trying, since the first day I chickened out. We've also taught a recent convert named Charlah, she's from Indonesia though so we teach her in English, which was really nice for me cause I could understand her! She is amazing, she's 19 and was meeting with the missionaries back in Indonesia and moved to Prague for school, and contacted the mission office when she got here! It was kind of strange to teach in English though. So after that we taught a man whose been investigating for more than a year--he keeps all the commandments and comes to church every week, but he won't get baptized. that was a good lesson but I didn't understand anything because it was at a member's home and they just jabbered away in Czech. It was good though. Yesterday we went to lunch as a district and did a singing display, which means that one half of the companionship sings while the other contacts. They took pity on me and Elder Romrell (he was in my MTC district too) and so I got to contact with Elder Cizek, his companion instead of by myself. We got 1 number at the very end of the hour, which was super exciting cause no one wanted to talk to us, and some just outright ignored us. So we are going to call him tonight, he was from Slovakia, and really nice. Oh and yesterday we also had polar bear (no idea why we call it that, no one seems to know) but that just means district language study. That was fun, and really helpful, and we played a game basically like pictionary telephone at the end, except instead of pictures you translate the sentences between Czech and English. That was pretty hilarious. One of them ended "I eat thoughts" hahaha. Oh I did have a neat experience yesterday. So the day before I felt like I should talk to this lady on the tram but I got too scared and didn't. So the next day I repented and asked for an opportunity to recognize the Spirit cause I keep second-guessing myself. So then yesterday, I felt like we should talk to this lady and worked up the courage to do it. Well Sister Bowler did the talking really, cause I couldn't understand her, but it's the same thing haha. She thought we were a cult or something, but she did take a card. But I don't think it was for her, it was an opportunity for me to learn from. So that was cool. oh and yesterday was Sister Bowler's 24th birthday, so we made a cake last night, that was fun. Prague is beautiful, at least the old district, Prague Castle is the biggest castle in Central Europe, we got to see that on the Prague walk. I don't really see much of the pretty part, at least I haven't so far cause it's not our kontaking area, but we are going to go to the Easter markets today cause it's P-day, so I'm really excited about that. They sell the little painted wooden eggs, and other things like that. Oh and there's a Paul's here!! That French bakery? We were in Andel yesterday for singing so we stopped in and I got a pain au chocolat, don't remember what it is in Czech. Super good. Aah I love French things. There is also a KFC, McDonalds, H&M, basically anything you would ever need. So yeah, I don't have to worry about the water or anything Dad haha. Annica's experience will be way different I think. The few members I've met seem really nice, I'll meet the whole branch of 150 tomorrow, so that will be fun. We have training in 2 weeks so I'll get to see my whole MTC group again, they don't do it the first day cause we are all zombies. So that will be fun. I really do love being a missionary, I just wish my Czech would hurry up and get better!! I understand most of the grammar, it's just remembering to apply it and learning vocab that I need to do, and that's going to take time. I'm so impatient haha. I know it's only been 3 days....but it feels like way longer. Oh and Mom, you can give this email address to everybody, cause that's allowed now. We have an hour to email here, don't know if that is going to change or not, but it's way longer than the MTC! Oh and since I'm in Prague letters and packages will get to me way faster--but make sure my name isn't on the package, the office elders told me why, they have package slips here, and they can't pick up packages if it has our name on it, we have to do it. So if you are 4 hours away by train, then you are out of luck and you don't get your package. So even though I'm in Prague it's just better if my name isn't on it so I can just get it from the office. We are at the church like every day cause we teach our lessons there if it's not at a member's house, so I'll get packages the day they get here. And we run into the mission president and his wife a lot cause they live on the third floor of the church. So that's cool. Well I'm not really sure that there's much else to say, I wish I had my card reader with me!! Oh well. You'll get pictures in a week. Happy Easter! I hope it's a good one, eat a peep for me :). We don't do anything differently I don't think, maybe the branch will do something in church. Oh and we are supposed to avoid getting whipped haha. I think I told you about the Easter whips? But they are braided branches with ribbons on the end and the men go around whacking women with them. Well not really whacking, I think they just tap them. But still. I think the women are supposed to give them candy or something. In Slovakia it's the women who dump water on the men haha. Who knows why. So that's that, but we are banned from doing it cause we are missionaries, which makes sense. Oh and I found out about conference, we get to watch it a week after it happens cause they have to translate it, even though we will be watching it in English. They send DVDs of it. So that will be awesome. Oh we talked to a really weird guy yesterday--well Sister Bowler talked to him, I didn't understand anything he said. But he grabbed her hand and started swirling this crystal thing around and said she had good energy but she wasn't balanced, and wanted to hold her other hand but she wouldn't let him. And then he went on and on for seriously ten minutes, while I just stood there and tried to recognize a word or two haha. So that was interesting. We finally just left, and he said something about us rejecting him so he was going to reject us? I don't know. Sister Bowler told me later what he said. haha. So there are interesting people here haha. Most of them just don't want to talk to us, but some people are nice even though they aren't interested. Tonight we have a first lesson, so that will be good. I hope he is actually interested. Oh and I heard that we will probably visit a castle outside of Prague on a P-day soon, which will be fun. I heard that I will probably be training my 3rd transfer cause we are getting a lot more sisters this year, so that will be interesting. But that's still a long ways away. Well that's about it, and I'm about out of time. Til next week! s laskou!! Sestra Cooper

One week left in the MTC!

Ahoj! Thanks for the package!! Annica sent me one too, and so did Janyse, lots of love this week :) This week was good, very up and down. We had an amazing TRC lesson on Thursday--I felt like I was actually able to sort of speak from my heart in Czech for the first time, and I actually remembered to case some things, which was exciting! And one of the people we taught said that our lesson was an answer to his prayers, which was really nice to hear. But Saturday was pretty discouraging because of the language--we've finished all 42 board displays now (each one is a different grammar principle) and so me and Starsi Howell were practicing putting together just simple sentences using all the grammar we know--and I realized that every single word in a sentence almost will change depending on the sentence--so I kind of freaked out haha. Brother Machado told us he met an American while he was serving that had lived there for 13 years and had given up on learning Czech cause it's so impossible. So in a way it's pretty amazing that we can say anything at all, but that makes it sound pretty daunting! I'm feeling a little better now--I know there is no way I will be able to speak Czech without God's help, so as long as I'm doing my best, He will do the rest. The devotional on Sunday was really good--it was a guy from the Missionary Department like always, but he used rock analogies because there are so many in the scriptures. It was cool cause he said sometimes life is like igneous rock, we are on fire, super excited and everything is going well, but most of the time it's sedimentary. Small acts of faith like layers of sand, and it's hard to see how it is turning into rock. So we can choose to stay a pile of sand, or let the Lord mold and shape us into metamorphic rock-something new, different, and better than what we could ever be on our own. I loved that imagery. And the devotional on Tuesday--he talked about how when Ammon was having success, Aaron was in prison, so we should never compare ourselves to other missionaries--that was cool. And he quoted 1 Thess 2, and talked about how Paul describes what a missionary should be, that was cool too. We got our flight itineraries on Thursday!! That was super exciting, we leave in exactly one week!!! It's going to be awesome. Oh and we can now officially email family, friends and leaders, it was announced in District meeting, so it must be church-wide. So that will be super nice when we get there and don't have to wait for letters once a month. So write me friends!! haha. We are attempting to do SYL all day every day for our last week, so that should be interesting! I really do love the Czech language, it's so pretty. I just have to squish my perfectionist side and be ok with making mistakes. I'm understandable for sure, at least about gospel words--I can't really say very many normal things, but I'm trying to learn some on TALL. It's pretty funny that I can teach a whole lesson in Czech without any notes but I don't know how to buy something haha. I did learn the words for train (vlak) and bus and stuff like that, so that's progress haha. Well that's about it! Oh wait I forgot--one of our "investigators" got "baptized" on Saturday! That was exciting haha. It was pretty neat to feel that happy when it wasn't even real, I can't even imagine how much joy I'll feel when it actually happens :) Our other one wasn't quite ready, but we are done teaching her since it's our last week. She was still progressing though! I'm super excited to go to Prague though, it's going to be awesome. I think most of us are going to buy a Book of Mormon to try and place on the flight over there--it will be fun to talk to people in English, before we get thrown into Czech :) I just love this gospel so much, I can't wait to share it. I'm going to ride that optimistic wave as long as I can haha. s laskou, Sestra Cooper

2 weeks left!

Ahoj! 11 March 2013 There really isn't that much to say from this last week. We do the same things every day, and I'm just waiting till we get to leave haha. Last night's devotional was given by the same guy that spoke our first week, and we recognize all the choristers now-there's the super slow one, the one that looks like Umbridge, the other lady and the choir director haha. I think we've been here too long! We are just waiting and waiting for them to give us our itineraries so we know when we are leaving--hopefully we get them this week. We have to do most of our packing next Monday cause they only give us an hour to pack the week we leave! I'm so excited....I can't stand it. It's taking forever haha. But I am really using my time as efficiently as possible while we wait--trying to get as much Czech crammed into my brain as possible. I was super productive this week I memorized the 1st Vision in Czech, the missionary purpose in Czech and the whole singular case chart, phew. It was good though. Oh and remember that blog I was reading before I left? I got to meet her when she came to TRC, so that was cool! Oh and there are now MORE sisters than elders at the MTC. Crazy huh? I didn't realize how much it had changed until we were watching Bednar's talk from October--there were like 3 rows of sisters in the choir. Now we fill up almost the entire 19M auditorium for Relief Society. It's pretty crazy. Um...what else? Oh Mom you were wondering about the partnering thing--I play a progressing investigator for Starsi Howell to teach and he plays one for me--we teach each other twice a week in addition to our other two "investigators." Something I learned in Sacrament yesterday--God gives us commandments to help us return to Him. Can you imagine if He just said ok, be good people and come back to me, good luck! I really liked that cause I've never really thought of them as blessings before. I knew we received blessings from following them, but I thought that was really neat to think of it that way. Oh and we watched yet another Bednar talk haha. I'm not complaining though, I love it! This time he talked about how he studies the Conference Ensign--it made me feel really guilty for not having one--can you send me one Mom? But he pulls out the doctrine and principles taught about, what you he feels the Spirit is inviting him to do or act on, and which blessings he hopes to recieve from following that prompting. It sounds really simple but it was a really profound talk. Sorry there isn't really anything else to say. Oh Starsi Payne broke his sit-up record again (and dips and pushups) but he did 1700 in 45 min haha. He's crazy. Annnnd that's about it. Oh well. Life is good. I love being a missionary and I can't wait to get out there and serve the Czech people! Sestra Cooper

Letter #6

Ahoj! This week went a lot better, Im happy to say. I learned a ton. There arent really any funny stories- although Starsi Jaynes did accidently wash his whites with an entire box of dryer sheets and stained some of them orange from the cardboard hahahah. That was pretty funny. And I ran into a bunch more people I know from BYU at the TRC on Thursday, thats always fun, but kind of weird. TRC was good because we only go once a week so I can actually see how much progress Ive made with the language. We also did our Language Speaking Assessments last week, its a 7 point fluency scale, and I got a 3 on pronunciation and 4s on everything else, which was exciting, since 2-3 is what they expect. My accent is a lot more Czech now instead of French, which is good. So that was good to see progress! Of course I can only talk about church things, which is slightly pathetic, so Im working on learning more normal vocab. We got new Bulgarians and Polish this week though! That was fun to welcome them to the MTC. There are 7 Bulgarian elders and 6 sisters and 6 elders going to Poland. So we wrote the sisters all notes for their first day, and gave them donuts, so that was fun. That means that my district along with the Croatians are next to leave though!! aaaaah. Im excited but I definitely need to use the three weeks I have left to learn as much Czech as possible, cause it is HARD. I dont write down anything but vocab when we teach lessons now, though, which is really good. My grammar might not be perfect but I can express what I need to, in a way that they can understand most of them time. What else happened...oh Elder Ballard came for the devotional on Tuesday, so that was cool! He gave a really simple message about the gospel, and basically said you can do this. Most of you have been learning about the gospel for your entire lives, and you know a lot. Oh another thing I learned this week: sometimes God lets us fail so that we realize how much we need him. We started teaching each other last week as investigators, and Im partnered with Starsi Howell, but the 2nd lesson went so terribly. He basically said, I dont need religion, so I was like, why are you talking to me then. So I was going to drop him the next lesson, but I felt like I should ask him what trials he was going through right now, which is not really a normal question, but I went with it. And he told me his parents are divorced and that is really hard. So I got to testify that Christ can heal any hurt and that He can bring peace to his life, and hes willing to listen now, so far. So that was pretty cool, the entire lesson was completely by the spirit, I had no idea where I was going to go with it. I think as Ive gotten more confident in my language skills its easy to think that I can just teach by myself, but thats so not the case. The Spirit is the teacher, not me. Yesterday, the devotional was by the Provo Temple president, Robert Daines, and it was so amazing. I learned so much more about the Temple, but Ill write you about that. One thing he did tell us that I liked: he said that the blessing to run and not be weary isnt just a physical blessing, its also a spiritual and emotional one, which means that we are not going to quit. I really liked that, never thought about it that way before. Then after that, we went and watched a talk Elder Bednar gave here in 2009 called the Spirit of Revelation. SO GOOD. He talked about how we shouldnt just sit there and wait for a message from heaven, and worry about whether or not its the Spirit or you. He said over and over, quit worrying about it! You press forward, you be a good boy or good girl, you keep your covenants, you keep the commandments, and your steps will be guided and you will be a tool in His hands. He also related the 20 mark story with Pres. Packer, do you remember that. (it wont let me type question marks...) He said when he handed those 20 marks to him he thought he did it because they might be hungry. But it ended up saving Sister Packers life. He said he didnt recognize it as the Spirit at the time, and didnt know the rest of the story until 20 years later. (interesting side note, the border crossing they got stopped in was Hof, Germany! I was like, hey i know where that is! haha) So his whole point was, as long as you are trying to do your best, the Lord will help you accomplish what He needs you too. oh and my favorite quote: He shouldnt have to be smacking us with the Holy Ghost to get us do something. haha I love Elder Bednar! K im running out of time, love you!!! s laskou, Sestra Cooper

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