Letter dated February 22, 2010

Friends and Family,

Joseph made it to the Prague! Here is his letter. If anyone wants to send him a note, you can mail it to him at the address below -- or you can reply to this message and I will forward it to him.

I received some pictures which I will send out soon!

Thank you for your friendship, support and love. It means A LOT to Joseph (and to us!).

Joseph's editor (BWS)

Good Morning All,

I have landed safely in the Czech Republic. Only one person in our group had a problem with his visa, but he was able to come out just a day later than the rest of us. We are all very excited to be here.

I have been assigned to work right here in Praha. I am the only new missionary in Prague, so I had to travel the shortest distance. My specific area is Anděl which means Angel. I though that was cool. My trainer has only been in the Czech Republic for four months, but he is a very hard worker and knows the language very well. He is from New Jersey, went to BYU for a while before leaving on his mission, and is a great Elder. He also was just assigned to be the district leader, which means he has quite a lot of responsibility. He will be able to teach me a lot about Czech and a lot about missionary work. (His name is Elder McGowan, by the way).

I had my first day in church yesterday. I had very little idea what the speakers were saying, but I think that I was able to understand the third speaker though. (He was speaking English though, so I am not sure it counts, well it counts, but not for Czech learning). The members here are really cool and willing to help me, so that is a major blessing.

We are meeting with two main investigators, Kiríl and Dwayne. Kiríl is from Bulgaria and speaks a little Czech, so I have no idea what he is saying, but Elder McGowan does and one of the members in the ward speaks Bulgarian, so she helps us translate. Dwayne is from Texas and only speaks English, which is great because I can uderstand him and talk to him. He teaches English here in Praha and is a great guy.

Thanks for the family letter. I will let you know when it gets here. Since I am right here is Prague, I should be able to get it as soon as it gets here. For the rest of my mission though, mail/packages should be sent to the mission home. I guess the mail system isn't great about delivering mail to missionaries at their apartments, so just sent it to the mission home. We received a sheet about how packages and mail should be sent, but I forgot it, so I will have to wait until next week to tell you what it says. I do remember though that in my address, put the name of The Church FIRST. It should read:

Ciírkev Ježíše Krista Svatých Posledních Dnů
Elder Joseph William Schindler
Milady Horákové 85/95
170 00 Praha 7-Holešovice
Czech Republic-Europe

I hope you are all doing well and I will talk to you next week.

Love,
Elder Schindler

p.s.-Czech is really hard. But it is awesome.