[Dear friends and family, I hope this letter finds you well. We are still enjoying a beautiful November in Michigan -- without snow (yet!). At this Thanksgiving time, we are thankful for your support, love and friendship. I hope you enjoy this latest letter from Joseph! BWS]
Good Day,
Well, this week did not yield much more for me to write home about, but I will still strive to keep you entertained and updated.
We had some good success tracting last Monday. We were let into homes twice, one of which resulted in a return appointment for a date after November (it is far away, but at least we can return). It was a good experience, and was the only night we had to go tracting (on the other nights we managed to set up lessons with people, which in my opinion, is much better that climbing the stairs of towering, communist panaloks (they have elevators, but saying I have to climb the stairs just sounds much more dramatic and heroic).
On Tuesday we had exchanges with the Elders in Jihlava. Elder Vivona came to Třebíč and we worked together on Tuesday after district meeting until Wednesday afternoon. That was good, but it was hard because we are rather good friends and spent more time talking about things than we should have. We worked hard though, so no worries. Wednesday morning was a little interesting because some workers came to do something to our shower (apparently the drain needed replacing). However, Elder Vivona was still in the shower and I forgot he was there, so the workers just walked into the bathroom. It was a little funny.
We still have not been able to set up a meeting with Ochir and Aggy. They are putting in a lot of overtime from now until Christmas and as such, they do not have a lot of time for us. We went to stop by on Saturday, but they were sleeping, so we were not able to speak with them. However, Pan Novák (Pan means Mr. or Herr) is still liking the Book of Mormon. He will be gone for the next two weeks, but we are looking forward to meeting with him after that. We also had two good meetings with a woman named Dana Sladková. We met her first on Thursday and then had dinner at her house on Saturday (Czech gulaš is way tasty, by the way). We challenged her to read in the Book of Mormon everyday, which she accepted. However, she has been going back to school to get a degree, and she has tests this week (interestingly, the czech word for test is test), so we will not be able to meet for another week. We still have a lot of hope though.
On Fridays, we have correlation with the Branch Mission Leader at his home. His name is Jiří Červen, served a mission here in the Czech Republic, was married about three weeks after I got here, and is about six and a half feet tall. He is very helpful for us here, as we had a good meeting with them, and we were able to talk about the differences between how we celebrate the Holidays. I retold my favorite, family Christmas tradition that I share with people here, about the giant plastic rat that my family has wrapped under the tree during Chrismas time. I think it is hilarious and the members here think it is rather funny. [Our Wilson nieces wrapped this about 10 years ago. It is meticulously wrapped so it is the exact form of the rat -- just with wrapping paper on each part of its body. Each December, the "Christmas rat" goes under our tree. While I would have hoped Joseph would have more memorable and impressive recollections of our Christmases - I guess this works for him! (LOL) BWS]
Unfortunately, none of the people we are meeting with were able to make it to church yesterday. This was sad, but we are continuing to work with faith. It gets dark rather early here now, usually by about five o'clock it is dark, but that means that we get to go tracting more. This makes finding new people a little slower, but nonetheless, we work hard and continue in our work (smiling all the way).
Sister Červenová, Jiří's mother, said that she would attend church with us next Sunday. We have been meeting with her weekly ever since I got here, but because she has cronic back pain, doing anything is rather difficult for her. However, we got her to say she would come (mostly by just staring at her when she said that she would not promise). We really hope she will.
Elder Ingalls and I are doing well. We had a Czech Learning Week this week, and reported 105 hours of Czech this week. It was fun, and I think it helped people on the street be more friendly when they heard us speak Czech all the time and not just when contacting.
Well, that is all for now. I love you all and wish you the best. We still do not have any snow, and I hope to keep it that way. The Book of Mormon is true (do not forget it).
S laskou,
Elder Joseph Schindler
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