Joseph's letter dated 8Nov2010

[Dear family and friends, I hope you enjoy Joseph's latest letter. We hope all is well with you. Thank you for your love and your support! BWS]

Dear Family, Friends, and various zvíře kteří patři vám, [I am assuming this is a friendly term!]

This week went well. It is raining today (makes P-day [Preparation Day] a little lame, but I think contacting in the rain is worse, so I am a little glad it is raining today). Last week though, it only rained on Saturday night, about which I will talk a little more later.

Elder Ingalls is awesome. I have really liked my companions in the past, and he is no exception. I think that we work well together and it has been rather nice to work with him for the past week and a half. We both are working on speaking one hundred hours of Czech this week (that is all but about twelve hours of our time awake), so we should be working rather hard and seeing some extra help from above with that.

Ochir and Aggy did not come to church yesterday. This is rather sad, but Ochir had to work and they just could not make it across the city. While this was dissappointing for us, we are not discouraged and we are looking forward to meeting with them this week and during the weeks in the future. We also just started meeting with a man named Mr. Novák. We met him on the street by the chapel about three weeks ago and we asked if we could come to his home and share a message with him and his family (the people here are sometimes taken aback by that approach and usually do not accept, I try it though sometimes, especially with people who are in a hury). He accepted, and since he just lives around the corner from our chapel, it was easy to find him. Anyway, we just had our second meeting with him, and it went very well. He likes the Book of Mormon, especially the similarities between it and the Bible (I gladly explained that this was because it contains the same Gospel principles that the Bible does). He liked it and we will be returning this week.

So, now I will tell our Friday story. We received a referral from the Mormon Battalion center in San Diego that a man named David, who had visited there, would like to receive a copy of the Book of Mormon. So we found a map, found the city, rode a train the the city nearby, and then walked a little bit to his home city (these little towns are rather close together). It took us a little while to find the house (the Czech house numbers are numberd according to when they were built, not where they are in the city). [This is how the Japanese homes are numbered - which I experienced 30 years ago!] We found it though, after walking all the way across the area and taught David about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. He liked it and, though he studies in Prague, he comes home for the weekends, and we hope to see him at church in the future. Anyway, by the time we left his home, it was dark, so we got to walk to the train station in the dark and in the rain. Luckily it was not far, and it did not start raining very hard until we were in the station. It was a good experience for us, although if we did it again, I would try to leave a little earlier.

I really am trying to think of other things that happened this week that are worth writing about, so please believe me that I am making an effort to fill all of you in on my life here.

Oh, I just remembered something. Last Tuesday was district meeting, and while we were at the chapel, a Mongolian man came to the door and started to speak to us in broken Czech. After about eight minutes, we figured out that he wanted us to help a friend do something on a computer in English. So we set up a time to meet her (his friend) at the Library. We went there, helped her translate some text, and then invited her to hear our message. She accepted, so we went to a restaurant and taught about Jesus Christ and what faith in Christ means for us. We think she liked it, in fact, she definitely liked it enough to set up a time to meet again. That was a rather cool day.

We also were let in tracting (doorknocking) last Tuesday, an event that unfortunately, does not happen as much as we would like to. We came in and taught a woman named Pavla about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She really is not a believer, but we challenged her to read in the Book of Mormon, to pray and to meet again, all three challenges were accepted. Our meeting is for tomorrow, and we hope that it will go well.

I will try to send out some pictures of the city next week. I was going to today, but it is raining, so I will try to take some from a couple outlook points, and maybe even get in a few of them. I would also like to receive pictures from home. If you could, attach the picture file, which I can then save onto my thumb drive and print at a photo store (last time I did that, I forgot how many pictures of LeBron James I had accidentally left on it, and the store clerk had to cycle through several to find the actual pictures).

I am doing well. I am happy, I am healthy, I even take my vitamins (just for you mom), although I should probably stop buying pastries at the candy store right outside our apartment (they are really good though). I am still balding (not too bad, but still way more than I want to), my feet are all caloused over, and my calves are huge from walking up all the hills here. My clothes are still holding up really well. All my socks are good, my shoes actually are doing okay, my shirts still look good, my suit is snazzy, and only a couple of ties are coming unstitched (I am trying to learn how to sew them, but I still have a bit to learn and practice). I am trying really hard not to become vain (the clothes here are rather stylish, and have thus far I have only fallen into purchasing temptation a couple times (two sweet ties, two pairs of dress shoes (they were on sale though, so I am actually happy with that), and a pair of P-day shoes I definetaly did not need (they were also on sale, but they are already falling apart and I did not need them)).

Well, I love you all. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter, and remember I love receiving letters in the mail. I know the Church is true and I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.

S laskou,
Elder Schindler

ps-I really want those pictures. Send a bunch. please.