"Surprise" Sunday

Perhaps you have heard of "Fast Sunday" and here in Prague they have "Fat Sunday". It's the week before Fast Sunday when all the members bring a dish or goodies to share and they eat together after the Sunday meetings. But have you ever heard of "Surprise Sunday"? Well it all started last Christmas; the sisters in the Prague branch made or donated gifts to give to all the missionaries. Two of the sister missionaries received the cutest handmade dolls in authentic Czech costumes. I immediately asked the Relief Society President if I could pay the sister to make some for me to take home to my grand daughters. She responded by telling me she didn't think the sister who made them would make them for money and she wouldn't tell which sister made them. Oh well, I tried! Then two weeks ago she told me she had a "surprise" for me......

Isn't she adorable!?! Her skirt, blouse,vest, petticoat and boots are all beautifully hand knit. It was reinforced to me that she is made with love and not money and I do LOVE her, just wish I knew where to find five more. (She is sitting in front of my Christmas poinsettia and Grandma Carol would be so proud of me keeping it alive until Valentines, she always did!) Speaking of Valentines..... here"s mine......

He looks soooo happy because he just received a box of Wheat Chex from Allison and Matt.



Looks like a full bowl of Chex, but there are layered desserts and layered casseroles and now layered cereal 1st layer: cornflakes 2nd layer: musli 3rd layer: chex topped with a banana! We're trying to make them last as long as possible. As I always say, "A man of few needs and even fewer wants."
Wow is he ever enjoying his Chex!!!

Sights and Sounds? of February

We wrap our scarves lightly around our necks, pull our collars up, put our heads down and head out into the cold. These are the sidewalks we usually see. Which are quite beautiful, but we decided we need to look up and show this lovely neighborhood we live in.......

All these sights are just around the corner from our apartment

This one is a couple of blocks away, but we thought our boys would like to see that their friend "Houmra" made it to the Czech Republic.

Ready for FHE - we fix dinner and have family home evening every Monday. It has become a great place for the missionaries to bring their young adult investigator to meet and become friends with young adult members.

Writing their goals, that we plan to send to them in January 2010

The missionaries came for lunch last week!

This was right before many of them were transferred. Luckily the President left us together for the next eight weeks!!

See the missionaries sing.... at this point I was the only soprano and Elder Apple (the one in the hat) sang falsetto with me and I giggled through most of the song, but he did infact sound better than I!!
Now hear the missionaries sing.......

Now my children really are shocked!!!

It's my first successful filming and I expect to IMPROVE.

This and That in January 2009

Along with the Alsops we visited Prague's Loreta. It was built in 1626 and is a replica of Mary's home in Palestine. Unlike the simple original the shrine became a complete complex with several chapels, buildings and ornate cloisters. The story says that many years ago during an outbreak of the plague in Prague there lived a woman whose children one by one fell sick and died. With her last coins she paid to have the church bells rung whenever a child died. She also succumbed to the plague, but of course there was no one to pay to have the bells rung for her. All of a sudden the bells of the Loreta rang out playing a hymn to Mary. The same tune has been played up to the present day. (We heard it too!) Over the years this has become not only a place of artistic importance but a place of Christian pilgrimage. Inside there is a treasure room containing the gifts of thanksgiving from many Christian pilgrims which include magnificent crowns and monstrances made of gold, diamonds, pearls and other precious stones. They don't allow photos inside so you'll just have to come and see them for yourself. But... don't come in January!!! This is the coldest I think I have ever been. Even with thermals and 4 layers!!!

We were invited by this good brother, Jiri Suk, for dinner. His home is in a thirteen-floored green with yellow polka dotted building. (It was dark or I would have taken a photo) Before dinner with a smile he said, "I like to show people my home." He then pointed to the kitchen on one wall of the room, the study on the adjoining wall and the bedroom/living room on the opposite wall. It was very small, but most gracious. When you enter a Czech home you remove your shoes and are offered "house shoes" which are slippers. After a delightful dinner, he told us about his conversion to the church 14 years ago. He overheard 2 missionaries on a tram telling a fellow about free English classes. He asked them if he could come. I can only imagine how happy the Elders were to have him ask to come! He said he only went because he wanted to learn English, but they soon started teaching him the gospel and he was baptized about four months later. He showed us his photo album and most of it was of missionaries, church activities, the temple in Frieberg, even some photos of a visit from Elder and Sister Jeffery Holland. He has become a great strength to the branch here.

In the living/bedroom!!

I've been thinking about a conversation I had with a young woman who came to Family Home Evening. I asked her what made her listen to the Sisters who first contacted her. She said it was the light in their eyes that caught her attention and she wanted to know why they appeared so happy. Unfortuately she has decided not to join the church. She knows it requires her to give up much of her lifestyle. I have gained a greater appreciation of what so many give up to join the church - traditions, lifestyle, friends and sometimes even family. I so admire their courage and faith.

As I said before since Christmas is has been biting cold in this country, but I think the hardest part has been the overcast sunless days. However, this week we had a perfect sunny "spring-teaser" day. This city is full of ("kvetiny's") flower shops and the one right in front of the grocery store was flaunting it's blooms on this gloriously sunny day and I LOVED it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"On the street where we live."

The "land once cold" is cold again today - 9 degrees

Our apartment on Luzicka in the Vinohrady district of Prague
No grafitti on the outside of our apartment building, which is significant over here.
Elder Waldo (not so hard to find) in the front room, enjoying a treat!

Sestra Robbinsova home from a grocery excursion. Four blocks to the tram, then two more to Tesco. All to be repeated with all the groceries I could carry. Starsi Robbins usually comes to be the bag boy, but this was a lighter shopping day.

Every morning when we look out the living room window we expect to see Burt

aka. Dick Van Dyke and the chimney sweeps dancing across these rooftops.

We are 5 stories up and it made a great vantage point for viewing the fireworks on New Years eve. Not just in one or two locations but all over the entire city. Individuals light even the big, high exploding kind, we normally see on the 4th of July. It was a firework war, that went on for 45 minutes!!!! I thought I had it all on video, but apparently my video skills are not as proficient as I thought! (I'm sure my children are shocked!!. Where are they when I need them?)

A Central European Christmas

Are we really in central Europe having a Prague Christmas!?!........ Here's the proof...Huge Christmas tree on Old Town Square - Staromeska

Every town square; large or small sets up Christmas houses selling decorations, trinkets, warm woollies, food and mulled wine. (this we haven't tried.)

Out on a winters' night with the Alsops, Slovaceks and Sestra Brown at Old Town in Prague.

Look who came to our apartment for Family Home Evening on December 22nd.....

Young Single Adults from the Prague Branch. Where's Waldo?

District finding on Christmas Eve... Singing Christmas Carols in Czech and English at Namesti Republiky. We talked to a couple from Austria and another from Brazil. I even was able to use my Portuguese.

Dinner and Family Home Evening at the mission home on Christmas Eve

Even a visit from Santa and his reindeer!

Christmas morning.....

The Alsops and we hosted breakfast for all the missionaries in Prague .

We had a gift exchange and games. ( you would be amazed how coveted the 2 cans of A&W Rootbeer were!)

Tonight is New Years Eve and we have been advised to stay in.... lots of fireworks and drinking!!

We wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR where ever you are!

Babies

"A century ago men were watching with bated breath the march of Napoleon and waiting with feverish impatience for news of the wars. All the while in their own homes, babies were being born. but who could think about babies-everyone was thinking of battles. In one year, midway between Trafalgar and Waterloo there appeared upon the world a host of heroes. Gladstone was born in Liverpool, Tennyson at the Somersby Rectory, and Oliver Wendell Holmes in Massachusetts, and the very same day of that same year, Charles Darwin made his debut at Shewbury and Abraham Lincoln drew his first breath in Kentucky. Music was enriched by the advent of Felix Mendelsson at Hamburg. But no one thought of babies; everyone was thinking of battles. But which of the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809? We fancy that God can only manage his world with battalions, and all the while he's doing it with beautiful babies. When a wrong wants righting, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent want opening, God sends a baby into the world, perhaps into a simple home, out of an obscure mother, and then God puts the idea into the mother's heart and she puts it into the baby's mind and then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts of the battles. The greatest forces in the world are babies." E. T. Sullivan

How grateful we are for that baby born two thousand and eight years ago and whose birth and perfect life we celebrate at this time of the year.

Merry Christmas - Vesele Vanoce

Praha 2008

A Land once Cold

In August of 1936 Elder John A. Widtsoe dedicated the land of Czechoslovakia and made this prophecy: " Communism is the work of the devil. The Lord is using it to break down the hold of the Catholic and the Russian Orthodox churches over the minds of man. When communism has completed its task of breaking its hold, it will pass out of existence almost overnight and then the church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) will send missionaries by the hundreds into the Slavic lands of Europe.... There is more of the blood of Israel in Western Russia than all the rest of Europe put together. And when the time comes to do missionary work there, the people will come into the church by the thousands. Whole villages and towns will join the church in groups. This mission is important because it is opening the door to the Slavic nations."

Fast forward seventy six years to August 2008. Petr Kubisz a divorced man in his 40's is sitting on a bench in a busy town square, Karlovo Namesti, in downtown Prague. A week before he bought his first Bible and has started to read it. He is contemplating his life and God. Across town Elders Rowberry and Young are on their way to a park close to the mission office. Elder Rowberry turns to his companion and says, "We need to go to Karlovo Namesti, right now, there is a man we need to talk to." They jump on the metro and leave the station by way of an exit they never use. Walking up the stairs, Elder Rowberry sees a man sitting alone on a bench. "Their he is!" ( I asked Elder Rowberry, "So you felt he was the one?" "No", he replied, "I knew!" ) Petr, one of the blood of Israel was baptized two weeks ago. When I was asking Elder Rowberry about the details of this experience, he said to me, "This happens all the time. We just expect it. That's a missionary's job, to follow the spirit." These missionaries do that very well. They are dedicated, bold and faithful and it is a privilege to work along side them. The baptisms in the Czech Republic have doubled this year!!! Our mission song:

We Are Called of God

We come from places far and near to find the Lord's elect

With faith to work His miracles, out souls with strength are blessed.

Past martyrs of the land we place in reverence and respect,

They died for freedoms we hold dear and we will not forget.

The seeds are sown, the field is white in Czech and Slovak tongue,

Come join the harvest of men's souls, until God's work is done.

Chorus:

We are called of God to a land once cold, bringing forth his wonderous light.

And with us the Lord labors here.

Ellen Slovacek,(mission mother) and Elder Robert Tanner

In 2003 Elder L. Tom Perry was asked by President Gordon B. Hinckley to to come to Central Europe. "...He awoke to what he described as one of the most powerful revelations of his life. It was made known to him that the future strength of the Church in central Europe would be among the age group 18 to 30, and that is where the missionary success would be achieved."

We have opened the Outreach Center, our first Family Home Evening with the Young Single Adults - December 8, 2008

10 Members, 2 investigators and few others stopped in. We feel very good about our beginning and are looking forward to great things with these wonderful young people!


Czech Institute Class

First English Institute Class , December 11, 2008

( One last great Czech experience: Last Sunday I bore my testimony at Fast and Testimony meeting in Czech. After the meeting, people were so complimentary.Telling me I did so well and they understood everything I said. So I'm feeling all great about my Czech. Then last night as I was greeting a sister in the branch I said to her: "Ti si skela." (You are wonderful.) She looks at me and replies, "I don't speak English." What!! I WAS speaking Czech!! Of well so much for my great Czech and confidence.)