Challenge from the Czech Republic

What a week in the land of my forefathers!

We are doing very well this week, really focusing on trying to help out the branch here in Liberec as much as possible and trying to help our investigators to continue progressing. We had sweet specialized training in Prague on Thursday, and that was really great for us, always gets you stoked to do some more work! We have been all over the place, as always, but are really starting to see alot of great things happening, and from what the general authorities who have been here in the last few months have said, and from what we are all feeling, something BIG is coming. SUPER stoked for that.

An update on Oyuntuya and Bayara, or in Czech "Bayarovi" or the bayara family, they are doing fantastic! Coming to church and now Oyuntuya is our music coordinator, its pretty great! Also Oyuntuya is going to be having another baby girl in October, so Nanda will have a little sister! Pretty sweet to be able to still see them every week.

Anyways, all here is well.

So i have been thinking alot about the lack of member participation in missionary work comparitively at home, so if everyone could do me AND themselves AND the missionaries AND the Lord a favor, and heed the following advice, that would be fantastic. Give the missionaries one night a month to go teach with them. If every active member did that, they would have at least 250 people to teach with everymonth, which breaks down to about 60 a week, and about 8 a day. Even if only half of them did it thats 4 a day, every single day, which is INSANELY HIGH. The missionaries NEED members at their lessons. It says in Preach my gospel that that is the best way to get strong members, build the church, and see real growth. SO please give them one night a month. Its the least you can do, PLUS you will actually be fulfilling your baptismal covenant to assist in building the kingdom. So thats kindof important, right? Sorry for my nonmember friends reading this, that entire tangent will not make any sense to you, but it needed to be said.

I'm doing well overall. I ate McDonalds the other day for the first time in almost 5 months. It was glorious. See attached picture.

Also, Elder Spencer and I found a colony of the worlds smallest frogs while waiting for a bus from an appt. PRETTY COOL. Again, see attached picture.

Thats all I've got to say this week,

Much love, Na Shledanou!
-Elder Chezik

First Transfer - Still loving life in Liberec

SO THIS WEEK IS INSANE!
President Irwin is reeeealllly mixing things up. We now have sisters in Slovakia! For the first time! Theyre Sister Izatt, who was formerly in my district and is FANTASTIC and Sister Pysnakova, who I think Kimi knows, NUTS! Also, Zvolen, a city in Slovakia was just opened. CRAZY! So yeah, however, things on my side are pretty boring. Im still in Liberec, which dont get me wrong is fantastic, but its not opening slovakia or anything. But, since Sister Izatt left for Slovakia, and her companion Sister Dolinar left for Brno, that left us without any sisters in Jicin, so of course, Prezident sends elders there, one of whom is a new missionary, and he blinds his trainer into an area that was exclusively Sisters for the last7 transfers. NUTS.

However, the mission is extremely unified now, because everyone is going everywhere! Oh, also, I am being followup trained by Elder Spencer, who is from St George Utah and trained elder Eliason in Olomouc, and Elder Plaizier is now in Olomouc, follow-up training Elder Eliason. Crazy.

But yeah, this week has been crazy, our investigators are great, but I cant give too much detail on them, but we dont have any baptisms scheduled for a month and a bit. Our Branch is doing wonderfully, though they might go through withdrawls about losing Elder Plaizier, since he was here for 6 months! But yeah, we have about 25 people come each week, and we're trying to make it grow, but we know it will. I still haven't bought a guitar, though I really have been meaning to.

Eh, yeah. so we went over to the Brandovi familys house for dinner the other day, and played with their sons with dinosaurs, and took some pictures, And we met this awesome family from Germany who are in the church up there, it was great.

We didn't double our numbers, but we matched the best numbers ever put out in Liberec in most key indicators, pretty sweet. So basically, EVERYTHING has changed, but nothing has, thus is life. Elder Plaizier says thats eternal progression, I say that sounds like bad song from the 80s.

I love you all, keep writing, thank you again, Happy birthday Troy, I know it was Sunday, and your card is in the mail,

Much love from the other side of the world!
- Elder Chezik

9

Loving the crazy weather July 9, 2012

It is always funny to read your letters back and see how much things change from the time i write you, we definantly do not have a baptism this week? Im thinking you mightve been talking about Sister Volakova's, which was scheduled for next week,but we pushed till the 8th of August. So theres that. Haha

Anyways, Hows everybody doing?!
Life in Liberec is FANTASTIC as always, just killing it in the greatest work on earth. Pretty sweet! So it is RIDICULOUS how fast time goes. This week is the last week of the transfer, which means i have been out for 4 months! AHHHHHHH! Anyways, now that that mini heart attack is through,  things are great. This week we have a goal to Double every single highest number we have put out this transfer, which means its INSANELY intense. Also, it means we need to be SOOOOOOOOOO obedient to every single mission rule and standard if we want The Lord to hook us up with some help.
So yeah, Our investigators are doing well, as are our members, and we just reactivated a recent convert, and hes super cool! A little sketchy but SUPER cool!

We loooove it here except everyone complains about the weather, just because its a little crazy. We got temperatures of 35 C, which is like 97ish in the daytime, and then INSANE RIDICULOUSLY HUGE AMAZING thunderstorms at night, Pictures are attached from said storms, and the aftermath of complete and utter soakthrough of our clothes (in the attached picture you can tell because my ties is definantly supposed to be blue and white, and is Black and grey from being soaked.)  Also, i found out if you take pictures in a lightning storm, you will get really cool pictures because the camera freaks out, also, youre like 5 times as likely to get hit by lighting. Worth it.

Also, we made pacakes last night and i got bored of traditional mickey mouse pancakes and went for something more original. Thats right, Rooster shaped pancakes.

 

Oh, so it was the 4th of july this last week, my first one outside of the great USA, so we had to celebrate, we ate at the only American restaraunt in liberec and it was interesting to see their thoughts of our cuisine. I got a burger and fries, or, at least thats what i ordered, but i got a burger and potatoes sliced and grilled. (THEY WERE LIKE 9 INCHES LONG!) Pretty cool. Believe it or not, no one there spoke English. Weird. Also, Luckily i have EVERY SINGLE HYMN OR CHILDRENS SONG on that sd card mom sent me, with nothing but those on it. However, for once it was nice because The National Anthem was on it. So theres that.

Hmm, last week we went to one of the biggest attractions in liberec and took a picture by it. You will see it in the attached picture. P.S. if youre not lds and reading this, it will make NO sense to you why the picture is funny. 

 

Keep being good everyone, thank you for writing me, keep it up please.

All the love i have, and the blessing of a missionary in the best mission of the world be upon you,

Na Shledanou,
Štarší Robert Čížek