Food in Liberec

What a week in the most wonderful place in the world!

So this week, as always has been crazy, always interesting though. We have been working our faces off out here, and the branch is doing really well. We are also having a ton of fun, along with all our work though, so don't think I have gone completely crazy. All over things are doing very well, and we're very happy, we worked alot to find some more people to teach this week, because our teaching pool is really small, so we're getting after that, and working alot with the branch, and seeing great stuff. We have a new small, young family we're teaching and they seem really promising, and we keep meeting alot of good people, so thats really cool. We always are everywhere in our area which is about a 3 hour car ride across and 2 hours up and down so thats cool. It would be great if we had a car but, we'll have one when we get a stake in the next few years.

Hmm, thats mostly whats going on as far as the work is concerned, in an unrelated note, we went out with the elders from Jicin on Tuesday for district lunch to this italian place in Liberec and just ordered a calzone, something small, you know? So we also got other sides and stuff with it and they brought it out and BAM! They bring out the world record holding calzone! The thing was like twice the size of my head! Elder Clyde and I were very suprised and a little frightened, (see attached pictures) so yeah, it was amazing, but even the four of us couldn't finish everything,

After that, the other night we had an investigator give us a ton of bluberries, and we had to figure out what to do with them, because they were wild and a little bitter, so we made pancakes and syrup with them, but they were SUPER juicy, so we ended up having PURPLE PANCAKES, pretty crazy, (also see attached pictures) so this was alot of an adventures in food week.

So theres that! Everyone be good, im seeing miracles, I just can't right all of them on here, have fun, be safe, talk to you next week!

-Elder Chezik

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

Blessings and Miracles

p.s. the picture where the are in a line is the progression back from Americanization!

NAAAAAAAAAZDAR FAMILY AND FRIENDS!

Just another WONDERFUL week in the biggest little country in the world!

So what happened this week? LOTS, but can I remember any of it? BARELY! But that's what happens when you have a 16 hour work day EVERY DAY. Luckily I have my journal. So we got two new investigators this week, super cool guys, ones 30 and the others like 40, the gospel will DEFINANTLY bless their lives.

I got my Czech Tags! Hooray! Note the attached picture, No, i do not have a hoarding problem.

Also, this week we met with Pani Volakova, this WONDERFUL older lady. Did I ever tell you all about her? (p.s. sometimes I feel like a narrarator at the beginning of a movie or something in these letters) So Elder Plaizier found Pani Volakova on a bus to Jicin on the way to district meeting a week before i came into Liberec. She talked with him and he gave her a passalong card and she asked if he had a pen so she could write down her address and number so we could come visit her. So yeah, that night, we got a call. IT WAS HER! She said, "hey, I stole your pen, I'M SO SORRY." he said, "It's okay you can keep it," she said, "No like I want to give it back to you, I feel really bad, it says on your card you have church tomorrow, can I come there?" so of course Elder Plaizier is like "HECK YES!" AND SHE CAME! And she's come since and we've been teaching her for about 7 weeks now, and she has a baptismal date. PRETTY COOL. Also, I accidentally agreed to baptize her in our 4th meeting, because I was kindof zoning out in the lesson, and she looked at me and asked me " you can baptise me, right?" I didn't understand, and when I don't understand i generally just say " 'no, 'no " which in Czech means yes, yes. So I accidentally agreed. We hoped she would forget, but we met with her on Saturday and she made it clear I would be baptizing her. But we know it's probably just because she feels like I won't let her drown because I'm the biggest. Haha
So yeah, theres THAT miracle!
We have lots.

FRIENDS OF MINE. EMAIL ME PLEASE. Thought I'd throw that one in there.

Hmmm, Oyuntuya just got a calling as Chorister for the branch and Bayara is now 1st counselour in the Elders Quorum presidency. Pretty awesome! Any questions from anyone? Glad to answer them.

Anyways, much love and I'll talk to you all later!
Elder Chezik

Father's Day

Nazdar!

Soooo this week has been very interesting, not too much happened on here, but I had about 5 people tell me how my mom was having a heart attack that she didn't write me last week and how sorry she was, SARCASM mother. I am very sarcastic.

AAAAnyways, missionary life is wonderful as always, this week is week 6, which in a normal mission would be the end of transfers, however, in the BEST mission in the world, we have 9 week transfers, so thats whats up.

 

Hmmmmm, what else, I got some pretty sweet landscape pictures because this week, like all weeks here, was absolutely flipping gorgeous. Also, we do ALOT of walking, so I have alot of picture opportunities.

Hmm, my czech is pretty good for how long I've been out, but blbost overall, I wish it was better. Everyone seems to be doing well I see, glad for that. So I might be buying a guitar. Mostly because they're super cheap here and also, we had a training about using your talents as finding ideas, and we live in a college city, so lots of progressive thinkers, so this week when we're contacting, we're gonna be sampling to see what the demand for guitar and piano lessons is. Elder Plaizier is an EXCELLENT pianist. So I might get a guitar. If so, please don't send me anything for Christmas or my birthday mom, shipping would be like 50 bucks, which is like a guitar price here, so I can just get myself something.

Hmmm, what else, thank you everyone who is emailing. Unfortunately, if you are emailing me and not family, I can't email you back but i can paperwrite you, and you can email me. So keep it up, and the letters on its way!

As for new things happening, there's not a ton. Our investigators are progressing well, though I'm not supposed to give too much detail on that.

Oh to answer your question about how people know us out here, at least in Liberec, not many people have even heard of us. Most people here are atheist and if they're not, 9 times out of ten they're non-practicing Catholic. We are one of the only Protestant churches here, and the ONLY one who has Christ's name in its, so usually we just sayy we're from the church of Jesus Christ and point to our tags. We get shot down alot, but generally we laugh it off because some people here are characters.

So everything is going well, I'm a missionary, just like I've always wanted, and I haven't got hit by a bus yet or found out I have a flesh eating bacteria or anything, so overall I'm doing wonderful.

-much love, Starší Čížek 

Mom's first fail... sigh

Doooooooooooobry Den!
Well, seeing as i have NO IDEA what is going on at home this week, because of the lack of letters received from mom and dad, i guess i shall talk about MY week.

Hmm, so on Tuesday I almost had to deck a drunk bum named Sergie, (the only reason I know his name is that he kept repeating "My name is Sergie" (in czech of course) So it started because he gave us each a bus ticket, so we said thank you, and introduced ourselves, and when he shook MY hand he didn't let go. He proceeded to profess his love for me to Elder Plaizier and pedestrian passers-by, after which he then started shouting to people that we were Jesus Christ, or something to that effect, and finished up by grabbing my arm with both hands as tight as he could. We were late for a dinner appt, so I told him we had to go and he said, "nooooooo don't leave me", so I shook him off and we began to walk away, he then chased us, and elder plaizier started to jog, so I followed. So that was Sergie.

Hmm, we had a sweeet training on Wednesday about how a mission is forever and watched a Jeffery R Holland talk. WHAT A SPEAKER. Also, did I mention that his son, Gordon B Hinckley's grandson, D todd Chrsitofferson's son, ALL served here? Oh and that President Uchtdorf was born in Ostrava and Elder Bednar's family is from Slovakia? So yeah, we're pretty well connected.(p.s. if you're my non-lds friends reading this, you  will have NO IDEA what that means, but its okay)

Hmmm, what else happened.........
We went to Prague, AGAIN. And we're going again next week, AGAIN. Its great but I loooove Liberec. I'll attach some pictures of Liberec.

Hmm, it would be FANATASTIC if I could get a ukelele chord chart PDF emailed to me, also a picture of a čížek. 

This week was good, but SO fast, on Wednsday I'll will have been in country for a month. WEIRD.
Hmm, I'll also attach a picture of Elder Plaizier, My wonderful, patient trainer who I'm sure I drive insane :)

Much Love!
-St Chezik