Wednesday April 15, 2009

Hello everybody

So it has been a pretty eventful week since i have last written. Monday after we emailed we went with Maminka and the whole district to a castle where she did her annual transfer event. Brno has its own language with all these slang words that people use for common items and she tests us on them and than knights us brnaks which is always a fun tradition. Basically the rest of my time in Brno was spent packing and saying goodbye to investigators and new converts which are two of my least favorite things in the world I hate saying goodbyes and packing but it went well.

We went out to our family to say goodbye and they just started crying it really hit me how much of an impact we have had on these peoples lives the husband broke down and told us how he had lost all hope in a good world but we had brought that back to him and than there were alot of other goodbyes. I gave Adam one of my ties and taught him how to tie it which was a cool experience as i said goodbye to him.

Wednseday came awfully fast and i was on a train off to trebic it is only about an hour train ride from brno and my new companion was there waiting at the train station for me when i got off. Luckily we live pretty close to the train station so it was an easy walk to our apartment. My companion is a great guy. as i walked into the apartment there were all these signs put up welcoming me in and talking about the great success we are going to have here.

The branch here is amazing they are small but way solid probably the most solid i have seen here. We are the only missionaries here in the branch and city which is a first for me.

Church was great we had an easter program and they had me come up and introduce myself. So the reason why i didnt email on monday is because monday is like the second half of easter and its a huge holiday here. So what happens is you make these whips out of little branches woven together and all the guys go around and whip the women before noon and after noon all the women get to pour water on the guys. Its some old pagan holiday that got put with easter, one of the members explained to us that its supposed to make the women fertile because the life forces go from the branch to the women. Haha so the whole branch like came up and scheduled with us when we can come whip them, and after you whip them they give you a boiled egg to eat so i ate quite a bit of boiled eggs. Its alot like halloween in america, basically all the women and girls stay home and all the men go out with their boys and go visit everybody they know and whip them and then they get candy and chocolate, so the streets are full of guys with whips and baskets full of candy. its quite an interesting holiday and it was great because we got to meet and interact with all of the members and they fed us so much food, it was a little awkward when 70 year old women wanted you to whip them but we survived.

So mom sent me that pedometer when i was in brno and in brno we were riding alot of trams so we werent doing too much walking about 12,000 steps a day and then i came to trebic where everything is walking and the other day we walked like 31,000 steps and everything is either uphill or downhill so it was a little slap in the face but i am getting used to it.

We are teaching this mother and daughter here the daughter is about 10 and is way into it she has read the whole childrens picture book book of mormon and reads from the bible and Book of Mormon every day, the mother is kind of struggeling with commandmants and is wanting more time but is supportive of her daughter. We took the daughter to the branch presidents house for FHE which was really good they are a great family and had a good FHE on easter and than had some fun games afterwards, the Branch president was talking to her while we were leaving and she told him that she wants to be baptized so we might be having a baptism here in a couple of weeks.

We are also teaching this group of friends who are all 16 and 17 that we met through english and They are showing a lot of progress as well, its a big change in teaching and finding for me because in brno i mostly taught college students and there is no college here all of the college students are in Brno but I am adapting and we are doing good.

Yesterday was district meeting which takes a while here our district is made up of our companionship and a companionship in a city about 50 minutes from here so we switch off every week what city we have district meeting in and we went there this week which takes a pretty big chunk out of our day.

So the address of our apartment here is:

Elder Jordan Hatch
Tkalcovska 1061/9
674 01 Trebic
Czech Republic

I am glad to hear that you all had a great easter and hiking the grand canyon went well. We still havent watched conference yet we are going to watch it in czech saturday and sunday but if you guys could send me the ensign version when it comes out that would me great. I am loving the city here and my Companion we are going to do some great things here I love you all at home and hope you have a great week.

Love
Elder Hatch