First Full Week In Prague

First week in Prague!! This first week has been amazing and I've been learning soo much. I think I honestly got put in the best situation I possibly could be in here in the Czech Republic. I have the best comps, I live in Prague, our lessons are going great and we have somebody on baptism and should have two more after this week, we get fed quite a bit, I’m learning the language because my trainers are so cool, and i'm learning how to be the best missionary possible with the greatest examples around me.


I got put in a trio with a native Czech named Elder Konushin and Elder Allred from Utah. Elder Allred leaves tmr back to America and he has taught me soo much about how I can be the best missionary possible and has been the best example to me. This is also Elder Konushin's last transfer so he is basically a vet too and knows everything about missionary work. The best part is, he knows everything about the Czech language and has been teaching me so much. 

The gift of tongues is real, and I have noticed how real it is just in my first week of missionary work. For the first few days, I understood literally nothing anybody was saying and it was super hard. I knew I had to be patient and that it will come eventually. All of a sudden I was sitting in the back of the car and my comp and one of my ZL's were having a normal conversation in czech. Literally in a split second I understood every single word that they were saying. It was such a cool experience. That entire night I was on like a language high and could understand all the conversations happening around me. Idk if I got too prideful or cocky, but that went away and now I'm back to understanding very little Czech but sooo much more than I could when I got here. I think that was God’s way of saying that I can do it and I just need to trust in him. I know as long as I stay patient and keep working as hard as I can that the language will eventually come, it will just take time. 


Something crazy that happened yesterday was that we put my guy martín on a baptism date. I say we, but I literally did absolutely nothing the entire lesson besides say a prayer and bare my testimony but it’s still super exciting. I didn't even know the dude was on date until we got out of the lesson and I looked at my comp and asked how the lesson went. He told me he was on date and it was so cool. Hopefully by the time he is baptized I will be able to have some solid conversations with him, because rn his baptism date is December 16th so I think I can do it. 


We also have two other friends that are like one lesson away from baptism. One of them only speaks Russian, which is crazy because my comp speaks Czech, English, Russian, and German all FLUENTLY. Bro is literally a Swiss army knife and he's a future FBI agent or secret spy dude for sure, or whatever you call those people. But he's talked to this Russian guy a lot and we haven't actually had a lesson with him, but the guy is ready and just wants to know why he needs to be baptized to be part of our church and so that’s what we are going to teach him! I don’t speak Russian, so I’m just there to smile and look happy to be completely honest. 


The other guy that is super close to being baptized is named Peter. If there was ever like a "golden" investigator, he is that guy. Everything we tell him he agrees with and it just makes sense to him. We invited him to be baptized and pray about it, and he said he was going to pray to see if he is ready for it, so say some extra prayers for him. The best part is, HE SPEAKS ENGLISH!! I actually do stuff in these lessons and feel like I'm a big role in helping him grow closer to Christ and this gospel. 


This week has been solid because we did a lot of traveling. That is not normal here, but I feel like I haven't had a single normal day yet. On Thursday we drove to a city called Brno and my comp gave a 10 minute training, we ate lunch and drove back. It was like a 2 hour drive to get there, but it was so worth it because I got to see some of my district from back at the MTC. Straight from there we went to Elder Konushin’s aunts house and had a tea party. I have no clue what type of tea it was and I didn't think we could have tea, but my comps drank it so I drank it. The best part about this tea party was that they only spoke Russian. And we were there for an hour and a half. It was great tho because elder Allred doesn't speak Russian, so he got to taste a little bit of how I've felt this past week of not knowing a single thing being said the entire time. Straight from there we went to a member's house for dinner and it was soo good. I'm saying all this because before I came on my mission I thought I was going to get fed like once every other transfer. I guess living In Prague is different, because I've been fed by the mission president two times, and have been fed by members and other cool people like 3 times already. I'm spoiled. I'm not complaining tho, it's great. 


Yesterday in church one of the AP’s asked me if I could go to the church in a city called Kladno, which is about a 30 minute drive. This super small branch has basically 10 active members, so it was a really cool experience. The one thing I asked the AP was “Do I need to give a talk?” The elder said I didn't and he was going to so I was chilling. I got to the church building, which is literally just a big room on the second floor of a cafe. I was asked to give a talk by the bishop, if you know me, I bet you could guess how excited I was for that. I decided I was just going to get up there without notes and speak with whatever I could think of. I started off by introducing myself, sharing a scripture, and then baring my testimony, basically using all the words I knew. It will be so cool to see the difference over the next few months, but it was still cool to go up in front of everybody with no notes and talk for 4 minutes in a language I couldn't say a single word in about 10 weeks ago.


There are still some funny/weird things that happened this week. I think it was probably my first lesson, and this guy walks into the church and we were about to teach him. He canceled on us the day before because he was super high and felt guilty. I started the lesson by saying almost everything I knew in Czech and introduced myself. In the middle of my comp’s sentence the dude said something, and then stood up and left. Apparently he didn’t like what we had to say about ourselves or just felt unworthy and we haven’t seen him since. Hopefully he comes back and we actually get to teach him and help him feel the spirit. We played soccer in the rain with some Ecuadorians which is always fun. My team won so it was fire. I've had some pretty weird looking food here but it actually all tastes pretty good. This mission is a walking and public transport mission unless you are an AP, ZL, or STL, but I have somehow found a way to be in a car almost everyday that I’ve been here which is sick. 


I’ll end by sharing the scripture I talked about in sacrament meeting. Alma 32: 21 “And now as I said concerning faith — faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.” We don’t have a perfect knowledge of all things and that’s why faith is so important. We need to have faith in the things we can’t see and that we hope for. Faith in Jesus Christ is the foundation of our testimonies and we need to work every day to keep growing our faith.


I kinda just gave you guys my entire week and just wrote a bunch of random words but so much has happened and it's cool that I'm finally on my mission haha. I would love to hear from all of you guys so send me an email, I can't actually use messenger anymore so email me! Love you guys, have a great week!!


Email - Hayden....@missionary.org 


Google photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/mkQPbkQxZK5isYKQA 


Photos: 

Ice Cream

Cool building

Elder Konushin

Elder Allred in fancy building

Tiny elevator we use to get to our apartment

Streets of Prague

Soccer in rain







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