Oh little town of Liberec...

Ahoj Everyone!

This week was pretty crazy! I feel like we did so much!!

On Monday after we got done emailing, we went on a vylet to Ještěd, which is pretty much the top of a "mountain", not a mountain by Utah standards, but for the Liberec I guess you could call it a mountain. Anyway so we rode the tram to the bottom of the mountain, then we had to hike up for about 20 minutes, and then we rode a gondola thing up to the top. Once we got to the top you could see all of Liberec and beyond, for miles and miles in every direction. I took pictures, but it's really inconvenient for me to send pictures home, which is why I haven't in a long time. So sorry. Haha. Anyway it was cool to go to the top and look at everything, then we came back down and that was pretty much it.

On Tuesday we visited a less active that lives out in Jablonec. We visited her last week too. She's pretty cool, she lives alone so she really likes having us over. We try to only go once a week though because it takes an hour to get there and back, so if we're not careful it can turn into a 3 or 4 hour trip to go see her. She also always makes us food, a lot of food, and we always have to eat all of it. This particular time, Ses. Hamblin and I ate a whole 9x13 cake by ourselves. We wanted to cry afterwards, but we just smiled and kept eating.

On Wednesday we had our district meeting. We went to a pizza place for lunch, and let me tell you, pizza here is really lame. I mean it tastes good, but it's pretty wimpy in comparison to American pizza. Then in the meeting we had this awesome cake stuff. It's called Marlenka (no idea how to spell it) but it's made out of mostly honey. At first I thought it was weird, but the more I ate the better it tasted and now I think it's one of my favorite foods haha.

On Thursday we did a singing display as a district. It was pretty cool, it was my first one. What we do is half of the group sings, while the other half goes and contacts people. The hard part was that there are only 4 missionaries in our district, and we had one member show up to help us. So the singing wasn't very loud or good, but we did some good contacting. I had to go contacting by myself and it actually went better than I thought it would. I hate talking to people by myself, but I'm a good missionary and do what I'm told so I did it anyway. The gift of tongues is real!!

Later on Thursday we went to visit a member that is technically active, but she doens't come to church very much because of doctors orders. The doctors here are really strict. If you're sick, they'll tell you to stay inside all day, but they'll give you a few hours either in the morning or the afternoon that you are allowed to go outside. The crazy thing though, is that they send people around to your house to make sure you are home when you are supposed to be home. And if you're not, you'll lose all your money and the doctor won't help you any more. So we have a few members that are homebound because of things like that, because they have to be inside during the mornings during church.

On Friday we went to visit the Georgový. They are this really cool family that's from Mongolia and their last name is super crazy, so we just call them the Georgový because the dad goes by George. They live about an hour and a half away from the church building so they are pretty inactive, but they're really great. I think the only reason they are inactive is because of the distance to church. The dad really wants his kids to serve missions and everything, but we're trying really hard to get them to come to church. The kids won't serve missions if their family never comes to church! We love them though, they're really awesome.

Saturday we spent all day at a women's conference in Prague. We went with the sisters from the branch and it was really good. I didn't understand a ton, but what I did understand really helped me a lot. We talked about serving God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength, and it was a really good reminder for me to put everything I've got into the work.

On Sunday, a group of nursing students from BYU came to our branch for sacrament meeting. It was kind of funny because they more than doubled the attendance. It was cool to talk to them, and kind of weird to hear and speak that much English. Two of them even spoke in sacrament meeting, their leader person is from Jablonec (a city just outside of Liberec) so he translated the talks into Czech for everyone. The group is supposed to come next week to so that will be cool.

As far as teaching investigators and everything goes, we've had it rough the past couple of weeks. We only have one and a half progressing investigators. One is a 13 year old girl, she's really awesome and totally ready for baptism, but her mom doens't think she needs to get baptized "again" (she was baptized in the catholic church when she was little). And then our other investigator is this man in his 50s. He's the half progressing investigator because he meets with us pretty regularly, but we're not really sure if he is actually keeping the commitments. He always tells us he really wants to read and pray, but then he says he never has time to do it. So we're still figuring that part out.

Contacting has been rough. We're trying to find more people to teach, and we'll have really great conversations with people on the street, and then they won't want to meet with us again, it's really frustrating.

We have been doing well at getting less actives back to church, we had two of the women we've been working with come on Sunday, so at least we're doing well in that area.

Thank you everyone for your love and your prayers, I know they make a huge difference in the work. I want you to know that the church is true, we have a living prophet on the earth today, and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. We're doing our best to share that message with the people of Liberec, and whether or not they listen, the message is still true. Christ is our Savior, and this is His work, and it will be done in His way, and His timing.

I love you all and hope you are all doing well. I'll send pictures when I can, but I apologize if that isn't for a while.

Mejte se hezký!

Sestra Schaerrer

 Our trip to Ještěd and also me and a GIANT MUSHROOM encyclopedia, because my friends and family didn't believe how big of a deal mushrooms are to the Czech people. Mushroom hunting is a NATIONAL SPORT!