Mercedes On A Mission: Over the River and Through the Woods...

Hello Everyone!

Wow it's been a crazy week! Guess what??? I have been in Liberec for exactly 1 Month today!! Isn't that weird?

Well let's get down to business (to defeat the huns). On Monday we had our P day, and we went on this awesome vylet to Sychrov. For the vast majority of you that don't know what that is (don't be offended, I didn't either) it is this really old fortress castle thing! And it's super cool! It was originally built in 951AD!! I'm not good at math, but that means it's like really old!

We had to take a train, and then hike for a bit, but it was totally worth it. I really hope I can send pictures soon because I won't be able to do it justice with just words. We walked around the outside of it, and the grounds, and some other really old buildings we found, and then we got to take a tour of the inside. The tour was in Czech, and since it didn't contain any gospel related terms I had no idea what was going on, but it was BEAUTIFUL. It was kind of a bummer though because you had to buy a photographers license to take pictures inside, so I only have pictures of the outside. Anyway it was an awesome trip!

This week, Sestra Hamblin and I started Max30. Which is like the 30 minute version of Insanity, and man are we sore! It's good though, nothing like starting off your day by destroying your body at 6:30am. I'm just kidding, we're fine, just very sore. We've done it everyday so far (except Sunday, the day of rest) and I think we're getting stronger haha. Hope so!

On Tuesday we had a meeting with a 16 year old girl named Tereza. She is so cool! She's met with the missionaries for quite a while now, and she totally knows all the answers. She's read over half of the Book of Mormon and she's pretty sure that everything we say is true. (I hope you are all waiting for the catch because it's definitely coming.) THE CATCH: She doesn't want to give up drinking and partying with her friends on the weekends. She told us "I'm a teenager and I need to make stupid decisions." Well that's at least what I heard her say, and given my language skills I could be a bit off. But that was the jist of it. We were really sad, but her cousins are members (and really awesome) so hopefully someday she'll want to stop being a silly teenager.

This week on Thursday and Friday we had exchanges. The sister training leaders came and one stayed here in Liberec with me, and the other took Sestra Hamblin back to Prague. Sestra White was my companion for a day and it was pretty fun. It was especially cool for me because I got to be senior companion for a day ;). One interesting event that happened during our exchange was when we went hiking through a forest in the middle of the city.

So we had just missed our bus back from a meeting with one sister, and we had to meet with another sister in 20 minutes. The next bus wasn't going to come for over 30 minutes and we decided that we were going to try to walk back to the church building. So we start walking, and I get the idea to cut through the resevoir (I don't know how to spell that), because it would save us time IF it led to where I thought it would. So we start walking towards the resevoir, and I see some stairs. They seemed to be going in the right direction and I felt like we should try them. So we go up the stairs and they literally lead into a forest. A forest in the middle of Liberec. But we kept walking. We stopped a man and asked him if the path we were on led to the center, and he said yes, so we kept going. Little did we know that there were going to be all sorts of twists and turns and forks in the road, but we just keep doing what we thought was a good idea. If we felt like we should go right, we when right, if left, then left. And so it went on for about 20 minutes. Eventually we can see the end of the forest and low and behold we find another bus stop, and the next bus came about 5 minutes later. And we were only about 7 minutes late to our next appointment instead of 27. (Another small miracle, I was able to communicate to the sister we were meeting with and tell her over the phone that we were going to be late.) God loves His missionaries, and the people they are trying to teach!

On Friday I got to partake of the world famous Sestra Jedličková's Jahody Knedliký (strawberry dumpling things)!! Strawberries are my favorite of the berries and these things were soooo good! I ate so much! And the best part was that it was during our exchange, so Sestra Hamblin didn't get any, so we have to have them AGAIN sometime! Life is really hard here haha.

Then on Saturday we had a branch activity. We went to a giant park and had a picnic and played on the disc golf course. Pretty much no one in the branch even knew what disc golf was, so it was a pretty interesting, but super fun game. We also played regular frisbee and some volleyball, a man in our branch rented some roller blades, everyone had a good time. It was also pretty funny at church yesterday. You could tell exactly who went to the activity because we were all sunburned! We had a blast though.

Yesterday was a really good day too. The BYU nursing students came to our branch again, and we also had some other visitors, so the chapel was almost completely full! That's a special thing for our branch. The talks were all really good, and I think having so many people there brought a new energy to the members. I hope it will last and help them get a little more involved in our missionary efforts.

Later on Sunday we had a dinner appointment with the Brandový. They are the cutest little family! They are all members (well technically speaking just the parents, they have three little boys). They have the cutest little home, and an awesome, huge yard, and they are just so CUTE! We had Mexican food (which is a first for me since being in the Czech Republic) and shared a spiritual thought about the Atonement. Other than that we just got to know each other, since we're still relatively new and don't know everyone quite yet. It was a really fun experience.

Well I think that's everything I've got for y'all. I hope you are all healthy, happy, and safe, and that you enjoy my weekly novel haha. I love you all and want you to know that this gospel is true and Christ is our Savior, and the Holy Ghost works miracles. Seriously nothing we say to people would make any sense to them without the Holy Ghost testifying that it's true.

Have a good week everyone! Talk to you later!

S Laskou,

Sestra Schaerrer

Pictures from our vylet to Sychrov!