Thanksgiving: A HUGE Success!!

Hello Everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend full of food, family, and friends. Meanwhile, the missionaries here in Ostrava/Frydek Mistek threw the branch's FIRST EVER THANKSGIVING! And it was a HUGE success!! Everything went way better than we had even expected! 

We had so much food, and lot's of fun! I don't remember if I said this already, but the elders ordered a 15 KILO TURKEY!! That's something like 33 POUNDS!! So crazy! They had to bake it in the oven for more than 8 hours!

We played lots of games, had lots of food, and talked about gratitude. And a lot of people came and I don't really know how to describe it, it was just great! I'll attach pictures.

Between Thursday and Saturday, Ses. Behunin and I made 8 pies, Mashed potatoes, Gravy, and 45 rolls. I have never before in my life made pumpkin pie, and I made 5 this weekend. It was so crazy, but luckily everything turned out great! I'll stop talking now and just send pictures. :)

I hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving, and that you're getting excited for Christmas!!

I'm so thankful for this opportunity I have to be a missionary here in the Czech Republic. I'm grateful for our wonderful mission president and his family, and the other missionaries I get to work with. I'm so grateful for the members here in the Czech Republic, they are seriously some of the strongest members I've ever met, and the help us so much. I'm so blessed to be able to work with all these amazing people. I'm also extremely grateful for my family, friends, and of course my Savior and Father in Heaven.

Have a wonderful week everyone! Happy December!!

s laskou,

Sestra Schaerrer

 

 Pictures!

 I forgot one thing, Ses. Behunin and I are going to be putting together a little Christmas card. So if you'd like to receive one, please send me you're home address before next Monday. :) Thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hello Everyone!

Can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving? Me neither! I remember thinking at the beginning of my mission "Thanksgiving is sooo far away, it will never get here!" And now it's in 4 days! That's so crazy! I hope you all have a wonderful celebration with family and friends, and take time to really think about what you're grateful for. I'm grateful for so many things, definitely for the opportunity to serve a mission here in the Czech Republic! I won't list everything I'm grateful for, that would take ages to type!

Anyway, this week was pretty good. :)  Monday we were in Prague for visa work, I'm legal now! Not that I wasn't legal before, but it will be so nice not to have to carry around my passport, and I can just carry around the residency card. It was also really fun to see my whole group again. It was probably the last time we'll all be together (minus Elder Oviatt). We probably won't see all of us together until after our missions. 

The next few days were pretty normal, a few lessons here and there and lots of contacting. I like contacting here, I feel like a lot more people listen than they did in my first area. In Brno people were super nice too, maybe it's just something about Moravia. ;)

On Wednesday we had a really cool experience. We had a huge, 4 hour long contacting block because we couldn't set up any lessons, so we were praying for some new investigators, and the night before the sister training leaders called and asked if they could do anything for us so we said "Pray for our 4 hour contacting block tomorrow!" So anyway we get going, and it seems all good and normal, but by the end of the day, we had gotten 5 numbers and 3 new investigators! And we also got a lesson with a less active that randomly said "Yeah I have time." It was so awesome, such a miracle! :)

On Thursday one of our investigators invited us to a meeting at her church, she's a 7th day adventist and they were having a guest speaker from England, so she wanted us to come hear him. Boy it was different. His whole theme was "When...?" in reference to the second coming. He talked about "when" the whole time, and then he basically just said, "I don't know when the second coming will be" which is fine, no one does, but he was talking about "when" it was going to happen the whole time and then just said "I don't know." It was interesting.

On Sunday, we got to go watch a member in a choir concert. It was a catholic choir, and they sang in a catholic kostel, but he was a member of our church. They were really good, they did some Christmas songs, but mostly "normal" songs. I don't really know how to explain what "normal" is, but it was good and fun to support our member! 

So this week is Thanksgiving, and we're throwing the branch a Thanksgiving feast on Saturday (because the kids all still have school on Thrusday). The branch has never done Thanksgiving before, and most of them don't know what it is, but a lot of them are helping us make all the food, so we'll see how it goes. They are really excited about it though so I think it will be really fun, even if it's kind of Czech-ized. :)

I gotta run now, so we can get everything all ready, but have a great week everyone! The gospel is true and we have so much to be thankful for!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

s laskou,

Sestra Schaerrer

 

Pics! The concert and the kostel we went to, and a cool building in Prague. :)

 

Trains for Dayz...

Hi Everyone!

Well not anything super exciting happened this week, we had some really good lessons with some of our investigators, we visited lots of members, and right now we're actually in Prague because I had my last step in the visa work process, which means I'm a legal resident of the Czech Republic! Yay!

Anyway, the most exciting/abnormal part of our week was probably that we got lost. On Thursday we got on the wrong train coming back from a members house (we take trains EVERYWHERE) And ended up in this place called Jilešovice. And to this day I don't know where it is. Long story short we ended up waiting for like and hour for the train to take us back so we could get on the right train, and we ended up taking crazy pictures, which I will attach for your joy and pleasure. Sometimes missionaries just gotta have a little fun. Especially when your at a dark trainstop in the middle of nowhere with no one else to talk to. 

I hope you all have an awesome week, and I'll talk to you later!

OH! One more thing, if you could all please send some more recipes for Thanksgiving, we would really appreciate it! I got a few, but we need way more! Thanks!

s laskou,

Sestra Schaerrer

 

Pics!

 

Leaves are falling all around...

Hello Everyone,

This week was good, but nothing terribly exciting happened. We did have one really cool story though:

So two Sundays ago we met this guy named Jan on the street, and I was kind of doubting that he would have interest, but turned out that he did! So we set up with him, and after some reschedulings we were able to set up for Sunday/yesterday. Then we were in Ostrava contacting with the elders, and we missed our bus to get to the train station, so we found another bus at a different time, and then we ended up missing that one too because Ses. Behunin was in a contact. So we ran to the bus stop and took the very next bus. That bus would get us to the train station 3 minutes before our train left. Then, the bus came two minutes late! So we only had 60 seconds to run from the bus stop to the train station! The whole bus ride there we were praying that the train would have a zpoždění (delay) so that we could make it, but there is absolutely no reason for our train to have a zpoždění because it just comes to Ostrava, sits and waits, and then goes back to Frydek. But for SOME MIRACULOUS REASON, it had a 5 minute zpoždění! And we made it! And we were on time to Jan's lesson! And he is super awesome and prepared and has lots of awesome questions! And we put him on date in the first lesson! It was such a miracle that it all worked out!

Not a whole lot else happened though. We visited some members and we ate so much food that I thought I was going to die. (that's Czech ettiquette, eat whatever they give you). Also, Ses. Behunin made me laugh really hard one day while I was drinking water, and she made me laugh so hard, that I threw up. Well, it was just water, but basically that's what happened. She thought it was hilarious and she's really proud of herself now. :)

Oh also once while we were looking for less actives we found a kitten! And we played with the kitten for a while and I named him Simba because he looks like my first cat whose name was Simba. :) 

Anyway, I'll see if I have any pictures to send, sorry it was kind of a boring week, but the gospel is still true! And I'm so incredibly grateful that I get to be here in the Czech Republic and share that messagel. 

I love you all and hope you have an awesome week!

s laskou,

Sestra Schaerrer

 The kitten we found, a random market on the naměstí, and the sunrise this morning!

 I FORGOT ONE THING!!! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!!

The missionaries here in Ostrava are in charge of a Thanksgiving party (the branch really likes it, even though they don't celebrate thanksgiving here) AND WE NEED RECIPES!!! So if any and all of you could send any kind of Thanksgiving day recipe, that would be greatly appreciated! We need them ASAP, so if you could send them this week so I can get them next Monday, that would be fabulous! 

THANK YOU!!

with love,

The missionaries of Ostrava :)

Happy Halloween!

Hi Everyone!

So this last week was pretty crazy! It was my first week in Ostrava/Frydek Mistek, so I was busy getting to know everyone and where everything is. And it was also Halloween and as missionaries we were in charge of throwing the branch Halloween Party! It went really well. We're not allowed to dress up, so I was just "Sestra Schaerrer" but it was fun. We had a eating-donuts-off-a-string contest, musical chairs, sugar cookie decorating, a special musical number, bobbing for apples, and scary stories. It went way better than we expected and was super fun!

I'm trying to think of what else happened, Halloween was kind of the main event of the week. Other than that we've just been finding new investigators and teaching everyone. And I've been trying to get to know everyone and it's kind of hard. 

Oh! We also taught Spanish and English on Tuesday. Which was interesting because neither I nor Ses. Behunin speak spanish. Ses. Boza was here before I came, and she's from Guatamala, so she taught spanish, but then she left and so Ses. Behunin and I tried to put our very small amount of knowlege together. I never even studied spanish, but Ses. Behunin took it for 5 years, so she kind of led the whole thing, but it was an adventure haha. 

Anyway, sorry, but there isn't a whole lot more to tell. I'm still trying to figure everything out. But I'll definitely send some pictures of the party! :)

One thing that I love about transfers, is that you can go to a new area, and your first Sunday there you can feel the spirit so strong. You don't know any of the people, you don't speak the same language, but the gospel is the same and the spirit is so strong. The church is true! And it helps me feel at home, where ever I am. 

Have an awesome week everyone, and Happy November!

s laskou,

Sestra Schaerrer

Pictures from the Party!