So I Got Transfered to...

 SLOVAKIA!!  

Surprise Everyone!! 

And surprise #2 I've been here since yesterday! President asked me to leave right after church and to get here as soon as possible. So right now I'm in Bratislava, Slovakia. I'll be here for one transfer, and on top of that I'll be training!!! Crazy right?

This week 4 out of the 6 slovak sisters are going home, so I have been sent to Slovakia to train one of the new slovak sisters, and another slovak sister will be trained in Brno, buy Ses. Bailey, and half way through the transfer we'll switch greenies. It's going to be so great but so crazy!

So I'm here, in a different country, with a diferent language, in a completely new area and I'll be picking up my greenie on Wednesday and we'll just be here lost and confused together. Last night the Bratislava sisters gave me a crash course of who everyone they work with is and who everyone in the branch is and today they've been trying to show me around so I at least have an idea of where things are. Then I leave tomorrow to Prague for trainer training and I'll come back with my greenie Wednesday night. AAAAAHHHHH you could say I'm freaking out. :) 

MIRACLE OF MY LIFE:

So after church yesterday, Ses. Hale and I go to the train station and buy tickets from Ostrava to Brno, because I didn't have enough cash to buy one from Brno to Bratislava, and I thought I would have time to buy one between trains in Brno. So we got on the train in Ostrava, and the elders helped and everything and we're successfully on the way to Brno. Then we get to Brno, and I have 20 minutes to find the next platform and to move all my bags and things, and of course, I forget to buy my ticket. 
Then I'm on the train, standing in one of the end hall way things with all of my stuff, next to the dining car, because there isn't any place for me to sit down with all of my stuff. Then I realize that I don't have a ticket. I started freaking out, because I knew I didn't have any cash, and that I was riding black. So of course I started praying. Then the ticket lady comes and I asked her if I could buy a ticket with my card and she said no. She asked if I at least had enough cash to buy a ticket from Brno to Breclav, then I would have to get off in Breclav, get cash, buy a ticket, and wait two hours for the next train to come through. So I find enough coins for the ticket to Breclav, and start mentally and physically preparing myself to get off the train and wait two hours for the next one. While I'm thinking about all this, a 30 year old guy comes and asks me if I would like to sit down with him in the dining car, where I can also still see all of my luggage in the hallway through the glass door. So I sit down with him and start talking. His name is Petr and he's from Slovakia (he spoke English with me) and it turns out that I'm the first real live mormon he's ever met. He asks me where I'm going and what I'm doing and I ended up teaching him the whole Restoration in the process. Throughout the conversation he finds out that I don't have a ticket all the way to Bratislava and that I'll have to get off in Breclav, and he tells me that he'll buy my ticket. I told him that he really didn't have to and that I would figure it out, but he insists and buys me sparkling water to boot. He was so nice and it was definitely a miracle. He even helped me with my bags off the train. He only have 5 minutes between trains to go wherever he was going, but he still helped me with all my bags, and gave me his card. Soon after that I ran into the Bratislava sisters and they took me and all my stuff home. 

So, moral of the story, God answers prayers and protects his missionaries. 

It's been a crazy couple of days, and it's still going to be really crazy for a few more as I get my greenie, and we try to find our way around. I'll definitely let you know how it goes, this is going to be an adventure for everyone!! 

The gospel is definitely true. God exists and loves and cares about us, even when we're dumb and forget to buy tickets. This transfer is going to be a hard one, but I know this is where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm extremely lucky to be serving here in Slovakia, it's really rare for Czech sisters to get to serve in Slovkia and I've also already been here once before. But now I'll get to live, serve, and learn here in Slovakia for the next two months, and even though I'm super scared, I'm also sooooo excited! With God anything is possible!

Have a great week everyone!! 

s laskou,

Sestra Schaerrer

 Our last dinner with the Kolkovi, and a street and the castle in Bratislava!

 

365 Days Later...

Hey Everyone!

So I guess there was a glitch last week, and none of my emails got sent out, or at least most of them. So I resent all of them and I hope that it works this week.

Well this past week went really well. The best part was probably our service project with the Relief Society. We had the opportuninty to make 50 blankets for people that live at the Armada Spasy (Salvation Army). There's a location between Frydek-Mistek and Ostrava, and at this location live homeless people without any family, and they are all over the age of 50. So we started making 50 blankets for them. IT WAS AWESOME!! We had it on Friday and a lot of people came and helped. We had people everywhere cutting and measuring and tying and it went so well and I think everyone had a lot of fun! We were able to do 12 blankets in an hour, and a bunch of sisters asked if they could take some home to do there and then bring back. We still have a lot to do because we are going to do 50 total, but everyone loves it. They also had never seen these kind of blankets before (we just did fleece blankets with two different colors that you tie together) and everyone was saying that they wanted to make one for themselves! It was a blast and I'm excited to keep working on it and to finish it up. :)

We worked with a lot of members this week, we're teaching some of them about the temple and that's really fun. They all live really far apart, so Ses. Hale and I have been covering a lot of ground :).

We also had our culture night and we took a tour of the Marlenka (best cake on earth!) factory with Zuzka Kolkova and Bratr Kolek. That was super fun, they are great people. We got so see exactly how they make the cakes and we also got to taste test all the different kinds! Probably the best culture night I've ever had!

 It was also mine and Elder Lanham's year mark on the mission, and Ses. Hale's year mark in the country, so that was really fun to celebrate together, with a Marlenka cake of course. To celebrate we went to the Bolt Cafe, which is a cafe at the top of one of the towers at Vitkovice, the big factory that we went to on P day a couple weeks ago. So we went up there and walked around the outside, and on the inside we got tea and treats in the cafe. :)

I almost forgot! For Pday last week, Ses. Hale and I went to this little town called Hukvaldy, and we hiked up to the castle there! It was kind of rainy, and everything is closed on Mondays, so we were probably the only ones on the whole mountain! It was so cool, we hiked up to the castle, and then because it was closed, we hiked all the way around it. It was super fun and muddy and rainy, and I only fell down in the mud twice. ;) Then we barely missed our bus back to Frydek-Mistek, so we had to go straight to Ostrava for FHE and we were all dirty and muddy and gross. Memories right?

This week was really great, and I have definitely seen God's hand this week. We had so much to do and so many places to go, but somehow it all worked out and we were able to visit everyone that we needed to, and our huge service project turned out great. We wouldn't have been able to do anything if God hadn't been on our side. The church is true!

Have a wonderful week everyone! Love you!

s laskou,

Sestra Schaerrer

 

 Pictures!

 More!

 

Den Svatého Valentýna ❤ (resent due to email glitch)

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

I hope you had a great Valentine's Day/Single Awareness Day yesterday. :) Not a lot of people celebrate Valentine's Day here, so Ses. Hale and I just celebrate ourselves.

This past week was really great. On Monday we met with a brand new investigator named Filip. We found him while calling potential investigators that we had in our phone. (We found out that we have over 300 of them, so we've started calling all of them!). Filip is really cool, he's about 25 and studying Finance in Ostrava. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and prayer, and he's already read the first chapter of first Nephi.

Tuesday we taught English, and you might remember that I've been teaching a German class too. It's pretty interesting, I'm pretty sure that any random Czech on the street knows more German that I can remember from high school, but I'm doing my best and the class appreciates the effort. German is going to end after the end of this transfer though, whether I leave or not. 

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but right now we're teaching Catholic Priest's wife English. (The elders are teaching the Catholic Priest). It's really interesting, they are great people, and everytime they tell us about what they believe and how they live, they let us share a little about what we believe. So it's really cool to talk to them. They are really awesome.

This week we visited a lot of members, they are all so awesome, I would do anything for them. We also had the opportunity yesterday to go to a city called Karvina to find a less active. The elders were going there anyway to visit an investigator they have there, so we went with them there. 

So we get to Karvina and all we had was her address, luckily the elders gave us their map because they didn't need it. Turns out that the less active lives on this really really really long street, so we started walking, hoping that it wasn't too far away. Well, an hour later, and we still haven't found it. We're still walking on the same street and none of the house numbers are in order, but we've seen every number except her's, so we decide to keep going. Finally we find her house AND she's home, but she was leaving so we set up to come back. Then we ask, "Hey, how close are we to Poland?" And she said, "It's right there just down the street" We told her that earlier we had been joking about how the trees we could see were probably in Poland, and she just looked at us and said, "They are." So after we left we walked probably less than 50 meters to the boarder of Poland and took some pictures. 

Miracles were all around that trip, the fact that we even found her house, that she was home, that we walked all the way to Poland (btw, here house wasn't even on the map anymore, we walked right off the edge of it to find her house), it was definitely a miracle trip! 

The gospel is true, and God cares about all His children, even if his missionaries try to walk all the way to Poland. 

I love you all and hope that you have a great week!

s laskou,

Sestra Schaerrer

 

Valentine's day apples, us with the elders on the way to Karvina, and me at the Polish boarder. ;)

 

eMail Mix Up

 Hello Everyone,

So, on Monday, Mercedes sent out an email as usual, however we (her family) did not received it.  I emailed the Mission Office, and they called to check on the girls and make sure they were okay.  Turns out, several missionaries emails did not make it to their families that day, but everything is fine.  I'll post her February 15th letter as soon as it comes, until then, we received this note from one of the members today.

Take care,

MaryLynn Schaerrer

Hi Hale and Schaerrer family!!!

We went to Marlenka factory for a tour today!! It was a lot of fun!!! We tasted some of their products, e.g. Marlenka which is a speciál Armenian Honey cake.
I love seeing the sisters in our branch... I just returned from Canada Calgary Mission two weeks ago.

Have a great day!!

Love, Zuzi Kolková

Short and Sweet

Hi Everyone!

I only have 10 minutes to type this so please excuse any mistakes or the fact that it's going to be short. :)

This week was really good. On Thursday and Friday Ses. Hale and I got to both go to Pardubice on exchanges with Ses. Clark and Ses. Andersen! It was really fun. Pardubice is about 2 1/2 hours away by train, so it took up two whole days out of our week, but it was really fun and I learned a lot! Ses. Clark and Ses. Andersen are so fun and we taught some really good lessons. :)

Other than that we've been visiting lots of people and travelling around a ton. We work with a ton of people all over Ostrava, Frydek-Mistek, and Bohumin. We also went to this little town called Hlučin this week. It was so fun and I've been getting better at contacting people in trams and things since we're either at someone's house or on the way there. 

Last Monday was also probably one of the best P days of my whole mission! Ses. Hale and I got up and got everything done really fast, cleaning, buying food, getting ready. Then we went with the elders to the Radnice (town hall) and took pictures from the top. Also inside the Radnice are some Mario elevators, the kind that don't stop, I went to some in Brno too so you might remember them. Then the elders were super busy, so Ses. Hale and I went to the Ostrava castle, a different Radnice on the naměstí, and a muzeum of Ostrava's history! We did so much and it was so fun and the elders were really jealous because they couldn't come with us. Best P day ever!

Anyway, I gotta go, but I love you all! Thank you for your love and prayers! The gospel is true and God loves His children!

Talk to you next week!

s laskou,

Sestra Schaerrer

 

Pics!

More Pics!

 

Another Short One...

Hi Everyone!

Sorry, this is going to be a short one! We've mostly been running around visiting members this week, and seeing lot of little miracles here and there. 

The gospel is true and God loves His children, wherever they are on this earth!

Have an awesome week!!

s laskou,

Sestra Schaerrer

 

Pics from this week, Frydek Mistek, Prague, Ostrava