Letter September 2

here in this mission (as you already know, but more for others' benefit) we are a little more blessed than most other missions. I can't say exactly why (as with many things in the gospel, 1 Nephi 11:17 or elder Holland's recent talk which you cited last week), but I can say how: we get an extra month. I don't know that I've ever been so thankful for 30 days in my life. But I do know that this will be the best 30 days of my life. 

With that being said. I'll be especially aware of miracles on this borrowed time that is given to us in the mission.

Onto the week!

We met a girl who works in a chocolate shop! She is great! we taught her in the shop, and then got chocolate! she gave us testers of pretty intense chocolate! if we keep teaching there i'm going to have to improve my pallet to appreciate that kinda chocolate! haha Teaching about the restored gospel and eating chocolate, is there a better combination?!? It was a great first lesson! It's amazing to see how the Lord really is preparing the people that we teach. We asked her about her thoughts on prophets and God and she was spot on with everything! It was really great.

We also went out a little early in the morning one day after a run to hit the streets and teach people before they get to work (a new idea introduced by President McConkie) it worked wonderfully! Ran into really successful people on their way to work, exactly as we had planned! haha 

in other news i have found the pardubice branch of the toastmasters international. i don't know much but i do remember something from FHS about them. so we'll have to stop by and see what we can do. i think it's about public speaking? I picture it like a fast and testimony meeting with refreshments (?) but without the gospel :/ but we'll certainly take care of the second part (unless they say we can't then we may just talk about our english class :) i wonder if they speak in czech or english! I'll keep you filled in, momma.

We had an exchange with the elders from HK this past week. a great blast! I can't include all of the details, but I was with elder earl (from SLC) and we had a great time teaching and finding. we ran into a young golfing couple! who had a shirt/jersey for the bruins that was the exact same as the one uncle mike sent me! (except the player had a numbr in the 40's i think... 46? maybe?) it was nuts!

sure do love you momma! working on getting the card activated... i'll let you know next week if it doesn't work. i do have it now though.

lvoe you tons!

elder stimpson

August 19 Letter

Wow! what a week! I don't really know where to begin!

 

we went down to Jihlava on exchanges with elder Prymak (he's great! I'm pretty sure he was the one training me!) I stayed in pardubice, and elder eliason got to go back to trebic with his old companion, elder king! (another one of my favorites!)  IT was a blast of a 24 hours. we found some wonderful things, saw some great miracles. Missions are wonderful!

 

as part of the exchange elder eliason and I gave a little presentation on finding. It was great. a little dry run for the training we have this week! (aH! trainings! I secretly can't wait for it, but we still have a lot of preparation to do before we are ready for it) It was a blast, we both felt really good about it before, during and after. and Elder prymak said to me later it was exactly what he was looking for. I love the gospel!

 

In other news I am getting a crash course of driving in the czech republic. i am very safe! i meant crash course in that we are driving a fair amount lately (we have tons of MOTAB cd's to listen to, so that's taken care of! I love the choir! It is wonderful music) and i may or may not have made a few wrong turns. But thanks to intricate planning, even with a few wrong turns we should stay within our milage limit. yay, planning!

 

We had a great week! tons of lessons, a few wild teaching opportunities, and some great new insights into the scriptures! I've been studying how to get revelation a little lately, and been reading a lot from Joseph smith history and a talk by elder scott (the man knows how to get revelation! well both of them do! :)  I've been learning oodles but a few things have just been having a place to receive revelation, and having the faith to work for it and receive it. I've been seeing a lot of answers to prayers lately, the only trick now is to recognize them as they are happening! instead of when i write about them or ponder about them later.

 

The zone had a great week! It is great to see the big picture!

 

sorry for the short time. i'll write you first next week.

 

i'm studying alma 18 right now for a while so feel free to join if you want to (share insights :)

 

love you tons momma thanks so much for the email!

elder stimpson

 Elder Stimpson and Elder Knapp

July 29 Letter

where to begin! we had such a wild week! lots going on! and it continues into this week! tons of wild things going on!

we taught a hockey player! she's way cool! it was wild though becuase i know none of the words that are used in hockey here (even though i should by now) so it was fun to talk a little bit about it after the lesson. that was fun.

learned this week the power of the gospel! we ran into a few people who were trying to stump elder knapp and i with wild questions or strange doctrines, and we completely stumped them. of course it wasn't us at all, it was the spirit. But it was pretty cool to hear the question, think for a second, and then just be filled with words and just have it flow. what a blessing!

we had a wonderful training on wednesday. we went to the dedication site for the czech mission. it was a very powerful training. President McConkie is great! it was a great time to reflect on my mission, but also the czech mission as a whole. what a history we have here! it is truely amazing! I couldn't be more honored to be a part of it.

the training began an exchange with the assistants, that went into thursday! I was with Elder sewell, from england, 14 siblings! YIPES! haha he's so great and is terribly enthusiastic. he also served in pardubice a few transfers ago, so it was cool to be able to see him return to his area. it was a great time and we saw some good success! elder knapp went to the office, which was just a trial run becuase he is now the new assistant! yay for having connections into the office. of course he's so humble, but he is doing a great job and is certainly ready for the responisibility. i'm just looking forward to having call ins with him! :D haha it will be great!

the rest of the week was great! filled with talking to great people and teaching tons of lessons!

in other news i have a new companion, whom i love already! he was a district leader in the zone last transfer, and elder knapp and i both think very highly of him. he's a great missionary and he's going to do great things here!

our zone is wonderful. and also wonderfully stacked. i like to think of it as an allstar team. i like sports and i also like allstar teams. the entire zone is doing really well and i look forward to the great progress that we'll see this next transfer! it's going to be great!

love you so much momma!
elder stimpson

July 22 Letter

so if the subject didn't give it away we did have a baptism this past week. It was wonderful. President and Sister McConkie came all the way from Prague to see it! They are so great. The service was great, and the confirmation on sunday was also a great experience. Alena bore a little testimony after she was confirmed, and it was possibly the most perfect testimony, if there is a such thing. short and sweet. full of gratitude, and testimony of what she knew was true. It was great, and Elder Knapp and I were beaming with happiness. It was great. the rest of sunday was so great! We learned about spiritual "vyziva".. .which means..... i'm blanking... also they are doing a little reconstruction here which means the internet cafe is now nearly an outdoor location and there is a guy walking on/with a ladder like a pair of stilts (amazing. period. don't worry i would never dream of it.) while he uses a mini jack hammer to get rid of even more wall! goodness me! the jist of the talk was that just like we have different physical needs as far as food goes, that we also have different spiritual needs: church, daily study, general conference, FHE etc. it was a great talk. the members in this branch are amazing! i love them more and more every week.

otherwise we had another exchange this week! i went with elder pearce who is in HK (and being trained by elder stradling in my group!) it was a blast, he's great, really really bold, a hard worker, and makes working fun. We even got to teach a tennis player that elder knapp and I had found and reffered to them! talk about icing on the cake!

nothing else super nuts happened... actually that's not so true. pretty much 3 wild things happen, out of the ordinary, every day. they get recorded, but with time restraints they don't make the weekly email. so i'll run you through a typical day so that you can get a better tast for what it is like in pardubice!

6:29 alarm goes off, we wake up to, for whatever reason (there used to be an english elder here), God save the queen. which I choose to recognize as the tune to a great american song instead "my country tis of thee?"

we pray!, then run around in place for about 20 minutes. running in place has many ups and downs, one of them is that i can memorize scriptures as i do it! what a blessing!

after showering we have a breakfast which is usually a mix of m any cereals. corn flakes, coco ball guys, and musli. a cereal that i don't know to be in america, but it's really good. a chocolate granola kinda guy, with peanuts sprinkled on top. breakfast of champions! haha

we study personally for 1 hour (one of the greatest hours of the day!) then together for 1 hour, shari9ng what we learned, planning for different activities or teaching appt's throughout the day. then language study. czech is beautiful. studying it is quite enjoyable.

then we go out! most of our days are pretty packed with teaching appointments. trying to go into detail there is impossible, but the teaching is really really fun. i really love the people we teach. it's just great fun. 

anywho's time is up again. this week is going to be amazing!

(next week is transfers. what happened?!?!?!?!?) we'll be in prague for a training on wednesday (it's going to be mind-blowing. i don't have words for it, but certainly expect more about it next week ;)

love you tons momma!

elder stimpson

July 15 Letter

Not much more to say! it was a great week. we spent nearly 12 hours in the car getting around everywhere and were still able to teach a new high for us in lessons and help people progress. :) Which makes us both very happy missionaries.

so i'll start from the beginning.

monday was great. we had a day packed of lessons. but as is usual, it went by far to fast. i wish stopping time was a spiritual gift. i don't know if that's a good thing to hope for though. :/ I'll have to be careful what I wish for, and just be smarter with the time that I have.

Tuesday was magical! we drove to jihlava (beautiful town, edler jaynes is there right now) for district meeting and exchanges. the drives here are amazing. we past fields of many different colors of flower. white! purple, and sunflowers! it was great! sadly we are too busy to stop and smell the flowers (pun, somewhat intended, [is that a pun? i feel like my english skills are on a steady decline.] or even take pictures of the beautiful fields, :/ some other time!)  but the district meeting was really fun, Elder Knapp and I gave a little 10 minute peice at the end, and we have adopted many of each others habits already. it's nuts. having a companion is just great! haha it was funny becuase i didn't really notice this until i was on the exchange with the new missionary (elder king, provo native, big golfer :) we talked about the valley becuase somehow he knows tons of stuff about it, ski mountains, lakes, courses, it was a fun exchange [we kept our focus and work up though no worries] :) and he's a great missionary already!) we also got to teach english and someone brought us cherries! it was wonderful. Elder king isn't the biggest cherry eater, and the man who gave them to us said we needed to eat them that day, so i couldn't save any for elder eliason (who was in pardubice with Elder Knapp for the day) :/ which meant that the rest of the evening was filled with cherry eating a pit spitting :) we made french toast for dinner- good combo: french toast, nutella, and cherries. like i said, it was a great exchange. but also becuase we got to teach with a newly baptized member there. she is a machine! baptized maybe two weeks ago but just has a rock solid testimony, already wants to go on a mission. wants a missionary tag already and even secured a missionary daily planner! hahaha it was great. she's already a huge boost to the branch.

in other wild news trebic is also a beautiful city. it's like a bowl from where the apt. is so everything is up hill. really really pretty though.

in other wild news (it's really WILD) on saturday in pardubice we ran into some young men from trebic who were here for a rubix cube competition! i thought 2 minutes was good. the good guy there can to it in 8 seconds! 8 SECONDS. another can do it in 15 with his eyes closed! and yet another in 45 seconds with his feet! HIS FEET! it blew my mind. 

THE rest of the week was a blast. teaching tons and having a blast doing all that we do :) 

we will be having a baptism this week! she's really great and is ready for it. She's really excited, as are the members, as are elder knapp and I. It's going to be a great week getting everything finalized. we also may be looking at an exchange with the assistants this week and another with the elders in Hradec Kralove. should make for another rediculously busy week! :D

dad, we did make gnocci for district lunch on sunday after church. if i may say so it was pretty stinking good. :)

otherwise, i love studying. i love working. i love teaching. we're eating well and getting along like peas and carrots. it's a great time to be in pardubice!

love

elder stimpson

July 7 Letter

wow! what a week!

go america. funny that brady and i look alike. does that mean brady looks like dad? or have i just been gone for so long that people don't remember me? (don't answer the second one.)

don't remember the swarts too much... but that's cool about the mission! i lov emissions! haha i mgith remember them from seeing them but otherwise i don't know.

cool story that elder knapp just reminded me of!

so on saturday we had a particular thing on plan to teach alena, but we decided to change it with fast sunday coming up and all, to teach her about fasting. which was a little bit of inspiration becuase she has a huge decision in her life to make! and what better way to get help  then to fast about it! she realized that the lesson topic was inspired and it helped up realize the same thing. it's always nice when other people recognize and comment on things like that. she's doing really great and gettin ready for a baptism on the 19th. which we need to start planning! haha

love you tons momma!

thanks so much for the email. 

love you tons!

elder stimpson

(i'll work really hard to send the tape today, but it may just get finished and have to wait til next week. we;ll see. we've got about 6 or 7 lessons on plan so we'll see if we have time to send it :/ haha)


JULY 8 Letter

so i am hoping that emailing first before reading with improve the mass of my emails. we'll see.

Wild things that happened this past week. and by wild, of course, i mean amazing. firstly a few side notes.

happy late 4th of july! i love america and we sang lots of songs on the fourth. we had opening and closing hymns to nearly every study/planning session that day. We have the best anthems. although the czech anthem is pretty beautiful. I can't take anything away from that. Otherwise we ate some chocolate chip pancakes using our finely tuned (as of this transfer) pancake making skills. they were so good (especially with the euro chocolate), however the lack of choco chips resulted in large cut up peices of a bar being used. and those peices almost always melted out of the pancake (is there a way anyone knows to avoid that?) so it was more like half chipped pancakes with more of the chocolate taken off of the pan and put on top of htem. in any case they were delicious. and i had some of the batter last night (i cooked if of course) and i'm still alive so i guess it stays well too! :D

In other news Alena is doing great! she is hilarious! wild story, she got marked off grades in school because she said that america freed part of the czech republic (i guess the communists didn't like admitting any of that, it's so wild to live here! it's all i studied, except people here lived it! it's amazing) and aparently she idolized Patton for how awesome he was (who can blame her, he was a great leader), but that also lead to some trouble. pretty much every lesson with her we end up laughing like crazy at some point because of something, and then every lesson she also gets a little emotional with how her testimony is growing. im not much of a crier, but it is pretty cool to see how she is recognizing her growing testimony. 

otherwise. week number two of teaching oodles of lessons. and we have even more planned for this week! it's wonderful.

in cool news we got to meet the McConkies. THEY ARE SO COOL. They are amazing. The kids are great and president and sister McConkie are just wonderful. It's pretty different having an entire family in the mission home (ex. i stepped on a lego when we had lunch after a meeting there-it's been so long since i've stepped on a lego!) :D but it is a real blessing to see president McConkie back in the czech republic! what a blessing. 

i got the package you sent! thanks so much! the district loved it! as did our investigator from moldovia, he was at a loss of words (i think becuase he doesn't know how to describe food in czech yet haha)

we went up to a cool castle last monday- i took some pictures and got some stuff on the tape so no worries. 

everything is going really really well! i'm reading in helaman right now and i think it may be my favorite book in the book of mormon. helaman 5 is amazing. and all the stuff about nephi and his prophesieing (sp?) is remarkable. what a guy. needless to say my study notbook is getting filled up quite quickly (and the one you sent me is getting put to special uses :)

our diet has been modified we've added a few rules and changed a few around so we'll see what kind of results it yields- certainly dont worry about if i'm getting food :) i am:)

the district is doing great! and while the zone didn't have the best week it's seen this transfer, everyone has big plans for this week, which is exciting to say the least. it's such an amazing time to be a missionary!

 love you tons and i'll write more if anything comes to mind :)

love

elder stimpson