Jan 22 pics

more pictures from Ostravsky hrad that starsi gleue and iwent to last pday. it was pretty cool looking. we kept talking about how we'd just creep up and take it over at night or soemthing (elder g was in the army so he is super wise in those areas, went to west point too! i think 2 years? maybe 3? i forget... that's bad of mee haha)

a huge tower in Olomouc (went there for a zone conference. its a very very beautiful town. really super pretty)

 

and then another with the tyedye reed's shirt (curtesy of the thordersons) with elder gleue its awesome!

January 12th Letter

i lost track of weeks so it is know time to keep track of transfers haha but firstly granny super happy you had a good birthday! sorry i dont have oodles of time so ill get to the very meat of it.

thanks for all the stories everybody! i love hearing all of them. great to hear from you GOUP :) and everybody know that at about 10:30 pm in the czech republik ya'll are all gettin prayed for!

cool news: elder gabrielsen and i met a polish guy the other week so we sent a referral to poland! that was pretty exciting.

this week i apologize for not having a crazy long email but ill write a little bit of my testimony of the book of mormon. It is amazing how much power that book has! it is the keystone of our religion for good reason. for a long time i had only heard apostles and prophets talk about the power of the book of mormon, and aside from my personal testimony, i hadn't much more experience in the matter. but recently in lessons and in personal studies ive recognized the real power that comes from reading it. It is the most important part of my relationship with my savior. I have a firm testimony that when we read the book of mormon with an open heart and are willing to act on what we read that we will feel the power of the Holy Ghost. Ive really noticed out here that some people who were completely against god or religion completely have their hearts softened by the book of mormon. Others who already believe have come to even greater knowledge and love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ through its pages. I have learned more and more that we can honestly turn to any page in the book of mormon and gain answers and specific guidance for our lives if we honestly seek it.

p.s. transfers happened and I’m still in ostrava but i changed housing and elder gleue and i are follow up training each other. i was in "dubina" (a little part of ostrava) and now I’m in poruba (a diff part of ostrava). it was a fast move though haha we've been together a day now and it def still feels like a dream.... prolly will for the next two months hahaha i am so excited for this chance to serve God and don’t worry I’m taking advantage of every minute

love love love

elder stimpson

“Celebrating new years as any Stimpson would :) nice ice cream and as close to martinellis as I could get in the Czech Rep haha”

 The Galicek (gal ee check) or in plural (referring to all of them gal eechk oh vee) Awesome family: son served mission in Spokane! The mom is the sweetest lady and the dad has been investigating for probably 20 years (but he's getting baptized soon haha) 

Elmer Fudd, Tide Pens, and more

2 January 2012

Dearest family!

Firstly, Happy Birthday Granny!!! oh i wish you all the best. and were you in the Czech Republic everyone here would give you a nice firm long handshake while wishing you a great year full of success and great surprises or great achievements or good luck and such. It’s a pretty cool tradition! haha

   

We took a vilet to some castle. Wow. It was amazing attached are a ton of pictures of it. Sorry I would describe them all better but I can’t really tell which are which, but hope you like them all! (don't worry I’m keeping a list of places I will make you all visit on the summer 2013 tour or whenever we get around to it as a fam hahaha)

Everbody: the branch all says hi! i meant to greet during the phone call but i forgot. They’re all so great. I have like 3 other mothers kinda here (as do the other missionaries) who cook for us and teach with us and tell us (mostly elder gleue and I) to wear jackets! hahaha its great. but of course it takes three mommas here to even come close to momma stimpson ;)

and momma, martin (my boy who's gonna get baptized as soon as he realized alcohol and smoking are bad) says thanks for the rice krispie treat. i brought them to our xmas celebration (well some. i couldnt give them all away hahaha) and he really loved them. as did the other missionaries!!

  

in other news on the 31 when Elder Gabrielsen and i left the apt, we ran into a group of about 15 men or so dressed as close to Elmer Fudd as I’ve ever seen with shotguns, hunting dogs and all, walking down the middle of the street. I couldn’t tell if it was like a militia and I should hide all my goods somewhere or if there was a good forest for huntin around! haha. So on Sunday we took the opportunity to ask a local about the hunting situation (ya know cause elders can have guns and all haha) which was pretty crazy. It’s all pretty regulated as you can imagine. But it was a nice realization cause we'd been hearing tons of gun shots around the past few days and I was almost starting to worry about it haha but it got all figured out so that was nice.

Probably the best realization I’ve had on the mission: in worldly things at least haha, I found a stain that the tide pen works on! oddly enough it was some purple kinda something we had on some knedliky and chicken super good. my shirt sleeve and pants thought so too, but thank heavens for me keeping my tide pen even when i had yet to find a stain it worked on, cause I tried it and it worked like a charm! haha couldn't even tell something had happened!

Time is almost up so last thought:

We have some awesome extra time to study this week and we heard about always being a missionary and talking to everybody about the gospel. And then it had the quote from the Savior about being fishers of men. And then ya know you can’t catch fish if your line is out of the water (Dad I can’t remember how many times I had to be reminded of that fly fishing with you haha but I still pulled my line out of the water too much I think, that was a blast tho! oh man. another thing we can do when i get back. the rivers are still good in Oct right? oh well sometime they will be!) but it was great.

last 45 seconds: one of the greatest parts of being a missionary is seeing the change the gospel can bring to peoples lives. it really is amazing and a true blessing. and its happening! Marek (you know him from the tape) is really coming along. It’s beautiful.

love bye

elder stimpson