April 30 Letter

Dear Momma:

The presentation [at the college in Ostrava] was way cool. we taught the restoration very very simply and explained our relationship with God to them. it was way cool. dare i say we presented so clearly the only questions asked were:

1. tithing, what is it? .... ugh. question cause we didn't teach about it and i said in correct czech (at least i'm pretty sure) if anybody had questions about WHAT WE TAUGHT. oh well. what'reya gonna do?

  

2. why do we use the king james version of the bible? in czech the Kralicka. easy softball question.

and the last question was probably my favorite:

3. what methods do we use to learn czech so dang fast?! (we just laughed, cause we know it's all God, but they have no idea.) so i told them everyday i pray for the gift of tongues. the students liked that one haha.

it was great though. really cool and enjoyable and not dangerous or grilling at all. just a good time. i would do it again in a heartbeat haha. the district was there and a member who served his mission in spokane a few years back!

i forgot to include the wildest part of the previous week! we went to dinner at a member's house who's been a member for a stinkin long time (not too many of those considering communism ended not too long ago) he and his wife were both baptized under communism back in the 60's or so, and lived for years secretly worshipping. it was wild to hear. but with regard to the attached picture of the red books , get this! way back when president monson came to the czech republic with a number of boxes with red books. communism and red books go hand in hand so they let him in with a good number of "little red books" so to say (Mr. O [Dean’s history teacher and one of his favorite teachers ever]  would be proud i remember all this! haha) but we all know these red books weren't Mao's, but rather the Lords. hahaha they were tons of book of mormons and doctrine and covenants! luckily book of mormon in czech is kniha mormonova. abbreviated =km km can easily be confused for karl marx. So all of the sudden we got the lords word in the czech republic! it was way cool! just a cool guy. super neat hearing about all these secret meetings and such but kinda scary/wild at the same time.

  

don't have a ton more time, but i had a wild einstein epiphany moment on a tram the other day. we spend so much stinkin time on trams out here it's no wonder einstein got so many good ideas on them! haha it had to do with reflections of light and two trams passing. super tough to describe. but it was pretty neat! and fun

the good weather came this past week. which means i broke out the short sleeve shirts! hello fast food worker :) hahaha it's great. i honestly feel like i'm on vacation the weather is so nice. the only down side is that it's gonna get quite a bit hotter before it gets any colder..... :/ i'm pumped though! it's so weird to see the czech republic green becuase it hasn't been for as long as i have been here! i'll def take some pics this week and get em to ya! :D

we're going to hukvaldy today and then gonna be teaching FHE tonight with a member momma and her two boys who are yet to be baptized. we're pumped! sure do love ya tons momma!!!! (Call me at 7 or 8 Czech time on Mother’s Day, either one. I’ll send the number.)

  

love love love

dean

April 23 Letter

firstly wow! tons of stuff may have happened since last week that i kinda maybe included already but i'm not too sure. so forgive me if i write about anything twice. also forgive me for the lack of pictures, but i now know there are two computers to watch out for here. haha (we learn by experience)

now for the fam emails: i'm just gonna respond in a huge blob of goodness: linds, yes i love how God keeps promises. goodness me am i grateful for that. and we're using mosiah 2:41 in a lesson today :) the gospel is true! haha taryn, reese is a hoot! oh man! and she's awesome. her outgoingness needs to rub off on me as a missionary. i get way to scared to talk to some people. but! i did just chat it up with a lady on the bus over here. she was like, "yeah i thought about God, and decided that if God was, then there wouldn't be so many catastrophes" (we heard second hand about some demonstrations in prague, but we're on the other side of the country so we don't get much of it, thank heavens. i dunno about the elders there though. but momma don't worry we're missionaries! these white shirts are like a celestial bullet proof vest. nebojte :) but back to that lady's question. last dist. meeting we talked about why bad things happen to good people (thank you Holy Ghost for inspiration) so her question did not go unanswered for long. unfortunately we live way too close to the emailing place, so it was a 3 stop long conversation. but it was very nice. laur, i can only imagine the amount of fun ya'll had together. goodness me. tess, maternity leave (?) sounds way nice... kinda jealous. but i get to take 2 years off of studying for school so i guess the mission is like a weird-different-kind of maternity leave?

but yeah! so to the week!  firstly what i forgot from last week! i'll try to get one of the sisters in the ward to email you (momma) pictures of the branch at the mormon helping hands thing. it was way fun. my shoes are now super nasty.

nextly wow. did we ever get lost in prague last week. good news though. i found a lego museum that will no doubt get visited next time :) they're czech! it was pretty fun hanging out in the office while the companions went for some visa work. but elder gleue and i naturally had too much fun playing around to which president was kind enough to remind us that there is no way he can put us back together again. (it is inevitable he can't control it :)

as far as calling you goes on mothers day. tell me if 5 pm or 7 pm (czech time) would work better for you. other options may be 8 pm czech time. and maybe even 9 but i'm waiting to hear back about 9. so right now plan on 5 or 7 (tell me which you want) or if 8 would work best then that is great! but yeah i'll send you the number before hand. and you will call me at whatever time we pick.

mother thanks a ton all those mornings that you read some scriptures with me (more like to me) as i was eating breakfast in high school. cause now i can bear testimony that it works and that mothers in the ward should do it :) haha so thanks oooooodles!!!!  this past week (on exchanges) we taught a family here the first lesson in english (they want to practice english and we want to practice teaching so it works out quite nicely) :)  it was awesome! absolutely love em and it is always funny speaking in another language. it's just a trip in and of itself. oh goodness. but yeah it was a very cool time and i was only sad that elder gleue and i didn't think of that last transfer! haha

in other news i am almost completely out of ink in my pen (so time to move to the next one... i've still got like 20 from the MTC haha) that's the big news. Every time i write now it is an adventure. i love it to be honest. highly recommend it. cause i can be writing something completely plain and simple and having a pen that is on its last leg makes every word i write 109 times as important and epic. it's nice :)

the big news and last news is about the presentation that we have at the university today... lots and lots of stuff has been learned since last week, to say the least. we're super prepared and now the whole district (7 of us) and a member who served a mission in spokane are going to be presenting. the wild stuff is that apparently this is a yearly occurrence with this guy and his class in ostrava (i was in montana last year so no way i could have known that haha) and i guess he writes wild books about tons of religions. i can only imagine he has fun writing all the crazy stuff people hear about us mormons. anywhos! we're all excited. and make sure to pray for us right when you wake up cause we're going in about 5 hours hahahahahaha

love ya'll tons and tons and tons

elder stimpson

p.s. our branch president related I, Robot and isaac asimov to the gospel last sunday. i love that guy tons hahaha he's hilarious

April 17 Letter

the attached pic is of prague! that's why emails are a day late (we went there for the comps' visa work yesterday)

 

and sorry this email is super short but this time goes by way too fast!!!

 

this week was just awesome! i had some of the best study sessions of my mission right now. instead of worrying about district meeting (the first time i planned for it i was freaked out!) i love it now. i just think of fun games and creative ways to get us going! but here's the kicker this week: PRESIDENT IRWIN IS COMING. i'm excited cause he's awesome and it's gonna be way too much fun in district meeting. (thanks for the bacon chocolate!!!!) we usually start off with a treat-tasting-session and share ideas on what the district thinks of whatever we try(one time we tried every flavor of chocolate that milka has.... there were soooo many!!!! and another we tried different flavors of studenka chocolate (a traditional czech recipe)) it's a blast.

 

i'll have to talk more about this past week next week. but that's okay.

 

we went to prague yesterday which was just a blast. we got lost a few times (and by lost i mean when asked which way we needed to go i would point in a range of about 60 degrees. so general directions were always good! i wasn't really too worried much.  haha it was great fun though! got to hang out in the office a little bit since i didn't have to go to the foreign police. elder gleue and i saw each other again and just had a great time giving president irwin a hard time about putting us on opposite sides of the country.

 

but yeah sorry this is super short. next week will no doubt be a huge one. and it'll come on monday too (these past two weeks were just wild)

 

love ya tons momma!!!

 

 

(maybe that typing thing would be a good idea to avoid weeks like this :/ haha)

 

sorry again, but next week'll be longer!

 

love ya bye!

April 10 letter

dear momma:

 

WOW was this week awesome!!!! Such a wild roller coaster of everything it was nuts!

 

it started about a week ago when we had FHE with some branch members to end Preparation day. Adam came, the elders from poruba (my old area) gave a spiritual though about prayer, and it was stinkin good. a lesson with adam later watching a conference talk, well... basically adam went from kinda sitting on the fence about baptism to knowing that it's all true in a matter of 7 days. His whole conversion reminded me, or rather taught me, how little we actually do as missionaries. I mean it takes all day and all night for two years to do the little tiny peice of conversion that we help out with, but otherwise it's all on the investigator, and the Lord takes care of the rest.

 

(slash can i get the name of our ancestor who was in the martin handcart co.?)

 

We got to watch conference this weekend which just amplified the spiritual high, can you say conference, conference, baptism, more conference. then the next day more conference and easter? needless to say it was a beautiful weekend. for a few hours it wasn't quite 100% that we were going to get conference (something between translation and getting to branch presidents happened or something) but the members are awesome and we got to watch every session of conference right on time :) friday night was just loaded with phone call making haha.

 

elder gleue and his companion came over from prague for the baptism, which was just awesome. adam was way pumped! and we went right back to having way too much fun! haha

 

as far as easter goes in the czech republic. it's a lovely time of year. the sun was shinning nicely. birds were chirping away. as far as traditions go, this country is full of them! wow. from a missionaries point of few its rough becuase as opposed to american holidays where many people are out and doing stuff (be it shopping or sightseeing or what have you), czechs don't really go out on holidays. much like christmas time, every shop was closed. and i mean every shop. well about every shop. (mcdonalds was opened but i'm convinced that is becuase it's an american institution. KFC, however, was not open. so i'm not so sure about that one...) thusly this email is a day late (it was an adventure searching yesterday, but to no avail). but back to traditions. they fashion very large whips here made out of who knows what kinda sticks... tie some ribbons on the end... and the men go around whipping all the women! i don't know how hard they whip (never actually saw it happen) but it is pretty nuts to think about! young women, old women, women in the home, walking down the street, no woman is safe from these whips. (but seriously some of them are like 7 feet long) It's wild cause literally every guy walking down the street has a whip. i'm surprised they haven't started to make holsters for them or something. so the guys whip the girls, and if it is before noon then they get candy, and if it is afternoon then they get water sprayed on them. so with an early morning and listening for the bells from the church towers it could be a very eventful, candy-filled day! luckily we got to avoid all the wild shananigans. it's a big holiday though, even though very few believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior. it was a great weekend to testify to people though. we were inviting just about everyone we talked to to conference and the baptism :)

 

oh my goodness was conference amazing. it's like each one is better than the last! i'm not sure how that is possible, but i have yet to prove myself wrong. i wont go through all the talks and what i liked cause ya'll heard them already. but they were all amazing. it was weird not hearing from elder holland during priesthood, but it was an intense session nonetheless

 

(don't worry i hid some eggs in the building for district meeting today, so the district will get an egg hunt... however instead of candy they're filled with the blessings of church attendance! haha, i love being a missionary)

 

speaking of church attendance, we visited a less active this past week, single momma with a 2 year old and 8 month old twins. she was very happy to see us! elder bahr is a twin, and she was like, "ask your momma how she did it!" momma i've got no idea how you did it cause whatever i saw while i was in heaven i have already forgotten. but you did a very good job! :) so if you have any advice i'll relay it to her haha (i already told her to push their cribs together teehee)

 

the pictures are some from the baptism. one with elder gleue, adam, and i. one with members from the branch who came for the baptism, and another of elders clyde, and bahr, adam, and i. something funny just happened (i think someone stepped on adams foot or something of the sort)

 

anywho's time is flying by but i sure do love ya momma!

elder stimpson

 

slash this week my testimony of God keeping promises grew soo much. I getting more worried than i should have before adam's baptism cause he wasn't quite sure. i was pouring through the scriptures trying to make sure that all those blessings we promised weren't just me getting excited, but that they had some backing. and sure enough, every stinking thing that we promised was fulfilled. i feel like underneath "Another testament of Jesus Christ" the Book of Mormon should also have "book of promised blessings, and how to get 'em!", or "if you have any question, read me, pray, be willing to work for an answer, and then you'll receive it!" that would take up way to much of the gold colored printy stuff that goes on those books, but i may write it on the inside of mine. It's amazing how testifying to people why we have the book of mormon brings so many other reasons to mind! good ol missionary mojo :)

 

love ya tons! 

 

p.p.s. i apologize for my lack of capitalization. speed is more important to me than proofreading :/ (is that a decent tradeoff?)

 

April 2 letter

goodness me was this week crazy!!! it all starts last pday! i dunno if i've told ya already, momma, but we've been frequenting this scientology cafe place (it's not really a scientology place but we just call it that cause the scientology place is next door, so it inevitably was thusly dubbed, "the scientology place.") and the owner of the place asked us "what is it exactly that you do here?" needless to say we love being asked that question... so we talked to him about what we do (we help people obtain blessings from God by means of covenants, like baptism, and obeying commandments. some other people came in so i stopped testifying for a little bit (it gets kinda awkard...haha) But before we left we introduced to him the book of mormon and left him our card with all kinds of stuff.

we had a singing display last week (the district, all 7 of us go out on the namesti and sing for everybody and then take turns going out to talk to em!) i love singing, even though i'm sure it's a big joke for czech's to hear foreigners try to sing in their language! haha goodness me.

in food this past week we made some potato bread and OH MAN WAS IT GOOD! (p.s. lindsey thanks a ton for the candy! perfect timing i got it right before our fasting weekend hahaha) and we also tried some super cheap stuff called czech lemonade. looks pretty sketch, but close your eyes and imagine lemony marshmallows and cream soda combined. and then you have czech lemonade. it's amazing.

we'll be doing a presentation at a university in a few weeks..... so keep us in your prayers hahaha :) i don't know what the deal is with my companionships and school presentations....

sure do love ya momma!!!
elder stimpson