May 28 Letter

Dear Momma:                                                           

firstly wild stuff. 

czech is taking over more and more parts of my brain. i find myself trying to decline english words and change adjectives for when i'm talking about plural things. like instead of sketchy things. i said sketche things. it was nuts. otherwise my goal this transfer is going to learn how to speak brnian. it's like it's own language. just beautiful. i felt like a new missionary/still def do! haha i need to pick up an accent though. it's weird becuase tons, i mean TONS, of people speak english here. in ostrava that wasn't quite the case. there it's like a czech/slovak/polish mix and here its more of a czech/brno/maybe slovak? mix? i dunno? being in ostrava was great cause now my czech is better than it otherwise would've been. i'm just not used to teaching lessons in english haha. oh well.

the real wild stuff: the czech republic has chocolate flavored water.... you may ask yourself, momma: why would i want chocolate flavored water?... i would love to tell you.

1. are you thirsty? you're in luck becuase it's water!

2. do you have a sweet tooth? again, you're all set becuase it tastes like chocolate!

3. do you love chocolate but worry about eating your way out of clothes that fit? in luck again! (actually i have no idea the nutritional facts of this stuff. still don't have the vocabulary for it hahaha)

4. do you want a drink that is a dessert in itself? i could go on for days, but you get the picture.

it's awesome cause the chocolate really only comes as an after taste or when it stays on the tongue for a while. so while i'm eating i just drink it faster and it goes great with whatever i'm eating cause it tastes like normal water. and then when i'm done and i want dessert.... well i just let it play games with my pallet and voila! dessert in a drink. it's awesome. if i think of an easy way to send it home i will hahahah. i dunno though. exploding chocolate water wouldn't make anyone happy haha.

mother: i picked up another you-ism. my companion sometimes gets worried about his czech (i dunno why his is way better than mine during my second transfer) and says "i can't.." :) you can see where this is going... while i don't have a gym or field to make (i mean ask) him to run laps around. i do have the first vision and 13 articles of faith in czech that all need recitation :) needless to say he now knows the first vision much better! and we're not saying the can't-word too often either :)

in other news brno is just a happening place! the branch here is great! my companion and i are teaching FHE tonight. it's a ton of YSA's here (there's actually oodles in brno it's awesome!) and so we have dinner and play games and teach and such. i have yet to go before but i'm pretty sure it has blast written all over it.

another cool part of brno: the people! i feel like brno is the south of the czech republic. i will definitely have to do some more digging on this. but as of now i have a few correlated points.

1. accents. both brno and the south have awesome accents. sometimes they may be hard to understand... :) but they're just too cool!

2. friendliness! i though people in ostrava were great, and i'm happy to say that the people here are also great! we were learning czech the other night from a native, and we were talking about how we can approach people on the street. this guy, he's awesome by the way, says to us, "maybe ask people how they're doing right off the bat" 

we said, "like a good ol' 'jak se mate?'?"

he replied.... well ('jak se mate' is a more personal than the american equivalent "how are you doing" not something you would normally ask people you don't know) "you know" he said, "you could probably get away with it in brno." hahaha the story may have lost it's thunder by being typed. but we had a good laugh about it at the time. good stuff

otherwise we are definitely seeing miracles in the work. example 1, yesterday we didn't have anybody planned to come to church, which is kinda not the best feeling as a missionary. but on the tram over i was just thinking to myself. who knows! we handed out plenty of cards! invited people to church! who know's whos going to come! and sure enough a man who had been contacted while we were singing a while back came to church! it was awesome! i'm realizing more and more how little work i actually do, or rather how small of a role i play in the miracles i'm seeing. the Lord is the one in charge, and boy am i grateful because he know's all of us better than we know.

anywho's time to get going. sure do love ya momma!

eldre stimpson