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

May 21 Letter

so! wow! new area! new city! new members! new investigators! it's wild!

firstly brno is super fun to say! the rolling r (i already told laur) gets counted as a vowel some times in czech so that's kinda nuts. it's like saying bird-no but super super super fast. it's way too much fun! haha

the branch here is amazing! and huge! haha we're working with a few members here and have a few great investigators who are ready to get some baptismal dates! 

my companion is super cool. he's from texas, humble (pronounced uhmbul, ya'll know how it ought to sound haha) so it's great to hear the accent in some of the words he says :) there is a guitar at the building so for the rest of the time we have today we'll probably be there playing together (he wants to learn super bad haha) MOM! he also loves “Psyche” so we joke about it all the time hahaha we definitely have way too much fun. i thought last transfer we had too much fun. which was a suprise after the ridiculous amount of fun had the transfer before, but alas, it is like a progressing mountain range of fun. with an everlasting supply of ever higher mountains! i dunno if that makes sense but i don't know what else to relate it too. (hills go back down, that's not going to fly. and a roller coaster is a roller coaster.)

brno is just cool. there are a load and a half of students here! tons and tons of schools! but yeah. time is about up so i'll be sure to type more next time. i'll also start writing down stories in my planner again (in the hustle and bustle of transfers i didn't really get much) great stuff is happening though. 

one quick lil tidbit, we ran into a guy the other day who was heading home from class and we starting talking to him about the book of mormon! he asked if he could read it, so i handed mine to him, he opened to a few verses. then we chatted about them. then he opened to a few more verses, and we chatted about them. the third time he opened to them it was again (everytime he read a verse) about baptism! so he's excited about it. he's just prepared. but tons of stuff cool stuff like that is happening. it's great!

gaining more and more love for the scriptures and preach my gospel. i'm running out of room in the margins to write in haha :/ haha

love yall tons!@

dean

Pics: last preparation day we went to a big castle here named spielberg. but spelled differently and czechly. it was a blast. Brno! it's a beautiful place :D

May 16 Letter - First Letter from Brno

We got calls on monday! and i'm IN BRNO!!!!  wow. it's the 2nd biggest city in the czech rep, with ostrava being 3rd. it's nuts. transfer day is always intense elder bahr came with me from ostrava, but he has a new companion. it's gonna be one fun crazy fun transfer! my companion is elder hansen who's in his second transfer. he's just awesome. super cool and is just ready to do work. i'm serving around some other great missionaries, the district includes elder hansen, elder bahr, elder jones (elder bahr's companion), the zone leaders (one of whom is elder gleue's former companion) and a tripanionship of sisters! and a senior couple too! it's a big district! and i thought 7 last transfer was big! goodness me haha. got a fresh hair cut today so my ears are all cold. but today is just a lot of trying to get settled in and unpacked and ready to get to work tonight! haha

p.s. plan on me sending a lot of stuff home on a boat becuase i don't want to pay for the plane and it's not really a ton of impt. stuff that would need to be sent home super fast. missionaries gain a distaste for moving... imagine that haha and so i'm going to try to become a minimalist! wish me luck hahahah sure do love ya'll and it was great to talk the other day!!!

love love love

elder stimpson

Pictures: the first is me in some stuff that i got last pday.... we had some fun at a store. it was a blast. def way too much fun hahaha

second picture is andy and godwin. these really cool guys from nigeria that we were teaching. i learned a ton from them. just the most humble, coolest people. sad to leave them but brno is going to be a whole new world (disney aladin music begin haha)

third is us at the building being taught how to make svickova by sister renata hahahah it was a blast. and no doubt we're gonna try it out. i'm sending the recipe home... sorry it's in czech :/ yay google translate! haha

May 7 Letter

Dear family:

more pictures from hukvaldy.  it was the most nuts trip ever!!!!!! i can't tell everything because there just isn't enough time. but just know when you keep all the rules and still wanna have fun. then the lord wants you to have fun too! haha we got everything to be done on pday done. had some free time (not very much) but boy oh boy did we have a good time! it was wild. did we literally fly down a mountain to catch a bus... maybe. did we also jump a huge fence cause the stop was on the other side.... it was safe. i mean we're missionaries. the Lord is looking out for us :) i don't know that i've ever run down a mountain so fast in my life. sub 10 min from the tippy top of a castle to the bottom of the monster of a hill it was one.... i don't know how it happened. but the good news is that we made it back in time for FHE with the michalskovi! haha so it was a beautiful day.

the other is after english. adam had a big english test this week so we taught him about the priesthood, then helped him with english! hahah it was great and really reminded me of IB french. (the essay questions were about the same! eerily similar. and my mind started going back to the old ways of analyzing test questions. hahahah goodness me.)

Firstly i read Doc and Cov 27;2 and thought of bigfork ward and animal crackers... :) i smiled about that one.

next big news. abba is coming to ostrava! good news is we have district meeting and are teaching english so the schedule is already full. haha otherwise a load of people at that concert would get contact cards! hahaha

thanks ooooodles for the masters cards! and for the shirt from fenway! and for the magazine! you are way too good to me momma!

in other news i learned that the old dr. faust story is czech (the crazy guy that sells his soul to the devil? or did i get the name wrong. i don't even know anymore.)! i couldn't remember very much of what it was about but goodness did it take me back to ib english! haha it was a hoot.

anywho's time to go but i sure do love ya'll tons!!!

transfers are coming up so next email will be on wednesday.

(is time going by as fast for ya'll as it is for me?!??!?!?) goodness me!!!

love

dean

D&C 27:2  “For, behold, I say unto you that it mattereth not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink when ye partake of the sacrament, if it so be that ye do it with an eye single to my glory – remembering unto the Father my body which was laid down for you, and my blood which was shed for the remission of your sins.One week, there was no bread for the sacrament, so the choice was: bless and pass the animal crackers always found in the nursery or run down to the grocery store and buy bread. They did the latter (the "ox was in the mire").

Pictures in April

presentation at the college at Ostrava

the dish i had at this veggie restaraunt... it's all metal. cups. plates. fork/knife/spoon. based on that you'd think you were in a prison or something... some kind of super healthy, low security prison with wild indian music playing in the background with steel string guitar or something of the sort. the upside is it is all you can eat. so you just tell them you liked it and they give you more! only problem is the lady there working speaks so stinking fast that the first time we went there we didn't understand it hahaha

preparation for the presentation with a load of ways for people to learn about the restored gospel!

american oreo vs european oreo. yeah supersize me hahaha

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