Week 17

It's Christmas everyone! Can you believe it?! Back to being the new guy this week but I love the people here. The branch is pretty small here and church is only 2 hours. But one of the members brings lunch for after becuase he doesn't want to eat alone.haha! He's a pretty good cook too. Anyways, I've been getting aquanted with ceske budejovice and loving my new companion. We are embracing the czech culture this christmas. We don't have any members houses to go to on christmas day, so we are taking matters into our own hands. Today we are buying a carp, We've already bought a kiddy pool. On christmas we are going to kill it and gut and everything. We named her Jezebel. Tomorrow we will be in prague all day so hopefully she doesn't die on us. We are going to do some other stuff like the golden pig and cutting apples.. we are pretty excited about it. This week was pretty normal. Our service the elders found is pretty cool. It's sort of like a sweatshop and we take apart computers. They just showed us how to do everything this week and after christmas we will get to work. And they all brought in cukrovi which is SO good. They are just a bunch of different kinds of little cookies.. and a czech woman's worth sort of depends on how good her cukrovi is so they are pretty incredible. Its pretty sad all the czech mothers hate christmas because they just spend days in the kitchen. Literally DAYS.

Merry christmas family! love you tons and see you in 3 days by the means of skype!

Ahojčka!

Sestra Holland

Holly's lovely District

Week 16

Hey everyone! No time this week but I got this boot this transfer. I'm in české budejovicé (not even sure how to spell it yet). Haven't seen much of it yet.. just got here this afternoon. We had an AWESOME culture night in Pardubice as a district. Man i loved my district. It was a childrens concert and when we got there they told us it was for families only but they let us stand in the back and it was AWESOME. so czech.. it ended with everyone cheering for hell and all of us missionaries just looked at each other and kind of shrugged and started clapping along. Sister frampton left saying "so typical.. the czech people just feel so comfortable there." I love that woman. Miss her already. I sure will miss my birthplace.. good ol pardubice.

Love you family! Can't wait to talk on Christmas!

Sestra Holland

Week 15

Hey Everybody! It's been a pretty good week. Everything here is getting christmasafied. We got to be super careful because the cobblestones just get completely iced over and it is super slippery. We usually are walking with an old lady on our backs (not literally but almost) We did quite a bit of tracting this week which was a good experience. We took the bus out of the city part of pardubice to the homes with lots of families. Hopefully those appointments go well this week. There are a lot less crazies over there. One of the elders in our mission made these awesome christmas contacting cards and people are really digging those. It's getting sufficiently cold but boy is it beautiful. A lot of the people we visit are getting sick and go to "spas".. its so strange they have like this whole town in czech republic where people go when they are sick. they just leave their families for a couple weeks and stay in this spa town where they get paid to do nothing. And the worst part is we can't contact them because they drop off the face of the planet. I don't understand it. But ya, it's really pretty here. The christmas markets are up in the náměstí. OH and this week was saint nicholas day or something like that. saint nicholas (not the santa we know) and the devil and an angel come to kids doors. if they were good they get a present if they are bad they get coal. We saw people dressed up everywhere that night it was fun. This is our last week before next transfer. Man how fast time flies. Sister framp and i don't want to part but we will see what happens. Pardubice is my birthplace and man do i love it. We will see what happens and next week we can figure out christmas call and everything. Enjoy the christmas season everyone! And remember what its all about. Love you. Stay classy

Sestra Holland

Week 14

Hope Thanksgiving was awesome. I'm sure thankful for all of you! Missed you all. Thanksgiving was surprisingly American here in Czech Republic. First we did service and built some furniture for a childrens shelter kind of thing. We had 2 thanksgiving meals. First with our district at the senior couples house, and then at a less active members house from kentucky. His wife is czech so they have lived here for like 5 years. I think he was just happy to speak to someone English.I don't know how he stays sane. It was fun. We played the "Because of Him" video, but in czech it's diki němu so more like "thanks to him" so it was perfect for thanksgiving. We are teaching Ceneks friend Teresa. She is so cute and SO SMART. She is way insightful and just sort of gets it already. We are getting excited for her. We went to prague twice this week, once for training and once to listen to an area 70 speak to us. He's from Germany and he gave a bomb talk. After zone conference I got a flu shot at the canadian medical center so dont worry.. im not getting sick again! I don't know if I told you yet but ive been sick like 3 times since entering this darn country. its just too stinking cold. After training we went on splits with Sister Shun and Sister Birkeland. Sister Birkeland was from my mtc group and Sister Shun is in her last transfer. I got to go contacting with her and she taught me a lot. It was good. At lunch that day one of the elders dared me to tell the waitor i was visiting from america and to ask if i could take the cup home with me as a souvenir.. I got it! boom. We are teaching a french dude who is SO FRENCH. He sort of looks Roger and speaks with a heavy french accent. When he reads out of the livre de mormon or however you say it he sort of yells really loud and we just love him. I just also have to try really hard not to laugh when we teach him. Lukaš is still awesome. Ah man i just love these people. Theyre all crazy. 

Love you all. Missed you this week. 

Love Sestra Holland

xmas tree is going up in our naměstí!

christmas tree: vanocní stromeček

Week 13

I got to play soccer this week!! It felt like the best day of my life. We played with the young men and it was so great. it was just kind of surreal because i havent played soccer in a really long time. We got a new investigator this week. She's a referal from cenek, our rockstar recent convert. She is so cute i just love her. We had a singing display with only 4 people this week which means 2 singers and i was one of them. Ive never really like to sing but im getting over it. Kreepy old man jiri gave me a pernik that said princess on it.. then in his broken english said "you are my princess". sister framp and i chucked it out the window. its ok pernik is gross. We went to prague again this week for sister framps visa. Loxman the indian guy i contacted on like my first day here is totally progressing its awesome! We went trakting this week and its my new favorite thing to do. Its like trick or treating but people just yell at you instead of giving you candy. everyone has a zvonek so we just ring it and they stick their head out the window and talk to us. if they don't answer we just talk to their dogs who come bark at the gate. we even vykat them. its a good time. sister framp and i have a little too much fun i think. 

Have an amazing thanksgiving everyone. love you

sestra holland

Week 12

Hi all. There was a holiday this week so things were crazy. Either there were tons of people on the street or NULA. like a baren wasteland. Pardubice is still awesome. Not a lot of people were interested with what we had to say this week. Oh but our chocolate family is amazing! They are the cutest little family. Their son who is 7 shows me all his planes in mindcraft.. which is ENGLISH so i can tell him what they are. I love talking to kids. they use little words. Our favorite investigator Lukaš is thinking of moving so we are pretty bumbed. Cenek is still amazing. The HK elders try to steal him for their lessons. Sister Framp says "get your own recent convert!" Last night we were contacting with cenek and there was no one outside so we did a singing display to the birds. Not just birds, giant peacocks that were sleeping in a tree. We just sang 1 song for kicks and giggles but it was pretty funny. also we taught a girl we contacted and found out half way through the lesson she was a member. we were like what the hecks lady? your a member? she came to church this week too! 

Have a great week everyone!

Sestra Holland

Week 11

Hi family. This weeks going to be short again. Really cool story this week. We were contacting and walked past a store and a big man walks out. He first makes fun of our czech.. mostly mine.. then asks us what we want. We asked him if he'd like to meet on another day to talk about Jesus Christ. He was like right here right now lets do this thing. so we go in the store and turns out it was his wifes chocolate store. there little 6 year old son is sitting on the couch playing gameboy. So we sit and the dad and son have to leave becuase they lost their keys but we talked to the mom for quite a bit and the gospel is something she is really looking for in her life and in her family's. This week we are going to her house to have a lesson with her family. They are a fun group. Cool thing is we had been writing chocolate lady on our list of referals for like 2 weeks now but never knew who the "chocolate lady" was.. turns out it was her! And there family is super cool. We are really excited. Also our goal this week was to find a family. RODINY! 

Funny story.. to show you how crazy we've gone. Saturday night we were looking for cinnoman kofola (the czech "coke" during communism.. its darn good) Anyways we can never find it and at tescos we saw there was none.. then we saw the tag for it on the shelf.. then we decided to let sestra f give me a lift and there was ONE LEFT behind all the other kofolas which are a lot of kofolas. we started jumping and shouting.. it was a spectacle nonetheless. There was one man on the aisle who started laughing at us so we went and told him we were sorry but pointed at the cinnoman kofola with crazy happy faces. It was really good too. 

Love you all. It was fun to hear about the half marathon. Way to go!

Sestra Holland

Week 10

Hey everyone your talking to an official citizen of Pardubice.. we got bus passes! That was pretty exciting. Hope everyones doing well. sounds like the halloween party was a success. dobra praca rachael and aaron. 

only been a few days since i last emailed but monday is our real pday. it should start getting more regular from now on. First off.. Slavek.. We started teaching him my my first couple days here. He wants to get baptized. BOOM. Not really sure about him yet because hes a little out there but we just got to keep preparing him. A few lessons ago he started asking us questions with a vocabulary I am not the slightest bit familiar with, but I kept hearing the word "revolver" in between words like kill and die. I started to sweat in my chair a little coming up with a plan to disarm him and put him in a headlock or whatever. I asked sister frampton about it after and it was all hypothetical. no worries family. He also is sort of in love with my companion. we had cenek explain to him about us being missionaries and everything. what would we do without cenek. 

We had 3 investigators come to church with us this sunday! slavek jonht and jiri. And then cenek and pavel to of the members ride the train with us so sestra frampton and i had our little possy on the train. Jiri is also awesome. he sort looks sketchy because he wears sunglasses all the time and never stops talking about conspiracy stuff. In our first lesson I asked him to read a scripture, little did i know he wears glasses because he's mostly blind! So yes I asked a blind man to read. We had a nice chat on the way to church so I think he has forgiven me for making him read with half an eye. I love how people here when you ask how they are doing a lot of them will say AWFUL. so straightforward. so jiri always says he's spatny and we always ask if we can do anything for him. But on the way to church yesterday i finally just straight up asked him .. jiri, why are you always so spatny. basically the "judges" are taking away his business/house/money which sort of explains it. also proves his sketchyness. he's awesome

theres this one guy lukas who we have been teaching and he is an english teacher. he is THE most fickle person I have ever met in my life. Its hilarious when he takes us to eat dinner we go to like 10 restuarants before he can decide. gotta love him still. even though he frustrates the heck out of me he's pretty hilarious. Last week though! it was so exciting we didn't even need to ask him about the book of mormon he just whipped it out and got really excited about it. its awesome when people finally start reading the book of mormon. you can tell so easily when they do its like night and day.

we went contacting on saturday and pardubice was literally dead. we couldnt figure out where everyone goes on saturdays. No one is home. No one is walking around and all the stores are closed. we basically just talked to drunk people laying on the street. 

JONHT. he's a homeless romanian gypsy dude. we cant understand a word from each other so usually we just let him read the romanian book of mormon aloud and we follow along in ours. on sundays he comes with us to church and then skypes with the romanian elders at the bells house after. always always it ends in jonht storming out yelling at us in romanian becuase he wants us to buy him a ticket back to romania/get him a job. crazy dude. sister frampton gets MAD at jonht its kind of fun to watch. 

i made grandma hollands cookies and brought them to members houses. they were ok but not great. our oven doesnt have temperature and they dont have real vanilla or brown sugar here so they were a little funky but not too bad. i had kofola, kenedliky, svickova all the good stuff this week. yum. i actually had my fist svickova like 30 minutes ago.. i ate the whole thing and seriously impressed a lot of people. 

not much else has happened. oh ya an old lady spiked our drinks yesterday and beardy old ladies keep trying to kiss me on the lips. so far no one has got me. booya.

Love you. miss you. stay awesome

sestra holland

It's getting cold!

Week 9

FAMILY. sorry it has been so long. On our pday we went to Brno for training. Sounds like you've heard, I am in Pardubice! I love it here. The people are amazing and yes they are known for their gingerbread. its funny most the emails i got today said something about gingerbread. its pretty good, not amazing. Sestra Frampton and I went into a little gingerbread store and the old lady who worked their defied all the rules of being an old lady working in a gingerbread store. She was not nice.

So some crazy stuff went down since my last email so I will fill in. Our visas didn't get here, I got reassigned to Independence Missouri, our visas came, our flight got cancelled, we spent the day in the airport, we got a flight, and made it to Prague pretty late. Man were we tired but we made it and its a miracle!

That first night in Prague we went to McDonalds and President McConkie gave us each some money to go buy some dinner. He told us what to say and everything and I so i went up and asked for a "number 4" which were the chicken nuggs, but i guess they don't say that here. so they just gave me 4 cheeseburgers it was pretty funny. i guess the word for number sounds like cheeseburger.. we all had a good laugh about it.

My companions name is sister Frampton. She is awesome. i seriously respect trainers.. its got to be hard to put up with us greenies. We are having a good time here in Pardubice. We are the only missionaries here- the rest of district is in Hradec Králové where we take the train to go to church everysunday. Love my district.We went to Brno together and played czech Bang! One of the elders looks and acts just like alex its crazy. I played hockey with his older brother Tim at BYU last year too. The senior couple in our district are the Bells. They are the best. We had lunch with them on Sunday after church. love them 

So, pardubice. Loving it. The people here are amazing. čeněk is our favorite. He got baptized 2 weeks ago so before I got here. Probably the most solid member I've ever met. He comes to English, family history everything. If all else fails čeněk is there. He's awesome. He's trying to get ready to go on a mission so we have him teach us a lot of the lessons to practice. Sestra Kunčikova is a member here. She reminds me of Grandma Holland. She sent us away with half her pantry and a quarter of her fridge. It was awesome. Sestra Knižková is another lady I met this week. We drove out with Bells becuase she lives out of the city. She's not super active right now but just the sweetest lady. Simona and Jarda, that was a funny experience. They live in a serious dump.. my companion didn't even prepare me for what I was about to see. They closed all there doors to their kitchen and basically hotboxed us for a good 45 minutes. My lungs were about to collapse. The funniest part was when she gave us tea, i was going to follow my companions lead- so i watched her carefully to see if she would drink it.. they don't have running water in their house so i wasn't sure if it was in the clear to drink. so she doesn't touch her tea the whole lesson and right before we are about to say the prayer and leave I look over and she had just chugged it down. I said a little prayer and chugged that nasty liquid best i could. Definitely wasn't tea. we have another lesson with them tomorrow i'm looking forward too. Another funny story this week when contacting we told a man we were missionaries for the church of jesus christ. He said "I am a missionary too, but for satan." we tried to be serious at the time but we were laughing pretty hard after.

Love this country. It's awesome.

That's I'll I've got today. Just know I'm doing well. Happy as a clam.

Happy Birthday Rachael!! Have a good one!

Love,

Sestra Holland

train to brno

lunch at the bells

when sister holland gets a hold of dinner.. i ate the whole block of cheese in one night.. SO GOOD

MTC Week 8

We are breaking out of this place! Monday is the day. We got our flight plans on Saturday and boy was that a good day. We fly to Fort worth Texas, then London Heathrow then Prague. We got a letter from our mission telling us what will happen when we get there. When we land we go on our "Prague Walk" and the mission president talks about some important church history in the Czech Republic. Then we go eat some dinner and stay the night there. The next day we go do a few things for our visas, meet our companions and we are off. Pretty great. 

This week we had General Conference. That was the stuff. Most relaxing weekend i've had in a while too. we just got to watch awesome talks all day. If any of you went to/saw the Priesthood session my starší made the big screen like 5 times! basically all the faces you saw were my zone. All the sisters went to watch it in our room and we were all getting excited when we say the elders in our zone get camera time. 

Hope your General Conference trip went well mom and dad. That's gotta be a lot of work luggin all those kids around Utah. I remember when I did that though and won't forget it. It's a good experience. I heard conbon was waiting for me at the gate. So close yet so far.. I had my eye out for all of you. I was running around the field Friday evening for gym time looking in all the cars that passed by. I'll be calling though this Monday morning from the airport! can't wait to talk to all of you.

Sunday night after devotional Vai Sikahema from the Greenbay Packers came and spoke to us at a devotional. Now he's an anchorman on some sports news channel. He is hilarious and gave us some good advice. We also got to host yesterday .. finally! its when you pick up the new missionaries at the curb and take them to their residence and classroom. our whole zone did it except for us like the 2nd week here and we recently found out we were supposed to too but they forgot to put the notice in our mailbox. so we marched in there and told them "we are hosting!" took a few times doing that before they let us and it wasn't that great anyways. I didn't get to pick up from the curb because i was selected to direct a foreign missionary who doesn't speak our language. the honor. It was hilarious. She was from Africa and super spunky. When we walked all around campus getting her books and getting her set up she kept walking into me. Literally leaning on me. So i would give myself some space and then she would walk right next to me again and the process continued. vtip. when i left her (after not even an hour) i swear she was about to cry. Sweetest girl. she told me about Mozambic (..sp?) with the english she had. She was like deer in the headlights poor girl. I thought my life changed when I came to the MTC but serious props to sestra johanna. she might be my new favorite person. 

Then last night they sent a letter to Sister Fredrickson and I asking us to begin teaching an investigator for the new missionaries. Remember my first email when I told you about Junichi and how a hundred or so of us missionaries had a lesson in the auditorium. Well they have two missionaries come get to know them first and then they turn it over to the auditorium and sister fred and i got to do it! They got us all mic'd up and it was pretty fun. Going to miss sestra Fred. Some good times we've had. 

Well things are wrapping up here and it's going to be a little adventure coming soon. Not sure if my czech is quite worthy but ready or not here I come. 

Love,

Sestra Holland

MTC Week 7

Hi everybody! 

This week was a little overwhelming but good. My district is starting to get nervous. 11 days until we leave for the Czech Republic. This language, man. I don't think we will ever be ready in the MTC. We just have to get there and start using it. Most of us feel like we are "plateauing" a little bit so Bratr Mullen made us all sign a český kompact in which we promise to "adhere to the principles of SYL (speak your language) like we never have before, both in and out of class.. I hereby pledge to do so by signature.." and then we all signed it with fancy signatures it was pretty funny. 

We got a new teacher this week. SESTRA Donaldson! She is so cute and an awesome učitela. She told us about the 8 cities they send the sisters to. 

Praha

česke budějovice

plzen

ostrava

mlada boleslav (which is only sister missionaries)

vhereske hradiště 

brno 

and hradec kralove

She is super tall and cute and we just love her. 

We started teaching our new "investigator" Aleš (Bratr Knapp) and the lesson is right after Martin's so it didn't go to well. it's been a long time since we started from square one so it was good practice. all because honza left us. Bratr thompson is officially gone (tear). I know I talked about him leaving last Thursday but that night after our little toast with mountain dew he gave a cool analogy about "getting out of the river" when we are on our mission - the river being our normal lives. And if we try to stand outside of the river with one foot in it we are going to fall in and not take full advantage of this time to be out of the "river". missing those wise words of bratr thompson

We got another half our zone this week to replace the Croatians, Slovenians, Bosnian and all them. They are a good group. We got to skype someone from Czech Republic! Her name is Alex and she is living in Praha. ALEX she is from Russia! When we asked her to read a scripture she read it in russian and it is pretty darn close. Alex and I are going to have a secret language when we get home. Watch out. 

We get our flight plans in 2 days!!! Just praying I got my visa. 

OH. and madison young if you are reading this you dropped a bomb with no return address! Email it to me! 

Love you all and miss you

Sestra Holland

MTC Week 6

Dobrý tiden. I am officially sick free. ALE ja byla nemoc. I was smrt in bed for a good 2 days and now im back on my feet and so thankful for class time. In a way it was a blessing. pretty sure i overdosed on nyquil one night and my body just went numb and I thought if I don't wake up in the morning.. Goodbye world. This week můj společnici and I focused on grammar and it's actually pretty fun. It's like a big puzzle. 

Last sunday we got to go to a broadcast of the Ogden Utah temple rededication. David A. Bednar and the President spoke there. And then on Tuesday ANOTHER apostle came to speak. That never happens. We are convinced we are in the MTC at the best time frame anyone has ever been here. Only sad thing is our choir DID get picked for general conference in two weeks, but only the elders. Sorry pops. I was praying for a miracle. They always do that because the sisters don't sound very good. Our voices haven't dropped yet. The choir director keeps telling us we sound like 13 year old girls. M Russel Ballard was who came on Tuesday and he gave a great talk. As starsi needham says, so many golden nuggets! (yes alex.. svetr vest elder) Our district is getting pretty close. It's going to be hard going our separate ways. This morning we woke up at 5:30 just to play basketball together. Anyone who knows me knows that is not easy! Every minute of sleep is precious. 

Shout out to my dog Molly, this week I found her hair on one of my shirts I forgot I had in my suitcase and got really excited. I taped it it my journal heh. Miss that animal.

My favorite teacher Bratr Thompson is leaving TONIGHT. We bought him a bunch of non caffeineted mountain dew because thats all they have here and he likes mountain dew. Man brother thompson.. he has taught me so much. A lot of the MTC is just one big sugar coated idea of what missionary work is like and I hate that. Bratr Thompson seriously just says it like it is. He caught our plague and that was the last straw for His wife I guess. heh.  He works himself to the ground. so hes leaving us. Our "investigator" Honza is actually Bratr Thompson and last night was his very last lesson as an "investigator" in the MTC. He's been working here for a few years now. Sister Fredrickson and I got to give the last lesson and at the end we bore our testimonies. Bratr thompson said já jsem smutný. we said proč? and he said this is my last lesson. 2nd tear in the mtc goes to bratr thomspon. We are going to miss that man. 

I've said this before and I'll say it again, the MTC rocks. I've never learned so much in my life. I'll admit though, I'm about ready to get out of here. I found this one little picture in our room that I keep with me, taken in czech republic. There is the beautiful city in the background, the Charles bridge, and on the river there is a little old man on a boat. I keep telling my district I just want to be on the boat with that little old man tellin him about jesus. I can't tell you how ŠT'ASTNÝ i am to be going to the czech republic and sharing the good news. From what I've heard about the people they are inspirational. I am the luckiest missionary there ever was. 

Love you family. You are awesome.

Sestra Holland

If you haven't seen this watch it! 

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=1839005837001

Holly's Zone

Holly's favorite Elders~The Croatians

MTC Week 5

Hello family, 

Pretty normal week we are into the swing of things. Studying and teaching. On Friday we had our official one month MTC anniversary so one of our starší's moms sent us muffins and we had a little party. An apostle came to devotional on Tuesdaynight! Richard G. Scott. He is awesome. First thing he said when he got up to talk was "Before I say anything else, I want to say this. Have a blast!" He talked about prayer, how we receive answers to prayers, and how a mission is an important foundation for our lives. It was really such a treat. One of our teachers bailed on us this week so we got to hang out with Bratr Bell, the Croatian teacher. This week I'm going to hammer down on the grammar and hopefully it will do me some good. Got hit by an MTC plague last night. Some powerful viruses brewing up in here. Bratr Thompson my favorite is leaving us for good in about a week and a half because its too much for him. He's got school and another job on top of teaching us. It's going to be sad when he leaves. I don't really have a lot to say this week, sorry. But the MTC is great. We all feel old here now because we've been here longer than most. Oh and found out this week our mission is a 19 month mission not an 18 month.. Sorry mom.

Hodně láska,

Sestra Hollandska

Ahoj

Hello Family! 

Another week. 

First of all we found the cream soda tree! There is a tree on MTC campus that smells like cream soda and we found it. Second, I have officially spread dobby knuckles to most of the MTC - just for my friends Connor and Jackson. Seriously I got everyone doing the dobbys. Its a hit. Started TRC this week which is when return missionaries come in and you teach them a lesson as if they were members from your country. You just go ask them how they are doing and share a little thought with them but its awful because the teachers try to help you understand but at TRC they just try to rub in your face you know nothing. It's sort of a slap in behind but its good for us. We have another one tonight so wish us luck. Sister Clark (not my companion but 1 of the 4 czech sisters) and are like the same person and this week we discovered we both know pretty much every line/song from spongebob. We quote it all day in czechlish (czech and english). We have also started juggling every gym time so we have 40 days now to get to 100 juggles in a row. Let's see what else. WE STARTED CASES! Holy cow, now that I've been here for 3 weeks I can tell you a little bit about the language. So the alphabet is the same but most of the letters make different sounds so we learned most of it over again, so if anyone asks us how to pronounce something in english its wrong because we have erased the English alphabet from our brains. Czechs basically talk like caveman.. so if we do speak english we try to speak caveman. For example instead of I am going to go get lunch they say I get lunch. Cases are kind of like conjugating nouns and adjectives that completely change the context of the sentence. Pretty legit stuff. In a way it makes more sense but everything we've learned so far just changed because of it. We knew it was coming because we kept asking the teacher why do the words keep changing on us?! and they kept saying později, později (later). Then about 2 days ago bratr knapp just walked in, taught us the 1st four cases and left. We sat there quiet for a second and then i said "bratr knapp just crapped on our heads and left". then we just stared at the wall of cases for a solid hour saying nothing. like all things it will come with time. Elder Needham actually wrote on the board "and these were the last words he wrote" and pretended he left the MTC the next day. In other news I've reverted to doing TALL standing up because my my butts about to concave. we play soccer in the hallways during přestávka and its been better since we started doing that. After breaks bratr mullen walks out and herds us in saying "Jsem dobrý pastýř".. i am a good shepherd.. ?  I made my language goal: 1000 words by new years and finish the grammar book by October. DO WORK. Probably best moment of the week my companion and I went outside for companionship study to get some fresh air and this little bird came write up in front of us and started eating cheetohs that had fallen on the ground. HE HAD A CHEETOH MUSTACHE. hahaha. We made a friend here who is serving a mission at the MTC and is from czech republic! He is the nicest guy. Has some disabilities and is a total champ. We sit with him a lunch and try to speak czech. His name is Elder žhaourek and he became a convert at age 20 and now is serving a mission at 25. He tells us all about the czech people and culture. He gets us pumped to get out of here... which is sometimes hard because we are here for 6 more weeks. Anyways times up. Sending my love to Nicaragua, Russia, Europe and California. I guess its true when they say peoples lives dont pause when you go on a mission. More true for my family than others but thats why i love ya. 

Sestra Holland

Week 2

Drahy Rodina,

I don't even know what to talk about this week but I'll start by telling you that the MTC is pretty cool. This week was a blur of learning and laughing. I don't think I've laughed this hard. Im losing my marbles. One funny thing that happened is my district made a goal to learn how to pray in czech by Thursday and every night we say a prayer together. Elder Needham who is hilarious (like an 80 year old man trapped inside a skinny little teenage boy named sylvan eugine) started to pray in czech and after he says nas drahy nebesky otce,which means dear heavenly father,my lovely companion yells ITS THURSDAY. bratr thompson just looked at her with the why would you say that look and we struggled finishing the prayer that evening. I know all my stories sound really dumb and not funny at all but to us they are priceless. This week we got a new fake investigator who is just bratr thomspon pretending to be"Honza" so its not as fun but it is fine.

On Sunday we had a meeting with the McConkies who were the Mission Presidents in the San Jose, California Mission.. HOME! They talked about this really cool missionary who went and found his uncle in aptos and helped him turn his life around it was pretty cool. It was fun hearing about California I miss it already. Also the mission president in Prague is named McConkie so thats kind of fun. 

Today I was missing Connor so I wore my tie die santa cruz shirt and pineapple grandma shorts he gave me .. been gettin some weird looks but i don't care. Alex has been in a russian hospital for quite awhile so cross your fingers he gets out of that one soon. Sorry bratr. Rachaels married i keep forgetting. Mom and dad seem to be doing well.. jujubatis is training for a half marathon you go girl. And Paj is doing what Paj does. 

Enjoying my time hear but sometimes I miss you all so much I just want to cry. Thanks family for being so awesome. I got pretty lucky. 

OH and the teacher I met in our ward earlier came this week! That guy knows how to teach. He's not as fun as bratr thompson and bratr knap but he is solid in his czech and knows his stuff. he's married and back so now he can help us learn this darn language.

Love you all, 

Thanks for reading this disorganized madness

Sestra holland

Week 1....Success

So I have completed my first week at the MTC and it has gone by so fast. I feel like I got here yesterday. We are learning away in our itty bitty classroom. Most of the time we don't have a teacher which is quite the bummer. We can hear all the classes having their lessons but the other night we had 2 teachers in one class session! SOMEONE CARES about us czechs! One of the teachers quit because she is majoring in neuroscience and the other one is gone because he got married last week... lame excuses right? We've been getting along fine by ourselves. We've already finished teaching Andrea who we love to death. She is the cutest little czech and weve given her lessons everyday since yesterday. we were sad to part. she has seen us at our worst. Crazy to think its we've been here for a week and we've already given 5 lessons in czech. they really just throw you in here. It's like being sprayed with a fire hose.. we get some water but it mostly just hurts our face. Sometimes we get tough on ourselves because of the language and then we realize, hey, we've only been here for 5 days! 

Was happy to discover it takes zero talent to be in the choir. Usually I really dislike singing but choir is fun. We sing at devotionals.

Our zone consists of missionaries going to Turkey, Bulgaria, Czechs, Slovaks, (which ive discovered is kind of like 2 missions.. czech republic and slovakia), poland, slovania, and a few more. It is fun because all of these languages besides turkish and bulgarian are really similar and so everyone can sort of understand each other. Except for us because we just got here. My companion still rocks. we are really similar so we get along just fine. In our residence we have 4 girls and the other companionship is also going to czech so we've all gotten really close. (birkland and clark) The elders in our district are like our little brothers (the 18 year olds seem so little!) One of the elders, starsi needham does this little dance he calls the "Jesus Jigg" and i am going to try and send you a video. It is too funny. 

We work so hard that we are going crazy. The one teacher we have ROCKS. He rides harley davidsons and is so so funny. Anyways the other day he was on the computer and had the most high pitched hiccup sister clark and i had ever heard and we were laughing so hard I almost got sick. We were crying and everything. It's weird what makes you laugh in the MTC. Sleep deprivation and sitting all day will do that. Although the sleep hasn't really been a problem for me. I thought it would because I was AWFUL at seminary but its not. Sitting all day is hard for me so when we go run for our 45 minutes my companion and I sprint the whole time and the combination of altitude, sitting all day, and heat give me the fattest kankles. It only lasts for an hour or so. Eating only 3 meals a day is also very difficult for sestra holland so i wouldn't be opposed to some food mail. wouldnt be opposed at all 

Yesterday my friend Elli Kenney (now sister kennedy) came to the MTC and we had a lasting embrace. so good to see a familiar face. 

Sundays and Pdays are the best becuase they give you a T.O. All the missionaries say Sunday is good for the Spirit, Pday is good for the soul. Gym time is a good break too. 4-square is super competitive here its kind of scary. AND GIRLS CANT PLAY SOCCER!! technically the rule is girls and boys cant play soccer together and there are no girls here who want to play so sorry alex I cannot defend the soccer championship legacy. 

Just so you know, when I get a dear elder or letter or package it makes my day so thank you thank you everyone who sent me love. 

All my love

Sestra Holland

I'm Alive

AHOY FAMILY.

I have entered the beast. We only have about 5 minutes to let you know we are alive and well. My p-day is next Thursday so I will get to write you then, but for now just now I am doing well! Everything is new and exciting and I am learning so much. My companion is Sister Frederickson and she is awesome possum. We are like the dream team. There are 4 sisters and 3 elders learning czech and they've already got us started. Tomorrow we give our first lesson in czech! :-0 Wish me luck. We have done group lessons where our whole multiple zones ask questions and try to teach on microphones... it was horrendous.. I was embarrassed for us. We made one girl cry her name was Lowanda and she was a sassy black girl. not sure if they are real investigator or not so we may have just ruined someones life. In one of them some elder stood up to make a tearful speech about eternal families and the investigator (asian foo man choo i call him) walked right up to me and said "what about divorce?" I said.. "its eternal if you want it to be!" hahaha ive got a lot of work to do.  We all have a lot to learn before they ship us off but luckily I've got quite a bit of time to study up. Im sure it will fly by. This morning we woke up and did yoga at 5:45.. Utah time. they are not telling us to stop typing so im going to keep going. Anyhoo got to go - Connor good luck with your first day of High School on Monday. Don't break too many girls hearts this year. Love you all so much and miss you lots. 

Sestra Holland