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