First Full Week in Trebic

Dobre Den!!!! 

Wow, so this week has been crazy! My brain hurts from trying to translate stuff all day.My companion told me that I talk in my sleep in Czech, so I'm literally practicing 24 hours a day. She said I had a pretty solid contact attempt in my sleep. I think it is hilarious! 

Monday we went to jihlava to try to get flu shots for the missionaries in our district. We took forever to find the place and when we did it was closed ... oops. We also visited a cool Cathedral and I bought a winter coat. 

Tuesday we contacted people in the snow for most of the day. We had a lesson with a man named Martin, he has been a member for about a year, but is really struggling right now. Afterwards, we taught an English class. That was super fun because I could actually understand what was going on. :) The milk here is strange. It is in a box and they don't refridgerate it. I found out that they heat it up to like 200 degrees C. to kill all the alive things in it. It is super strange. It tastes different too. The milk lasts a long time though. 

Wednesday we took a bus to jihlava and did some group finding. Basically we sang hymns in the street while other missionaries contacted. It was super awkward and we had a lot of people tell us to stop, but we just kept singing! When it was my turn to contact people by myself, I got into a really good conversation with this lady about the book of mormon. I testified about it and had her read Moroni 10:4-5. She then shared a scripture with me out of the bible. I had no idea what it said. Then I gave her our number, and she pulled out a Jehova's Witness card. So that was awkward! haha I contacted a JW. OOPS! oh well. Then we came home and taught English to our 2 little neighbor boys. 

Thursday was thanksgiving and we had Zone Conference. We traveled there on a train. I said the opening prayer in czech which was super scary to do in front of everyone. It was ok though, becuase they have all been in my place.  I was able to listen to it in English because they gave me a translator, so that was nice. We also had a nice thanksgiving meal with our zone. There are probably about 30 misisonaries in our zone. There are about 70 missionaries overall in this mission. Then we went back to Trebič and we had another little district meeting. We had a devotional and watched a movie about Joseph Smith. That was my thanksgiving. 

Friday we contacted a lot of people. We are trying to be more specific, so we wanted to find a 17 year old girl. Heavenly Father put a lot of them in our path and it was fun to talk to them. I don't know if anything will come out of it, but planting seeds anyways. 

Saturday we pulled adresses from the area book and tracted them. We got soaking wet, it wasn't raining, but we were literally walking through a cloud. The humidity was crazy. There was one man that told us that we could come back becuase he had visitors over at the moment. One is better than none!  Then we did weekly planning and made it super specific like they asked us to do at Zone Conference. We split our area up into 7 sections and assigned a specific person we wanted to find that day, like a middle aged man for example. Then we figured out how we were going to contact them specifically. We are hoping to see miracles this we because of that. Then we came home and made Czech cookies. The recipie was in grams so we did our best guessing to convert it back into cups. They didn't turn out to bad! haha!

Sunday we went to Jihlava for church. I had to play the piano in Sacrament, give a prayer in Sunday school, and teach a lesson to the primary kids. haha. It was a full day. The branches here are just so small. Like you are lucky if you get 20 people at church. It is way different than in America. Then we went back to Třebič and tracted. We gave one book of mormon away to a lady only becuase she said her friend might be interested. But hey, we got a book of mormon in their house! Then we went to a members house and practiced Christmas songs. We are going to sing them on the naměstí (town square) this christmas, and I think in church too! It is a lot of fun! 

Today we went on a vylet to Telč! It is super pretty. Then the rest of the day we ran errands and finished some shopping things. Tonght we are going to put letters about us in people's mail boxes so we can come back later this week to talk to the people that are prepared to hear the gospel! 

I love you all so much! 

Sestra Guymon

Czech Republic

ajoh!

this keyboard is in czech so this is a struggle. I made it! The jet lag is a struggle. It is all I can do to keep my eyes open sometimes. 

the last two weeks have been crazy. Don was baptized last week and we hopefully had three more baptisms this past saturday with the sander boys.... i have not heard yet.

 the flight was super long. the first day in the Czech republic we took a tour around pragu. The mission president took us out to a fancy restaurant and we had svečkova which is a classic Czech dish that was pretty good. I also tried my first kofola which is like a czech version of coke... it was interesting... had lots of spices in it.  then went to our areas. I am serving in Třebíč with Sister Roberts. She is actually from Heber city too. We knew of each other, but we had never really talked before... so that is super cool. I love her so much! This mission is amazing. I am really impressed with how obedient the missionaries are. 

Thursday we went to the store and the stores here are weird. Europe is so different. The loaves of bread are way different than in America. The food is pretty good. We had a district council in jihlava and stayed there most of the day. 

Friday we contacted a bunch of people. I honestly have no idea what is going on most of the time. I can't understand a whole lot. I say my 2 sentences to approach people and my comp covers the rest. Hopefully the language will come with some time. It is nothing like English. You really have to know words to be able to understand what is going on. 

Saturday we drew a chalk message on the street. It was a struggle with the cobblestones. they are literally everywhere and super hard to walk on... my feet have been pretty sore. We went contacting in like an outdoor mall type think similar to the outlets in park city. We actually had some success. I gave out my first book of mormon. Czechs are so interesting to contact. People say they don't have time and keep walking, or just ignore you. It is unusual for people to just say hi to you on the street while you are walking by, but it is kinda fun because it surprises people. Later that evening we went tracting in ponolocks which is like apartment buildings that people live in during the weekdays then they go to their house in the country during the weekend, so no one is on the streets in the weekend, in fact, they turn off all the crosswalks. In ponolocks you sit and ring doorbells until someone answers and lets you in the door so you can go up and talk to him. Yeah... so we definitely got swore at by some guy. He wasn't to happy with us ringing everyone's doorbells. For dinner, we made another classic Czech dish called halušký. it was pretty good. 

Sunday I met the members. We have one branch here and about 30 people come to church. I had to give a talk and that was super scary. I was super self-conscious of my horrible Czech. The members are sweet though and I felt very welcomed. That night we went to visit a sweet old lady with the President of the branch. She lives off the bare necessities. She doesn't have running water. She uses a pot for a toilet. She doesn't have a fridge and cooks everything on a tiny wood burning stove. We basically had church with her in her house and had sacrament and everything. It was interesting for sure. It started snowing when we got out of her house. Then that evening we all got together with the members and sang czech christmas hymns. We had a little band going and it was pretty fun! 

Also my aunt is awesome and made a blog for me with all my emails if you want to check that out. kylieguymon.blogspot.com 

For letters: 

Církev Ježiše Krista

Sestra Kylie Guymon

Badeního 1

160 00 Prague 6

czech Republic - Europe

For Packages

Církev Ježíše Krista
Jan Pohořelický - 1191

Badeniho 1

160 00 Prague 6

Czech Republic - Europe

Love you all,

Sestra guymon

Coming to the Last Week in Caldwell Idaho

Dobre Den!

I hope everyone had a good week! This week I have been working on following the promptings of the spirit. So, whenever I receive a simple thought, I have done my best to act on it, and it has been incredible. 

Monday we had a big p-day with everyone. We played basketball, volleyball, warewolf, and carved pumpkins. President called me and told me my visa had come and it was so exciting. Then we had dinner with a family who we did service for last week with our district. It was really good. Then we had round two of dinner with Don. He had a really rough day, so we spent the evening cheering him up. 

Tuesday we had another lesson with Don and he bore a powerful testimony to us. He told us how he had come to know that God existed and how he knows God hears and answers his prayers. He had cancer and prayed to God looking for a sign that he wasn't going to hell, not long after that the doctors called and said his cancer was gone. Then within that week, the missionaries found him. He shared that he has smoked for 60 years and has tried to quit in the past, but couldn't do it. However, this time when he tried, he was able to. He said every time he felt tempted, he said a prayer. He is amazing and is so ready to be baptized. We also went to visit Christy. She apologized for not coming to church but, she really wasn't able to make it because her car broke down. She told me she had a friend from the Czech Republic that speaks Czech, and I asked her to give her my number and ask if she would be willing to help me practice.

Wednesday was a super cold day. We contacted a bunch of people and ran into some interesting situations. We tried to help an old lady move, but she wasn't home. Then we went to dinner with the Spanish sisters to a really awesome family. They spoke Spanish the whole time, but it was super fun. I could only understand a little bit of the conversation due to my 2 years in Spanish in high school. We had to be in by 6:00 for Halloween. So I did a lot of language study that night. 

Thursday was a super busy day. We did weekly planning. Then I got to call the Czech lady because Christy got us her number! Her name is Dougmar. Christy told me that she is an alcoholic. It was fun to talk to her though. She told me a lot about the Czech cultures and traditions. She told me to call her back at 3:00, so I did. I she was totally wasted. She couldn't remember a lot of Czech words that I asked her how to say. It was kinda funny though. We had a lesson with the Sander boys which went really well. They ask a lot of great questions. They are on baptismal date for November 17th, which is sad because I will miss them by a week! That evening we had a new convert lesson with Andrew. There are three little boys in that home and they are so full of energy. It is impossible to get them to sit still. 

Friday was busy too. We contacted a lot of people. I called Dougmar and talked to her. She is helping with my Czech a little, but we mostly end up speaking in English because we can't understand each other in Czech. I have a accent that she struggles to understand through the phone. She wanted me to come to Bosie to talk to her, but that is out of our area and mission, so we can't. We went clear out in the farm lands where the houses are spread out to go see if we could find a few people. They ended not being home. I felt super strongly that I should go knock on a door of a blue house. I asked sister Brooks, "Do  you think we should knock that door?" She said, "Well, it sounds like you got a spiritual prompting, so let's go." We knocked it and no one was home. So we wrote a little message on a pass-a-long card to leave in the door. Just then a school bus pulled up and dropped off a girl. She walked up and talked to us. She is a sophomore in High School. Her family is catholic but they haven't been to church in a really long time. It was really cool to talk to her. She was so put together and I was impressed by her.We talked a little about our church and what we believed.  But, if I had not acted on that prompting and knocked on the door at that specific time, I would have missed the opportunity to talk to her. It was a cool experience. Right place, right time, with the right people. That evening we had a lesson with Don and broke the news that we were probably both leaving. Me for sure, but probably Sister Brooks too. He took it pretty well, surprisingly. We talked about his baptism. His daughter has told him he is making a mistake, but he feels good about being baptized. Don is so awesome. 

Saturday we again got in contact with as many people as we could. I talked to Dougmar again.I asked her if I could practice teaching her lessons in Czech from my religion and she said it was ok. But she doesn't know a lot of the church lingo, like she isn't familiar with religion at all, so it is really hard. She doesn't have the same Vocab that I do. She knows good conversational Czech words, I only know gospel related words, so it is really hard. That evening we had a new convert lesson with Justina, we had Colten there too. He is 9 and we are getting him ready to be baptized. They are awesome kids. Then we went and talked to Christy the Russian with the super strong accent. We invited her to church again. Then we stopped by to visit Don and just say hello and check up on him. 

Sunday we had 6 people we are teaching come to church! The three Sander boys, Don, Christy, and Colten. We were so excited that Christy came. She is awesome. It hit Don today that we were leaving, so he was really sad. They announced it in church and I was asked to give the opening prayer. Then that evening, our power was out for some reason, and the power guys were working on it... So we were in the dark for a while. 

That was my week! I hope you all are doing well!

Love,

Sestra Guymon

P.S. I fly out November 13th. I go to the Bosie airport, then I fly to Seattle, then to Amsterdam, then to Prague and I will be there November 14th. 

When we were biking in the farm land there was a pond full of hundreds of Ducks and it made me think of my brothers.