When in Czech : Prekvapani a Sastny Novy Rok

Zdravim Všichni!

I want to start off with how GOOD it was to see my beautiful family on Christmas. That truly was the best gift I received this year, besides being back in Czech of course... ;) But, really though, all of you look SO good, especially Grandma C Dizzle. ha! That hour went too quickly. I am sorry that I didn't get to really answer questions and stuff that much. I really wanted to make it a spiritual experience for all of us and I think that we can all agree that it was. :) I hope you all take to heart that challenge I gave you of buying a clean Book of Mormon and strive to finish it by Easter highlighting all that testifies of Christ. I know that doing it will bless your lives AND the lives of others.

Okay, now that I have missed shoutouts for the last 2 weeks, lets do some of those.

Shoutouts:

Happy birthday to Brenton on the 16th!

Congrats to Alice for completing a million years of schooling! Relish in the paradise of no school for the rest of us. ;)

Angie! Happy 2nd tri-mester of you pregnancy or somewhere close to that! Eeekkkk I can't wait for that baby GIRL to be born. hehe

Mladá Mysteries:

---> Home of the Škoda car factory

---> opravdu a town of stinky smells

---> We live on the first floor with only 5 steps to climb. A lot better then Liberec. ;)

Transfers

Unfortunately, I am no longer in Liberec. :( We got transfer calls Saturday night. We all thought for sure that I would stay with Sister Hale or Stokes, but apparently Heavenly Father has something else in mind for the 3 of us. Sestra Hale headed to Ostrava, Sestra Stokes stayed in Liberec and will be TRAINING! Woot woot. She's going to be the best mom. And I am in Mlada Boleslav with Sestra Boza! She is from Guatemala, 24 years of age, has a career in Engineering emphasis in Food Science, fluent in German, Spanish, English and now Czech. Pretty much she's the coolest. I am looking forward to our transfer together! :) Mlada is about an hour away from Liberec, so the travel wasn't so bad. Thankkkk goodness. I hopped on a bus at about 9:30 and got here by 10:35 ish. The apartment in Mlada is a hop skip and a jump away from the bus station, grocery store, mall, etc. Very convenient location! I love it here already!

Christmas Week:

The week of Christmas is the best week to be a missionary. We spend all of our time making visits to less-actives and members and testified of Christ and His birth to all those along the way. We were waiting for the Elders to go visit a member together and they were running a bit behind so we were at this bus stop for forever and a day. We went from one person to the next asking if we could share a gift with them (the 2 minute video A Savior is Born) or sing to them. ha! We went about 1 for.... 25 ish. Solid. It was fun. Even though most of them didn't want to hear our message we were still fulfilling our purpose by inviting them to do so and of course leaving them with a smile as they went on their way. :)

Czech Christmas Traditions:

Czech's do most of the celebrating on Christmas Eve. We got invited to a members home for dinner. We had Carp, Salmon, Pig, Potato Salad, soup and loootttttsss of Cukrovi (little sugar cookie things) MMMMM It was really good! It was my first time having Carp and Pig. I can't say that I liked it that much... but I had to have it so I could experience the Czech Christmas to its' fullest. ha! I don't think that I will ever eat either of those again.

Sidenote! I also ate liver and rabbit this past week! heheh I am just trying all sorts of new things over here. It's awesome.

We finished off Christmas eve by watching a Czech fairytale with the family and watching them exchange and open presents. It was a lot of fun. :)

Christmas Day:

The day of Christmas we didn't do too much. We woke up and opened presents. Sisters Hale and Stokes were too good to me or should I say "Santa" They were sneaky and surprised me with a few gifts. They are the best. They brought me Fronek Dicitionary! YESSSS. It is my new best friend.

After that we went to the church building to paint some of the inside, had biscuits and gravy with the elders, played Uno, the dot game and waited to skype.

A day well spent. :)

Welp that's pretty much it! I want to leave you all with my testimony that I know Jesus is the Christ. He is the Prince of Peace. He is the Unchangeable One. The Only Begotten of the Father. How grateful I am to have the sacred opportunity to represent Him at this time of my life.

I wish you all the happiest New Year! I hope that as we reflect back on 2015 we can see the progress we have made and continue to strive to be a little bit better each day! We can all do hard things! :)

S laskou,

Sestra Fred

My MTC District, Sestra Holland, Sestra Clark