Today was Memorial Day, so Elder and Sister Alsop decided to host a good old American barbecue for the Prague district missionaries. For many of them, it was P-day, so they came in their casual clothes and had a good time. Elder Trost is in the apron flipping hot dogs, while Elders Nowland and Johnson are excited to receive the award for the Most Extreme Contacting. (They won a pair of flip-flops--nice!) Ed Barner came and was the hit of the barbecue because he brought A&W Rootbeer--impossible to find in the Czech Republic.
The Brno District Young Women had a conference at a ropes course in Zlin. I was invited to come along. It was an honor for me to be with them, but I had to wonder if I was invited for comic relief. We practiced walking on the ropes a few feet above the ground before we ventured up high into the sky. The lone silhouette against the cloud in the sky is me. A few minutes later I fall from the rope, but my tethering person catches me, so I wasn't hurt. It was a GREAT DAY!
The Brno Young Women leaders are a fun-loving bunch! And the girls love them, too.
Sister Hansen and I practice walking the ropes in the forest before we hit the big time. This was hard work!
Monday, May 26, 2008
Memorial Day and Learning the Ropes
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
The Busy Month of May!
We held 5 zone conferences in 5 days, working our way from Slovakia, back to Prague. In this post I could only get three zone pictures in. I'll post pictures from the Slovak zone and Hradec Kralove zone in the next post. We were pleased to find all the missionaries happy and well.
Olomouc Zone: Notice Matthew Slovacek, the missionary--front row, third from left. He was called and set apart to serve for 6 weeks, as we needed a missionary in Ostrava to fill out a companionship. He's having a great time on his second mission.
Brno Zone
Prague Zone
When we got to Brno, we found all the hotels to be sold out due to trade fairs in town. We finally found the last room in the city in this little boutique hotel. It's very quaint and beautiful, but it had no elevator, and we stayed in the attic room--up 5 flights of very steep stairs. Now we know why it was the last room in the city.
Slovakia is a land of castles. On our way home from zone conference, we came across Oravska castle; so we stopped to explore. It was built in the 1400's.
This little church is in the quiet town of Cecmany, Slovakia. The whole town has been preserved, and functions just as it did 200 years ago.
A ceremony commemorating the dedication of Slovakia was held in this grove outside of Trencin. As the President Uchtdorf's prayer was read in Slovak, Marv and I followed along in English. It was a picture perfect day!