Week 5: Hastings

Hello everyone! Another week is in the books!

Well this week was your typical week as a missionary. Lots of street contacting and many unfriendly people, but hey that's england for you!

On Thursday I went on exchange in Maidstone with my district leader elder Lopiano! He's from Connecticut and a super cool guy! We just did some finding and went to a dinner appointment which is always fun!

Friday consisted of more finding with elder Lopiano! No success but still fun. We had a dinner appointment that night with a super cool couple, the Evans. He has the biggest movie collection and soooooooo many good movies. We spend a lot of the night just talking about all these different movies!

Saturday was more finding. We found a new friend named James who was actually married to a Mormon years ago. We are meeting with him again tomorrow at subway!

Sunday was actually mothers day here which was fun. Makes me miss the best mom a young man could have ever asked for. Got me excited for may!! Like come on people does anyone even come close to Stefanie (Ellen) Hruby?? I'm sorry but no.

Monday was very typical with lots of finding but no new friends, but there are some potentials! Eventually people will have to start to listen to what we have to say right?!

Tuesday I had my first zone conference! It was so great to see some of the familiar faces from the MTC!! I got to see elder Murtonen which made my day! Dang I love that man. It was a good conference and the theme for the next 9 weeks is Moroni madness in honor of March madness. Every companionship is going to try to bring one friend to the big dance, aka baptism! It's an exciting time!

Today was spent grocery shopping, cleaning, and relaxing. It's been a nice change up. It's also sunny today for like the first time ever and it's been so great!

We'll that's the week for ya! I love and miss you all! Make sure to watch as much basketball as you can in honor of me! Until next week my dudes!

With love,
Elder Hruby

Delish Japanese food after the exchange with my District Leader

Reunited with MTC companion, Elder Murtonen!

Thanks Mom and Dad. You da real MVPs.

Week 4: Hastings

It definitely feels like it's been much longer than a month that's for sure. This was a week full of adjusting. My days have been filled with contacting people in streets and doing a lot of book work. We had no investigators when I got here and we were able to find one on Friday. Her name is loo and she's an atheist just like every other human being who lives here. It's crazy. Anyways she said she was intrigued by what we were saying and agreed to meet with us. We met with her last night and taught her about the doctrine of Christ and the restoration. She was very attentive and agreed to meet with us again on Monday which is great! Although she doesn't necessarily have a belief in God still, she is willing and wanting to learn more still. We extended a baptismal date of April 14th as a goal to work towards and she accepted!

Church on Sunday was way different than I am used to. It's very small and not a lot of members. We prepared the sacrament, passed the sacrament, and taught Sunday school. I'm so used to our ward and all the people there, so it's gonna take some getting used to. I don't really know any of the members, but we're trying to set up visits so I can get to know them.

We've also been looking at flats this week because we have to be out of the one we're in now by March 21st. We found one in the middle of town that we're really hoping we get! I've also never cooked so much in life. I do most of the cooking which is a shocker I know right?!?! Also our area is huge. Like you can take the train for a good while in any direction and that's still our area!

It snowed a lot here this weekend which caused lots of things to shut down. By a lot i mean it snowed but here any snow is a lot of snow.

I got to meet my district on Monday for our district meeting. It seems like a good group of people which is really nice! Not even close to my mtc group, but no gorup ever will even get close to that.

I got my first haircut here today and it was amazing. My buddy Sergio hooked it up and did me up real nice. I even hooked him up with a tip since most people don't do that here. We're headed to our district leaders area today to hang with our district. I'm also headed back there tomorrow because I'm going on exchange with elder lopiano, the district leader, which should be fun!

There's my first week in the field lady's and gents. Hope all is well back home and somebody needs to fill out a March madness bracket for me!

P.S. it made my day getting the package of cookies (this is Courtney - mama Stef paid an obscene amount to send Ben the Girl Scout cookies he ordered before he left - true love haha)! Those kind of things are what get me through. Also I attached a pic of fast Sunday tie and suit!

With love,
Elder Hruby

Fast Sunday Tie 

Girl Scout Cookies

Area 1 Day 1

Well long time no see am I right?! I guess I'll just give you a recap of the last couple days. So, we traveled on Tuesday by bus for about 4 hours from Preston to Staines. We had some training Tuesday afternoon and then we spent the night in a hotel that night. Wednesday morning we woke up and had some more training. We got put with one of the trainers just for the day, but mine ended up being my actual companion. Like I said his name is Elder Tollestrup and he is from Alburta Canada! He seems pretty cool and normal... So far.

After we got our assignments I said some of the hardest goodbyes I've ever had to say in my life. It actually made my heart ache, but I guess that means they are that good of friends. We then headed for the train station and began the most interesting travel period of my life. We only were about two hours from where we were headed but it took us 7 hours to get there. We missed a train, got on a wrong train, and then they were all delayed due to weather. It's been snowing here and it's cold as balls! All the delay was well worth it because at about 9 at night while we were on our final train we started talking to a man from Slovakia! He loved hearing what we had to talk about! Unfortunately he is headed home soon but he told us that he was going to get into contact with the missionaries when he gets home! It's crazy how Heavenly Father makes things happen!

Our apartment is Better than I expected, but we have to get a new one soon. We have to be out in like 3 weeks so we might just have to spend more money since they haven't found a good one yet which means we would be living large!

So far today we went to town and got a few things and then we went grocery shopping. I think we're gonna walk like 45 minutes to the chapel this afternoon to play some ball. We're also gonna walk back there again tonight for a youth activity, so I can meet some of the youth in the ward!

Other than that there's not much to say considering this is the third time this week! My P day will be Wednesdays from now on! Just wanna tell you again how much I love you guys. You're the best!!!!!

With love,
Elder Hruby