Vítej do Ostravy!

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't been good about writing these past couple of weeks, it has been pretty crazy and some very interesting things have happened since I last wrote. First and foremost, I got transfered! I was not expecting to be transferred at all, I had only been in České Budějovice for one transfer, so I thought for sure that I would be staying. For reference, I stayed in my previous areas for 3 transfers each, or six months. So that really caught me by surprise, but possibly even more surprising was where I got sent to. President gave me a call the night before transfers and asked me if I would be ok going to Ostrava and being one of the now three zone leaders here. Haha. Needless to say, it has been a party, trio life is always the best. The apartment is a tad bit small for all the three of us, but we've made it work, we have had to get very comfortable with each other which has been great for comp unity. Haha. 

Ostrava has been an Interesting area so far, it's clear up on the north eastern corner of the country, so I'm practically in Poland. I've done a little bit of exploring so far, and everywhere I go it looks the same. Ostrava is probably one of the ugliest citys in the Czech Republic, (but I love it,) all of the buildings here are copy and pasted communist concrete cubes. There was a lot of soviet influence here after World War 2 because the soviets liberated most of the Czech Republic from the nazi regime and Ostrava is way over on the eastern side. They have done their best to try and brighten things up a little since the fall of communism here, they have painted a lot of the giant concrete buildings, most of them are painted brown though, so they're still pretty ugly. Haha. Serving in Ostrava has reminded me a little bit of my time in my reassignment in Dayton Ohio, there is kind of a similar feel to it, lots of old gross industrial buildings and some really strange characters on the streets. I have to say, Ostrava is the only place that I have ever been barked at by a man in a car. Haha. There have of course been some other interesting encounters, but we'll leave it at that for now. 

I finally got to meet the ward members here yesterday, I've been here for two weeks now, but because we had General Conference last week (which was amazing by the way!) I wasn't able to meet them until sacrament meeting yesterday. They are amazing and I'm really looking forward to working with them all. 

One of the biggest highlights from this week was having exchanges with the elders in Brno, it was a lot of fun to work with the elders there. We made a giant pot of Halušky, one of my favorite Czech foods, pictures will follow. 

Well, I think that's about it for this week, happy Easter everyone! And until next time, Čau!