What Are You Going To Do There?

The question that we are asked most frequently is, "What are you going to do there?" I appreciate this question because the first thing I ask a person after meeting them is, "What do you do?" Who we are is defined by how we fill our days. So, here is what we plan to do for the next nine months.

As a family our main goals are to learn the Czech language and help out the small LDS congregation in Ceske Budejovice. The latter will be a joy, the former will be torture. Our understanding is that the branch in Ceske Budejovice consists of a couple of families. In particular we hope that adding our kids to the primary and youth organizations will be helpful.

Kristine is a professional mother in the US and, thank goodness, there are no visa restrictions on that. So much of what she does here (teaching kids, changing diapers, cooking, managing finances, cleaning, buying groceries, keeping in touch with friends and relatives, visiting the school, etc.), she will do there. In addition she will research her family history more thoroughly. Her dad's father's parents were from Jimramov and Konikov near Policka in Moravia (the eastern part of the Czech Republic). Also, several people who heard we are coming have asked if she would put together an english class.

Caleb will be going to public school. This will be a big adjustment as he has previously been homeschooled and it will be a new language. He will take violin lessons at a music school and fencing at a sword fighting school. He is also planning a bike trip to the Austrian Alps with his dad.

Lucy will also be in public school. Although offered the opportunity to take voice or recorder lessons and to take fencing, she is not ready to commit to anything. School will be interesting. We have assured the kids that they should feel okay about failing miserably in their classes. Clearly, they cannot be expected to do well in history if they don't understand the language. In addition to Czech, we hope they will learn empathy for the immigrant kids in their classes here.

Silas will learn Czech, get potty trained, and go on long walks with his dad along the Vltava River.

The hardest thing I will be doing is not having a job. In my mini-retirement, I have two things I want to work on: writing and training for Adventure Racing. I like to tell stories, so this will allow me some time to put them down on paper. As for what I will write, I have three projects floating around in my brain: a fantasy novel, writing down the stories the kids and I used to tell at bedtime, and a self help book on developing self discipline (it will be really good if I can just get myself to sit down and write it). As far as adventure racing goes, the Czechs are as in to orienteering (one of the main components of adventure racing) as anyone in the world and I will have time each day to run and bike.

Most of all, we are just going to live there. We'll buy our bread and walk to church and say hi to our neighbors. But, because regular life will be mixed with new and strange details, we will pay closer attention to it and take joy in it.

- Peter