Day 47 - Church, Old City, and Concert

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Church was just a very short walk away from our apartment.  We met a friendly senior missionary sister who showed us to the translation devices and explained the hymnbook to us.  It's in two parts, each numbered differently.  Kind of confusing.  But even more confusing when we started to sing.  We have no idea how to pronounce Czech words!  If we knew the words in English, we just sang those instead.
A new mission president was just called, so he spoke in Sacrament Meeting.  He introduced his wife and four children, ages 7 to high school.  They're from Salt Lake City.  He spoke in Czech, but of course we had our translation devices.  He gave a great talk.
Our Sunday School class was in English with about 30 people, half of them tourists and visitors. 
It seemed like a very dynamic ward.  The room was packed in Sacrament Meeting with maybe 150.  One of the missionaries told us the church has just bought land for a chapel to be built soon.
After church, we took a walk around the Jewish Quarter and Old City.  The Jewish Quarter has the oldest synagogue in Europe, plus many other synagogues very close together.  We listened in as a tour guide explained that Hitler didn't destroy Prague in World War II because he wanted to retire there.  He saved many Jewish artifacts because he wanted to create a museum of an extinct people when the Jews were all dead.

Old-New Synagogue, Hebrew clock goes counter-clockwise

Spanish Synagogue, our guide Ammon to Ruth's right

We visited Jan Palach Square, in front of the Rudolfinum (the concert hall), where there is a statue of Dvorak, a great Czech composer.  Jan Palach set himself on fire in protest of the Soviet invasion and is a national hero.

Statue of Dvorak

After that, we walked to Old Town Square, an extremely beautiful area with gorgeous buildings all around.  On the side of one of them is a huge astronomical clock built in 1410 and still running.  Every hour the figures move and a skeleton rings a bell.
Then we joined a free tour by a guy named Ammon from Utah.  He went on his mission to the Czech Republic and returned to marry a Czech girl.  He took us to more sights in the Old City and was very interesting.

Astronomical Clock

Old Town Square, Church of Our Lady Before Tyn in background

We had to leave the tour early to come home, make dinner, and then go to a concert at the Rudolfinum.  It was a chamber group who played lots of well-known pieces.  They were exceptionally good, and we loved it! 


Rudolfinum Small Concert Hall