Ja sa potim

ahoj from zilina. sorry the letter this week is a little bit late. yesterday was a holiday here in slovakia, so all of the stores were closed, including the internet cafe. this is the last week of the transfer. we find out where we are going on thursday and on saturday we move. its weird. this last sunday very well could have been my last in zilina. it was weird sort of having to say goodbye to everyone. i really dont want to leave. ive grown to love this city so much, so i would be more than happy to stay at least another transfer. we will find out what happens on thursday i guess, but just as a heads up, it is very possible that i will be writing this letter from a completely different city next week. im going to take a shot in the dark and say that i will be in kosice. anyway, this week was a pretty good one. elder romero and elder walker were able to find a really great woman for our area when they were together on an exchange, so we are really excited about that. we are teaching her later today, so i am excited to meet her and get to know her a little better. we also made a little bit of history this week when elder romero and i went over to the seidl home with alessandro to do some home teaching. we are the first home teachers to ever be in their home, and im sure that we wont be the last. it sounds like a worthless accomplishment, but i really think that is proof that the church is growing here. there are so many things that we have in america as church members that we probably take for granted, and home teachers is definitely one of them. it was so great to see how happy the seidlovci were thanks to our visit. sunday as i said was interesting. i sort of had to say goodbye to all the members because transfers are this week, and they are all out of town this week on a temple trip in frieberg, so that might be the last time i see a few people here from zilina. i also had my last performance as the designated branch musician. elder walker and i sang a duet of abide with me tis even tide to open the meeting, and then later i sang and accompanied myself on to think about Jesus from the primary song book. it was great. anyway, the subject of this email is the slovak phrase for i am sweating. i say that because it has been unbelievably hot this week, and also because i would be lying if i said i wasnt nervous for transfers. everyone is assuming that i am going to train one of the new missionaries. i would be really excited if that were the case, but that would be quite a bit of responsibility, especially for someone who will only be on his third transfer in the country. so, if that does end up being the case, just pray for me extra hard. i hope that everything back at home continues to go well. keep me apprised of everything that goes on. even if you dont think its interesting, i just might. love you and miss you all! have a great week!

čau!
sam

A slovak fiesta

this week was pretty solid. it was pretty simple. we went out and we worked. when we worked, we worked hard. because we worked hard we were rewarded. we were able to find a lot of new potential investigators, which i am very excited about. we are already harvesting the fruits of our diligent labors from last week. we just met with one of those potentials right before i came to the internet cafe. we gave him a book of mormon to read and he is very interested and curious. we asked him if he would pray to gain a testimony of the book of mormon. he said that he needs to read a little bit first before he can decide if it's something that is right for him. i promised him that if he read sincerely, he would quickly find out that the book of mormon is the book for him. i'm really excited for this week. we got some good things set up last week, and i think we are going to have a lot of opportunities to teach this week, which i'm really excited for. i'm really sad that we haven't had as much of a chance to teach this transfer. i've always thought that elder romero and i were a pretty good teaching tandom and i think we are finally going to be able to put that harmony into a little more practice this next week. we also got to do a few fun things this week. on friday, for example, elder romero and i went to the house of the big member family here in zilina to cook them some mexican food. they benevolently call elder romero either mexican, or mexico, even though elder romero has never even been to mexico. from the first week of the transfer, they were begging elder romero to come and cook enchiladas for them. on friday we finally had the chance. i think the chimichangas we made were pretty good. on saturday, we had our branch vylet (trip) with all of the members from both zilina and banska bystrica. we went to blatnice where there are beautiful caves and also a castle. it was a great trip. it was a lot of fun to get out and see some of the beautiful nature around here. mostly, it was great to be able to spend some time with the great members that we have here. i have made some really great friends over the last few months, and i'm so grateful that i have been able to serve the last four months in this wonderful branch. all the members here are so fun to be around, and they are all such great examples of disciples of Jesus Christ. transfers this time around are on a saturday. a week from thursday we found out where we are headed. the widely held belief is that i am headed to trencin to train. i would be glad to do that (although nobody knows anything about transfers yet), but i was also thinking on saturday as i was sitting roasting a sausage over the fire, that i sure do like zilina. it will be hard to leave this city, but that's nothing compared to how hard it's going to be to leave slovakia in a year and a half.

s laskou
sam

The booze bag incident and other hijinks

here i am, once again, sitting in the internet cafe, while the owner watches a "mash" episode dubbed in slovak. what a marvelous country i live in. this week was pretty good. we definitely had our share of disappointments, but the blessings still far outweighed those. i don't know if i mentioned this last week, but the last time we met with our investigator eva, she told us that she had just lost her phone, but that she sees us all the time in town and that she would run us down when she saw us. i have been praying so hard that we would run into her this week, but so far, no dice. i really hope that we see her around town this week. that would be fantastic. this week was kind of interesting because elder tomlinson came down with a pretty bad virus. that meant that elder romero and i had to split time staying with him, while the other went our with elder walker to make all their appointments. i'm not happy that elder tomlinson is sick, and i hope that he is better soon, but he being sick gave elder romero and i the opportunity to teach silvia a recent convert lesson. we talked to her about preparing to go into the temple, which she will be able to do a little less than a year from now. she is such a strong member already, and i think she will be for the rest of her life. i am so blessed to have been here in zilina to watch her conversion process. it feels so good to be a part of someone's progression towards making sacred covenants with the Lord in His house, the temple. i didn't sing in church this week. instead i gave a 15 minute talk on personal revelation. part of my talk included a quote from elder bednar's most recent conference address. as i was preparing for my talk, alica (the youngest child in the big member family here in zilina--she's the cutest little girl in the world) approached me and asked "do you know why elder bednar is the best looking apostle?" i told her that i didn't know and asked why he is the best looking apostle. she said: "because he has slovak ancestors." i thought that was pretty funny. speaking of funny, you are probably all wondering what in the heck i was referring to in the subject of this e mail. the story starts last transfer when i bought a little ruksack to carry around while contacting. it's smaller, lighter, and just overall better than a backpack is. anyway, i took my bag with us to lunch on tuesday at slovenska koliba (one of my favorite restaurants here). i set my bag under my seat. when i picked it up again after lunch, i realized that it was wet. i lifted it up to my nose, all the while praying that it was just water. when the bag approached my nostrils, however, my worst fears were realized. it was beer. apparently the people sitting behind us had spilled their beer on the floor. anyway, that was almost a week ago and my ruksack still smells like cierna hora. so i ask you, if any of you have any ideas regarding how i could get the booze smell out of my bag (i'm sure you all have much experience removing the stench of alcohol from various accessories), i would really appreciate it.

cau'te
sam

Never Enough

this was a great week. i will start off right away by sharing the cool story that happened to us. elder romero and i were contacting on the town square on tuesday and we contacted a girl. we started talking and it turns out she is a slovak native who lives in idaho of all places. she knows quite a few mormons and was interested in learning more. we set up a meeting. before the meeting, she asked us if she could bring her cousin with her to the lesson. they both came and they both had a lot of questions for us. we answered all their questions and gave them books of mormon. we met with them again on satruday and had an even better meeting. they had many more questions for us. they are both really curious and really eager to find the truth. we read from the book of mormon and watched the joseph smith restoration short film with them. the spirit was really strong. silivia (the woman who was recently baptized here in zilina) was there to help us teach both lessons. after we watched the video, silvia (sounding like she had been a church member for most of her life) bore testimony of how she is just so much more happy now that she is a member of the church. she testfied of joseph smith and of the book of mormon and of prayer. with the influence of the spirit being so thick that you could cut it with a knife, elder romero simply said: "so, what do you need to do?" the response the girls gave was just as simple as the question: "read the book of mormon and ask God if it's true." it was fantastic. Majka is going back to idaho, but we gave her a firm commitment to contact the missionaries there. Eva, however, is still going to be here in zilina, and we are looking forward to teaching her again. it was a great week. i feel like we have really been rewarded for our patience and diligence. if there is one thing that i have learned so far in my nearly 6 months as a missionary (yikes!), it's that the Lord, as long as we're faithful, will never hang us out to dry. we had a great week, and i'm looking forward to this week. i shared the story with elder nichol (who is now a zone leader). we talked about what a great experience it was. after that he asked me a question. he said: "now you've just gotta do even more next week right?" i assented. his response: "yeah, it's never enough, is it, elder?" he was right.

s laskou
sam

Odhodlanie part II

this week was better. it still wasn't great, but anything would have been better than last week was. we contacted ALOT this week, and we it wasn't completely fruitless. we did get some good new potential investigators, and we were able to find one new investigator. his name is andrej. he is a professional futsol player (indoor soccer...i think). anyway he is a way cool guy but unfortunately lives a little far away from zilina. it will be a little harder to get meetings set up with him, but he is an awesome guy and is really willing to meet. anyway, it was a better week, and this week is going to be even better. something big is coming. we might just hvae to be a little patient before it gets here. everyone else in the czech and slovak republics seems to be just killing it right now, but zilina is just lagging a little bit behind. we're going to close the gap, however, so long as we keep working hard with that same "odhodlanie." there were some cool things that happened this week. i sang again in church (i have now had some sort of musical performance [outside being the accompanist] in sacrament meeting for the last 12 consecutive weeks). i sang and played on the piano a little arrangement of "sweet hour of prayer" that i came up with. sister seidl came up to me afterwards and said that she feels like she is in the temple when i sing. that's my best endorsment yet! definitely something to throw on the resume. we also had a successful sport night this saturday. on wednesday elder tomlinson, elder romero, and i were doing some contacting on the lower namestie. off to the side i noticed a big family throwing around a frisbee. i told them that we play frisbee every saturday at six. they said they would come, and then they actually did! we had a lot of fun playing with them. turns out they are tourists from prague. we gave them the information for the missionaries there. they said they would at least definitely go to english class. well i don't have much more time, but before i go, it's time for the hilarious mission story of the week! this entry happened this morning actually while we were having language study. all of the sudden i heard this loud banging sound coming from the street. after each bang i heard someone yelling at the top of their lungs in the gypsy language. elder romero and i ran to the widow to look down on an old gypsy woman with two kids standing behind her, who was trying with all her strengh to break...a scale. eventually she succeeded and took a metal disc out of the scale and put it on a little rigshaw-type cart with all the rest of the junk that she had harvested so far. elder romero and i looked at each other, laughed and just said "what the heck was that?" it is likely that i will never know the answer to that question.
 anyway, cool stuff happens every week here, even when it isn't your greatest week. if there is one thing that my mission has taught me so far, it's that miracles are commonplace; we just don't notice the majority of them. i'm excited to what miracles this next week will bring!

maj'te sa!
sam

Odhodlanie

this week was rough. i just wrote my weekly report to president irwin where i reported our numbers for the week. 0s all across the board. that's right. i really don't know what to say other than that i am so disappointed. we went out this week and worked, but who did we teach? nobody, who did we find? no one, how do we feel? awful. every lesson we had got cancelled or was a no show, and contacting was an absolute crap shoot. this was by far the worst week of my mission so far, and it is going to stay that way. i am never every doing this again. it was an absolutely horrible week and i am looking forward to just putting it behind me forever. this week will be better. it has to be. when elder pearson came here and spoke to us, he said "every day you should be disappointed, but you should never be discouraged." elder romero and i are trying our hardest to take that advice this week. i still have high hopes for this week. i think we have some good things lined up and i know that the Lord is going to reward us if we continue to have faith and continue to work hard. every day we get text messages from other elders in the slovensko zone about new investigators, new baptismal dates etc. blessings are being poured out on every other city right now. i have to think that zilina is next in line. the miracles are coming. we just have to be ready for it. that's why the theme for this week (and the subject of this emial) is odhodlanie, a slovak work meaning resolution. this week we are just going to have to do as joel directs in joel 3:10 when he says: "beat your plow shares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, i am strong." that's old testament lingo for "bring it on." the slovak translation of that verse in the bible that i am currently using, uses the phrase "som hrdina" in place of "i am strong." "som hrdina" means "i am a hero." this week is our week to be heros, and that is exactly what we will be if we have faith and humbly seek the counsel and guidance of the Lord. He is with us even when we have a rough week. i have a lot of evidence to back up that statement, but the most recent proof came last night. we were walking home from a members house. we just barely missed the bus going back into the center of town, so we had to walk. the walk takes about an hour, and on top of that it was raining. hard. while we walked i had to call in our embarrassing numbers to elder walker. it was terrible. as we finally walked back into the lower namestie, however, soaking wet, having walked for almost an hour; i heard the joyful sound of "in the stone" by earth wind and fire playing over the loud speakers on the town square. after that the week didn't seem so bad.

ahoj'te
sam

Can I train the british kid?

this week was an up and down one. like any normal missionary week, there were  some definite disappointments, but also some great triumphs--triumphs, which of course outweighed the disappointments. we have tried really hard now to set up meetings with our investigators with baptismal dates. we got "beaked" again quite a bit this week.we didn't meet with any of our progressing investigators this week at all, but that wasn't for lack of trying. we had so many meetings set up with all of them, but they didn't come to a single one. i'm not really sure what to do. i'm not wholly opposed to meeting with them, but if they aren't going to show up, then elder romero and i shouldn't waste our time preparing lessons for them. we are thinking really hard about dropping them all. when i called in our numbers this week, i called in that we have 0 progressing investigators. in essence, this week we started at square one. we did a lot of finding. we spent hours out on the town square contacting people, and we were definitely reawarded for our diligence. we picked up a few new investigators this week that we are pretty excited about, and we have quite a few good potential investigators lined up too. this saturday my boys from cajakova (zilina south; whenever someone send me a letter they are actually sending it to the other elders' apartment because we dont' have a mailbox at our apartment--just so you know), had a baptism. we did the baptism again in the river, and it was marvelous. i am so lucky to have had a front row seat for silivia's progression as an investigator. she has so much faith and i think she will be a strong member for the rest of her life. i sang for the baptism in a quartet with elder macneish, elder butler, and elder walker. we sang the slovak version of "i am a child of God." it sounded great. after the baptism, silivia bore her testimony. she sounded like someone who had already been a member for most of her life. after the baptism we went to the Seidls' house for refreshments as always. we may not have too many members here in zilina, but the members that we do have are absolutely marvelous. just before i came to the internet cafe to email, we threw a surprise birthday part for petka, another one of the great members here in zilina. the other elders had asked her for help teaching a "lesson" this morning, but instead of having a lesson, we all yelled surprise, sang, and had cake. i think petka really enjoyed it. she deserved to have a great bithday with all the effort that she puts into the missionary work here in zilina. anyway, i think it's time for the funny mission story of the week. this weeks story isn't so much funny as it is worthy of a twilight zone episode. i got a letter last week from my good friend anna. it had been a little while since i had heard from her, but apparently a lot has happened since we last corresponded. she told me that she got set up on a blind date with this british kid who her dad knows through work. the date went really well and they hung out a few more times before he went back home to england. soon they started talking about the possibility of anna coming to visit him in england, which she did a few weeks later. while she was there, he got his mission call to serve in (you guessed it) the czech prague mission speaking slovak. can you hear the twilight zone music? i sure can. i was pretty shocked when i read that. he's in the mtc at this very moment. i had an interview with president irwin this week when he was here for the baptism. he asked me if i had any questions. jokingly, i replied: "my one question is this: can i train the british kid?" president irwin laughed and said: "well we are going to need four trainers this next transfer." he would be the easiest greeny ever! if he didn't want to go contacting or something, all i would have to say is: "that's fine, but i'm telling your girlfriend that you were too much of a wussy to go contacting." advantage: meredith. anyway, i hope you are all doing well across the pond. hope to hear from you all soon.

ahoj'te
sam

Looked at my kingdom I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the prince of--zilina

the title of this email is apparently what elder romero as he stepped off the train and onto the platform at the main train station here in zilina last week. i guess he was excited to live in "the palace." i thought that was funny because i always appreciate a "fresh-prince" reference. this week was good, bad, and okay all at the same time. we had a lot of meetings set up this week, but most of them were "beaked," which in czech prague mission lingo means we got stood up. it wouldn't be so frustrating if it wasn't our "strongest investigators" who were standing us up all the time. we are going to have to change the baptismal dates of both peter and ladislav now because none of them showed up to church in spite of the fact that both of them agreed to come. wieh we meet with them next, i'm just going to give them a little bit of "reproving betimes with sharpness but afterwards showing forth an increase of love" action. hopefully that will make them see that these meetings that we set up aren't just a contigency plan that you only show up to if you don't find a better offer. anyway, hopefully we see some improvement out of those two this week. we were able to do some better contacting this week because the weather was a little better. it has been really hot and really sticky the last few days, but you know what? it's a billion times better than rain. it's also a billion times better than snow. i just love the summer. i do, however, wish that zilina had a 7-11. i always think a slurpee sounds great after 3 hours of contacting out in the hot sun. in america today is free slurpee day as a matter of fact, so i encourage all of my readers to take full advantage. anyway, contacting was a lot better this week, and we met some pretty cool people with whom we have set up some meetings, so hopefully we will be able to teach a few more lessons this week. things are going well with elder romero. he is a great guy and we get along really well. he's really funny and when he gets sarcastic he sounds like a cartoon character. i know that he and i are going to work hard this transfer, and i think we will have a little fun on the way too, so i'm excited to see what next week brings. i guess it's that time in the email where i tell you guys a funny story, so here is the funny/interesting story of the week. friday was zuzka's birthday (zuzka is one of the members here in zilina). she invited all the missionaries to her birthday lunch at the harley davidson pub...in vrutky. that is not a typo. not only did the harley davidson motorcycle company decide to open up a restaurant in slovakia, but they decided to open one up in vrutky, which is a dumpy little puny town about 30 kilometers outside of zilina. there i ate what was the closest thing i have had to a real burger since i was set apart as a missionary on the first of march. we all had this spicy jalepeno soup, which elder tomlinson (british elder) couldn't really handle. soon after we ate the soup he said "mam vietory" meaning literally " i have winds." i think you can all guess what he was talking about. anyway, things continue to be great here. this week will be an exciting one. silvia, one of the investigators being taught by the elders in zilina south, is getting baptized this week, so we are all really excited for that. be sure to keep me updated on all the goings on back at home. love you all!

cau
sam

ja vam poviem jednu vec...

cau!
sorry for not telling you this last week, but this week is transfers and that means that p day is on wednesday instead of monday. i am still writing you from zilina, but now i am e mailing you sitting alongside....elder romero! i have a new companion. it was hard saying goodbye to elder durrant. he and i have become really good friends over the past two months, but i am really excited for this next transfer. we have a lot of work to do, but elder romero and i are definitely capable of it. let's see, what happened this week....i guess i should mention the fact that i had an opportunity to sing once again this week. i sang "how great thou art again" in sacrament meeting, but this time is was singing in czech, so it was really "jak mocny jsi." the bigger twist in the whole thing, however, was the fact that i had to accompany myself. i had never done that before. i think it went pretty well. i did my best to add on a thing or two to the piano part to make it more interesting, and i think it was pretty good. we are teaching a really musical guy right now. his name is tibor and he is a retired organ player. he plays a lot more than that, though. he claims that he plays on 15 different instruments. he says that twenty years ago he was one of the best trumpet players in czechoslovakia. he was apparently one of the lead trumpet players for the soviet philharmonic and apparently played the trumpet for fidel castro once. holy crap. what an interesting life i lead. this week was kind of frustrating at times. we got shafted on a lot of meetings...A LOT of meetings. it was hard but i think we still ended the transfer on a pretty good note. i at least have a hilarious story to tell this week. elder durrant and i were standing at the atm to take out some cash. in the window of the bank, i saw the refelection of a man staggering towards me. he approached elder durrant and i and sure enough, he was drunk off his you-know-what. he comes up to me and gives me a huge hug. eventually i shook him off, after which he began to speak. he said (in slovak, mind you): "i will tell you one thing, i am a jehovah's witness. for a long time i have wanted to speak with you." at this point he stopped speaking, pointed up toward the heavens and said: "i am searching for truth. i want to talk to you about... JEHOVAH!!" after that, he stopped speaking again, staggered around a little while, almost fell over, staggered towards me, grabbed me, and gave me another huge hug, this one 10 time bigger than the last. i thought my glasses were going to break. luckily elder durrant was there to get me out of his death grip. anyway, thought you would be interested to hear that story. i hope mom isn't to worried about me after having read that. anyway, it's a new transfer, and i'm really excited. hope to hear from all of you again soon!

ahoj'te
sam

Solid Week In Zilina

cau!
this week was a pretty successful one for us. as elder durrant said the other day "the Lord blessed the crap out of us!" it was that kind of week. of course, we weren't without traveling this week. we stayed another night in olomouc on our way to brno for zone conference. once again olomouc is BEAUTIFUL. we got to do some contacting there, which was interesting considering that the people in olomouc don't technically speak the same language that we do. we had a good conference in brno. presiding was elder stephen kerr of the area presidncy. he gave us some great advice, and he also has a heavy scottish accent so that made it even better. i sang a solo of "how great thou art" with elder bodily playing the piano. it was really good. after i sang president irwin gave me a big hug and said: "i'm so glad you're in my mision!" that was nice. we met with our baptismal date ladislav twice this week, and he continues to accept everything that we teach him. elder durrant and i were talking the other day and we were wondering if we would have that kind of faith if we were the one investigating the church. i honestly don't know if i would have as much faith as ladislav does. i have never seen someone so willing to accept a new teaching--a teaching, which to other people just sounds, quite frankly, weird. it is hard stuff to accept stories about fourteen year olds having visions and ancient records buried somewhere in the ground in new york. it's hard to so readily accpet that, but that is exactly what ladislav has done. we also issued another baptismal commitment this week to one of our other investigators, peter krizik. we weren't originally planning on giving him a date, but the lesson went really well, he accepted the doctrine, and we felt promted to commit him to be baptized. he accepted. it was definitely a miracle week. i look forward to this week too. apparently ladislav's mom would also like to join the church, so we have set up a meeting with them soon. we are excited to meet her and give her the same commitment that we already gave to her son. we also met another man this week, tibor, who seems to have a lot of potential. he is a really nice guy and actually is a retired organ player, so i have talked to him a lot about music. we should be able to build a very good relationship. we have set a goal for ourselves to give him a baptismal date this week. i am confident that he will accept it. it's hard to believe that this is the last week of the transfer. the last two months have gone so fast, and (according to every other missionary ever) it only goes faster and faster after that. it is the season for transfer prophecy. it really is interesting trying to predict where everyone will end up. if i had to compare it to anything, i would compare it to filling out a bracket for the ncaa tournament. you have to take into account odds, statistics, match-ups--you have to analyze who's hot and who's not. my prophecy for myself is this: i am staying in zilina and i will be in a (wait for it) TRIPANIONSHIP. that's right. elder bodily is going home this transfer, but he is going home halfway through the transfer to make it home in time to go back to school, so he has to be in a threesome. he and elder nichol, my district leader will follow up train me. elder durrant is going to banska bystrica to be the district leader there. keep in mind these are only guesses, but you should also keep in mind that i usually have very successful ncaa brackets. anyway, it's been a good week and we are really excited for this week too. we are really going to try and end the transfer on a high note.

sam

Servus

greetings from zilina
this week was a pretty solid one. i guess i should start by talking about my trip to vienna. it wasn't very long, but it was still pretty cool. i just had to go there and give some finger print samples for my visa work. after that we only had about 45 minutes to hang around the city before we had to hop on another train to get back to bratislava. what i did see, however, was beautiful. i got to see the big cathedral, which although beautiful was under construction at the time. i also saw the big opera theater where they are currently performing mozart's "the magic flute."i will be sure to send pictures next week. i don't have my camera with me because we decided to email right after going bowling (yes, bowling in slovakia). today has been a sold p day so far. this morning we all went out and bought zilina soccer jerseys. they were pretty expensive, but they are way awesome. anyway, this week was pretty successful for us. we still haven't heard anything from our two original baptismal dates eva or pavol, but this week we were able to pick up a new baptismal date named ladislav. he is a fantastic man. he has had a really hard life filled with a lot of bitter trials that he doesn't deserve, but those experiences have made him really humble and ready to hear the gospel. we taught him the first time this week and he expressed to us a desire to find out if the book of mormon is true. he also told us how good he feels when he is around us.  elder durrant was quick on his feet and issued him a baptismal date, which he accepted. we met with him again a few days later and he had already read through chapter eleven of first nephi (that includes the introduction and all that other stuff too, mind you). we were shocked. even the most golden investigators don't take to reading the book of mormon that quickly. obviously, we are very excited for him. the only thing we have to do now is keep him on the right track to baptism, something that is, granted, harder than it sounds, but i really think he is going to make it there. one of the biggest questions elder durrant and i have, is who is going to be here to see him get baptized next transfer? i can't believe my first transfer in slovakia is almost coming to an end! it has gone by so fast! everyone is already have striedanie prorotstva (transfer prophecies). the widely accepted theory is that i will stay here and serve with elder nichol (our district leader) and that elder durrant will go to kosice with elder williams. we will see what happens. anyway, other stuff...hmmm....oh! this last week in church i sang in a quartet with all the other zilina elders during sacrament meeting. i'm the only one of the missionaries in this city that has any real musical experience, but i think we sounded pretty good! we sang the slovak translation of joseph smith's first prayer, which we will also be singing at zone conference this week. elder nichol told president irwin that our district sings better than any other district in the mission, so when president heard that he gave us the assignment to sing this week. this assignment, however, came after president had already asked me to sing a solo at zone conference, so i will be doing two musical numbers this week at the same conference. i am going to be singing how great thou art while elder bodily, one of our zone leaders, plays for me on the piano. elder bodily lives in banska bystrica, though, so i'm not sure how he and i are going to practice before the conference on friday. hopefully everything works out. this week was father's day, which they do also have here in slovakia. i hope everyone there had a pleasant father's day. i wish i could have been there to celebrate with you. anyway, keep praying for me, my companion, and our mission. we need all the miracles we can get out here. 

cau
sam

Tak

this week was kind of an up and down one. the beginning was pretty rough. as all of you know, we've been working with an investigator named eva. up until now she has been our most solid investigator, but on tuesday we got a text from her saying that she now that she is working she wants to spend all of her free time with her family. we sent her a text back saying that we would love to teach her whole family, but we haven't heard back from her. we are really worried that she asked her husband about the baptism finally and he was not a big fan. there are really a lot of things we don't know, but that is just our best guess. we are really praying that somehow she makes her date. after we got that text we were pretty devastated. our one solid investigator had just told us that we couldn't meet any more. it was pretty hard, but elder durrant and i decided that we were just going to forget about it and continue to work. the Lord definitely rewarded us for having that good attitude because the very next day we almost broke our record for lessons taught in a day, and we shattered our record for new investigators found in one day. in addition to all that, our other progressing investigator with a baptismal date, pavol, called us and told us that he is back in slovakia and wants to meet. we are going to try to meet with him this week and just instill some confidence in him. he has been trying to quit smoking and has been having trouble with it. our plan is to give him a lesson on free will and how we can always choose to overcome our trials and difficulties. we also want to fast for him and give him a priesthood blessing. i think if we can just get that one lesson with him, things will get back on the right track. honestly, if he was just able to quit smoking soon enough, he could still be baptized at the end of the month. we did have one baptism this weekend. alica seidlova, the youngest child of the big member family here in zilina, was baptized on saturday. it was really cool seeing a baptism in a river. the missionaries sang as a sextet "o radosna chvila" (now let us rejoice). i thought we sounded pretty good! i really whipped these guys into good singing shape. all in all it was a great baptism. we even had a "guest" at the baptism. i sent a picture of him to libby for all of you to look at. after the baptism we all went to the seidls for refreshments, which was great. this week is one that we have some really high hopes for. we are looking forward to possibly teaching pavol a few times, and also we found some pretty solid people this week that we look forward to teaching. also, on thursday president iriwin is coming to zilina. as far as we know he is just coming to hang out and work with us, which will be cool. really, president irwin is an amazing  person. also, tomorrow i am hopping on a train to bratislava. we will stay there for the night and then in the morning elder durrant and i will hop on a train to...(drumroll) VIENNA!! i have to go there to do some sort of visa work, so elder durrant and i will be there for wednesday afternoon. i know grandma and grandpa will be excited to hear that. i will take as many pictures as i possibly can and send them to you next week. hope everything is good back in da 'hood

miss you all!
sam

A Long Week

this week was a long one, but a good one. on monday night we hopped on a train to olomouc, a city in the east central czech republic, to stay the night. the next morning we got on a train to prague. when we got there we had lunch and then went to the church building to listen to elder pearson. he spoke for literally four hours straight, but it was not boring at all. he gave us so much good advice, and everyone in the room is defnitely a better missionary for having listened to it. we have made some goals to apply his teachings into our work, and i know that they will be effective. we are really going to concentrate on having the spirit with us for the entire day, and on making planning a never ending process and not just an event that happens for thirty minutes at the end of the day. it was a great conference. and we all learned a lot. if everyone in the mission makes a commitment to apply what elder pearson taught, we are definitely going to see some miracles soon. after the conference we stayed the night in olomouc again, which, by the way, is an absolutely beautiful city. honestly, if i ever get sent to the czech republic, i hope i am sent to olomouc. or prague. yeah, i would definitely take prague. over half our week was consumed by traveling to and from the conference, so we really didn't have much time to work in our area. in spite of that, however, we were able to nab a new investigator last night in the eleventh hour right before we had to call in our numbers to the district leader. i know it's not about numbers, elder durrant and i both know that very well, but we both agreed that we didn't want to be the first companionship in the district to put up a goose egg in the new investigator category after we made that goal to get three every week. on saturday, we went to martin, a little town about 20 mintues outside zilina to have lunch with brat durris, a member of our branch. he is notorious for cooking a lot of food for the missionaries. it was all really good, but it was just so much food. we all made it in to a competition to see who could eat it the fastest. i thought i had taken third place in the competition, but later elder durrant confessed that when he had gone to the bathroom earlier, he had done so to throw up. silver medal for me! anyway, it was just a crazy meal. he made us really good gulas, and after that he brought out a plate full of little cakes and cookies. i thought that the one plate was for all of us to share, but brat durris proceeded to bring out the exact same quantity of food to everyone. after that we had this giant bowl of this syrupy fruit dessert thing. it was all really good, but man it was a lot of food. but, let it be known, that samuel edward meredith cleaned his plate the first time he ate lunch with brat durris. we also worked a little more at romans hut this week. i'm not really sure how much it costs to live in a place like that, but i know its a lot cheaper than actually having a house. there are quite a few little huts like that alongside the river, so it must be a pretty popular lifestyle. it's really weird to see little huts like that so close to the downtown. we were walking through a neighborhood just outside of town this week, and within 20 mintues of each other i saw a family of goats and a family of chickens cross the road. you don't see that too often in salt lake. anyway, it was a good week, and i'm really excited to see what this week will bring. i'm glad to hear that everything with the wedding went well. i wish i could've been there to see that, but even so, i wish a big congratulations to james and lindsay and i wish them luck as they start their life together! i am also happy to hear that dad had a good birthday. if anyone deserves to have a good day, it's him. he always works hard, but he's worked especially hard this year to lose all that weight. anyway, i hope everything is going well there, and i hope you will all continue to sent me your emails and letters!

cau
sam

ps-scripture of the week: proverbs 17:28 this one sounds like it was written by dad or possibly grandpa gary

Este Pracujeme

this week was a little more rough than the last few have been. sadly, we didn't meet one of the goals we set for our companionship, although that isn't for lack of trying. we worked hard the whole week, but for whatever reason it was just harder this week to find people to teach. we had specialized training this week, which was great, but it did take up a whole day of work. also on friday and saturday it rained horribly, so contacting was a crapshoot. what we did in that situation was we found people who were walking to the train station or something who didn't have an umbrella and we would walk with them so that they had some protection from the rain. everyone was really appreciative, but that kind of work just isn't really conducive to teaching full blown lessons and getting new investigators. on saturdays, there aren't very many people in town. on the weekends, everyone goes to their little domcek (little house) in the mountains. in addition to that it rained all saturday. we called it dokonala burka (perfect storm). pun intended! anyway, it wasn't quite the successful week that we were hoping for, but in spite of that, there is still reason to rejoice. eva, one of our investigators with a baptismal date keeps on progressing. we still don't have her date moved up, but she has still expressed no concerns with any of the docrtrine that we teach. this week when we taught her we were talking about her asking her husband for permission to be baptized. she hadn't done it yet, but we committed her to do so this week. when we were talking about it, she said she doesn't know how he'll feel about it, but she knows what she wants and she wants to be baptized. that was very nice to hear. we are going to try to meet with her twice this week, and we are really going to encourage her to come to church and we are really going to try hard to get something set up with her husband. i think if we just went out to lunch with him so we can show him we are normal people that would go a long way. anyway, even though things didn't go as we had planned them, there were still a lot of miracles this week, just like there are every week. i mean, an investigator with pretty much no previous religious history accepting the law of chastity right off the bat is pretty miraculous i think. just when you start to get a little discouraged the Lord blesses you in some way that just makes your day so much better. for example, yesterday elder durrant and i were sitting on the bench in the namestie. we had just called in our weekly numbers, which we thought were very disappointing. we were sitting on the bench wondering what went wrong this week when all of a sudden this guy comes up to us and offers to buy us a kofola (a czechoslovak brand of cola, which, i might add, is way better than coke and pepsi combined). we sat down and had a kofola with him and asked him why he wanted to have a kofola with mormons. he said, i just needed to do something nice. i know you guys are just here trying to help people, and trying to help them improve their lives, and i know how hard it must be to be away from your family and your friends for two years. it's so great that a guy who doesn't even know us was willing to do something like that. we talked a little more and get this....the guy works at the local theater in town as a stage manager, but in his free time he is a musician. he plays (wait for it).........THE TUBA!! what?! i said. "i freakin' played that in high school!" turns out they are doing a concert this week on the town sqare for some fetival going on. maybe i can turn a chat about the joys of playing the tuba into a conversation about the gospel. uvidime ( we will see).
love you all!

cau
sam

ps. go mavs!

The week of the transfer (I hope)

ahoj!

this week has kind of been an up and down one. we have had days of great success this week, but we also had days of disappointment and struggle. one day this week were able to teach 6 lessons in a day (which is really high here). in total, we taught 11 lessons this week, which is outstanding because hitting double digits for lessons in a week can be pretty rare sometimes. 11 is good, but when you consider that we taught six in one day, we really could've done better. work was also made more difficult this week by the fact that we had to be in brno on sunday for a district conference. because of that we had to travel to bratislava on saturday evening, and then travel all the way back from brno to zilina on sunday. essentially, we missed out on a full day and a half of work because of the conference. anyway, we are hoping that this week is going to be really good. i think this week has the potential to the best week of the transfer if we really dedicate ourselves. we have a lot of lofty goals that i really think are possible to attain. first there is our weekly goal of three new investigators. the last two weeks we have had two, which is good, but it's still not up to par. this week we've set a goal to get four. i really believe we can do it. our other goals are centered around our progressing investigators. one of the people we are teaching right now, ferry, has been investigating the church off and on for about three years now. we met with him once like three weeks ago, and then told him to call us if he ever wants to meet again. this last week he called. we taught him a great lesson on free agency. we just threw out like a million great scriptures from the book of mormon. he thought it was a good lesson too; he was taking notes. after we were done going over the scriptures elder durrant said: "do you think nephi was a real man?" he said yes. after that i said: "that means that you think the book of mormon is true and that joseph smith was a prophet." he agreed to those two things. this week we are going to meet with him again and we are going to issue him a baptismal date. he has had a date before, but we are hoping that this time around he will be more mature and more prepared for baptism. we are also still trying to get eva to move her baptismal date up. we will be able to meet with her more often now that she is done with school, so we are hoping that she can make some really quick progress and find the strength to ask her husbands permission to get baptized. we really want to meet with her husband just so we can explain to him that we are normal guys just like him and that we aren't brainwashed robots from the church like some people think we are. i think once the people of slovakia just know who mormons are, the work will start to take off a little more. everyday we have to explain that we chose to be here, that we aren't brainwashed, and at least 3 times a day we use the phrase "nie sme jehovisty." we are not jehovah's witnesses. anyway, i have really high hopes for this week. we have also set a lofty goal for slovak speaking. we are shooting for 90 hours of slovak this week. we have set that goal for the last two weeks and fallen short, but this time we are getting it. anyway, if all these things work out, it is going to be a marvelous week. i know as we strive diligently to achieve these goals, the Lord will bless us and we will be able to achieve every single goal we set.

ok time for a funny story time. on thursday we went to roman's house. roman is an eternal investigator, who knows that joseph smith was a prophet, who knows that the word of wisdom is from God, but still won't get baptized because of his beliefs about the fall of adam. essentially, he believes that adam and eve were supposed to remain in the garden forever. when satan got adam and eve to eat the fruit, he backed God into a corner. essentially he believes that in the beginning, satan forced God to sand-bag. according to roman, this whole existence, this earth (and the atonement) were all plan B. anyway, beacause of this conflict of belief we quit teaching him but offered to meet with him again if he wants to. so, about a week ago we ran into him and he told us that he was building a house and that he would like us to help him. we agreed, so on thursday we walked across the river and walked up to his "house." we were astonished when we saw that it was just basically a hut made out of tall planks of wood stacked against each other. in the front of the hut he has some vegetables growing, and in the back of his house, he has a solar panel for electricity. i don't feel like i'm doing it justice at all. i mean, the guy lives in a hut on a river bank! what is this, burkina faso? anyway, it was quite the experience. when we were walking back, elder durrant said do you think that hut was big enough to have a shower in it? i said no way. no we know why roman always smells so bad. he is a perfect example of that distinctly slovak body odor, which smells like a mixture of smoked meat and regular BO.

anyway, i hope you are all doing well i hope you will continue sending me letters and emails and such. it's always nice hearing news from across the pond. keep elder durrant and i in your prayers this week. also pray for our investigators. we need some miracles this week, and i know we can get them if we just pray.

sam

Another week in Zilina

cau!
hope everything is going well back home. we had an interesting week here. our district leader challenged us to get three new investigators this week. with that in mind, we started working really hard. by the end of our first day we already had two potential new investigators. unfortunately, one of them canceled their lesson and as it turns out, the other guy entered the wrong number into our phone, so we weren't ever able to contact him. it's a shame too. he seemed really interested. he talked for quite a long time about all the problems that he sees with the catholic church. he said (in slovak mind you) "sometimes i wonder if the catholic church even has the priesthood like they say they do." that's like half the first lesson RIGHT THERE! and yet, we weren't able to ever get together with him. so, we are really praying that we somehow run into him on the street this week. we were able to get two new investigators this week, which put us in second place for the whole mission. we also came in second place for hours speaking slovak with 76. the boys in kosice west beat us with 101. show-offs. anyway, one of the investigators we ended up getting is a really interesting story. we were walking around the town square yesterday and we contacted this guy. as we began to speak he told us in english that he doesn't speak slovak. turns out he is a business man who is living in slovakia on business for awhile. originally he is from venezuala, but right now he lives in spain. immediately he was receptive. he wanted to hear more about our message, he listened to everything he had to say, we taught him every principle in the first lesson, AND (wait for it) when we asked him if we could pray HE offered to say the prayer! that NEVER happens! at least not in slovakia. most the people here only know the lords prayer or the rosary, and even still would never pray out loud in front of two americans. anyway, it was very refreshing to talk to someone so willing to listen. usually the only people willing to listen to our message are atheists. i'm almost to the point of praying for atheists. at least they are usually a little more open-minded. EVERYBODY else is catholic, and the most common response we get from those people when we go out contacting is literally: "i'm catholic, so i don't want to talk to you." as if that's a good reason. anyway, in spite of all of that, we are having success, and i am convinced that there are just as many prepared people here as there are in mexico or brazil or some place like that. we just have to turn over a few more rocks to find them. one of those prepared people is eva. she is one of our investigators with a baptismal date. her date isn't until next transfer, but we are confident that we can get her to move it up. she is practical, and really nice, and has the cutest little two year old daughter name karinka. she hasn't had any dreams or seen any visions or anything like that, but she is building a testimony the good old fashioned way. all she is doing is meeting with the missionaries, keeping her commitments, and praying. that is all she is doing, and yet, she is progressing right along. we just need to get her to come to church more. she is really busy right now with school, but school is almost out, so hopefully it will be easier to get her to do that in the near future.

in other news we went to brno for our greeny training meeting this last week. it was a great meeting, although elder durrant and i were about 90 minutes late. it all started when we missed our train from bratislava by literally a minute. we would have only been like 20 minutes late, but the next train was twentey minutes late, and after that we lost an hour trying to maneuver our way throught the tram system in brno, which was very confusing. luckily president was very forgiving. everyone at the meeting was very impressed by our teaching skills. elder durrant and i both have high hopes for how much we can progress on our missions. it's elder durrants second transfer and he is already training, and he thinks i'm better than he was when he was a greeny. i don't know if i want to believe that. he is pretty good at slovak.

this week all the missionaries in zilina gave talks in church. it was a really good meeting i thought. it was really cool to see all of us speak, and i'm sure the members appreciate getting a break from speaking every now and then. there is only about 10 of them, so they all have to speak very often. elder tomlinson told me after the meeting that my talk was the best slovak he's ever heard a greeny speak. i think i gave a good talk but i don't think i can really take credit for any of it. it sounds really cheesy, but i really felt something helping me. i mean, im not going to lie, i am a pretty good speaker for being a greeny, but yesterday the words just came effortlessly. my conjugations and declinations were all right, and it just came out like it would have come out if i were giving a talk in english. a miracle seems to happen everyday here, and that would definitely qualify as one.

ok i feel like this email has all been spiritual stuff, which is all fine in good, but i need to share temporal news too. let me just start by saying even though slovakia is great and i'm really enjoying my time here, europe SUCKS, and this is why: the euro. i know it's more valuable than the dollar right now, but i don't care. at least in america we realize a very important thing: that carrying a bunch of change around is not ideal. in america change is useless. the most a piece of change can be worth is 25 cents. in europe, however, one piece of change can be worth up to 2 bucks! what the heck! change is no longer that thing that you just eternally accumulate in a jar on top of the refrigerator. anyway, everything is going well, and i hope you will all continue to send me your letters and emails. i really enjoy reading them.

cau
sam

Sam has arrived!

Some photos of Sam (looking a little jet-lagged) with his trainer along with the mission president and his wife taken on his first days in the Czech Republic

Som na Slovenska!

hello from...(drumroll) zilina!
i have finally made it to slovakia, after nine long weeks in the mtc and a super long plane/ train ride, i am finally in my first area as a missionary in slovakia. we traveled from salt lake straight to paris where we had a two hour layover. i don't want to judge an entire country by its airport, but if i was going to, i would say that france sucks. there was only like 2 feet between the security line and the gate where we took off so we pretty much just had to crowd around the gate close to a bunch of smelly french people to get on the plane. our filght to prague was short, only about an hour and a half, but  it was so hard to stay awake on the flight. i didn't get much sleep on the plane ride to paris because i can't sleep when i'm sitting and the guy that sat next to me snored like it was nobody's business. i did have a cool experience in the airport while we were waiting for our flight to paris to board. a kid came up to us and asked who we were, we said we were missionaries going to the czech republic and slovakia. he said that he was from slovakia, which was a surprise to me, since he looked like he was hispanic, spoke very good english, and was wearing a lebron james jersey.he must be a gypsy. i spoke to him in slovak for a few minutes and talked to him about the church. i gave him a pass along card and told him to go to the church's website if he wants to learn more. i should have gotten his phone number but i didn't. maybe he will call the missionaries anyway and hopefully soon the missionaries in bratislava will have a good referral soon. first thing when we got to prague, we went on our prague walk with the aps. i have been a lot of really cool places in my life, and although i've never been out of the country before now, i have seen some really beautiful places. however, i can now say that prague is the most beautiful city i have ever seen. all the old architecture is so amazing. the only thing i wish is that we could have had more time to tour  all the cool buildings we saw. prague castle is absolutely amazing. it's hard to believe that building like that could be built so long ago in a time when they didn't have anywhere near the same technology that we have now. we didn't go through the cathedral, which was disappointing, but i'm sure i will get to go someday. after we walked across charles bridge, we came into the main namestie in prague and started doing some contacting. we contacted for about 20 minutes. it went pretty well. we got rejected by everyone, but a few people talked to us and i was able to give a pass along card to a lady, who i think may have had at least some interest in the gospel. after that we had our first czech meal, which was very delicious. i had some spicy beef goulash, which was very good. i know that i am going to have to cook most of my food here, but the food that someone else cooks for me, will be very good if it is anything like our dinner yesterday. i will try to send some pictures of everything as soon as i can. i also met president irwin for the first time yesterday. he seems like a great guy. he's a spiritual giant, so the mission will definitely do great things with him at the helm. after our tour and everything yesterday, we got our bags and we got put up in a small hotel just around the corner from the mission home. it was pretty good. the interior decorating was definitely reminiscent of a home once owned by grandma joleen. we got to go to bed at like 845 and we didn't have to wake up this morning until seven, so that was very nice. i haven't slept that  well in  months! this morning, we had breakfast with president irwin at his house, and then had our interview with him. after that i met my trainer. he is a young man by the name of elder durrant. this is only his second transfer, that's right, hie SECOND transfer. he is a legend in this mission already for just being a straight up whiz kid. he is already very capable at the language and president irwin assures me that i am a very  lucky man. after getting to know elder durrant on our five hour train ride today, i think i would definitely have to agree with that sentiment. he seems like a great guy, with a strong testimony and work ethic. i think we will make a really good team, and that we  will see some real success while we are here in zilina. we have two investigators right now, both of whom have baptismal dates, so right away we will have some teaching to do. most of our work, however, will be concentrated on finding new people to teach, meaning a lot of tracting and a lot of contacting. i should be very good at contacting by the end of this transfer. elder durrant seems to be really excited about our prospects this transfer. he says that my slovak is really good for a greeny and that by the end of this transfer, i should be speaking better than a lot of older missionaries. that was really assuring. zilina is a beautiful city, at least what i have seen of it thus far is. our apartment is pretty nice too. this apartment that i will be living in is affectionately called "the palace" because it is so much nicer than most missionary apartments. it will be a really nice place to live. tonight elder durrant is going to take me around the city and we will maybe do some contacting, but the real work will start tomorrow, when we are pretty much going to hit the streets all day. i think i am going to lose that 5 pounds that i gained in the mtc pretty darn quick. i can't wait to start getting to know the town, the people, and the culture here. it's an absolutely beautiful country unlike anything else that i have ever seen. it is definitely going to be a nice place to spend the next few years. i'm sure that i will have a lot to tell you when i send my email next week. now that i have more time to email every week, feel free to send me an email. i can only respond to emails from family, but if you want to say hey or update me on what's going on, you can send me an email, and i can respond via snail mail. i also love getting hand-written letters though, so i'm happy to receive them if you would like to send them. i will let you all know what my address is as soon as i can. until then you can send mail to the mission home. i will see the president again next Thursday, so if the mail gets there by then i will be able to get it from him. i look forward to hearing about everything that is going on in your lives. as for me, just know that i am alive, i am in Slovakia, and i am excited to get to work.

milujem vas
sam

Tyzden Osem

ahoj!

ako sa mate? as i write this i am six days away from leaving the mtc, and i have to say it feels great. don't get me wrong, i have enjoyed my time here, but i am just so excited to teach real investigators and speak slovak with real slovaks. it has been a really interesting week. this last sunday we had our usual fireside. it was good like always, except this time the musical number was amazing! instead of the usual crappy efy song sung by some squeaky-voiced kid from payson, we had an elder from hungary play a vivaldi concerto arranged for the organ by bach. it was sooooo cool! dad will you teach me how to play the organ when i get back? it's such a cool instrument. on tuesday elder scott spoke at our devotional. it was SO cool. thus far we've just had bottom feeders with titles like "managing director of the missionary department" or "managing director of the mtc." it was so great to finally look up at the screen on tuesday night and see "Richard G. Scott: Quorum of the Twelve Apostles" his talk was the coolest. in the middle of his talk he asked how many of the missionaries in the audience were in the mtc to learn a different language. after everybody raised their hands he said "i now use my powers as a apostle of Jesus Christ to bestow upon each and every one of you the gift of toungues." wow. how about them apples? he assured us that we will still be expected to work hard, but he also assured us that learning the language will now be easier than it would have been. it showed this week in the trc. our volunteer came up to us afterwards and say "mluvite pekne" czech for "you speak beautifully." elder scott also said that we should not let our potential as missionaries be determined by the past. that was very comforting to me, because i know i haven't always been the greatest kid, but i promise i've been trying, and right now i'm really trying hard to be the best elder meredith possible. i know that as i humbly seek the help of the Lord, i can do all things that will be asked of me not just on my mission, but in every other stage of my life as well. the best part of elder scott's talk, however, had to be his testimony at the end. elder scott doesn't speak as loudly as some of the other apostles, but his testimony could move a mountain with ease.

 

elder bezas was reassigned this week to the pennsylvania philadelphia mission. he left this morning, and although i'm sad he won't be making the trip to slovakia with me, i know he will do great work in philly. i'm excited for him. with elder bezas gone, i have two new companions. each one of us is the only elder in the mtc learning his particular language. elder genther is learning croatian, elder baker is learning slovenian, and i am learning slovak. needless to say, our "speak your langauge" time over the next week will be very interesting. we can understand each other a little bit, but the languages definitely have their differences. they are both great guys and i will really enjoy living with them for the next few days. it's weird that we are all going to be moving away from each other. i've become such good friends with so many of the elders in my zone, so it's going to be tough saying goodbye when we all ship off to our respective missions. it is possible that i will serve with one of the czech speakers on my mission, but even that isn't super likely. i will see them whenever we have mission conference, but that doesn't happen very much. i'm really excited to see who my trainer is out in the field. jake and joe both told me to just pray for a good trainer, so hopefully those prayers will be answered.

 

we got our flight plans this week. we leave on monday the 2nd. we go from the mtc at 5 am. our flight from salt lake leaves around 8 in the morning. we then have a 4 hour layover in dallas. yipee. after that we make an incredibly long flight to london where we have a 3 hour layover. after that it's on to prague. we will start traveling at 5am may 2, and we will stop traveling at about 130 pm may 3 prague time. needless to say, it's going to be a long day of travel. and right after that we have to go walk around prague for a few hours. i'm really excited for that part, but i just hope i will be awake for it. our teachers have been telling us more and more stories and sending us more and more pictures, and i am getting more and more excited. i am so stoked to serve the people of slovakia. everytime my teachers talk about their missions to slovakia, their eyes light up and they get a smile on their face. i hope that i am the same way when i return from my mission.

 

anyway, things are getting really exciting now. i'm only a matter of days away from beginning the experience of living in europe for two years. if you would like to write me in the mission field, you can talk to mom or libby or whoever and they can get you my address. o and mom and dad, i get to call from the airport in salt lake, so what is the best number to call for each of you? let me know. anyway, i hope that all of you are doing well. i miss you all and i can't wait to tell you all about the wonderful experiences that i know are in store for me once i reach slovakia

 

cau!

sam

Tyzden Sedem

ahoj! ako sa mate?

fist things first: mom please send my drivers' license when it gets there, and also it would be great if you could send me a few more t-shirts. that utah state basketball shirt i have would be good, as well as that gray nike shirt. thanks!

anyway, things are going pretty well here. just before i came into the computer lab to email, elder engstrom pointed out that we will be in europe in twelve days. yikes! i am so excited to go to slovakia, but it really is just crazy how fast this mtc experience went. i can't believe that i am already almost through my first transfer! it has been a great experience so far and i know that things are only going to get better. everytime our teachers tell us stories or show us pictures from their time in slovakia, i get so excited to go and serve! this week has been good, and for the most part i'm just getting excited to get out into the field. i didn't have a big screw up in the trc this week, which was good. the volunteer we worked with this week only spoke czech, but i think we did pretty well in spite of all of that. it is interesting to see how some cultural stereotypes are perpetuated in the missionaries that serve in those cultures. for example, we (the slovaks, czechs, croats, bulgs, slovenes, poles) just can't stand the russian missionaries. i mean, don't get me wrong, there are a few that are okay people, but those missionaries are the exception and not the rule. they all just think they are the bees knees because they are learning russian. they all live in this fantasy land where they think that they have to be here 12 weeks because they have to learn the cyrilic alphabet. please. three weeks to learn an alphabet? i don't think so. the only reason they are here longer than us is because they have six week transfers in russia instead of nine week transfers. i was talking to brother starling the other day and he said that the harderst language they teach in the mtc (other than the asian languages) is probably slovene or possibly finnish. anyway, i think all of us will be glad once we don't have to deal with the ruskys anymore. they always come up to us when we are outside and ask us if they can practice contacting us in russian. thus far i have obliged, but i think the next time one of them asks me i'm just going to say no. i don't speak russian, therefore, this exercise is completely pointless. i can't respond, unless your companion translates and even then i can only respond in english or slovak. it just seems to me that it would be just as well, nay, perhaps even better if they just went and talked to a tree, or perhaps the flagpole. those objects can respond in russian just as well as i can, and i'm also sure that these objects have much more time in their schedule for pointless activities such as these. this week the mtc presidency finally started allowing us to walk around campus without a suit coat on. it's about time! we have had some pretty hot days here and all of them have been made worse by the fact that we had to wear our suitcoats. the first day where we didn't have to wear them, it rained pretty heavily, but we trotted out of the residence hall without our coats on anyway simply because we could. it's crazy to see how close we are getting to leaving. in a matter of days it will be may and i will again be pakcing up my things and moving yet again. one of our teachers, brother van de graaff, is leaving before the end of the transfer because he is taking an internship in chicago for the summer. his last day with us is tomorrow. it's crazy! he was probably my favorite teacher. they have all become really good friends of mine and it will be tough to say goodbye to all of them, but it will be especially hard in the case of bro. van de graaff. maybe that's just because he's the only one of my teachers that has interest in the nba or mlb, but i think it's also because we just get along pretty well. hopefully i can stay in touch with all of my teachers while i'm in slovakia. i can be certain that i will have some great stories to tell them. this week will be an interesting one. elder bezas' case will go before the quorum of the 12 tomorrow, and we will know on thursday if he is going to be reassigned to a state-side mission. from what the doctor said the other day, it is looking pretty likely that that will be the case. i hope he gets to go to slovakia, but the bretheren will decide what is best. if he does get reassigned, it is likely that he will be sent out of the mtc the next day, meaning, i will be without a companion for my last week of training. that would be weird, so i hope that doesn't happen. we will see. you guys want to learn something funny about slovak? well, the word "peach" is harmless in english, but in slovak it is pretty much the worst word in the book. yesterday brother van de graaff told us that we will hear that word a lot, but we should never ever say it, unless we want to really offend someone, so there you go. when i heard that i was reminded of one of the many witty phrases that my good friend lindsay always comes up with. to compliment me, she often says: "sam, you are a peach." when lindsay says this, i know that she has nothing but the best intentions in mind, so i just hope that she never meets a slovak and has the desire to give them that compliment. in all likelihood, they will take it the wrong way. anyway, sorry if this email is so sporadic. i'm sitting here literally playing beat the clock, and i never know what to talk about because I DO THE SAME THING EVERY SINGLE DAY. anyway, i hope everything back home is going well. i'm really enjoying my mission so far and i know that i am involved in a great work. i am very excited to serve in slovakia. keep sending me your letters. they always make my day

 

love you all!

sam

Tyzden Sest

dobry den!

i hope everything is going well back at home. it has been an interesting week here at the mtc. on thursday, i had my one required weekly screw up at the trc. this week, our task was to share a meal with an investigator. the "waiter" asked elder bezas what he wanted, but elder bezas froze up, so he turned to me and asked me what i wanted. i wasn't really ready to order and i didn't really know what i should have said, so i blurted out the first two food-related words that came to my mind. i ended up ordering beef and an apple with water to drink. so yeah. other than that, though i feel like i did pretty well at the trc this week. this week we taught in the language for the first time and i thought i did a pretty good job communicating with our investigator. i am becoming more and more confident in my ability to teach the gospel, but it's the other simple stuff that i will have to learn when i get there. sometimes i will think i know a lot of words, but then my teacher will say a simple everyday word like "cold" or "different" and i will have no idea what he is saying. on sunday the fireside was given by the byu mens' chorus. catherine always told me very good things about them, but i had never seen them perform until sunday. i can definitely see why she gives them such high praise. it was a really good performance. they had a really nice, unified, and disciplined sound. i do wish, however, that i could have just stuck a mirror in front of the faces of some of the singers. some of them just look so retarded when they are up there singing. they are singing about the Savior, and yet they look like they are smelling a sweaty gym sock. i really liked the arrangement they sang of "brightly beams our father's mercy." i've always liked that tune. they also performed an arrangement of "how firm a foundation" to the original melody, which i thought was really cool. they did their best to get some recruits from the audience. nice try, byu. i mean, the choir was great, but yeah. i don't know why everyone down here takes it upon themselves to try to convince me to go to byu after i get back from my mission. everyday brother starling says: "byu has a really good music program, and if you came here after your mission, you could work at the mtc." both very true statements, but it would take a lot more than that to make me go to the y, i think. watching that choir perform really did make me miss singing in choir. i guess i do participate in the mtc choir, so i guess i should rephrase that and say: "watching that choir on sunday makes me miss singing in a GOOD choir." i mean, the mtc choir isn't terrible, i guess, but they just can't hold a candle to chamber singers, madrigals, or even some of the quartets i sang with while i was in troubadors. i miss sitting in my practice room until 11pm and pounding out some schumann or mozart. o well, i will be able to do those things again soon enough. in other news, this week has been a little bit harder on my district than normal. we saw one of the elders in our zone who was going to croatia go home this week. it was really tough to see him go. we all miss him a lot, but life goes on. also this week elder bezas found out that he may get reassigned to a state-side mission due to medical problems. i hope that doesn't happen. i would really hate it if i learned a slavic language for six weeks and then had someone tell me that i don't even have to use it where i'm going on my mission. i also don't want it to happen because i assume if he got reassigned, he would leave right away and i would be left without a companion for the last two weeks here. that would suck. plus i would feel bad if he didn't at least get to see the czech republic and slovakia. every time our teachers show us pictures or talk about the areas where they served, i get so excited to go. the next three weeks really can't go fast enough. i know i still have a lot to learn, but i am just so pumped to get over there. i have never been out of the united states, but now i'm going to be living outside of the country for two years. it's still so unbelievable to me. anyway, i hope things are going well back at home. i hope that mom had a nice birthday. i was really glad when mom sent me that letter yesterday saying that katy had brought her some banana bread on friday. it was so nice of her to do that. for dad, i hope that all of the preparations for cantata mundi are going well. i wish i could be there to see myself holding the glowing earth-ball of love or whatever it is on the screen. libby, i hope everything is going well with school and i hope that your are enjoying volunteering at the hospital. it's weird to think that you will have graduated by the time i am back from my mission. anyway, everything here is going really well, and it won't be long before i am writing this email from an internet cafe in zilina or kosice or wherever. it's hard to believe that i have less than three weeks left here. i hope that you will all continue to send me your letters. i always enjoy hearing about what is going on in your lives. love you and miss you all!

 

sam