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