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