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