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