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
Thursday, July 7, 2011
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
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
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
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