Ja sa potim

ahoj from zilina. sorry the letter this week is a little bit late. yesterday was a holiday here in slovakia, so all of the stores were closed, including the internet cafe. this is the last week of the transfer. we find out where we are going on thursday and on saturday we move. its weird. this last sunday very well could have been my last in zilina. it was weird sort of having to say goodbye to everyone. i really dont want to leave. ive grown to love this city so much, so i would be more than happy to stay at least another transfer. we will find out what happens on thursday i guess, but just as a heads up, it is very possible that i will be writing this letter from a completely different city next week. im going to take a shot in the dark and say that i will be in kosice. anyway, this week was a pretty good one. elder romero and elder walker were able to find a really great woman for our area when they were together on an exchange, so we are really excited about that. we are teaching her later today, so i am excited to meet her and get to know her a little better. we also made a little bit of history this week when elder romero and i went over to the seidl home with alessandro to do some home teaching. we are the first home teachers to ever be in their home, and im sure that we wont be the last. it sounds like a worthless accomplishment, but i really think that is proof that the church is growing here. there are so many things that we have in america as church members that we probably take for granted, and home teachers is definitely one of them. it was so great to see how happy the seidlovci were thanks to our visit. sunday as i said was interesting. i sort of had to say goodbye to all the members because transfers are this week, and they are all out of town this week on a temple trip in frieberg, so that might be the last time i see a few people here from zilina. i also had my last performance as the designated branch musician. elder walker and i sang a duet of abide with me tis even tide to open the meeting, and then later i sang and accompanied myself on to think about Jesus from the primary song book. it was great. anyway, the subject of this email is the slovak phrase for i am sweating. i say that because it has been unbelievably hot this week, and also because i would be lying if i said i wasnt nervous for transfers. everyone is assuming that i am going to train one of the new missionaries. i would be really excited if that were the case, but that would be quite a bit of responsibility, especially for someone who will only be on his third transfer in the country. so, if that does end up being the case, just pray for me extra hard. i hope that everything back at home continues to go well. keep me apprised of everything that goes on. even if you dont think its interesting, i just might. love you and miss you all! have a great week!

čau!
sam

A slovak fiesta

this week was pretty solid. it was pretty simple. we went out and we worked. when we worked, we worked hard. because we worked hard we were rewarded. we were able to find a lot of new potential investigators, which i am very excited about. we are already harvesting the fruits of our diligent labors from last week. we just met with one of those potentials right before i came to the internet cafe. we gave him a book of mormon to read and he is very interested and curious. we asked him if he would pray to gain a testimony of the book of mormon. he said that he needs to read a little bit first before he can decide if it's something that is right for him. i promised him that if he read sincerely, he would quickly find out that the book of mormon is the book for him. i'm really excited for this week. we got some good things set up last week, and i think we are going to have a lot of opportunities to teach this week, which i'm really excited for. i'm really sad that we haven't had as much of a chance to teach this transfer. i've always thought that elder romero and i were a pretty good teaching tandom and i think we are finally going to be able to put that harmony into a little more practice this next week. we also got to do a few fun things this week. on friday, for example, elder romero and i went to the house of the big member family here in zilina to cook them some mexican food. they benevolently call elder romero either mexican, or mexico, even though elder romero has never even been to mexico. from the first week of the transfer, they were begging elder romero to come and cook enchiladas for them. on friday we finally had the chance. i think the chimichangas we made were pretty good. on saturday, we had our branch vylet (trip) with all of the members from both zilina and banska bystrica. we went to blatnice where there are beautiful caves and also a castle. it was a great trip. it was a lot of fun to get out and see some of the beautiful nature around here. mostly, it was great to be able to spend some time with the great members that we have here. i have made some really great friends over the last few months, and i'm so grateful that i have been able to serve the last four months in this wonderful branch. all the members here are so fun to be around, and they are all such great examples of disciples of Jesus Christ. transfers this time around are on a saturday. a week from thursday we found out where we are headed. the widely held belief is that i am headed to trencin to train. i would be glad to do that (although nobody knows anything about transfers yet), but i was also thinking on saturday as i was sitting roasting a sausage over the fire, that i sure do like zilina. it will be hard to leave this city, but that's nothing compared to how hard it's going to be to leave slovakia in a year and a half.

s laskou
sam

The booze bag incident and other hijinks

here i am, once again, sitting in the internet cafe, while the owner watches a "mash" episode dubbed in slovak. what a marvelous country i live in. this week was pretty good. we definitely had our share of disappointments, but the blessings still far outweighed those. i don't know if i mentioned this last week, but the last time we met with our investigator eva, she told us that she had just lost her phone, but that she sees us all the time in town and that she would run us down when she saw us. i have been praying so hard that we would run into her this week, but so far, no dice. i really hope that we see her around town this week. that would be fantastic. this week was kind of interesting because elder tomlinson came down with a pretty bad virus. that meant that elder romero and i had to split time staying with him, while the other went our with elder walker to make all their appointments. i'm not happy that elder tomlinson is sick, and i hope that he is better soon, but he being sick gave elder romero and i the opportunity to teach silvia a recent convert lesson. we talked to her about preparing to go into the temple, which she will be able to do a little less than a year from now. she is such a strong member already, and i think she will be for the rest of her life. i am so blessed to have been here in zilina to watch her conversion process. it feels so good to be a part of someone's progression towards making sacred covenants with the Lord in His house, the temple. i didn't sing in church this week. instead i gave a 15 minute talk on personal revelation. part of my talk included a quote from elder bednar's most recent conference address. as i was preparing for my talk, alica (the youngest child in the big member family here in zilina--she's the cutest little girl in the world) approached me and asked "do you know why elder bednar is the best looking apostle?" i told her that i didn't know and asked why he is the best looking apostle. she said: "because he has slovak ancestors." i thought that was pretty funny. speaking of funny, you are probably all wondering what in the heck i was referring to in the subject of this e mail. the story starts last transfer when i bought a little ruksack to carry around while contacting. it's smaller, lighter, and just overall better than a backpack is. anyway, i took my bag with us to lunch on tuesday at slovenska koliba (one of my favorite restaurants here). i set my bag under my seat. when i picked it up again after lunch, i realized that it was wet. i lifted it up to my nose, all the while praying that it was just water. when the bag approached my nostrils, however, my worst fears were realized. it was beer. apparently the people sitting behind us had spilled their beer on the floor. anyway, that was almost a week ago and my ruksack still smells like cierna hora. so i ask you, if any of you have any ideas regarding how i could get the booze smell out of my bag (i'm sure you all have much experience removing the stench of alcohol from various accessories), i would really appreciate it.

cau'te
sam

Never Enough

this was a great week. i will start off right away by sharing the cool story that happened to us. elder romero and i were contacting on the town square on tuesday and we contacted a girl. we started talking and it turns out she is a slovak native who lives in idaho of all places. she knows quite a few mormons and was interested in learning more. we set up a meeting. before the meeting, she asked us if she could bring her cousin with her to the lesson. they both came and they both had a lot of questions for us. we answered all their questions and gave them books of mormon. we met with them again on satruday and had an even better meeting. they had many more questions for us. they are both really curious and really eager to find the truth. we read from the book of mormon and watched the joseph smith restoration short film with them. the spirit was really strong. silivia (the woman who was recently baptized here in zilina) was there to help us teach both lessons. after we watched the video, silvia (sounding like she had been a church member for most of her life) bore testimony of how she is just so much more happy now that she is a member of the church. she testfied of joseph smith and of the book of mormon and of prayer. with the influence of the spirit being so thick that you could cut it with a knife, elder romero simply said: "so, what do you need to do?" the response the girls gave was just as simple as the question: "read the book of mormon and ask God if it's true." it was fantastic. Majka is going back to idaho, but we gave her a firm commitment to contact the missionaries there. Eva, however, is still going to be here in zilina, and we are looking forward to teaching her again. it was a great week. i feel like we have really been rewarded for our patience and diligence. if there is one thing that i have learned so far in my nearly 6 months as a missionary (yikes!), it's that the Lord, as long as we're faithful, will never hang us out to dry. we had a great week, and i'm looking forward to this week. i shared the story with elder nichol (who is now a zone leader). we talked about what a great experience it was. after that he asked me a question. he said: "now you've just gotta do even more next week right?" i assented. his response: "yeah, it's never enough, is it, elder?" he was right.

s laskou
sam

Odhodlanie part II

this week was better. it still wasn't great, but anything would have been better than last week was. we contacted ALOT this week, and we it wasn't completely fruitless. we did get some good new potential investigators, and we were able to find one new investigator. his name is andrej. he is a professional futsol player (indoor soccer...i think). anyway he is a way cool guy but unfortunately lives a little far away from zilina. it will be a little harder to get meetings set up with him, but he is an awesome guy and is really willing to meet. anyway, it was a better week, and this week is going to be even better. something big is coming. we might just hvae to be a little patient before it gets here. everyone else in the czech and slovak republics seems to be just killing it right now, but zilina is just lagging a little bit behind. we're going to close the gap, however, so long as we keep working hard with that same "odhodlanie." there were some cool things that happened this week. i sang again in church (i have now had some sort of musical performance [outside being the accompanist] in sacrament meeting for the last 12 consecutive weeks). i sang and played on the piano a little arrangement of "sweet hour of prayer" that i came up with. sister seidl came up to me afterwards and said that she feels like she is in the temple when i sing. that's my best endorsment yet! definitely something to throw on the resume. we also had a successful sport night this saturday. on wednesday elder tomlinson, elder romero, and i were doing some contacting on the lower namestie. off to the side i noticed a big family throwing around a frisbee. i told them that we play frisbee every saturday at six. they said they would come, and then they actually did! we had a lot of fun playing with them. turns out they are tourists from prague. we gave them the information for the missionaries there. they said they would at least definitely go to english class. well i don't have much more time, but before i go, it's time for the hilarious mission story of the week! this entry happened this morning actually while we were having language study. all of the sudden i heard this loud banging sound coming from the street. after each bang i heard someone yelling at the top of their lungs in the gypsy language. elder romero and i ran to the widow to look down on an old gypsy woman with two kids standing behind her, who was trying with all her strengh to break...a scale. eventually she succeeded and took a metal disc out of the scale and put it on a little rigshaw-type cart with all the rest of the junk that she had harvested so far. elder romero and i looked at each other, laughed and just said "what the heck was that?" it is likely that i will never know the answer to that question.
 anyway, cool stuff happens every week here, even when it isn't your greatest week. if there is one thing that my mission has taught me so far, it's that miracles are commonplace; we just don't notice the majority of them. i'm excited to what miracles this next week will bring!

maj'te sa!
sam

Odhodlanie

this week was rough. i just wrote my weekly report to president irwin where i reported our numbers for the week. 0s all across the board. that's right. i really don't know what to say other than that i am so disappointed. we went out this week and worked, but who did we teach? nobody, who did we find? no one, how do we feel? awful. every lesson we had got cancelled or was a no show, and contacting was an absolute crap shoot. this was by far the worst week of my mission so far, and it is going to stay that way. i am never every doing this again. it was an absolutely horrible week and i am looking forward to just putting it behind me forever. this week will be better. it has to be. when elder pearson came here and spoke to us, he said "every day you should be disappointed, but you should never be discouraged." elder romero and i are trying our hardest to take that advice this week. i still have high hopes for this week. i think we have some good things lined up and i know that the Lord is going to reward us if we continue to have faith and continue to work hard. every day we get text messages from other elders in the slovensko zone about new investigators, new baptismal dates etc. blessings are being poured out on every other city right now. i have to think that zilina is next in line. the miracles are coming. we just have to be ready for it. that's why the theme for this week (and the subject of this emial) is odhodlanie, a slovak work meaning resolution. this week we are just going to have to do as joel directs in joel 3:10 when he says: "beat your plow shares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, i am strong." that's old testament lingo for "bring it on." the slovak translation of that verse in the bible that i am currently using, uses the phrase "som hrdina" in place of "i am strong." "som hrdina" means "i am a hero." this week is our week to be heros, and that is exactly what we will be if we have faith and humbly seek the counsel and guidance of the Lord. He is with us even when we have a rough week. i have a lot of evidence to back up that statement, but the most recent proof came last night. we were walking home from a members house. we just barely missed the bus going back into the center of town, so we had to walk. the walk takes about an hour, and on top of that it was raining. hard. while we walked i had to call in our embarrassing numbers to elder walker. it was terrible. as we finally walked back into the lower namestie, however, soaking wet, having walked for almost an hour; i heard the joyful sound of "in the stone" by earth wind and fire playing over the loud speakers on the town square. after that the week didn't seem so bad.

ahoj'te
sam

Can I train the british kid?

this week was an up and down one. like any normal missionary week, there were  some definite disappointments, but also some great triumphs--triumphs, which of course outweighed the disappointments. we have tried really hard now to set up meetings with our investigators with baptismal dates. we got "beaked" again quite a bit this week.we didn't meet with any of our progressing investigators this week at all, but that wasn't for lack of trying. we had so many meetings set up with all of them, but they didn't come to a single one. i'm not really sure what to do. i'm not wholly opposed to meeting with them, but if they aren't going to show up, then elder romero and i shouldn't waste our time preparing lessons for them. we are thinking really hard about dropping them all. when i called in our numbers this week, i called in that we have 0 progressing investigators. in essence, this week we started at square one. we did a lot of finding. we spent hours out on the town square contacting people, and we were definitely reawarded for our diligence. we picked up a few new investigators this week that we are pretty excited about, and we have quite a few good potential investigators lined up too. this saturday my boys from cajakova (zilina south; whenever someone send me a letter they are actually sending it to the other elders' apartment because we dont' have a mailbox at our apartment--just so you know), had a baptism. we did the baptism again in the river, and it was marvelous. i am so lucky to have had a front row seat for silivia's progression as an investigator. she has so much faith and i think she will be a strong member for the rest of her life. i sang for the baptism in a quartet with elder macneish, elder butler, and elder walker. we sang the slovak version of "i am a child of God." it sounded great. after the baptism, silivia bore her testimony. she sounded like someone who had already been a member for most of her life. after the baptism we went to the Seidls' house for refreshments as always. we may not have too many members here in zilina, but the members that we do have are absolutely marvelous. just before i came to the internet cafe to email, we threw a surprise birthday part for petka, another one of the great members here in zilina. the other elders had asked her for help teaching a "lesson" this morning, but instead of having a lesson, we all yelled surprise, sang, and had cake. i think petka really enjoyed it. she deserved to have a great bithday with all the effort that she puts into the missionary work here in zilina. anyway, i think it's time for the funny mission story of the week. this weeks story isn't so much funny as it is worthy of a twilight zone episode. i got a letter last week from my good friend anna. it had been a little while since i had heard from her, but apparently a lot has happened since we last corresponded. she told me that she got set up on a blind date with this british kid who her dad knows through work. the date went really well and they hung out a few more times before he went back home to england. soon they started talking about the possibility of anna coming to visit him in england, which she did a few weeks later. while she was there, he got his mission call to serve in (you guessed it) the czech prague mission speaking slovak. can you hear the twilight zone music? i sure can. i was pretty shocked when i read that. he's in the mtc at this very moment. i had an interview with president irwin this week when he was here for the baptism. he asked me if i had any questions. jokingly, i replied: "my one question is this: can i train the british kid?" president irwin laughed and said: "well we are going to need four trainers this next transfer." he would be the easiest greeny ever! if he didn't want to go contacting or something, all i would have to say is: "that's fine, but i'm telling your girlfriend that you were too much of a wussy to go contacting." advantage: meredith. anyway, i hope you are all doing well across the pond. hope to hear from you all soon.

ahoj'te
sam

Looked at my kingdom I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the prince of--zilina

the title of this email is apparently what elder romero as he stepped off the train and onto the platform at the main train station here in zilina last week. i guess he was excited to live in "the palace." i thought that was funny because i always appreciate a "fresh-prince" reference. this week was good, bad, and okay all at the same time. we had a lot of meetings set up this week, but most of them were "beaked," which in czech prague mission lingo means we got stood up. it wouldn't be so frustrating if it wasn't our "strongest investigators" who were standing us up all the time. we are going to have to change the baptismal dates of both peter and ladislav now because none of them showed up to church in spite of the fact that both of them agreed to come. wieh we meet with them next, i'm just going to give them a little bit of "reproving betimes with sharpness but afterwards showing forth an increase of love" action. hopefully that will make them see that these meetings that we set up aren't just a contigency plan that you only show up to if you don't find a better offer. anyway, hopefully we see some improvement out of those two this week. we were able to do some better contacting this week because the weather was a little better. it has been really hot and really sticky the last few days, but you know what? it's a billion times better than rain. it's also a billion times better than snow. i just love the summer. i do, however, wish that zilina had a 7-11. i always think a slurpee sounds great after 3 hours of contacting out in the hot sun. in america today is free slurpee day as a matter of fact, so i encourage all of my readers to take full advantage. anyway, contacting was a lot better this week, and we met some pretty cool people with whom we have set up some meetings, so hopefully we will be able to teach a few more lessons this week. things are going well with elder romero. he is a great guy and we get along really well. he's really funny and when he gets sarcastic he sounds like a cartoon character. i know that he and i are going to work hard this transfer, and i think we will have a little fun on the way too, so i'm excited to see what next week brings. i guess it's that time in the email where i tell you guys a funny story, so here is the funny/interesting story of the week. friday was zuzka's birthday (zuzka is one of the members here in zilina). she invited all the missionaries to her birthday lunch at the harley davidson pub...in vrutky. that is not a typo. not only did the harley davidson motorcycle company decide to open up a restaurant in slovakia, but they decided to open one up in vrutky, which is a dumpy little puny town about 30 kilometers outside of zilina. there i ate what was the closest thing i have had to a real burger since i was set apart as a missionary on the first of march. we all had this spicy jalepeno soup, which elder tomlinson (british elder) couldn't really handle. soon after we ate the soup he said "mam vietory" meaning literally " i have winds." i think you can all guess what he was talking about. anyway, things continue to be great here. this week will be an exciting one. silvia, one of the investigators being taught by the elders in zilina south, is getting baptized this week, so we are all really excited for that. be sure to keep me updated on all the goings on back at home. love you all!

cau
sam