Charakter

no, i didn't spell that word wrong. that is just the slovak spelling for the work for "character" and character is one of the big advantages of serving in a small city. although it is flattering that some of you think i'm serving in a big glamorous city like prague (i'm actually not serving in prague for those of you who are still fooled by the address that constantly abides on my webpage and my sacrament meeting program), really these smaller cities like banska bystrica have something that bigger cities just don't have and that's characters. when you live in a small city of less than 100,000 people and you are constantly walking on the main square every single day, you are bound to run into the "regulars." in my 4 months in zilina i racked up quite a few friends by contacting on the main square, and so far banska has been the same way. for example we have one character here who everybody calls "elvis." he's this guy with long black hair and a high, whiny voice who just talks to everyone on the square. he was being his normal self today when we were out on the square. he came up to elder smith and i and offered to sell us a picture of himself. we turned it down because the banksa east apartment is already the proud owner of one for some odd reason. i guess he has had some good business in the past. i guess anything is more successful than his other current business venture--trying to sell elder nichol his watch...for a million dollars. i guess it can't hurt to try. anyway, that's just a taste of the interesting people here in banska bystrica. in the end i think that is what determines the value of a city is the caliber of the people. yes, prague is a much more beautiful city than banska, and zilina, and bratislava, and probably any other town i will serve in. prague has nice parks, museums, cathedrals and historical sites, but there is one thing they don't have...and that's elvis.

 

ahoj'te

sam

A salute to slanina

we had another transfer this week. i have a new companion now, but i think i should take a moment out of this journal entry to talk about my old companion elder bacon. what a guy. although, i'm so excited for this next transfer, i was pretty sad to see him go. serving with him was just so much fun! allow me to explain. elder bacon is just this cutest little thing to ever come out of provo, utah. he's a little more quiet, and is just the most polite human being you have ever met. this works against him sometimes in the mission field, however, because it makes him an easy target for pranks from his companion. like the time when elder nichol and i were on an exchange together and we found elder bacon and elder taylor and ambushed them with snowballs, that was fun. my favorite, though, has to be when i used the light switch (which is outside of the bathroom) to turn the lights off on elder bacon while he was showering. it was so hard to contain my laughter as i heard "o, no...the power is out" coming from the bathroom. i ran to turn off the lights in the rest of the apartment. when elder bacon got out of the shower, he opened the door, turned on the light, and realized that it was all a big prank. i just smiled and asked him in slovak how his shower was. when most people would have given me a good punch in the stomach, elder bacon just smiled and laughed. he was such a good sport. i had all of these ideas for pranks i was gonig to play on him this transfer, but o well. i'm still in banska, so that's fun. i'm serving with elder smith, who i served around in blava. he's great so i'm really excited about that. we also have a new zone leader whose name you will recognize. he's a missionary that's one transfer older than me, and his name is elder durrant. with elder nichol still in the picture, we truly have the district of dreams in the city of dreams.

 

ahoj'te

sam

The new year

my celebration of the new year this time was different than it has ever been before. it consisted of being home at 6pm on the 31st, cooking some halusky for dinner with elder bacon, watching missionary training dvds, and preparing my lesson for priesthood the next day. that's not to say, however, that there weren't a few exciting things here and there. we were able to have lunch at a members house on the 31st. it was there that i ate rabbit for the first time. every missionary has to have some sort of interesting food experience so i was excited to have that one (rabbit tastes pretty darn good just fyi). after that, while we were home, i got to witness a slovak-style celebration of the new year. elder bacon and i watched as a bunch of teenagers lit of fireworks on the lawn out in front of our building. all of the fireworks were stuff that would get you the death penalty if you were in the state of arizona or utah. with that on my mind i slowly became just a little bit jealous. the one time i'm in a place that allows the purchase of bottle rockets i'm living under a system of rules that strictly forbids even thinking about buying them. o well--i guess i could always just move to wyoming...ok maybe dangerous fireworks aren't THAT great. anyway, i'm excited to start up a brand new year. i feel like i made some good progress in 2011 and i'm so excited to see what i and my fellow elders can achieve in 2012. prajem vsetkym stastny novy rok!

 

s laskou

sam