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
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
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
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
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
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
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
