Week 2

"Scissor me," says any one of the four Elders in my Slovak class.  In reply, another Elder yells, "Pozor!" ("Warning!") which is what we say when we toss scissors at each other in class.  Klasický.

I reflect on the day that will come that marks the end of my mission in Slovakia.  What will I want to say I have done?  What kind of person will I have become?  I'm less concerned with how many people I baptize and more concerned with who I become, so that as many as are sincere in their pursuit of truth will see my example, that they will have an opportunity to have the same conversion as I.  That isn't to say I don't have a long way to go.

Thursday (1 Feb)

Elder Smith, what a character.  He ruins his book with water then claims to have fixed it by ironing it.  One of our teachers doesn't believe him, so they have a bet: if Elder Smith could prove the number 21 didn't exist in Polish, she would admit he fixed his book.  To everyone's surprise, 21 does indeed exist in Polish, so he admits to buying a new book and pretending as if he'd fixed it.  Klasický.

Friday (2 Feb)

Missionary drama: it exists.  We're all still people, but it's best not to get involved.

Saturday (3 Feb)

Role playing is when one Elder pretends to be an investigator, then the other fills his role as a missionary by teaching.  I'm the investigator, playing a character named Miles, a heavy smoker.  I don't know how Elder Smith keeps a straight face as I laugh to the point of tears.  I'm not good at this.

Sunday (4 February)

I discover my favorite phrase: Chcem premôcť ľudí (I want to overpower people.)  My fellow Slovak missionaries are becoming increasingly concerned.  All in good fun, obviously...

BYU Noteworthy, one of the best female a capella groups in the nation, performed for us at devotional.  Amazing.

Tuesday (6 February) [I'm aware that I skipped Monday]

Couch Tennis is getting heated.  Two couches face each other, two people on each couch.  Hit a bouncy ball back and forth, don't let it hit the ground.  Same scoring as Tennis.  Who says the MTC can't be fun?

Wednesday (7 February)

New missionaries arrive, and I host two of them.  That means I'm their introduction to the MTC.  For the first new Elder, I pretend to be from Norway.  My accent is probably off, but he wouldn't know.  He asks me tough questions, such as, "What temperature was it in Norway when you left?  You use Celsius, right?"  I replied, "Ja, vi use Celsius.  Also kilometers.  Vhat even is a mile?"  He asked me what I thought of Finnish people.  I told him, "Finland isn't technically a Scandinavian country."  That answer satisfied him, for some odd reason.

I go door-to-door to the other Eastern-Europe missionaries in my same dorm, spreading the gospel.  Some say they don't believe in God, others were interested in the message.  One even committed to baptism!  Haha, I didn't think any of them would play along, but all of them did.