Week 14: Nemôžem sa Sťažovať

Sťažovať sa means to complain, or more literally, to make more difficult for oneself.  That's a lot of truth packed into one word.

Each week, we aim to bring X number of people to church, to invite X number of people to baptism, to have X number of new investigators.  Sometimes, we try our hardest, but don't meet standards.  That's okay, the goals are there to help us reach higher than we would have without them, not to make us feel guilty for not reaching them.  It is better to work towards a goal and to not reach it than to have no goal.  We have some pretty insane goals here on the mission, but I can't complain.

There were only 4 people at church yesterday.  Just the missionaries.  We'll work on that and I'll get back to you.

My (partial) letter to Miles:  I saw Bryce's mom yesterday.  She said a lot of people drink over there (Czech Republica) and hold business meetings typically in a pub where everyone will drink.  I wonder if that's true in Slovakia?  When drinking is such a commonplace thing, even more so than in America, it is a hard thing to overcome.  What could entice people to want more than the comfort of their pubs and social settings?  Those things are hard to ask people to forsake unless there is something very much better behind another door.  To get a person to see in the eternal perspective is difficult.  Most of us think linearly.  When's my next meal?  Vacation?  Class?  Job interview?  What's next on the agenda?  Unless those things are seen as relevant and connected to each other, they are often no more than isolated events.  I mean, someone could certainly have goals that go from point to point to point, but there are shadows when there is no gospel perspective.  A gospel perspective brings LIGHT and clarity to someone's life.  The purpose of it all.

Miles's response to my letter:  That's right, you must think and ponder about something first, but that doesn't mean you'll accept it.  That's why sign seekers make no sense.  No, they won't believe if they see a sign.  Believing in God has less to do with whether or not you believe he exists (but, of course, that's in the foundation of your belief) but the next step is to believe that His ways are better than yours.  Faith is when you change your actions accordingly.

Learning the language here, I'm pretty attentive to detail.  I wonder why that is.  Maybe because when you taught us kids, you showed us to do it like that.  For instance, regarding Scripture Mastery.  We had to get it word-for-word.  Music has helped with that skill as well, it's helped me to have a more discerning ear.  People are telling me I'm really good (of course I'm not yet, but I have a solid foundation) and I owe it to you for that.

Week 13: Mitch, the Castle Destroyer

"Stop!" cries Elder Akina as Mitch hurls a gigantic boulder off the side of the castle.  I'm not sure if Elder Akina is concerned for the castle or if he just wants to catch this on film.  He's taking out his camera, so I'll let you decide.  Mitch, you've never met anyone like him.  In one moment everything is normal, then suddenly he's destroying a castle in Nitra.  Watch out, America!  He's coming to New York in two weeks.

We met a lady in the park who basically did our job for us.  

Set expectations: "You guys talk about Jesus Christ, right?" 

Set up meeting: "Come to my house in Zobor."  

Exchange contacts: Actually, we had to do this one.  

After that, we met a lady who threatened to call the police on us, that much of her shouting I understood.  We seriously meet people from all over the spectrum.  

Mitch: The Castle Destroyer [though I don't see any boulders being hurled.  ~Mare]

Week 12: To Je Rozdiel

At a service project, the organizer of which was showing the Elders around.  

"This here is a commun--- garden."  It was quite hard to understand his English as he was a native Slovak.

"A post-communist garden!" I said with a tone of surprise.

"No, a community garden," he corrected me.  Oh, that's a difference.

I was with Elder Barton on the train in Bratislava, and we met a lady from Nigeria.  She already knew about Mormons, but she didn't quite understand what missionaries were.  She thought that we were serving missions so we could go on to being priests, or paid ministers, as a career.  She was rather surprised to hear that Elder Barton wanted to study Business and I, while still undecided, might go into Linguistics or Computer Science.  

There is no element of self-interest in the decision to serve a mission, to pause our personal lives for two years.  We serve because we have a conviction, or testimony, that our message is true.  We want to share with others what we have, and we hope that they will choose to accept and act upon it.  

Any sincere truth-seeker who is willing to act upon the knowledge that he receives can find out for himself that our message is true.  First, one must read The Book of Mormon and pray about its truthfulness.  Once he receives a confirmation from the Holy Ghost that The Book of Mormon is true, that means Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, and by God's power was Joseph able to translate The Book of Mormon.  That means The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God's church on the earth.  Anyone can find out whether this is true, if his heart is sincere.

1. A sign said that I couldn't drink from the public water fountain, but it didn't say anything about washing my hands.

2. This is not the communist garden from the intro of my email.

3. Bus with free hot chocolate!  Too bad elders Akina + Papenfuss fell asleep.  Taken with Elder Akina's camera.

Week 11

The outlets are nice here, very sturdy.  But here, they don't have dryers for clothes.  I have to hang-dry all my clothes?  Also, the light switches are somewhat cool, they're squares instead of... whatever we have in America.  I don't know how to describe light switches from America.

It was nice to see the boys from the MTC.  (Elders)(McQuivey + Smith + Rasmussen) = the boys.  I saw them while in Žilina for training.  There I saw my mission president, Prezident Pohořelický.  It's obvious he cares about his missionaries.

I learned that opportunities for service usually come in unexpected ways.  There are plenty of ways to help others, whether it be acting kindly toward them or going out of your way to help them accomplish a task.  Look to do service every day.  There are always opportunities.

Visited the elderly lady again, Sestra Žiškova.  This time the cookies kept coming.  While she had good intentions to keep filling our plates, we wanted no more, but no one wanted to say anything for fear of being rude.  So, while she was in the other room for a brief moment, we quickly stuffed the cookies back into the cookie jar.  Elder Papenfuss wasn't quite so fast, so he had to down another few cookies.

Just some river

(Elders)(Papenfuss + Jackson + Akina + You Know)

Town Square (a.k.a. Námestie)

Weeks 9.5 and 10

[Miles's p-day is Monday, but because it was Easter weekend, his p-day was moved to Tueday.]



It was Fast Sunday, in which day we fast, or go without food and water for two meals.  With me in the city of Nitra was Elder Akina (my trainer), Elder Jackson, and Elder Papenfuss.  We planned to break our fasts at 8, which was in 4 hours.  We were very hungry.  We were visiting a member of our church who couldn't make it to church that day.  She, probably unaware that it was Fast Sunday, had a large assortment of desserts on her living-room table.  No doubt that it was the center of attention.  

My trainer, Elder Akina (yes, he's from Hawaii)

Elder Jackson and Elder Akina were in the living room with me, and we made eye-contact for long enough to have an unspoken agreement:  we were breaking our fasts immediately.  We each prayed individually to end our fasts.  Elder Papenfuss was not in the room, so he had no idea what had just taken place.  A moment later, everyone was in the living room, and the old lady poured us some lemonade.  "Cheers," she says.  Elder Papenfuss then realized that we had all broken our fasts, and he had 3 seconds to do the same before the lemonade reached his lips.  He managed.  

Sestra Žiškova

Europe is super.  There are things that are different that don't need to be, like shower heads.  Prague is the best city I've ever been in.  Prezident Pohořelický and his wife are amazing; I'm in good hands.  But they're all the way in Prague, and I'm here in Nitra.  V pohode.  When I try to talk about the gospel with people, lots of them say, "Nemám záujem," which means, "I'm not interested."  One day, my companion and I decided to take a different approach:  We would go door to door offering service.  One lady responded, "No, I'm Catholic."  I don't see how that's related to me cleaning your toilet.  

I'm short on time, so let the pictures speak for themselves.