Week 44: Máš mozog?

Školenie (training) is when all the missionaries in our zone, i.e. in all of Slovakia, get together and get taught by our zone leaders, assistants to the president, and President and his wife.  At one part of the training, President and his wife pretended to be investigators while a pair of sister missionaries taught the restoration.  Afterward, we were invited to give our thoughts about what went well and what could be improved.   So I raised my hand and said, "They checked for understanding," because that's what should be done while teaching people so you are sure they are following along.  I didn't get why the whole room was silent after that comment and why President had a surprised look on his face.   "What does he mean?" asked President to the missionary next to him, then everyone broke into laughter.  Turns out, the sentence I said had a totally different meaning than what I had intended.  The word I said for "understanding" was "rozum", so instead of saying that they checked to see whether the investigators understood, I said they checked to see if the investigators had any brains.   *** At a meeting with Peter Gabčo, we were talking about his preparation for baptism, so what better than to read the baptismal interview questions!  Everything was going fine, until we got to the question, "Have you ever committed a serious crime?" "I killed..." said Peter with a sinister smile on his face.  His son started to giggle. "R... really?" I asked.  You can never be too sure. "... a fly," he finished, his son bursting into laughter.  Elder McQuivey and I, sweating bullets, gave him fist-bumps.  He got us good.

Milan, an investigator of ours

Jozef, one of our investigators, who is deaf. We teach him using a white board.

Week 43: Takzvaný "Gregory"

Finally, a picture of Elder Hamilton, whom I knew even before the mission, who goes home in two weeks.

One day (keď sme oslovovali ľudí po ulici) (when we addressed people along the street), we were being watched by a young boy who didn't look appropriately dressed for the season, large backpack on his shoulders.  I was wondering whether he would ask us for spare change, but he just kept watching.  He would walk several paces ahead of us when we were walking, but when we tried talking with someone, the kid would stop and watch until we started walking again.  

"Hello," I said.  

"What are you doing?"  he asked.  

"We're telling people about this blue book and why it's so important."  Just then, another person walked by, with whom we tried to talk, but he just walked on by.  I said to the kid, "Sometimes, people just don't want to hear."  

We continued onward like so for a while.  Turns out, he was 9 years old and not homeless, just inappropriately dressed.  His name was the Slovak equivalent to Gregory.  Finally, the kid had to depart, so we shook his hand and parted ways.  10 to 20 minutes later, he spotted us and ran up to greet us!  I don't know why this story had such an impact on me, but it was cool to spend time with some kid off the street, and at the same time he had a chance to see what missionary work was like.

Week 42: The Historian

"Weekly Planning" occurs every week (who would've thought by the name), for us usually on Thursday, and it takes a long time to complete.  One Thursday morning, in the middle of weekly planning, we got a call from an unknown number:

Me: "Hello, this is Elder Aillery."

Unknown caller: "Hello, my friend met two members of your church last night around 7 pm and received a Book of Mormon.  He let me borrow it, but I'm interested and want my own.  Can we meet right now?"

Me: ...... "Uh... uh..."  Send it.  "Okay, we'll be downtown in 15 minutes!"  

***

The unknown caller's name was Juraj, and he's a historian.  He basically told us, "I know very little about your church.  Tell me something."  So we gave him the restoration lesson.  Classic.  He's a strong Catholic, but was not offended by our message.  He was sincerely trying to understand what we were saying.  He wishes everyone would be united in one church.  

As you see, there's a lot of potential here, but he expressed that he's not looking to join a new church.  But he also said that he won't rule anything out.  We respect his view, and we explained that we're not trying to force him into anything.  He has his reading assignment (The Book of Mormon) and he understands what he has to do to find out if these things are true.

Week 41: Kosák a kladivo

Peter is an investigator who's only barrier from baptism is his smoking addiction.  We had met with him once before, at which meeting he said he's down to only two cigarettes a day.  Well, that's progress.  But it ends now, as we were about to go over and introduce a program, which helps people stop smoking in a week if they follow every step exactly.  There are some weird steps.

We got to his house.  Seated at the table was Peter, his kid, Elder McQuivey and I.  

"Peter," I said, "do you really want to kick this habit?"  He nodded and said he wanted to 100%.  He was ready.  "To help you stop smoking, we brought a 'friend' to help you get rid of your cigarettes."  I reached into my bag and pulled out a hammer.  

There was a pause, until Peter said, "Am I supposed to go buy cigarettes so I can crush them?  Because I don't have any."  Oh, what a pleasant surprise.  I'll admit, though, that I was looking forward to the action.  

I can tell that Peter loves his family and kids.  I can tell by the way he looks at them.  I'm happy for his desire to kick his smoking habit and get baptized on 1 Dec.