Me: "Connecticut."
Him: "Where?"
Me: "Kon-nekt-i-kat."
Him: "Aha. I don't really know where that is. Is it close to Utah?"
Me: "No, closer to New York."
That conversation gets old, so I skip all the hassle by just telling people I'm from New York:
Person: "Where are you from?"
Me: "New York."
Him: "Straight from New York?!"
Me: "Yup."
Him: "New York City or State?"
Me: (thinking of what will still sound impressive but also not be just a straight lie) "Pretty close to but just outside of New York City."
That usually does the trick.
***
Today is P-day (obviously). Every P-day we can do fun things if we want, but we always have to do 3 hours of proselytizing. We decided to go to the Tatras this morning. That would require a huge sacrifice of time. We decided that on the train to Poprad (where the Tatras were), we would try to sit in a cart with someone with whom we could have a gospel-related conversation, so we could do our proselytizing.
As we boarded the train and looked for someone who 1. had no earbuds in and 2. wasn't on a cell phone and 3. isn't sleeping, we came across an older man. Probably the most Slovak-looking man I've ever seen. He had some form of military uniform on and an axe leaning against the door. My thought process: This man looks like he could talk. So we went into that cart (I knocked over his axe on the way in -- not a smooth start.) I struck up a conversation.
As we boarded the train and looked for someone who 1. had no earbuds in and 2. wasn't on a cell phone and 3. isn't sleeping, we came across an older man. Probably the most Slovak-looking man I've ever seen. He had some form of military uniform on and an axe leaning against the door. My thought process: This man looks like he could talk. So we went into that cart (I knocked over his axe on the way in -- not a smooth start.) I struck up a conversation.
And boy, could this man talk.
Not only did he talk fast and slur his words, but he was talking about complex political issues and using vocabulary I didn't know at all. He was definitely talking about communism, the pros and cons of then and now. So fast did he move from one train of thought to another that we had no idea where to jump in and how to connect it with the gospel. So after a long time, I said, "Do you know why we're here?"
Him: "No."
Me: "We're missionaries."
Him: "Oh. Aha, this is my stop. Thank you for the conversation."
It's hard for me to call that a conversation. At least we tried.
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