Week 74: Poďte, muchy

It's getting hot around here, so Elder Akina and I leave the window open at night.  We quickly found out, however, that flies like to come in when the window is open, especially at night.  We got tired of chasing the flies around the room during language study, so Elder Akina took a rubber band and shot at it.

"Oh!" he shouted. "I got him!"  Now that we knew of Elder Akina's marksman skills, we didn't discourage any more flies from coming in.  In fact, we welcomed them by making a song: "Poďte, muchy", which means "come, flies", and it goes to the tune of "Come, Come, Ye Saints".  All bugs are now welcome into our apartment.

***

Bratislava is amazing for lots of reasons, one of which is its distinctive public transportation.  It's honestly so fun to talk to people in trams and buses (trams usually have AC.)  One day, we were talking to everyone in a bus from back to front.  As I was talking to the last person, the bus driver said something that I didn't quite catch.  I thought he might be annoyed, but then Elder Akina went up and talked to him.

"Real-live [members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]?  In Slovakia?!" he said with a grin.  He asked us a whole series of questions until we finally arrived at the final bus stop for that bus's route.  

"Where are you going?" He asked.

"Oh, just a little ways down here."

"I'll take you," he insisted.  So we got a free taxi ride, in a bus.

***

When learning a foreign language, it's good to practice in any way you can, but my companion brought to my attention that I need to be more careful in how I'm practicing in public. For example, we were helping a man move to a new apartment.  Meanwhile, I was trying to improve my Slovak.  To me, I was just practicing the word "stonožka" and its different forms, but to the man it was probably slightly strange:

"Centipede... Centipedes... I am a centipede..."

I'll be more careful from here on out. 

All these photos are from last transfer with Elder Barton.

Week 73: Blavaželám

I have about nine minutes to write this email.

Elder Akina and I get along perfectly. We even already had inside jokes from our first transfer together. 

We have a big district, and we all knew each other really well before this transfer. Each of us has been companions with at least one other elder in this district besides our current companion. 

Elder Akina and I were wondering why we're serving together again. Perhaps we need to learn something that we didn't learn the first time together? We figured out what it is: Elder Akina wants to learn to sing parts. So we've been working on that. We'll have our first album in eight weeks.

The two elders from Nitra are missing in the photo. 

Week 72: Closure

Today are transfers. You know what that means? I'm leaving Elder Barton and Banská Bystrica and going to Bratislava (that's a lot of Bs.)

I don't have a new companion. Instead, I get an old one! In fact, I'm serving with my trainer. Elder Akina brought me into this mission, and since this is his last transfer, I'm taking him out. It came as a surprise to me when I found out we were serving together again. A few things have changed since last time:

1. I'm not a greenie.

2. We both speak the language, so he wanted to set a goal to speak only Slovak for his entire last transfer. Sure, prečo nie. 

3. I've been assigned to be district leader this transfer, so in a way, I'm his trainer.

We had a lot of good things going in Bystrica, but I'm excited for this change. The elder that replaced me in Bystrica (you may have heard of him), Elder Rasmussen, will finish off the work I started with Elders Barton and Newell. 

Week 71: Breaking & Entering

We had a companion exchange, which means the Elders from Žilina came to Banská Bystrica and I had a different companion for a day. When it came time for dinner, we didn't have anything to feed them, so we decided to walk down to the nearest grocery store and pick something up. Besides, I needed a few things for myself so it worked out nicely.

"Do you have the keys?" Elder Barton asked as we left the apartment.

"Dad," I said.

"Huh?"

"Get it?" Because "mám" (pronounced like "mom" in English) means "I have". They didn't think the joke was very funny.

So we all went shopping. At the checkout, Elder Brennan asked if he could borrow my Billa card, so I went to get it out for him. It should have been with my keys, but my keys weren't in my bag.  Uh-oh! I checked my pockets and then rechecked, but the keys didn't magically appear. That wasn't good, because that meant we would have to call our landlady, who didn't even live close to our apartment, and also she asked us to clean the window sill, but we hadn't yet. There had to be another way in.

Outside the apartment, Elder Brennan noticed that the windows were open. That's convenient, because we live on the ground floor. I guess you can say we broke into our apartment through the window.

I opened the door and let everyone in.  

"You said you had the keys!" Elder Barton said.

"No, if I had had the keys, I would have said 'mám'. I said 'dad'. Dad is the opposite of mom." He didn't like that joke, either.

Week 70: It's "vraciam", not "vracám"

About a week ago on Sunday evening, on our way home from an appointment, we got a call from our district leader, Elder Brennan:

"Just so you know, we're going on a trip tomorrow to Oravský Castle. It's an hour away by car. Don't know if you can make it, but we wanted to invite you, since we're always doing stuff without you."

I said, "That would be tough. An hour and a half both ways between Banská and Žilina, then an hour to the castle, I don't know if we'd have time to get anything else done. But I can ask Elder Barton. Elder Barton, what do you think?"

"Let's do it," came the reply. 

"Oh, I guess we're coming," I said. "See you tomorrow."

In order to take care of everything, we were working almost straight out of bed, but we got everything done by early afternoon and left for Žilina. The Elders and Sisters from Žilina were there as well as the senior couple (the Dreshers) and an investigator, making nine of us. The castle was fun and afterward we went to a reštaurácia. The waitress was a little stunned that 8 Americans just came in and all ordered halušky.

We slept over in Žilina so we could have district meeting in the morning. After retiring to bed, Elders Brennan, Webb, Barton and I stayed up for a little talking about our favorite TV show. Meanwhile, something didn't feel right in my stomach. We finally stopped talking and fell asleep, at least everyone except for me. 15 minutes later, everyone woke up to the sound of my violent vomiting. It was bad. The lights were now on and everyone was sitting up in his bed when I got back into the bedroom.

"Are you okay?" said Elder Brennan.

"I feel fine now, but that was rough," I said. "What could it have been from?"

"What did you eat in the past 24 hours?" he asked.

I thought for a minute, "Nothing too special, just the usual. Oh, and that halušky we all ate." All of the sudden the feeling came back and I disappeared to the bathroom. Again I threw up. 

Elder Brennan called Sister Glasser, who lives in the Czech Republic and is in charge of handling these kinds of situations. He described the situation as best he could. 

Glasser: "What did he eat in the last 24 hours?" 

Brennan: "Nothing special. Halušky, I guess." 

G: "Did anyone else eat it?" 

B: "Yep, his companion. And Elder Webb and I. And the Sisters. And the Dreshers. And our investigator."

G: "The Dreshers? Oh dear." 

It was far from over. For the rest of the night, I stayed in the bathroom trying to hydrate myself as my body was rejecting the water I was giving it. I threw up about every five minutes until 3 a.m., and it's the most ill I remember being in my life. I was finally able to get some rest before throwing up again in the morning.

After sleeping some more, my body was finally ready to take water. Elders Brennan, Webb and Barton gathered around my bed.

"I thought I might die, that was so bad last night," I said.

"That was honestly terrifying," said Elder Brennan. "I lay awake, thinking if it was because of the halušky, we're all dead. But it doesn't seem to be the case."

We then reminisced that despite the horror of last night, we were able to make jokes, discuss grammar and talk about Elder Barton's future football plans between my throwing up. For example, we talked about how to conjugate "vracať" (1. to return 2. to throw up). I'll admit though, every time I threw up, I lost a little bit of my appetite for humor.

I stayed in the apartment and slept while Elders Brennan and Webb went to district meeting. Eventually, we felt that it would be wise to go home and continue resting there. Just one problem: there was an hour and a half train ride between us and home, and Elder Barton was feeling queasy. Well, one thing led to another and we were both throwing up on the train. Later, we received news that Elder Webb was throwing up. Then I was feeling somewhat alright, so I tried some beef for dinner. Too early, so threw it up. No one was having fun. 

***

By Friday, we were ready to get going. So we decided to go to the gym with one of our investigators. It had been a while since I'd worked out with actual weights, but it shouldn't be too bad. For starters, I went for the 20 lb. dumbbells but to my dismay, I soon found that I couldn't do a single bicep curl. It hasn't been THAT long, I thought. Then I realized that in Europe, they measure their weights in kilograms, not pounds. Our investigator saw my struggle and said, "When you're just starting, you use light weights." Thanks.