Week 81: Smrdí to smrťou
This email is two weeks late. You're reading this by tape delay.
Elder Akina is dying. In other words, he's finishing his mission and leaving to America. So is Elder Raymond, my companion during my 2nd and 3rd transfers. Because a huge group of elders are ending their missions and not so many are replacing them, they are closing some areas around the mission. Elders Raymond and Clayton were the others serving in Bratislava, so we all supposed that our new mission president, President Gehring, would stick me and Elder Clayton together in one of our areas and close the other's area, and then we would be combining the two areas' investigators, seeing as we were the only ones that knew them. Makes sense. Transfer brackets are fun.
Elder Akina will be missed? Yeah sure maybe. In his memory, I'll just send a bunch of pics of him.
I'll also add a recording of one of the last times we sang together. I think I mentioned how I was trying to teach him how to sing? How proud of him I am! It might sound weird because we had to harmonize with another recording of us doing base.
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Week 82: Hello, John speaking!
So... I didn't end up being companions with Elder Clayton like everyone thought. President Gehring is giving Prezident Pohořelický a run for his money regarding crazy transfer calls. I wish I had the recording of the phone call... but I could just tell you. I'm back in Banská Bystrica for at least another two transfers, possibly till the end of my mission, which is fine because now we have a car here.
There's a man by the name of Ján (John) whom we've been teaching since the beginning of my first time in Bystrica, so we know him pretty well. After our lessons, we both head home on the same bus, so we have some more time to chat about "normal" things. One particular evening, a girl whom we're also teaching got on the same bus by chance. She sat next to my companion, across from me and Ján. Ján tried to start a conversation with her, but she was more interested in my companion. She was talking about how he should go to an amusement park with her or something. Ján, my companion and I got off the bus while the girl continued on her way home. Ján had some questions.
"Do you teach her about faith?" he asked.
"Yes," said my companion.
"Yes?" he looked pleasantly surprised. "And how does she accept it?"
"She's interested," we said. Then an image came to my mind where Ján was our mission leader and was making sure the work was going alright with those we teach. So I told him he could be our mission leader.
"No!" he exclaimed, but he was laughing. "That's not--- that's not what that was!" I got him good.
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