Out of the four rounds, you'll find questions like "How many town squares are in Banská Bystrica?" or "What percentage of mass does the sun take up in our solar system?" I don't know why they keep inviting us back, because we know pretty much nothing. Maybe they like us for our looks.
I do have my golden moments, though. One question was "How many sides has the traffic sign that requires you to come to a complete stop?" You'd think the answer would be obvious, but because they don't have many stop signs in Slovakia and no one on our team had ever driven before, no one knew the answer and so they collectively decided that it's a circle. This was all without my approval. Well, the question was written in Slovak, so it took me a second to catch up, but when I did, I said, "A stop sign? So, that has eight sides."
"Are you sure?" they asked.
"Um... yeah." I had never been so sure and yet at the same time so unsure of anything in my life. It had been a while since I'd seen one of those things and even longer since I'd listened to one. But I stood my ground.
After the round was over, we found out that a stop sign does in fact have eight sides. We got an extra point because of me! I didn't feel too proud, though, because in my mind, it doesn't take a genius us to know something every American should know. Everyone was impressed, though. My friend wrote BIG BRAIN on the test sheet and then drew an arrow pointing at me. You can tell I don't get a lot of these questions right.
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Missionaries have two sets of funds: mission funds (allowance) and personal funds (to be used for non-missionary purchases). Whenever my semi-monthly allowances come in (not to be mistaken for income), I take all of it out in cash to avoid paying an international transaction fee. Then a couple weeks ago, my mom wrote me out of nowhere something like, "Miles, take out xxx dollars out from your personal funds, I'm closing your bank account." I've never said no to a fat stack of cash before, so I obeyed.
Well this past week, we had an exchange in Hradec Králové, which is a couple hours worth of driving into the Czech Republic, where they don't use euros. Somewhere along the 6-hour drive, we put 2 and 2 together and realized that despite how loaded we were, we were powerless in the Czech Republic. Did we mooch off of the other elders? Yes. Will they ever be able to use the euro banknote I gave them? Probably.
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