Week 107: Do skorého videnia

Last trivia night ever. I was on a team with Elder Abbott and three other friends. Before the trivia started, I was telling Miles jokes™️. If you don't know what those are, it might be a little hard for me to explain. There is a process behind it, though, which can be summed up in a few steps:

1. Find a word (ex. window). 

2. Modify the word (LOSEdow). 

3. Use the word in a normal sentence without anyone expecting it. 

4. Wait for people to get it.

One friend was laughing hard, the second hardly laughing and the third didn't seem to get any of them. "I'm a big fan of Miles jokes," said the first friend.

Then all of the sudden, the same waitress that once tried to get us to buy drinks came around. She said her classic line: "C'mon, if you want to come, you need to buy something."

Everyone was silent for a few seconds, so I just spoke up: "I already brushed my teeth." Everyone laughed except the waitress. Someone ordered lemonade to satisfy her, and then as she was about to leave, she told me, "If you don't order anything, you can't come and participate next time." Okay, deal.

"That was a good one," said the friend that wasn't amused by my other jokes. But this one wasn't a joke.

Maybe you know that today is my time as a missionary has come to an end. Missions? They're hard. Sometimes you feel completely inadequate, or you feel that you aren't making too much of a difference in much or anyone at all. What's even harder, though, is when you have to leave after having realized none of that is true. Through the deep, personal connections I've developed with others, I've been able to influence them and they me. I love these people more than I could have imagined loving anyone before coming here. While studying the scriptures, I read this passage written by Nephi about his own people, which relates to me so much that I began to cry upon reading it: "I pray continually for them by day, and mine eyes water my pillow by night, because of them; and I cry unto my God in faith, and I know that he will hear my cry" (2 Nephi 33:3).

I know God loves His children more than I do. They will be okay. I pray that I will continue to become the kind of person that can influence them and people like them for good and open their minds to new ideas. I've experienced change through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and I promise you that it is possible to change and that more joy than you think awaits you. Look to the good examples you have around you and it will give you the desire to achieve great change and the faith to take the next step. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Week 106: Best wingman

Our friend that we go to trivia night with every week has been doing our work for us. The other day, he was telling me about a 5-minute phone call he had with his sister, trying to convince her that meeting with people from our church "isn't that bad". He worked his magic and she ended up meeting with missionaries in the city she studies in. They used the meeting as an opportunity to help her practice her English. 

Later, I got a message from this friend, saying he managed to get a very rare roast on Elder Nicholls, one of the missionaries that met with his sister. It truly was "too epic not to share". He sent me a screenshot of their conversation:

Elder Nicholls: "You're sister is better than you at English."

Friend: "And both of us are better than you are. I'd never confuse you're and your."

***

The other day, I was talking with someone on the bus (as you do when you're a missionary). Then we switched to English. The guy across from me, who had been silent up to that point, blurted out, "Where are you from? I can't pinpoint it." At this point, I usually say "New York", but when people speak English, I'm inclined to be more specific.

"I'm from Connecticut," I said.

"No way," he said. "Stamford?"

"THAT'S MY HOME TOWN," I said, jaw dropped to the ground. I'll be honest, meeting someone from my city might have been a shock in Bratislava, or even Prague. But Banská Bystrica? Turns out my man lived in Stamford for 4 years growing up. I still got some time here, so we agreed to meet up for a drink. We have a lot to diskutovať.

Week 105: Nicholls and Dimes

I always time our exchanges to line up with quiz night so that our friends there can get to know more missionaries. Pretty smart, huh? When we arrived, one of our friends was already there. He had just returned from a trip to Jordan, so we hadn't been able to meet with him in a while. While we were catching up, a waitress came and asked if we'll have anything to drink...

"Not for me."

"Nope."

"Nah."

She was a bit annoyed and told us that we had to order something to participate in quiz night. That's a lie, but whatever. Elder Nicholls and I each ordered overpriced lemonade. 

When the final member of our team arrived, the teahouse was getting pretty full. All of the sudden, we were informed that we could not participate as a team because no one signed our team up in advance. The one friend ditched and joined another team while the friend who just arrived, Elder Nicholls and I were kicked out. "We're not staying for the lemonade," I told the waitress. Hey, we saved 6 euros altogether, so it was a win in my book.

Our friend, though disappointed, gladly walked us to our bus stop so we could go home. Our conversation somehow ended up being about Elder Nicholls' love of soda.

"It's really bad," said our friend. "It's like sin."

I chimed in: "You know what protects us against sin? The Book of Mormon."

"Why did you have to go there...?" said our friend.

Elder Nicholls: "I'll make you a deal. For ever cup of soda I don't drink, you have to read a chapter from the Book of Mormon."

Friend: "That's easy for you."

Nicholls: "No, I love soda!" Then our bus finally came. We shook hands and our friend began walking away. "Stop drinking soda," he said. "It destroys you!"

Nicholls: "So does not reading the Book of Mormon!" Boom, roasted. Then the bus doors closed.

Week 104: Will age

Hey everyone! I appreciate the responses I've been getting to my emails. I admit it's a bit of a hassle to write every week, but it is a good feeling to know someone's reading and enjoying. So thank you. I only have a few more of these, anyway. 

The elders from Žilina came down for an exchange here in Bystrica. Elder Rice, currently serving in Žilina, told me about some success they had in offering help with teaching English at a private school; they were introduced to a lot of people who then bombarded them with questions about their missions, the church, and so forth. So as part of our exchange, we looked online for some private English schools. Lo and behold, we found a school that teaches many languages, which would have a free introductory class for English and German just that evening.

"Wanna go?" Elder Rice asked. We decided that it would be fun to sprechen some Deutsch, get to know the students and teacher and offer help. We signed up.

During the class, we didn't say that we were from America. We just participated normally and with ease.

"Is Bratislava a willage?" the instructor asked Elder Rice. 

"No," answered Elder Rice, "Bratislava is not a vvvillage. It's a city." We felt pretty confident and smart until they switched over to German. Then we got wrecked.

[If it weren't for the name badges, they totally look black ops.]

Week 103: IT'S BUĽКING ŠĚÄŠÔŇ

Once you hit your year and a half mark, there's no time to waste when it comes to getting into shape, which for me means eating a ton of meat and lots of push ups. The "Hassle Zone" group chat was finally renamed to "Sme na objemovke", which means, being interpreted, "It's bulking season".

A very nice lady whom we've been teaching for a few months recently invited us over for lunch at her place! Then she told us that she's a vegetarian. That's fine, but what about bulking season?

We strategically set the appointment for 1 pm so I could bulk up with leftovers beforehand. With one hour until the meeting, I began throwing together what I had: beef, lettuce, tomato, pasta, sunflower seeds, soy sauce; it didn't need to look pretty, it just needed the right stuff. My companion seemed worried that I would overeat and not have room for our lunch with the lady. "Don't worry," I told him. "Vegetarian doesn't fill me up, anyway."

And guess who was right? We enjoyed some deep-fried mushrooms with cabbage soup. I ended up taking a second helping and eating more than my companion. Felt like an appetizer.

***

Imagine being a missionary in a city where you either have to assign talks for church in advance or give them yourself, sometimes last-minute. Even if you're on top of giving assignments, only a handful of members regularly attend church anyway, so either way everyone speaks a lot at church. 

So Elder Dransfield, the branch president of the Žilina branch, suggested that we could lighten the burden on everyone by broadcasting talks from Žilina to us one week, and then we would broadcast from Bystrica to them the next. Sounds good to me! For now, that would mean I wouldn't have to worry about giving or assigning talks for the coming Sunday, because Žilina would take care of it, or for the following Sunday, as we would be in Bratislava for a conference, or for the next one, because it would be fast Sunday, and no one should prepare talks for fast Sunday.

On Sunday morning, I called President Dransfield to make sure everything was going smoothly:

Starší Dransfield: "Starší Dransfield."

Me: "Hey, President Dransfield. How's Skyping going to work?"

Him: "We're going to start that in three weeks, after fast Sunday."

Me: ...

Him: "Will that be okay?"

Me: "Yeah."

Him: "Okay, see you at conference."

I turned to Elder Abbott, who has been in Slovakia for a month now: "Can you give a talk?"

Elder Abbott: "I can try, for how long?"

Me: "The longer, the better."

Long story short, you know I survived because I am writing this email today.

***

You know there had to be a story from trivia night! Elder Abbott and I were on a team with two of our friends and one more whom we didn't know quite as well. Suddenly, one of them broke a candle and began trying to put it back together. I said, "Hm, this reminds me of when Christ's church fell apart after the death of His apostles." We watched as he hopelessly tried to squish all the pieces back together. "If you succeed," I continued, "I will join your church and attend with you every day."

"NO, not every day," he said. It looked like he was about to succeed in putting the candle back to the way it was. 

"Welcome, brother!" said the other one with a big smile on his face as he put his arm around my shoulder.

Elder Abbott, it looks like you're on your own.

Week 102: I hate it—but I love it!

What's really, really amazing about emailing is it gives people the opportunity to get the best, most entertaining weeklies they've ever had in their lives.

We're writing over 300 words here!

But the only way you're going to get the results, and the quality emails you want, is that you've got to BRING IT!

Writing weeklies: I hate it—but I love it!

***

Alright, enough weirdness. If you know anything about P90X, you'll know that I took that quote above from one of their workout videos and modified it to my needs. It's from one of their 15-minute abdominal workouts, Ab-ripper X. At least one missionary in every companionship has this video, and we all have it memorized.

After a lesson with one of our friends, I was trying to convince him that eating healthy is the way to go, although I'm not that good at it myself. But I recently got back into eating plain yogurt for breakfast. Sure, it's made me dry heave a couple times in the last couple days, but then I feel so good throughout the day that I almost can't live without it. "I hate it," I told him, "but I love it!"

"That doesn't make sense," he said. "You just contradicted yourself. You might as well say, 'This pen is black, but it's white!'" No, no. I think he just doesn't want to admit that he likes plain yogurt.

***

This love-hate principle applies in the gospel. The goal is to become like Jesus Christ. That requires a lot of change, which requires a lot of effort. Honestly, it's sometimes so hard to change and it can feel overwhelming, ergo I hate it. But going back to the food comparison, I once ate plain yogurt to the point where tasting sugary cereal made me feel sick. I couldn't believe that my body was actually accustomed to such horrible food! 

The part I love about the gospel is how much my character has changed over time, even unbelievably. Who am I to talk, though; there's still much change that needs to happen. But Jesus Christ suffered and died so that we could change and overcome the effects of sin. If you feel like you need to change but don't know how to achieve it, pour out your heart to your Heavenly Father and tell Him exactly how you feel. He will answer your prayers, just be ready to act!

Week 101: Otvoriť si vineu po americky

Best missionary work I've ever done? Being in the home of a family of eight playing Hedbanz and picking from a variety of American candies they received from an acquaintance.

Me: "I'll do you a favor and taste test all of it to make sure it's the real deal."

Eldest son: "Wow. Look at you truly fulfilling your missionary service."

Me: "Don't mention it."

I was eating cake with one hand while opening a box of Ritz crackers with the other. Everyone watched in wonderment as I opened a sleeve single-handedly... I mean with one hand. 

"That's how they open crackers in America," said the dad. "Right?"

"Huh? Oh, that's right," I lied. We're allowed to lie sometimes.

"Really?" said one of the kids. "Is that how you open soda, too?" They brought out a liter of grape soda.

"Yes," I said confidently, but beneath the surface I was nervous. I wanted to keep the act going, though. I watched as they passed around the bottle, trying to open it with one hand "po americky", or "after the manner of Americans". One of the kids does gymnastics, so I'm pretty sure she's stronger than I am, but even she didn't manage to break the seal. I was in trouble.

The bottle finally made its way around to me. Here goes nothing. I gripped the top tightly and pinched the cap between my pointer and thumb. It took a little strain but I was able to break the seal. 

"Is it normal for Americans to open it that way?" asked one kid. 

"For most of us, yes."

***

Even though there are better ways to find people to teach other than through street contacting, we thought about it and came to the conclusion that it has some benefits. It provides opportunities for you to practice opening your mouth and sharing the gospel, which is a really useful skill in every other situation as well. 

For example, there's a man that missionaries have seen around the city a lot and have developed a good relationship with, but the first time I know of that he's been taught was when we invited him to go play ping pong with us. While waiting for our turn to use the table, we explained the message of the restoration to him and agreed to talk more about the Book of Mormon next week. You can do things with people other than just talking to them randomly on the street, just be sure to open your mouth and share the message. It can be totally natural, unless you're naturally an awkward person like I am. Even then it's fine sometimes. 

Having said that, I still think making time to go talk to people on the streets, among other things, is a good way to get comfortable with leaving your comfort zone. So that's what we did. Welcome to the hassle zone.

Week 100: Můj člověg Starší Rýže

Elder Smith is dying. Not actually, but if you know missionary lingo, the start of a missionary's mission marks his birth and the end marks his death. I forget that not everybody knows this when I tell a new missionary, "I was born in Nitra."

"What?!" he might react. "You're a Slovak?" 

So Elder Smith is dying. You might remember him from pics in the MTC. I never told you this, but I once threw a missionary handbook at his face at point blank range in the MTC cafeteria. He's also the one I got wormy with in week 48, if you remember that video of us dancing. He's one of my best friends, and luckily I won't miss him for too long because he's leaving only six weeks early for school.

Elder Abbott is really cool, not just because he listens to almost everything I say. I tell him that tracting isn't the most effective and he believes me. Disclaimer: if you served a mission and really got a kick out of tracting, I'm not taking that away from you. However, the way most homes are set up here combined with the people's negative perception on proselytizing, especially the door-to-door approach, does not provide an ideal environment for much positive interaction while tracting. 

That being said, we went to deliver a letter we wrote to a member we haven't seen in a while. Because she lives in a small town, we decided that if she wasn't home, heaven forbid, we would go tracting. In the end, she was home but didn't want a visit right then. So you know what that means. 

HIT THE STREETS!

Tracting was going about as well as I expected. In the middle of our glorious hour of ringing doorbells, we got a call from the zone leaders. 

Elder Clayton: "Hey, did you already send in IMOS this week?" 

Me: "Yeah, don't worry. By the way, guess what we're doing? Tracting."

Elder Clayton: "Seriously?! Why??"

Me: "I don't want Elder Abbott to take my word alone about how tracting is."

Elder Clayton: "Ahaaa, smart guy. Alright, see you on our exchange."

Then we got a call from the assistants to the president. 

Elder Mangum: "Hey, Elder Aillery. Will you give the opening prayer for progressive training on the 8th?" 

Me: "I'll have to think about it. By the way, we're tracting right now."

"Wait, why?" 

"We literally have nothing else to do."

When we got home, Elder Clayton shot me a text: "Did you finish tracting? How did it go?"

"We finished," I wrote. "We got two contacts, actually. One on the train back to Banská Bystrica and one on the bus back home." Tracting was fun, though.