Guess what? I’ve got an honest to goodness update from Tomas this week. We went for something a little different: he sent a voice recording of what happened this last week. I had it transcribed online, and I’m going to edit it to try and make it a bit more readable, but it’s all basically right from Tomas. Anyway, let’s see how this goes.
This week we had a conference for all the missionaries. That was pretty fun. It was at this penzion that’s a bed and breakfast that one of our members owns. It’s in the middle of nowhere in Slovakia, but it was really cool. We had all the missionaries there. We had a bunch of trainings on how to do our job better and how to talk to people better and just be more personable and understood. It was really nice.
We also did a service project putting together a roof for a fire house. It’s in a tiny tiny little town. I looked inside and there were fire trucks still with wagon wheels on them. We did it all under direction from this a guy who was just swearing at us the whole time. I learned a bunch of new words. Well, not necessarily new words, but . . . words used in a different way.
I got to hang out for a day in Žilina and get some work done there. I also did a little bit of college planning with one of my friends from out here that I want to room with at BYU if we can make it work.
And then we got back to Banska Bystrica [note: where Tomas is currently living] and then we just had lots of work in our area, going outside, talking to people, and teaching lessons. We have two really solid friends who have been coming to church. One of them kind of showed up out of nowhere, and he’s like, hey guys, I was in contact with the missionaries before and I kind of want to be baptized. We’re like, oh, that’s actually really cool. So we’re working with him, he’s super cool.
And then there’s another guy that we found. When we found him, he was pretty drunk. Even in lessons when he wasn’t drunk, he was pretty all over the place, very stressed, very angry, confused. But since he’s started praying and reading the scriptures consistently, he’s actually honestly turned his life around. It’s been so cool to see. He comes to our lessons now, and he’s happy; he’s there early. We used to have to always call him to get him there on time. He’d always be a half hour away regardless of whenever we called, which meant he just wasn’t leaving his house, but we pressed on, and now he shows up early and he’s always excited. He’s just happy, and it’s been wonderful to see the change in his life. We’re really excited to keep continuing on with him.
Church this Sunday was really nice. We had 20 people there, which is honestly kind of a lot for this area of Slovakia. There were some really good testimonies given, and then we had food after church because it was Fast Sunday, which means that we have afternoon church here. Since lunch the day before, people were fasting: they weren’t eating anything. It’s like a spiritual power thing, I guess it, kind of like a prayer, but more powerful since you’re like sacrificing.
So we had food after and everyone was just hanging out and having some really good conversations. It was cool to see our friends interacting with the other members here and forming friendships and feeling so welcomed. I’m always very happy when we can get people to church and they can see what it’s like, even though it’s not really a traditional church experience out here in Slovakia because there’s just not that many people. It’s not like a big kostol which would be a church. (I guess that’s how I translate that. It kind of comes across as one of those big Catholic cathedrals or whatever the smaller version of that is.) And so people are usually pretty used to that. I would say 80% of the people we meet are Catholic or consider themselves to be Catholic, and so when they come to our church, it’s usually not what they’re expecting even though we like to explain it to them. They always seem to like it and enjoy it and enjoy the community and feel welcome there. So it was super good.
And then we went door to door on Sunday for a while. Nothing too crazy from that, although we actually did have this one interaction that stood out. We were walking around in a more apartmenty part of the city and this woman crosses paths with us. We stopped her and tried to talk to her and she’s asked, “How old are you?” We both said we were 20, and she said, “No, look me in the eyes. How old are you?” Not like we hadn’t before, but we did it again
She said, “Hmmm. OK, you’re coming with me.” And then she starts walking the fastest I’ve ever seen a Slovak walk. She led us on this wild goose chase and was asking all sorts of weird questions. She kept asking how old we were and if we were allowed to have girlfriends out here and why we were doing what we’re doing. Eventually she led us to this bar and sat us down and got us some water.
By this point I’ve figured out she’s actually just insanely drunk. She kept asking how old we were, and we insisted we’d told her already, but she never believed us. Anyway, she sits us down at this bar and starts berating us, saying, “You’re doing this for the wrong reason. Why are you doing it for your prophet? Do it for yourselves. Why are you out here? What are you doing?”
We told her we were out here because we wanted to be, but she said, ” we like wanna be out here and she’s like, “No. I can see it in your eyes. You’re out here because they’re making you. Are you doing it for your prophet?”
I said that’s literally not how this works.
Anyway, she wasn’t really in a place to be actually reasonably talked to, and so we finally insisted we had to go. She said, “I’m coming with you.”
So then we had a back and forth for a while where she wanted to keep following us, but we finally got away from her. We’re like, no, no, we have to go, we have like a meeting. That was a very weird interaction.
I guess aside from that, it’s just been a nice week. I’ve been focusing a lot on studying the scriptures more. That’s something I’ve been pretty bad at most of my mission, but I’m really starting to get on the grind now, and it’s just to see how parts of the scriptures that I’ve read so many times before in different contexts will give me a different meaning. I’m glad that I’m actually applying the stuff that I’ve been learning for two years.
This is the week that I would have been going home if I hadn’t extended. I’ll be back like mid-November instead of mid-October, like it was going to be. I’m excited to see what this bonus time on my mission gives me. I’ve already grown so much and learned so much and met so many cool people. I’m excited to keep the experience up.
I think that’s honestly about it for this week. Sorry I haven’t sent a letter in a while. It’s been like several months. [Bryce Note: I think it’s really easy for missionaries to lose track of time. Tomas hasn’t sent a regular letter in over 8 months.] But I’m thinking from now until the end I’ll be sending more letters and hopefully you’ll hear from me more. I guess it’s good for you guys to hear from me and hear what I’m doing out here and how I’m doing.
I hope you guys are all doing well and hopefully the leaves are changing there in Maine. They’re just starting to change here. I think next week will probably be the peak, and I’m excited to take all sorts of good pictures.
Love you all. See you next week.