Tomas Update: Week 15 in Žilina

Ahojte všetci! The end of the transfer is coming up again which is crazy, next week is the last pday before transfers. Every week just goes by so fast that I really don’t know where the time is going! I figured it would be a lot slower out here but I was totally wrong. Anyways, here’s what happened this week:

Tuesday was my name day which was pretty cool. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever been in Slovakia for it and one of our friends have me a box of chocolates as a present which was legendary. Aside from that not a ton else happened but we did end up making a nameday Google calendar since none of the online ones we found were working.

Wednesday was a weird day. That morning I got up and baked my foccacia I started last night but I totally forgot to put anything on top or to poke some dimples in it and it definitely didn’t sit long enough in the fridge because it barely rose. Also we didn’t have any olive oil like I thought we did so I had to make it with sunflower oil. Despite all that it turned out pretty good and I’m happy with it, I’ll be making another this week with like real olive oil and some fixes. Anyways after that we hopped on to a train to Dubnica nad Váhom, a town just northeast of Trenčín, to help a member move and assemble a couch. The Trenčín elders would have done it but they were actually in Prešov that day so we helped instead. We ended up spending like 3 hours moving the thing upstairs and then assembling it with only hand tools and no manual. Cool couch though and the member was super thankful for our help. Also we got to chuck the old couch off the edge of the building so that was a plus. Anyways that was basically our day since getting there and back took a while and we had lunch there too.

Ok Thursday was pretty good, that day we usually visit a member who can’t make it to church in person every week but this week we actually visited two. It’s always really nice to visit them and great language practice because they’re so patient. Besides that we planned out for the next week like usual, and that was about it.

Friday was WILD. We had the Trenčín elders with us for an exchange and we went out and did our survey (we are kinda behind numbers wise in žilina) and me and elder Wagner actually ended up teaching two guys off the street a lesson in a restaurant which quickly turned into teaching like six guys, all from Košice weirdly enough. I ended up breaking off from the main conversation and having another conversation with one of the guys there and we talked abiut a lot of weird stuff. I’d like say something and then he’d agree and tell me how wrong I was but like respectfully? And then he talked about how the tower of babel is Iraqs fault and how Elon musks son is the antichrist. And a lot more than that but rest assured it was a really weird conversation and we were in that restaurant for literally 3 hours. That’s how life is basically – you plan something but then end up teaching six random guys in a sushi restaurant for 3 hours. RIP language study for Thursday.

Anyways Saturday was comparatively more chill. We were gonna go survey more but it was all nasty out and the streets are pretty empty Saturdays anyways so we called a ton of people and then helped out with the Czech Bible project. So for that the church has a scan of a 1904 Czech bible and a digital pdf of a “text believed to be very similar” and basically we gotta go through it verse by verse and compare what is different in the digital version so that we can make them identical and thus fair use or something. That hurts my head. I almost understand the Czech sometimes but like reading everything twice in a language I don’t even like 60% know is weird. We go through about two pages an hour. It’s fun though! Later that night we had our game night and played Bang! Me and one of our friends won and killed all the outlaws. A lot of the games we have are just in Czech as well so a lot of Czech that night.

Okay that brings us to Sunday, it was pretty good. Solid turnout for church (2 adults, 2 kids) although unfortunately none of our friends came. Me and elder Noftle played a cool arrangement of How Great Thou Art though which was nice. Rest of the day was studies and then we did more Bible stuff (we found two words that should have been italicized but weren’t!!!) and then dinner with the Ottos, who had received a big ol pot of borscht from one of their friends, a nice Russian couple. So pretty authentic there.

Here we are at Monday, basically we had Trenčín and Banská Bystrica come here. We played a round of Skull King (I won for the record) and we got all the stuff to make a massive batch of halušky and made and ate lunch with the Ottos. That was super fun and I am very full and have never seen that many halušky in one spot. Then I got shredded in chess by elder Osborne as usual. Also I got my new pros bag today so I’m excited to have a better bag this week. Anyways after that they all headed home and we went shopping and now I’m writing this email.

Hope you’re all well back home and doing cool stuff. It’s been great out here and I hit six months as a missionary in like 6 days so it’s been a bit for me even if it might not feel like it… 

Photos as usual:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qYoYaKPmkqFZHoVM7

S láskou, 

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