Tomas Update: Week 8 in Žilina

Ahojte všetci! Another week here in Žilina. We actually did a fair amount of stuff this week so that was cool. I’ll try and remember it all.

The biggest day was definitely Friday, where we were like 8 lessons or so short of our goal for the week (a “lesson” is counted as a principle and an invitation, so technically you can teach in the street) so the rest of our district, or part of Slovakia that we meet with every week (just Trenčín) came over early and we hit the streets for two hours before district council. That as pretty fun, and we actually got like 6 out of the 8 we needed. Then we also had one of the Prauge missionaries (called AP, or assistant to the president), elder Tauai, who has been touring Slovakia this week just to see how it is out here. He was there with us for the rest of the day, which got pretty crazy. After district council, we went to a members nre apartment and helped her move like four car loads of books to her new apartment. She’s actually one of the translators for church material in Slovak, and to say thanks we all got a literal first edition copy of the Book of Mormon in Slovak, from the first shipment that got here in 2013. That was pretty cool and I will definitely take good care of mine. Then after that, all 5 of us went back to our apartment and ate the super spicy ramen we got, which was definitely an experience. I don’t want to do it again but the video we got of the whole thing was probably pretty funny, I haven’t seen it yet. Then after that we went out on the streets with elder Tauai, just the three of us, and had a really good experience. It was also very multilingual, as Tauai only speaks Czech, we spoke Slovak, and all three of us spoke English too. You end up using English sometimes on the street, people like to use theirs I’d they’re younger. But before we went out, we tried a new method of planning, where we picked a spot, prayed, and told God where we were gonna be. It actually worked super super well and I’m glad we did. Literally the first person we stopped talked to us for 20min, took a Book of Mormon, and will hopefully call us back. We also met the owner of a nail salon chain here, so when this area goes back to being a sisters’ area they will probably be pretty hyped about that.

The next day was also pretty full – we had to head down to Bratislava, which is around 2h away by train. We got called in to play music for a baptism (that makes 2 in a row for us – no way) and Tauai was going that way anyways so we went with him. Blava is such a pretty city and the weather was wonderful that day too, but we ended up also having a really good conversation with the family sitting across from us on the train. We talked about a wide variety of things and it was nice to speak Slovak with people who were very willing to help us improve and such. Then the baptism was great of course, a Ukrainian man was getting baptized and he was just so happy, like actually glowing. We stayed a while and spoke to all the members and possible members, then headed back to žilina. Probably should have brought train food, we got very hungry.

Sunday went by comparatively uneventfully, and we only had 2 people at church. It happens. The rest of the day we studied, worked on social media work (posts, stories, texting people) and also “cleaned yellows” which is when we go through our big ol list of people that were at one point being taught or had expressed interest, but then lost contact. That involves a lot of just cold calling people and asking if they still want to hear from us. Our area in particular has a lot of these yellows (103) so it’ll take a bit to clean the list especially because if they don’t pick up we give them a few chances over a few days. Funny what I’m doing with my life now – chilling in Slovakia with a Canadian guy, calling random Slovaks. I kinda love it though, even though it’s weird and life is crazy here it’s also so fun and fulfilling.

That brings us to today, and we are on our way to Ružomberok, the second largest city by area. No idea specifically what we will do there – there’s a castle, and it’s just a cute city. On the train right now, and there were a ton of Slovak teenagers until Sučany where they are all probably going to school. It rained/snowed last night and the view is pretty great, it hasn’t snowed in forever. I guess I’ll update this email after we do stuff today. Okay I’m back, it was a pretty solid day. We got there, met up with the missionaries from Banská Bystrica, bought some traditional ribbon for ties (Kroj) and went on a little hike, we found like a cow skull or something, got chased by a big ol dog, and it snowed too. I finally finished my roll of film, so hopefully I’ll get that developed soon. Then we got Italian food, walked around a bit, and now we are on our way home. The station we just sat at had like a river and all these swans were just chilling, it was super pretty. Now we just head home, grab food for the week and get some other stuff done. 

As always, here’s the pictures link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qYoYaKPmkqFZHoVM7

If anyone has questions about specific stuff, feel free to email me at tomas.cundick@missionary.org and I’ll either answer them or if it’s interesting throw it in the next email too. I don’t actually know what is interesting to you guys since I like live here. Anyways, as always have a good week, kill it on the slopes, and do good things. 

Love you all, 

Starší Cundick