July 22, 2013 - Kosice

Good afternoon everyone!!

      Last Sunday, my sisters and I sang in sacrament meeting. We sang Savior, Redeemer Of My Soul and I had the wonderful opportunity to write harmony and arrange it. Elder Simcock played the piano for us (he's EXCELLENT!) and I sang harmony. I've sung more harmony on my mission than I have in my entire life! Also that day we had 5 investigators at Church!! 2 of them were a complete surprise. We'd handed one of them a card on the street that week and he just decided to come because he lived near and he brought his friend.

        Last week I also got a super yummy dessert recipe! I hope to have an entire notebook of Slovak recipes by the end. The dessert is called Bublanina and is delish!
 

      I also had quite an adventure... So here's how is goes. I took my sheets off to wash and was just using my extra sheet but I didn't really tuck it in. The next couple nights I kept getting bug bites. So yeah, I had bed bugs!! It was awful. I called the mission president and we worked out a solution. The elders came and took our mattress out (I'm actually not sure why the Mission Prez wanted the elders to do it...maybe he didn't think the three of us could handle it) and threw it away--including my sheets. :(  We went and ordered a new mattress which will actually come in this week so I've been sleeping on a couch for about a week. It was no fun at all to loose proselyting time to go mattress shopping but the Lord blessed us sooo much because even with that fiasco, we taught 26 lessons!!! We've been so busy that Sister Pysnakova is stressed because we barely have time to fit in all of our lessons and studies.

     Another adventure I had last week was haircuts...so I did something I regret ever so slightly. I got layers. It doesn't look bad but its hard to braid and just stresses me out a little sometimes. I kinda want to chop it so it will all be the same length again but then it would be a little past my shoulders... Well we will see.



      We've been preparing for a baptism this week. M is getting baptized on Saturday.  We met him 5 weeks ago and he's progressed rapidly. He struggled a little with accepting the Word of Wisdom but in the end he agreed that the Lord wants him to live by it. Sometimes its difficult to teach him...he's very smart and if we don't watch every phrase we say, he catches us on our words. We teach him in English b/c he moved to England at a very young age so it's easier for him than Slovak. We're working on getting him a Doctrine & Covenants right now b/c he read the Book of Mormon at a  rapid pace and just wants to know more. Plus when we teach commandments (such as the word of wisdom and tithing) he wants to see and read about it on his own. He's amazing and a blessing. M really tests us and helps us become better teachers and we always need to KNOW the material we'll be teaching.

      Okay Mom, you asked about the language. Quite frankly, I don't think I've improved. I'm trying not to let it get me down. I get frustrated sometimes b/c I don't know where the failure is...if I'm not studying effectively or what. I know that learning, understanding and becoming fluent will take time but I also realize that in the next transfer or two, I could be with someone who's been out as long as I have. So mostly I'm just praying a bunch.

      And about transfers. Transfers are 9 weeks long so next week is transfer week. I'll know where I'm going (or if I'm staying) this weekend. I won't be in a threesome (probably) but there is a chance I will be with someone who was in my group. And the other 2 sisters have only been out a transfer longer than me. (Granted those 2 are AMAZING!! pretty much ninjas at this language.)

     Today President van Dalen took us (all 5 of us missionaries) on a tour of Kosice. It was wonderful!! Then he bought us ice cream. This city is so gorgeous! I took some pics and have some from last week too.

      I think that's all for now. I love you all to bits!! I'm going to try to send pictures...we'll see how well that goes.

  

S Laskou,

Sestra Whitney Sarah Johnson <3