Bro-tislava West

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello again everyone,


The past couple days have been a trip. As you know I'm in a tri-ship with Bacon and Nichol, my MTC missionaries, and this entire transfer will be one big flashback- just with better food and actual missionary work (kidding, the MTC is great).


Working in Bratislava so far has been fantastic. People have been willing to listen to us and we've managed to actually teach people on the streets. One of which was all by myself. Because there are 3 of us one goes "lone wolf" and splits off and contacts in the same area with the other two. We're going to try to contact as a group through- I don't feel right with someone by themselves. But on the other hand my language skills are apparently adequate enough to teach a Slovak about the gospel. Whodda thunk! Being in a "young" district is really forcing me to get out there and talk to these people. Which is good!


In my district there is:
Elder Doxey- he is from CA-- Bay area. He has been serving in the Czech Republic his whole mission and goes home at the end of this transfer. He is an extremely focused missionary and it looks like he has been doing this for 5 years. He is pushing us a lot as District Leader. Now we never get on a tram or bus without talking to someone. It's been great. He encourages us to just talk to be like a normal person. Letting the gospel come up naturally, but mostly to get comfortable talking to and getting to know Slovaks.


Elder Romero- He is being follow-up trained by Doxey. He started his mission in Kosice, on the other side of the country. He is from UT and has a fresh attitude about being here. He is eager to just get out there and do what he can. Something I can learn from for sure. :)


Elder Walker- He was in my district last transfer. His Slovak is extremely good and he is an excellent teacher. He runs our district language studies every week. He is training Elder Tenney-great match.


Elder Tenney- He is another AZ boy. Shiloh I think. (Sholow?) He reminds me a lot of me. He's way nervous about his language skills, but he really has nothing to be nervous about. He's already a great speaker. We get along great and he and Durrant, the other new missionary, apparently found my blog so they knew everything about me. I'm a little embarressed. (But I actually love that some other missionaries did the whole lurking thing I did before my mission....)


Yesterday was my first day in the Bratislava Branch. It's a ton larger than Trencin. With children. (You all know how much I enjoy working with children..... not). But it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Really just one problem child. It would be a completly different story if I could understand him and vica versa. But Elder Bacon, Robo, (a member) and I were in charge of teaching him in primary. 3 to 1. We still lost. It'll be a challenge. I'm hoping I can have a turn in Sunday School with the adults.


Walking into this area has been great. We have a baptism on the 19 that we are all so excited about and have made a goal to make baptism a central theme in our lessons. We want people to know that this is what we are here to do. That that is the best way to bring them closer to Christ. It will really be an amazing transfer and I am way excited to see what happens. I will say that I miss Trencin a lot sometimes. I really hope to serve there again. Highly unlikely, but stranger things are happening during transfers these days.


Hope all is well and everyone is enjoying the warmer weather. I know I am! Talk to you in a week!


Starsi Williams


Shoutouts: Happy Brithday to Catherine on Saturday! (thanks for the reminder...) ps any word on Purdue??