caute!

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čaute!
Hope everyone is doing great where ever you are. We've had a pretty fantastic week in Bratislava.
There was a leadership/new missionary training in Brno and most Elders that go stayed a night in Bratislava before going the rest of the way to Brno. These things pull a lot of missionaries out of there area, but it was great for Bratislava to have 11+ missionaries working. It was an exchange frenzy switching companions every two hours or so. Our focus was to get 30 phone numbers that day, sadly we didn't make our goal, BUT we did find some very cool/interesting people who we hope will fill up our teaching pool. One young guy was found by Elder Bacon and Elder Bodily (remember him?). They were out contacting and stopped this woman who said, "Wait, you two are missionaries, here to help people right? Come with me." She explained that her son was in the pysch ward and lost his faith in God and she wanted us to help him. Bacon and Bodily had a good meeting with him, gave him a Book of Mormon and met with his Mom afterwards. They don't have the best relationship with each other, but in our subsequent meeting in the ward (I'm hoping that I find some investigators that don't need to go the the pysch ward anymore....) he told us his story and how he really wants a better relationship with his mom more than anything. After that, rebuild his faith in God. He read a little of the Book of Mormon and really believes that it can help him. We promised that if he do the things that we ask those things will happen. He's about 20 years old and threw more pop culture and movie references in our hour long meeting than I have ever heard from ANYONE. I mean, if you can tie in the movie Blank Check and Hollywood relationships into a conversation I could never question your trivia knowledge. We have high hopes for him, as well as his mom this upcoming week.

We have been teaching another woman, Zita, for the past two weeks who has really asorbed our message. She really wants a change in her life, mainly in a professional sense, starting a business, etc, but she really feels that a change spiritually is essential first. She always comes to our meetings with a page of notes and questions and if it wasn't for our member, Jana, we would never be able to handle it with all the Slovak. Zita does know a little English so that always helps when we can't understand or describe something in Slovak. We asked if she would be baptized and she asked if our Church could talk to the Catholic Church about coming to an agreement. we explained that that is not possible and a little about why and she really expressed a desire to do things right, and so she told us she would explore a little more into what we're teaching and go from there. She really is the first investigator that I will get a chance to see from start to finish. Our first meeting was 2 weeks ago. Already I have been impressed with her development by just reading the Book of Mormon. That book is really true and it is remarkable to see a person change by just reading it. I'm convinced that there is no other book that has that kind of power.

Adventures in Bro-tislava
Being in a tri-ship has been a blast, especially with Bacon and Nichol. Occasionally we get a little distracted. Reverting back into our MTC days. But we are trying to encourage each other in every way. The other night we had our first experience tracting together. I am a seasoned pro at tracting seeing as that is ALL we did in Trencin. Quite the opposite here. The ponneloks are fortresses that literally are impossible to get into. Most of the time the person can't just ring you in but they have to open every door themselves. EVERYTHING is locked. So we spent about two hours tracting and managed to only get into two. Both times as someone was leaving. Lucky us. The last one we went to I am sorry to admit that we just picked up and left half way through. The set up of the ponnelok was just awkward, half the stairway doors were locked, (fire hazard anyone??) and everyone was mean. One guy chewed us out for being there and told us to leave because he would be able to hear us if we kept going. We blew him off because how could he be able to hear us on another floor, right? We the next floor everyone SLAMMED their doors shut and the last doorbell we rang was this looong LOUD ring. We just stood there terrified praying that no one was home so we could just leave. No one answered and we silently got out there. We'll be back. Eventually. Til then, it will be house tracting for us.

No shout-outs this week, seeing as no one has sent me any news. (Achem...) But thank you all for the letters I've gotten already. I loved them all! And please be patient with me as I try to write back. :)

Til next week, Peace from the East,
Starší Williams