WEEK ELEVEN: Making Connections

His MTC teacher and MTC district  (?);  food; getting his shoes shined I think, the views around here; a "piece of cake"...not sure why it was picture worthy but....!

Just a heads up, I am typing on the iPad so I hop that the spelling
will be better. Usually I am on a computer and I am trying to type
without looking at the keyboard. This gives me tons more mistakes, but
in the iPad it will correct some of my mistakes.  (he remarked to me in a separate email that he realized after that he had a mistake in the very sentence he talked about spelling better--"the irony"!)

This week was great! We have three investigators who are going to be
baptised this week. There names are Jenny and Patricia and Justin.
Patricia is Justin's mom and Jenny is living in their house. They are
great and want to progress and come closer to Christ. The biggest
issue they have had so far is that they smoke. Justin doesn't. He is
only 8 right now. The others told us they stopped and we really hope
they did. They live with one of the most solid members in the branch.
He is named Dezider. He is the one with no teeth whatsoever. I am
starting to understand him which is a huge accomplishment in my eyes.
We are excited for them all. Also, I may get to go to the temple.
Dezider is preparing to go, but he only understands Czech, Slovak, and
Roma so he would need a translator at the temple. If nobody else is
found, Elder Buckhoff would be the translator so I would get to go as
well. We are crossing our fingers.

We found one family this week that I really love. We met them in the
city centre (sorry the iPad uses British spellings) and they were
really excited to hear that families can live together after death. We
went back and taught them and they are super excited and have tons of
questions. They want to meet with us each day and so we try. The dad,
Andre says that he has been searching for years to find the true way to lead his family to God. We invited him to be baptised if he finds
out this is true and he had one concern. The concern was that baptism is outward and we don't have to become converted to be baptised. He says he doesn't want to lie to God and be baptised if he hasn't truly changed himself. We told him that truly changing ourselves so we
become more like Christ is necessary. I really love this family and feel like I can connect with them. I don't always understand what they
say, but I really want them to find happiness. For me that is the best
blessing ever.

Our investigator Alex who we fasted for didn't fast for himself or go
to church like he said he would. He is still smoking and feeling
discouraged that he is not able to overcome the addiction. We are
always working with him.

One of the biggest problems we face here is that all of the people in
our church are new members and don't have super strong testimonies
yet. This means that they are not able to help the others who are
still learning. We are working on strengthening people so they can
help lead the branch and help it grow.

On a not as spiritual side, this week was a blast. I am trying to help
set up a branch (like a ward, but smaller) soccer game for this
weekend since our leaders asked us to promote branch activities. I am
so excited. Also, I have learned more about talking to English people.
The second I say that I am a missionary they tell me some nasty four letter words, but if I talk to them about the same stuff without
saying I am a missionary, they are just fine. I don't get why me
saying I am a missionary is so bad. They ask why I am here from
America so I tell them. They sounds really funny and I will try to
pick up on the accent. I love listening to Elder Buckhoff since he
puts on his best English accent when he starts talking to an English
person. I don't think he realizes he does it though. Last p-day we
looked at suits and they are the classic European style. I guess you
can get some high quality suits for about £70 that is way cheaper than
in America for he quality of suit you are buying. I might get one later on.

We found a store that sells American candy. It was the best until we
saw the price. A reese's costs £7 which is getting up close to 10 USD.
The prices were all ridiculous. The food here is really similar to in
he US, but it is smaller and healthier and less flavourful. I do enjoy
our dinners with the members though. They make good food. Also, Elder Rhea cooks really well and we ate lunch with him one day and he made chicken croissants. I was in heaven.

The best story I had this week was a guy named Fero who told us he
could read Russian. He showed us. He says all you do is just read the
Syrillic letters as is they were English letters but they are read
backwards. You start from the right and go left and if it looks like
an "n" you say the sound for that letter. It was hilarious. If the
letter doesn't look familiar, he says it has no sound. All the Slovaks
say they speak like 7 languages. But really, the speak Slovak with a
different accent and that is it. We can say some things in Polish and
we checked to see if our theory was right. It was.

That is it for this week. I was trying to keep it shorter, but it
didn't happen. Sorry!
Love you all,
Elder Pace