Draha
rodino, [note: Dear family]
What
a week it has been. Sorry I couldn't email yesterday. A lesson we thought had
fallen through ended up still being on so instead of emailing yesterday we
got to teach a little family the restoration.
There's
not much to tell you about. It's hard to believe it's only been a week since we
arrived in Zilina. It seems like we've been here much longer. Our area has
nothing so we're doing a lot of finding. It can get frustrating when you set up
meetings with people and they don't show. It's always slow at the beginning
trying to build your teaching pool; I just need to be patient. But I
have faith that Heavenly Father will help our area to blossom just like it did
in Bratislava.
Sister
Jones, my new companion, is a beautiful person. She's 19 and already an
amazing missionary! I don't know what will happen next transfer with us getting
4 new Slovak sisters, but I know if she'll have to train one of them in her
second transfer, she'll be ready. Her language skills are incredible! I tell
people she speaks better Slovak than I do and I'm not joking! She understands
most of what people say in Contakts, chimes in at the right points and is just
doing things way ahead of what you'd expect from a new missionary. It's neat to
see that Heavenly Father is in charge of this work and knows where his
missionaries need to be.
Sister Jones and Sestra Pyšňáková
We
have a good district. There's one companionship of Elders in Zilina with us.
Elder Clem is also the branch president. We have about 20 members I think who
attend church here. Elder Utley has been out for 4 months and sings
beautifully. Both elders have been keeping me on my toes making sure I'm
speaking only Slovak and not teaching Sister Jones Czech:) Another set of
elders in our district are in Trencin so every other week we get to take the
train to Trencin for district meetings.
Elder Utley, Sestra Pyšňáková, Sister Jones and Elder Clam
It's
been snowing like crazy. I thought I should wish people a Merry Christmas
rather than a Happy Easter last weekend. It seemed more appropriate with all
the snow.
Sestra Pyšňáková
Heavenly Father sent me a beautiful Easter surprise though when I got
to spend church with Renata and then afterwards saw Iveta Kolkova [note: family friends]. I needed that so much and Heavenly Father knew it. He's
the best!
Sister Jones, Renata Blombergová and Sestra Pyšňáková
Iveta Kolková and Sestra Pyšňáková
Last
thing, I was looking through our area book and saw a list elders had started
back in 1993 when Zilina opened up to missionary work. The 20th elder on that
list was Derek Jenson [note: long time
family friend]
.
There was also a sheet listing a few sisters who had served in Zilina and at
the bottom of the page was this paragraph "The
25th day of the eleventh month in the year 1998 - Sisters leave Zilina. The
people will never know what hit them. No worries. We will be back!!!" Well...we're back!
I
love you all! Thank you for your emails, letters prayers and testimonies. I am
so grateful that I am a missionary. It's the best thing in the world!
I love my call so much. It means everything to me. I'm grateful for our Savior
and for his life and resurrection. It's worth it
to give up everything for Him. I wish you all a beautiful week!
S
laskou, Sestra Melissa Pysnakova
