Week 59 merry christmas?

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