Focusing on the present (photos added of the Nitra District and sister J)

Nitra District

Elders with Slovak Elder getting ready to report to the MTC

Elders Ferrell and Rosendahl

Elders Ferrell and Lamb

Elders Ferrell and Rasmussen

Elder Ferrell and Sister J

 

Well, apparently, Slovakia is having the craziest summer of all time and it's not getting warmer at all, it's actually getting colder, today was great, and weather wise it was pretty nice not too hot but not really cold it was just really nice. That's pretty much how the entire week has been going so it's not really that hot anymore.  It can be uncomfortable when I'm out in it all day or when I run but if I'm just sitting there I don't sweat or anything so it's pretty great. They say that this summer is very mild and very unusual but it makes up for the winter that we had, there was no snow or anything except for in Kosice, luckily where I was.  But everyone else got short changed on the snow but it was still pretty cold so they got all of the bad and none of the great. This week though has been great, it's been some fun but it's been pretty hard on me but just a little bit, really just one day was unusually hard, and I'm not 100% sure why it was so hard but I'll talk about that later but here we go.

The first exciting thing that happened was zone conference here in Bratislava and I was able to conduct that and lead that. It was really cool.  It was 3 hours and the only people that spoke were us the sister trainer leaders and President.  President first talked about how we need to break some of the traditions that we have as missionaries and as a mission. We went over some of the myths of missionary work that we need to get rid of. Some of the things were that we were talking about is how as missionaries we try to make some people into the elect rather than find the elect and that's a problem with the entire mission.  We try so hard to make some of these people into something they aren't and we devote a lot of time with people who will never join the church. While this doesn't mean we stop teaching people who want us to come over, it merely means, those that won't make and keep commitments are not progressing and all of our time should not be focused on them and that rather than spend all of our precious time we can go out and find more people or we can focus on other investigators. That problem is something all missions have and it's something that we need to break and so that's what we're trying to do and that's a little bit why I had a hard day because one of our really cool investigators dropped us and was rather mean about it and it just threw me into a hole and it was just really difficult, but I talked to President about it and he helped me get through it and now I'm back to normal so it wasn't too big of an issue. Back to the training though, the sisters then trained about talking about baptism in every conversation so everyone knows our purpose and then me and Elder Ringger trained on making small and simple invitations in every situation. I think it went over well and people learned something from it so it was rather awesome. Then I had an interview with president McConkie and we just talked very quickly and then Elder Ringger and him talked for like 30 minutes about random stuff, but I think it's about 50/50 whether I stay here or not, either way, I'm still going to go to another city and hope to teach and baptize a bunch of people there or here so it doesn't matter to me one way or the other.

As for our investigators we had a pretty good week with them, I think they all really understand our intentions a lot better now that we're talking about baptism with every single person in every single lesson. Michaela is still doing great she's in Austria still and she comes back on Friday and she says she's not drinking coffee at all and she's drinking something else that's similar to Caro or the wheat substitute, so I'm assuming that she's not drinking it.  I think she doesn't think she is drinking it so that's really the most important part. We don't completely know but she says it's the same thing as Caro, so I trust her and we'll talk to her about it when she comes back. Our other baptismal date Vladimir, for some reason won't ever answer his phone or come to his meetings and he didn't come to church. We went to his work and he was there and was happy to see us and said he would come over but he never did. I don't necessarily think he's dodging us for a reason but who really knows. Maybe I just like to give people the benefit of the doubt.   Interestingly though we still had people come to church.  Progress our friend from Nigeria came out and was with us which was awesome and then our Afghanistani friend came out with his wife and his son and she's not a member, and it was great to see her there because I don't think she's ever come so I'm thinking that we will pick her back up as an investigator.  So it was a really awesome week when we weren't sure that anyone was going to be coming to church. Other than that nothing out of the ordinary happened this week with our investigators it was just really cool with them all and I'm so grateful that I can work with these great men and women.   I so want for them to listen to our message, change their lives and join the church so much but I know that some won't probably and I have to come to grips with that but I can do it and I'm not going to get down because of it again, and that I can promise.

Well other than taht this week has been pretty normal, we've been working hard and we're planning to go on an exchange today actually with Zilina, it's the last exchange that we have and we're going to do it now. We also have to go to Kosice to go and do interviews with some of their baptismal dates and so that's a lot of time to go out there and we have a concert on Wednesday that we have to be back for so yeah. Then the week after we are also going to Prague for mission leadership council so that's fun. Other than that I guess I'll end it here it's not super long but I hope you all love it and it has made you laugh or at least, be entertaining.  But I love you all and wish you a great week and I hope that you're all being safe and just having a great time without me.   I love you all thanks again.

Elder Ferrell