visiting Zilina's surrounding villages

This week was pretty good. We spent a ton of time away from Zilina because a lot of our investigators live outside Zilina in the little towns of Vrutky and Martin. It was just pretty standard. It flew by; we had the Zone leaders here to do their exchange with Elder Sharp and his companion because he's the new district leader. We worked hard to find some new people but the finding numbers suffered a bit because of the fact that we had a total of 5 hours to find them, so that wasn't very much time, but they were pretty darn effective.  We were able to find 1 person an hour for contacting and of those 2 we were able to set up lessons and we got 2 new investigators with one becoming a new investigator this coming week for sure. We're excited for next week and I got some interesting information regarding what I will need to do as a Branch President. Then we had Church and a high councilor come and that was pretty good so everything went pretty swimmingly. I can't really complain so I won't.

Well the beginning of the week we just kept on going.  We taught our awesome family and they're doing wonderfully,  but unfortunately later they couldn't meet because they're sick. They don't want us to get them sicker and they're currently still sick so we have to decide on a different time of when we can come to meet them. This week we travelled a lot to Vrutky which is a little town outside of Zilina; there we had a really awesome experience. Last Friday we get on a train and we sit down and then a guy and his friend come and sit down and start talking to us and we get his number and eh want to meet with us. Then the next week we go to Vrutky again on Monday and on the way back we see him on a train again but he doesn't sit with us because he's on the phone. So we just leave it then we go back on Thursday and we see him again and talk to him and sit in a compartment together and talk to him about the book of Mormon and he says he'll call us the next day. Then we have to go back to Vrutky the next day again and on the way back on a different train at a different time we see him again and he says he'll call us so we expected his call but before he could we just see him walking in Zilina and he comes up and talks to us and tells us he doesn't need to call and we set up a meeting with him right there and go over to his house the next day. Turns out that he's a Jehovah's Witness but it's all okay it's not a big deal we're just going to have to help see the light of Christ that's all. We also received a referral this week from Mormon.org, so that was pretty exciting.  So we go in search of this guy and we wind up having to walk 4 kilometers but it was worth it, because the guy is super cool. He's from Norway and is interested in the book of M. and wanted one and wants us to come back and talk to him about it, he's just way cool and was first contacted in Banska Bystrica. He goes there quite often to get some KFC ha-ha.  Be's great and we're definitely going back to see him.

This next week we're headed to Brno for a conference for the zone and stuff and that's going to be cool, it's going to be hard because we have to work out the traveling and all that stuff.  We'd rather teach English class because the people who come are really cool and are expecting us to come back this following week and so we feel like we have to be there. We're also just going to work hard and try and find some more people because last week we talked about our Chinese friend and we actually found him again when we were on the way to his store.  But it wasn't open but, lucky us, we found him walking towards the center and were able to give him the book and talk to him about prayer, he said he would do it so we're going to work with him closely and try to teach his whole family, it's going to be great. I found out this last week that there will be a training in Uherske Hradiste for all the leaders of all the branches and that according to my first counselor, I have to go, so we'll probably be travelling there some time in the following week and that also I have to do tithing settlement for everyone and for everyone in Banska, so I'll have to head down there sometime, it's going to be a lot of travelling so, I'm excited ha-ha, and so is Elder Dupre.

Well, that's really everything and I don't have a ton of time because it took a while fiddling with the keyboard to get it to work for me, I can tell you that I was less than happy with it and desired to throw it against the wall, but I figured out the problem and was able to fix it - sort of. It still needs to be replaced but it suits my purposes for now.  It was kind of nice getting back into the tech scene there for a few minutes, but now it's back to missionary mode.  Anyway,I love you all and wish you a wonderful week!

Elder Ferrell