Od Nitry

It has almost been exactly 6 months since I have been away from home and on a mission... can you believe that!? It's so weird how quickly the time has gone by. 1/4 (plus one more month since Slovak missionaries stay a little longer) of this fantastic experience is already put away in my journal. When I look back it just seems like one, big, exhausting, and rewarding day. I say "day" because it feels like yesterday when I was dropped off at the MTC.

One more week and I might be leaving Nitra to go to another city. This week is the last week of the transfer and there is a good chance of me leaving since I've been here for 4 months already. I don't want to leave because I love these members so much but it would be exciting to see a new part of Slovakia. There are goods and sads to both situations. I will be happy with either outcome though :). Later today we will be going on a tour with our new Branch President at the Nitriansky Hrad (the caslte). I've been there once but President Gritti knows everything about the place... so it will be 10x cooler.

This past week was really successful. We taught A LOT of lessons to people here in Nitra and hours away. The fruits of our labor is that we have some great people that are progressing and one new baptismal date! The baptismal date is March 1 for a man named Mario that we found through our English class. He's very cool and has been excited to meet with us. We have another meeting with him today to review the Plan of Salvaton with him and to discuss with him more about how we will help him reach his goal.

... one day I will send more photos.

Love,

Starsi Lyman

Yesterday, a great leap was made for the group here in Nitra ("group" as in "not big enough to be a branch"). It was the first time that the group, which was started only 8 months ago, called a group leader (the equivalent to a Bishop or Branch President) from one of the actual members there! President Fabiano Gritti is an amazing man that was baptized only three years ago. This man is exactly what Nitra, especially Slovakia, needs. President Tychon from the Czech Republic came down yesterday morning to interview Brat Gritti and call him as our new leader. Only 10 people (4 members, 4 missionaries, 1 investigator, and Brat Tychon) were present but the spirit was so powerful as we listened to Brat Csicso (His Hungarian has to be translated into Slovak by another member as he speaks!) and Brat Tychon give remarkable talks on both Christ and hastening the work. We
are a humble piece of the church but it is a piece that really has some big potential to grow, its very exciting.

Today we have a meeting with President Gritti to teach him everything about how to run everything. He is a brilliant man. Before he was baptized he had already read all of the standard works of the church (he might have read them all twice), he speaks English, Italian, and Slovak, he is an Italian Literature and History teacher at one of the local universities, has a wife and a son (not members... yet), has published several books, and is currently working on becoming a Professor which is really hard here in Slovakia. He has a very busy life so we will still help him in every way we can with running the branch.

Well its time to finish but things are looking good here in Nitra right now :).

Ahoj!

Okay email is getting back on its feet :)

Last time we had to cut our email time in half and do the rest another day and I tried sending some photos to all of you but Im not exactly sure if it worked. The internet was super slow and I have no idea what photos actually made it and what didn't. We are finally back in the library where we usually email and Im going to start sending all of my photos next week. I was going to send them today but something is wrong with all of there computers because its the first day "back up and running" so there are some bugs with the emailing.

There are so many things that I could tell you about the work but (a) there is too much with too little time to tell and (b) Im not sure if I can remember all of the experiences. I guess Ill read all of it to you guys someday from my journal when Im back home :). One of the things that I will tell is about Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve here in Slovakia and the Czech Republic is big, in many ways bigger than in America. Its also known as the day-- along with Christmas and New Years-- where us as a mission teach the lowest amount of lessons in the entire year. People are gone and on vacation, families are together and don't wish to be disturbed, and its one of the busiest times of the year by far. Not really the best recipe for a fantastic week of teaching for missionaries. President McConkie looked at this before December actually started and told all of the missionaries, at one of the trainings before December, to plan and set up appointments for the last two weeks of December-- the hardest two weeks-- during the first two weeks of December. Almost all of the missionaries did so and by this simple planning ahead of time gave us so much more the advantage. It was fantastic and I definitely saw miracles as the days went by. But the most amazing thing happened on Christmas Eve. Each companionship was given a 7 minute video of the Nativity scene before hand, one that is really well done and brings the spirit in easily, to go out and make surprise visits to people on Christmas Eve. Its very difficult to set up meetings on Christmas Eve because of how big holiday is here so the idea was to catch them off guard at their door step and just explain that we had a 10 minute message about the Savior to share with them that day. 10 minutes is nothing and is hard to say no to when you realize how important it means to the missionaries who want to give you a more spiritual christmas. So this is what we did.


Each companionship planned on several families/individuals of whom they could go and visit on Christmas day. My companion and I prayed for and planned on at least 7 people we could meet during the day. Many of the people that we visited were sadly gone but we got into two peoples homes and were able to share a very brief, peaceful, and spiritual message about the greatest thing message of all time, Jesus Christ. Explaining all that happened will take too much time but I can say that by this effort alone, our companionship was able to gain 2 new investigators from it and we've been seeing them ever since. A couple days later I was on the phone with our President discussing some things and I told him about our experiences. He was ecstatic and then I asked him about the entire mission. He told me that every companionship in the entire mission who thoughtfully planned, prayed, and worked toward Christmas Eve really spiritual meetings. He then told me that on Christmas Eve, the day that the mission usually teaches the lowest number of lessons in the entire year, the mission taught more lessons than any other day in all of the year 2013. Miracles happened on that day and I can testify to all of you that those little steps of planning and praying for whatever lies ahead is not only worth it but necessary.

I love all of you and hope that the holidays were as miraculous for everyone else.

P.S. Shout out to my older brother Mark, his wife Bre, and their first daughter Allie!

Kde som bol!

Today I'm trying to experiment and see if I can finally send some photos...

Len Kratké Posolstvo

Sorry that I didn't get to write last week. The christmas season makes everything a lot crazier here as missionaries! Plus it didn't help that we had to go all the way to Prague for a training on the 23rd.

Last week we had to say goodbye to our favorite investigator. Lucia went to her families home in a town 80 klm away for the christmas break and won't be back for several weeks. It's really too bad because she was progressing very well and we had almost taught every lesson to her that is required for her to make that next step. She already finished the book of mormon and is reading it again. She decided from the beginning that she wanted to read it quickly, like a regular book, for the first time through and then read it a second time while marking everything and taking her time. She is so great and she's grown a lot since the first time we met with her. Both her and I were talking about books that we like (we actually like a lot of the same books) and I recommended her my favorite book, The Alchemist. In a few days she bought it in Czech and read it. She loved it! She says she wants to read it every summer like I did back at home.

I wrote everything above this sentance two weeks ago in preparation for these past two weeks.

I love Prague! Haha I just had to get that out of my system. It really is a gorgious city but I dont get to see it too often since Im a missionary in an even better city called Nitra. I wont be able to speak too much right now because I dont have any time to email today. Our normal place that we email at is closed for two weeks so Im at this little slovak internet cafe that we took FOREVER to find-- the only other place we could use in Nitra. Ill have a ton more next week to say about Slovak Christmas traditions, how the work is going, and everything.

Love all of you!

Ahoj everyone!

This past week hasn't been the most successful one, unfortunately. The changes with companions kind of makes everything a little slow at first. We've been busy getting a lot of things ready for chirstmas, building up our classes (English and Family History), visiting families that are far away, and a bunch of stuff. It was really weird because on Friday we went out to Zeliezovce, to the Majtanovci, and nobody was there to pick us up from the bus stop. After waiting for awhile and calling a phone that wouldn't answer a few times, we decided to walk to their house. No one was home. So we went and grabbed lunch and caught the next bus back to Nitra. It was really too bad because it took an entire day away from us to be able to do anything productive. We later learned that Brat Majtan was really sick that day and had actually thought that we were going to visit another member instead.

Good news is that I like my new companion! He's kind of weird and has some things that bug me (like not waking up in the morning and using his time wisely!) but he's nice and a fun kid. He's not an extrememly hard worker and it's a little sad to see an elder that isn't as ambitious as others. He has been getting progressivly better at his studies and I'll keep nudging hime in the right direction ;). He's been here for 6 months (8 months including the MTC) and I'm not too afraid to say that he probably speaks the language just a little bit more than I do. A good thing with that is that I can be a much bigger part in our lessons (Saw it a lot this week)! I'm so grateful for how much the Lord blesses us and helps us in this work and our daily lives. We had a couple of fantastic lessons with Lutcia. I think that she is almost finished with Helaman in the Book of Mormon. She loves everything that we are teaching her. She's been raised Catholic and her parents, along with everyone around her, are strong Catholics but she said something very interesting the other day. She said that in her head she thinks that the Catholic church is true but that in her heart she feels that our church is true. She said that she thinks the Book of Mormon is true too! She hasn't prayed about it yet (she wants to wait until she finishes it) so we're excited to about our next lesson today.

Yesterday, we only had three people at church (Be grateful America!). December has been known to have the worst numbers of the year because everybody leaves to visit family and go on vacations, are too busy to during the week to meet, bus schedules aren't as good, it's cold and people are grumpy, and lots more. Several of our members were sick as well (Not just Brat Majtan). This next week should definitely be more successful.

Despite what was said in this email, the work is still hastening :)! We see it so much out here as missionaries and I hope all of you do to. I love you all and hopeyou have a great week :)!

Od Nitry

It has been an exhausting week. Everytime I come here to write all of
you I feel like I can't even remember what happened the past seven
days!
Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes! How am I 19 and on a
mission already!? Before I know it all be back home with all of you.

I'll start off with today because I had my first mission transfer! I
got my call two days ago telling me whether I would travel to another
area of Slovakia or stay in Nitra and it was decided that I would stay
here (President told me that forever ago). I love this place and want
to make it better and better, I wouldn't mind staying here another
transfer if I could. I said goodbye to Starsi Clem this morning and it
was a little sad. We had so much fun together and did some fantastic
things in these past two months. I met my new companion at 4:00 this
evening. He's from Finland! That's so cool! His father is spanish and
his mother is finish, he speaks finnish, english, spanish, and slovak!
Starsi Garlick got his new companion as well. Its pretty crazy because
our district (us 4 elders) is the youngest district in the entire
mission. Starsi Garlick and I have only been in country for 2 months,
his companion, Elder Ringer, has only been in for 4 months, and my
companion, Elder cladearan (I doubt I spelt that right), has only been
here for 6 months (Which is pretty long i guess). We have a lot of
growing coming up and I suspect that my Slovak will be incredibly (out
of necessity) better by the end of this transfer.

I'll have to stop responding to everyones individual emails pretty
soon, I think, because I never really have enough time to write a good
enough mass-email anymore (Hah that doesn't mean that I don't want
them!). I already need to go but I hope that you all had a wonderful
Thanksgiving and will have a great week.

Love,

Starsi Lyman