Do toho Slovensko!

The work still progresses in Nitra :)! Our numbers with new investigators, baptismal dates, lessons taught, and stuff like that actually were really low this week. It was still a wonderful and successful week though.

I did my first service project this past week! We actually did three different service projects for three different people. The first one was for this one family that we have been trying to teach more these past few weeks. The Pyriovi are extremely Catholic-- well... at least the mother is-- but have been coming to our English classes and have allowed us to teach little pieces of the gospel here and there but not too much. This project was for the hopes of becoming better friends and to show even more that we are really here to help them in whatever way we can. We went to there house tuesday evening and finally met the dad for the first time. He loves us! He's so nice and just really fun to talk with. Him, Starsi Clem, and I all went out into the garden and tilled about 1/3 of an acre with just shovels. Rilovat' ("to till the earth" you could say) is a new word I learned that day and I loved it! You basically just go in a line with some friends and uproot the dirt and work your way down the field... I'm not exactly sure how to explain much better, so I won't, haha! It's hard work and I'm so grateful that we had a lot of clouds that day. The weather has been fantastic the past few days which is a little surprising. Usually, at this time, Slovakia would be freezing and terrible-- so I have been told. There was kind of this unsaid competition between me and the father at who could work the hardest as well. I loved that guy! His name is Pavlo by the way. We were basically the same during the whole project but Starsi Clem was way behind. At one point, Pavlo yelled over that Starsi Clem had to catch up. At then end of the day I wound up having 10 blisters on my hands! That's what being in the MTC for 2 months will make of you, hah. We didn't use gloves and worked so quickly that we got the job finished in about 1.45 hours. Afterwards, we asked if we could come back next week and it really impressed Pavlo. He said yes and actually invited to take us up the mountain to the oldest church building in Slovakia! So we have a good week coming up :). The other two projects were for Brat Herczog and Sestra Psnakova. We did the same thing for Brat Herczog as we did for the Pyriovi but Sestra Psnakova hates allowing missionaries to do service for her so she just cooked as a huge meal and made us eat until it was too late-- or that we were too full-- to doing any service.

We have to travel so much to get to members, investigators, and places that it not only drains our money but also how much we can teach people. Brat Majtan lives about two hours away and it takes about 10 euros round trip in order for us to travel. We've been going out there 1-2 times every week so it takes a lot of our time and money. We went out there this week to start teaching them the commandments. They accepted it well, as usual, and Brat Majtan actually said something that surprised us. Last Sunday was his first time coming back to church and he loved it! We set the record for having 12 people attend church I might add (Nitra is so young right now). He was very impressed with it and fit right in. He asked us if he could give a talk in sacrament meeting sometime in November on why he now knows that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the absolute true church. He's been searching for awhile ever since he hasn't had the church in his life or anywhere near him for twenty years and he has finally realized and found what he's been looking for. Of course, we said yes and he is going to practice it this week-- I won't be able to go this time because I will be on splits :/. Another amazing thing is that we gave both him and his mother the commitments to stop smoking and drinking coffee. He smokes and hates it and she drinks coffee and loves it. He's been trying to quit for awhile and we gave him the churches program that helps people quit smoking. She was hesitant at first but we Starsi Clem explained about this drink, Karo, that is made from wheat, tastes exactly the same, is much healthier, and doesn't have the smae traits as coffee that she could try. They both accepted the commitments and she made a bet with Brat Majtan saying that she would do better than him. We've called them ever since and they've been fantastic :)!

Have a wonderful week all of you wonderful people :)!