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...