week 7 in Praha, and a roadtrip to Slovakia!!

11May 2013 Ahoj!!! Sorry this is late, we just got back from Slovakia! President called us on Sunday and was like, by the way, don't plan anything for Friday or Saturday because you are going to Slovakia! So we left yesterday morning at 7:15 and 5 hours later we got to Trencin (I think Daniel might have served there?) We got to take the van with the office elders, the Pardivice elders and then we picked up the Jihlava elders on the way too, so that was really fun. So the reason for it was the anniversary of the dedication of Slovakia-- President Uchtdorf rededicated it in 2006 I think. So we put on a concert yesterday and then had a service in the forest where he dedicated it today. We got to go because Sister Bowler is really good at the piano, but I got to sing a small solo part in I Often Go Walking (in Slovak, so my pronunciation was a little scary haha) and we sang Come Thou Fount in a quartet with us four sisters and it was so beautiful. Everyone did so well. Sister Irwin was like I didn't know you sang! So hopefully that means I get to do something like that again. Basically I fell in love with Slovakia, it's so pretty!! Hopefully I get to serve there at some point. We spent the night with the Zilina sisters, and it was really cool, cause I was telling Sister Jones that I thought my aunt had served there in the 90s, and she pulled out the area book and sure enough she had signed it!! Daniel's in there too, so that was cool. I got to go contacting in Trencin for an hour with the Zilina sisters too, so that was really fun, I actually understood most of what they said even though it was Slovak! The people didn't understand me very well, probably because I was speaking Czech with an American accent, but it was still fun. It was so nice to be in a little small town, I've missed trees and not-big-city haha. The countryside is SO PRETTY. I can't get over it haha. So I got to see pretty much the whole country this weekend. This week was pretty good, Slovakia made it a whole lot better, especially cause a lot of our lessons didn't show up. But, we should have 2 baptisms next week! I'm really excited about that. We found out Vaclav is married and has a kid...didn't see that coming. But we think they are separated or something cause he lives with his mom. It sounds like if they are separated he doesn't need her approval to get baptized, which is good cause it sounds like she doesn't like the church. And our other baptism was kind of a miracle, her name is Jana. She's the girlfriend of a member, and we were really worried that she was just doing it for him, he would answer for her a lot in the lessons, and she was lying about her reading and stuff. So we were praying about it, and I felt like we should challenge her to meet with us without him for the last 2 weeks before her baptism. We weren't sure if it would go over well, cause when they taught her last transfer she tended to freak out about things, and not really seem to understand the lessons. So we've started teaching really simply. But anyway, so we told them that, and she totally agreed, and her boyfriend told us that he'd actually been thinking the same thing that week! And she actually showed up to the next lesson without him and it went so well!! We quizzed her on the Plan of Salvation to make sure she remembered it this time around and she could put the pictures together almost perfect, so I'm really relieved about her. Before I was feeling super unsure about her being ready, but I feel so much better now, so that was really cool. So member lessons, that means a lesson for an investigator with a member there. We are supposed to do that as much as possible so that they have friends besides just the missionaries. hahaha that is so funny that dad though it was weird we made cookies--we got the idea from the Elders in Jihlava, they made brownies! We live in an apartment building, so it was to all of our neighbors, we don't know our landlord either, he's a British member that lives in a different city, but we have his number. Oh so an update on Martin: we had a really horrible conversation with him on Sunday, he basically was just talking about his indian book (that was written in 1966) and about how the Book of Mormon can't be true cause of it. I could have argued with him all day long and told him that I'm an anthropology major and about all the different theories of how people got to the Americas, how they conflict and how there is not one scientific consensus, how any book written in the 60s is completely outdated in the field, etc. But it wouldn't make any difference, he's absolutely determined that his ideas are right, and he doesn't want to give them up even though he has a testimony of the Book of Mormom. And I didn't bother arguing, because the only way anyone ever will know that it's true is by asking God. Sister Bowler talked to him on the phone this week and he said he's decided she's going to be his last missionary, and he didn't read in the Book of Mormon for 3 days, which is the first time he's ever done that. So he's basically decided to drop us. So we are having one last lesson with him this week--we read a talk on prayer by Elder Scott from 1989 that is super good, and perfect for him, so Sister Bowler is translating it and we are going to talk about it with him in our do-or-die lesson this week. And I feel like we should also point out how anyone that joins the church has to sacrifice something, for some people it's an addiction, for others it's friends--for him it's his ideas. So we'll see how that goes. I just hope he will see that something is missing from his life when he no longer has the gospel in it and comes back one day. But the language is SO much better. I realized I was kind of holding myself back--I think I was scared to improve, as funny as that sounds, because then I couldn't hide behind my companion anymore. So once I realized that I gave that up and started working a lot harder and that's when the gift of tongues kicked in--in the last few weeks I've started to understand soooo much more, to remember what I hear and to be able to use it and everything. So that was amazing, I'm really grateful for that. K love you!!! Sestra Cooper