Early Transfers

Nazdar!

Haha, for those of you wondering about the title (That is...if Google translate does things like it should...) That's right. Transfers again. 1 Week early. So much radost (joy). I'm very happy to email you again from Blava, the biggest little city I've every been in. My new companion is Elder R., who's from Provo/Washington State, and actually went to Timpview for school. We're really excited to be together for his last transfer, he was the first missionary to be trained in Banska Bystrica, and I was the second, so that's pretty cool.

Our week last week was very bittersweet. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving every single second of my mission. I even love the seconds where things don't go the way I want them to. I'm sacrificing a lot of time trying to get all of these photos to you, not in the normal fashion, so SORRY TO ALL WHO DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO SEE THE PHOTOS!!! But I think it's worth it.

Highlights real quick:

W. ALMOST got baptized, and then she got sick, but she passed her interview and everything.

We got to live through a Russian Easter, which was sick.

Conference was amazing, loved Elder Holland, and Uchtdorf, and I've heard that I actually got to understand President Packer better than all of the English listeners, so that's pretty cool.

We totally went to the zoo. There were totally Dinosaurs there. Best mission experience yet.

M. is totally ready for baptism now too, and so it Andrew, so maybe that will be some motivation for our other investigators.

Love Brat P., he's so cool. Used to be the majster slovenska (Slovak Champion) in rowing, how sick is that?

Love you all, have a great week!

Elder Brousseau

Velkanoc...Druha Kola!! (Easter...2nd Round!!)

Nazdar!

Hey everyone, I am SO excited to tell you about Easter this year, it's been the best one of my life! Haha, I am in the funniest environment right now. People are being n00bs and playing random internet games and just swearing, and I am laughing my head off remembering how much I used to love those (minus the swearing, ask my friends, I don't do that). It is really really quite interesting to think of how empty a life filled with just a computer can be. Somebody really needs to find out how to combine the fun and entertainment of computer games, with life lessons and work, like make a fun, not stupid school game, where you like teach people calculus or something. Or teach Bible stories in an epic fashion, that would be pretty sweet, I'll probably do that. Well anyway,

Monday last week we went to Devinsky Hrad, which was pretty sweet, except the top portion has been closed for the last 5 years due to a lack of funds to repair it. How dumb is that?!? But we've become the district that does fun things together on P~Day, which is SWEET, I've been dreaming about that my whole mission, and it is just as fulfilling as I thought it would be. We went to Narnia pub afterwards, have I mentioned that they sell Kofola there in LITRES?!? So great...

Devinsky Hrad

We haven't really had a ton of lessons in the past week, which was pretty sad, but I think we needed it, as a little wake up call, not to sit back in a great area, that we still have to work to break 20. I think we got 17, and I have been thinking about this a TON. I don't know if I've already mentioned this, but when I first came here, Elder B. (his trainer) and I had one of the better areas in the mission, especially Slovakia, and we were fighting, FIGHTING every week for like 12 or 13 when the standard was 14. We were putting everything we had into it, and falling short all the time, at the same time when a lot of people were fighting for 4 or 5. Now we had a "bad week, where we only had 17 lessons and 3 baptismal dates." This mission has progressed so hardcore, and I think the main factor in it all is the attitude of the missionaries. Something I talked about with Elder K. a bit, is the whole, 97 no's and 3 yes's. You have to go through the no's to finally find the yes's, and it's so nice to go out with that attitude and then get like 16 yes's right in a row at the beginning. So nice.

We had our concert this week. I am so embarrassed, I feel like I'm worse at sight-reading than I was at home. That is definitely my weak point on the piano, however, Elder W. (current companion) and I KILLED it on the finale. We played a modified (both musically and lyrically) version of "Below my Feet" from Mumford and Sons THANKS MOM, and we're working on doing the same thing with Neon. It is amazing how these concerts can really bring people closer to Christ. We invited tons of people to it, and on top of that, we had T. R. (a less active member who happens to be a virtuoso) play with us, and he had a spiritual experience doing it. We even had a deaf member stay for most of it, just because he loved the spirit he felt there! I love music. Unfortunately I have no pictures nor video of the concert.

So, Easter, we had a very very interesting Saturday, but we got to make a velkonocna baba, which is a traditional Slovak Easter Food that I learned from Sister P. last year, and then today, we actually got to go and do the Easter visit, where we "whip" a girl and wish her to be healthy and pretty for her whole life. SO fun, also, we added spiritual to the list of good qualities. You tap the girl with a whip made out of reeds, and say a poem, and then you have the option of pouring water on them to give them beauty health and fruitfulness for their lives, and they give you eggs/money/chocolate, its pretty great. Then the girls get to do it to the boys the next day. I am TOTALLY making that a tradition in my family, it is so sweet. Also, highlight of everything, we went to the zoo today with FOUR investigators. So much fun, turns out they had a Dinopark right in the middle which was of course my favorite. It's just like Vernal but smaller. The animals also seemed to be really acting up just because all the missionaries came to see them, it was so great.

Well I'm pretty much out of time. Love you all, thanks for reading and being a part of my mission with me! Este, I apologize again for the lack of wifi, I am going to try my hardest to get pictures as quick as I can.

Hrda Lasky,

Elder Brousseau

Tyzden Vymien (Exchanged Week)

Nazdar!

Well guess what?!? Haha, we have waded our way through all the Anti-Stuff finally!!! We told the Ex-member we were meeting with that we didn't want to meet anymore if he wasn't interested in anything other than "opening our eyes," and we told our Anti-Investigator that he needed to cool it or he would never become a member, which surprisingly enough worked. Special thanks to fairmormon.org for providing very useful, true, and respectful information. On another note, thank you (my family) for the birthday package! Yeah, I accidentally had no idea why I had a package and opened it. I appreciate the Hymn Book. Also the Mac and Cheese and Kool-Aid. I also loved your letter, I'm glad that I was an entertaining baby, because if I hadn't been, you probably wouldn't have had patience for me later in life.

Ok, on to the rest of the stuff. First, I finally finished writing about last transfer in my journal!!! Haha, yeah, that's February 15th, thank heavens for planners or that would never have gotten done, I'm doing my best to catch up as quick as possible without forgetting any important details. I will probably need a new journal and memory card soon. BTW, I found a fun thing to do to help people from getting trunky (I'll explain why this came up in a little bit). When you have 138 days left in the mission, start reading the Doctrine and Covenants, one section a day, backwards. It will keep you more and more focused in and grateful for serving a mission. President Holland said it best, "Don't you EVER let ANYONE take your mission away from you! My mission is EVERYTHING to me, and maybe you think I'm crazy, but it really is. Do not go home, and do NOT give it up for anything!" I really love that talk, it really gets me fired, up, especially when he speaks about loving the people. I have a strong testimony that the gift of tongues will NOT come in it's fulness until you really love the people you serve. I love these people here, and I have some very big news today.

1st, M. and M. are still going on missions. M. got her call to Salt Lake City, Utah, and she is still freaking out. I promised her that if she serves in Farmington, or near Skyline, that my grandparents would LOVE her to visit them. Story time! Satan didn't want her to go to the temple. How did he show this, you ask? He had the driver taking them to Frankfurt get in a car accident in the Czech Republic. Scared the living daylights out of everyone there, but no one was hurt, even though the car was totalled. But, as in 1 Nephi 3:7, God provided a way, and she went to the temple and loved it. M. hasn't gotten his mission call yet, and is currently in Germany, so I don't have new news on him.

We had Elders R. and B in our apartment ALL WEEK, it was prettty fun. Everyone came down Tuesday night for the training, and we thought it would be easier to have them just stay with us all week, rather than take the 10 our train back, and then have to come back for the conference on Sunday. So they helped us work in our area, which was pretty sweet. It was really fun to be with them the whole week too. Also, my companion Elder W. was able to teach S. the Deaf member with Sister McConkie on Tuesday! He's so great, and they just had a blast.

Neither W., nor I. was baptized on Saturday unfortunately, we'll keep working with them, W. just needs to realize that Elder C. is leaving and she doesn't have time to procrastinate anymore. I. more needs to realize that he knows it's true. M. keeps flipping back and forth between all sorts of opinions, so we'll see where things head with her. We made contact with N. again. Teaching Muslims is SO fun, they kind of live in a little bubble, and it's great to see a light come on in their eyes. They make really really strong happy members as well.

I am getting better at Ping-Pong, and I hope to continue in that, that's one of the most entertaining activities I've ever participated in. I almost beat A. on Saturday, it ended 19-21, which is great considering normally it's like 7-21. The Zone Leaders are practicing all the time, which makes it really fun to have super good (better than me) people to play against whenever we have time for it.

Members from the Nitra Branch at the Slovak reorganization!

Ok, big news. On Sunday it was announced that Slovakia is being re-organized. We are no longer part of the Brno District, but instead the Bratislava District has been created. That means, no more traveling to Brno for conferences, or Youth activities (Trainings will still happen there), or anything like that, but that Bratislava will be in charge of things like that. This means enormous progress for the church here. I was crying so hard when they made the announcement, this means we are one giant step closer to Slovakia being it's own Stake and it's own Mission. I can't wait, these members are so strong, and they work so hard. I can't believe how much the church has grown here, just in the time that I've been here. At the beginning of my mission, we were fighting every week to have 13 lessons when standards were 14, and we were in the best area in the Zone, most were fighting for 4 or 5. Now we are sad and disappointed when we haven't had at least 20. I am SO proud to be a Slovak missionary during this pivotal time for the church here, it is AMAZING to witness the courage and dedication of the members. I love this place.

I don't really have anything more to add, have a wonderful week, thank you Grandma Burton for supporting me so much, I love you to pieces! Also, thank you Mom and Dad for keeping me so informed. I am so grateful for my family. BE EXCITED FOR CONFERENCE!

Zo Slovenska s Laskou,

Elder Brousseau

Cau, ja som priliz lenivy momentalne, aby som si vytvoril nejaky nazov... (Hi, I'm much too lazy right now, so I created a title...)

Nazdar!

Hey everyone, I'm really sorry I wasn't able to email last week, and I'm double sorry for not being able to send pictures this week either. We recently moved into a bigger, much nicer, space for church, and it's still not completely finished, but we've already started using it, and have vacated the old space, which means that there's no computer there, nor wi-fi to try and send things like that. Sorry, I'll get it to you as soon as I can, there's quite a lot of stuff that is really really great. So, the last 2 weeks have been very eventful, but my memory and concept of time have both really sunk to embarrassing degrees of effectiveness while I've been in Slovakia, so I apologize in advance as well for not being able to inform you about everything as much as I would like to. But I'll do my best.

Well, in the past 2 weeks, I've been able to go see both Bratislava and Devin's castle here, but I'm starting to get really annoyed at the decision to have P~Days on Monday. Everything is closed on Monday...We'll walk up to a castle, and just see this sign that says, "Otvorene kazdodenne od 09:00-20:00 okrem pondelky" (Open from 9:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m., except Monday) and then just take pictures outside and walk back home. We usually have to pull the card of, "We're American and we're not going to be here for very long, is there any way you can open it up just for us just this once?" but that only works when two important conditions are present. 1.) There must be people there, who have the ability to open the castle up, and 2.) They must not be able to recognize that you're not Catholic (Or not care, that's usually better, and more common when you go visit castles in small towns). I don't feel like I've ever really experienced racism, but this has got to feel pretty similar. But I'm still bugged, like, not even museums or anything are open then. Oh well, I guess this will give me some reasons to come back.

On a MUCH more positive note, we have been finding SO many people lately, and it's been really nice, because the majority of them are really really cool. I have been constantly impressed with a growing appreciation for what the Lord seems to just sort of "give us" as missionaries. Honestly, it didn't even feel like we needed to try all that hard in order to find people to teach, they just kind of started coming to us. For example, the Sisters tracting the other week, found an ex-member that some people here had been wondering about. Or we, looking for a member for a couple of weeks, discovered that he was actually in our English class, and we just hadn't known what he was looking like.

Another plus of serving in a big city (my respect for those who serve in New York, and Chicago, and Los Angeles, and other big cities has really grown), is that I have gained a very good knowledge of church history. There are people who have taken it upon themselves to research in detail every single thing prophets and apostles have done, and are determined to make them look bad. Something else I've discovered is the importance of Preach My Gospel and the Standard Works in these instances. Preach My Gospel has been worded to carefully so as to make it extremely difficult to prove any of the points of our doctrine false. It's really nice, and the Topical Guide is a blessing straight from God.

I'll give an example:

People will ask, "Why haven't Mormons ever had a Prophetess?" Look up Prophetess in the TG, and follow some footnotes, and you get straight to Exodus 15:20, which describes the Sister of Moses as being a prophetess. Follow some more, and you get to Numbers 12, the whole chapter, where the prophetess, and the head of the Aaronic priesthood say to the prophet that, "hasn't god spoken to us as well?" It's a fair question, but Jehovah, to prove his point (That the head of the church is the Prophet), comes down in a cloud and curses the prophetess with leprosy. Then, despite the pleas for forgiveness from the prophet himself, The Lord in his anger (which btw helps us see him as a being of parts and passions) makes her deal with being that way for a week, and to add embarrassment to the punishment, doesn't allow Israel to move during that time period. So the answer to the question is: We have had prophetesses, however, even these do not have the authority and keys granted unto the Lord's Prophets, Seers, and Revelators, which is why we don't follow them first and foremost. Isn't that cool?

But the coolest of all is, it's not needed to argue the character or decision-making skills of any church leaders. The fact is, church leaders are fallible and imperfect, and the living prophet is the most important prophet for us right now, not the ones that have passed. God did not reveal to Adam how to build Noah's ark, Noah had to get his own revelation. But again, thanks to the missionaries serving in places where things like this come up more often than they do in Slovakia.

I gave a talk in church, that I was told my mother would be very proud of, so I'll tell you a little bit about it. I was given the topic of, "Mission" so I decided to speak a little bit about my decision to come on a mission, which included the car-ride where my Mom burst out crying in October 2012. I was told after the meeting, by the sweetest little angel-sister Sestra H. that, "It's obvious your mother knows everything. She would be very grateful to hear you speak today." The main point of it all though was how I have never regretted, nor think that I ever will regret the decision to come. It has been the best year and a half I've ever had, not because It's been fun and happy and I've been in a new place and learned a new language. I have learned to laugh and be happy when there's nothing to be happy about, and to love people when they're sassy and rude to me, and to be ready to do absolutely anything to help out a priesthood leader, because I know how much they sacrifice. These are things that I know will and have shaped my life for the better.

I've noticed that Google Translate has been having a little bit of a hard time translating for you guys when I say things in Slovak. I'm not sure why, but I'll explain a couple of things real quick. first, Blava=Bratislava. I don't know where they're getting blue, that's Modrá. Nebo means Heaven/The Sky, and I totally understand the problem, but at the same time it's hard. You see, nebo in Czech means or/because. So I get it, but I wonder why it thinks it's Czech and not Slovak. I've been giving a lot of thought to what I might be able to do for GoogleTranslate and Slovak when I get back...

Well, I feel like I've talked a lot and still not said a whole bunch, I'm really quite glad with how busy we are, and I like being a missionary a lot. It's considerably satisfactory. Haha, well, I think it's about time for me to stop writing, Thanks to GoogleTranslate for helping my English vocabulary out a little bit.

Mimoriadné kopci požehnaní vám všetkým prajem,

(I wish you all special blessings,)

Elder Brousseau

Tyzden Skoro Krstu (Baptism Last Week)

Nazdar!

Hey so cutting right to it, W. didn't get baptized this week, and D, and her family are not getting baptized next week. It's too bad, just because we got so close this time, but the good news is: they all still WANT to have that happen because they know it's right, so we're going to continue working with them towards that goal. I was SO, SO, SO stressed last week because our investigators were having some trouble communicating with us. My great companion Elder Z. W. probably hates me at this point just because of how much I was stressing out, but you know, I'm totally ok with that, haha. Just kidding, we have a really good relationship, which is super nice, and he's really really helpful as a companion. Here's our week, I hope you like it as much as I did:

Pondelok (Monday): We went on a tour of Bratislava, the same one we went on last year, because the same lady (E.) still comes to English, and invited us to come again. She's so great, and man does she know a lot about Slovak history. We also taught S. I'm not quite sure if I've mentioned him before, but he's the coolest guy ever. He's a less-active member here, who is deaf, and slightly mentally handicapped as well, and he's the funnest ever to teach (Thank you Elder J. for teaching me ASL!!!). We also got a new investigator named H., who's from Vietnam. Speaking Slovak is a little harder in Blava (Bratislava), because there are so so many people that you meet who don't speak Slovak or any language similar to it, so you just kind of have to speak English...

Utorok(Tuesday): We had District lunch at the Narnia Pub. Pretty much the similarity with Narnia ends after you walk through the cloaks to get into the restaurant, but they do have one thing going for them: They serve capovana Kofola in liters. So very sick nasty cool. Later in the day, we taught D., who is very prepared, but very not married, so we're figuring out how to help her best at the moment.

Streda (Wednesday): Exchange in Centrum with Elder J. Something that really helped my mood though was teaching T. This kid makes me SO jealous of American missionaries. He's absolutely golden, he even defends us to his roommates and friends outside of lessons, and he and his twin brother are planning on getting baptized...in the U.S....That's right. He doesn't want to right now, even though he already knows it's true, and reads church sites and magazines and stuff, he's going to just make some missionaries in Philadelphia so happy. Dang you American missionaries, this isn't the first time I've run into this sort of thing...

Stvrtok (Thursday): We found the coolest people today, and I can't wait to get in contact again. One of them, when we contacted them said, "You know, I was just thinking about Adam and Eve, and that snake. If God knows everything, how didn't he know about that?" She was fascinated by our answer that indeed he did, and is excited to meet with us this week. I also was presented with one of the anti-material pieces of literature floating around in Slovakia trying to convince people not to talk to us. It's really not very good either, most of it is just fallacious information presented in a way that implies the wrong thing. The good news is, now one of our investigators has a whole lot of answers, and a faith destroying attempt was turned into a faith-building exercise.

Piatok (Friday): M. is not happy with us...Today we talked about the apostasy, and she was not happy with our claim that it had to happen. The good news is, she's still really really happy to meet with us, and we brighten her day every time, but she is just scared of new doctrine. It's completely understandable, if I were confronted with the idea that what I believe isn't founded upon scripture and the teachings of Christ, I would be a little bit disgruntled as well to say the least. We'll continue to work with her, and she's agreed to study and make sure she does her part to know God's will. K. is totally progressing too, he's so fun, he has a totally different attitude. He's a little Deist from Turkey, and his attitude towards the gospel is that it agrees with and adds to everything he already believes. It is so refreshing, he commits himself to do everything before we even ask, and then he keeps commitments like nobody's business. W. had her interview today as well, which she didn't pass, but we'll keep working to make 100% sure she's prepared.

Sobota (Saturday): We had a sort of scattered day today. Highlights: Ping-pong with A., he's a Ukrainian beast at the game. T.R. was apparently so impressed with me last time that he brought two dictionaries of Music and Musical Terms for me today, he's a really sweet guy. And we met another Turkish guy named M.A. Super sick, he's a real Muslim, you know, not the terrorist type lots of people THINK are Muslims. He's also really open to new ideas.

Nedela (Sunday): Finally had dinner at the D. family. They are an amazing family of Russian Angels here in Blava. Both parents have served missions, and they have 3 beautiful adorable kids. I really hope that some of the people that I've helped here turn out in a similar way as them, they are seriously just the coolest. Later, we finally got to meet with W., and gosh, she was sad to not be able to be baptized on the 7th, but she is very very ready to work hard and get a new date fixed. I'm so grateful to be working with her.

I love you guys so much. CONGRATULATIONS ALEXIS!!! I'm really grateful to be here serving, even though I can't see awesome things like Maddie performing, or Steve stuffing people, or Sarah dancing, or friends getting engaged.

S Laskou,

Elder Brousseau

Follow Spiritual Promptings

Angels of Slovakia!

Čauko!

Hey all, gosh, I know I've been saying this my whole mission, but everything is going by SO fast. So first off, I want to start off with a shout out to some angels in my life, I love you mom, you're SO wonderful! I was talking with my companion earlier this week about how weird it is for me to think that you served a mission, and how much it's helped me to respect you more. Two of my favorite gals, don't think I forgot about you 2, there are always letters in the mail, I just can't wait for you to get all of them! My favorite cousin my age, thank you SO much, your emails mean the world to me, they're always so thoughtful and entertaining, and gosh, you are a good storyteller, you're probably the best princess ever. Anyway, I'm just super grateful that I've been surrounded by such amazing people and I'm very grateful for each of you that I'm emailing as well, believe it or not, each of you has been a very good influence on me, and I appreciate it.

District Conference in Czech/Slovak

So I don't have very much time to write, I hope that I'll be able to get my ideas across quickly in ways that make sense. So this week we had a whole lot of crazy. We had to switch up like 9 lessons because we had Zone Conference & District Conference on the days we were supposed to have them. On the bright side, Zone Conference was awesome, we had a visit from the temple president in Freiberg, Germany, and also an area 70 from Finland. The Finnish man's talk was very weird, I think it made sense in Finnish, but translated into Czech it kind of seemed to lose a lot of meaning which was unfortunate. We had the opportunity on Saturday to go to the adult session of District Conference, which was AMAZING, and I was so blessed, I got to meet a lot of the youth in Slovakia, with whom I have not yet had the privilege of serving, especially those in places like Bratislava and Kosice. I'm so grateful for that opportunity to go to both sessions of District Conference, and I heard that they're from now on allowing all of the youth to go to it as well. I'm not sure why, nor if it is true throughout the world, but it's a very cool opportunity.

Following spiritual promptings

New Friends

We've had a lot of miracles this past week, one of which stands out particularly in my mind. We had just had a lesson cancel on us, and we were left with nothing to do but contact along this little path next to the river for 2 and a half hours, which I was not looking forward to at all. We went all the way up the path to the edge of Trencin, without meeting a single person who would even say hello to us. When we turned back however, I had an impression to go check out a little park they have for Cub Scouts here, and when we went there, down on the riverbank we saw a man taking pictures of the sunset. We watched him for a second, and I had an impression to go talk to him about Easter. We went up and started a conversation about Slovak traditions for Easter, and he was sort of awkwardly talking with us, because he already knew missionaries (like everyone here), and didn't really want to talk, but he was surprised that I wasn't trying to talk to him about what I believe about Easter, but what his people believed, so he talked to us despite his lack of interest and let us teach a lesson on the Savior, and then while we were ending our lesson, another man walked up and said hi to the first man and asked him who we were and the first man introduced us. The first man left then and thanked us for talking with him, and the second man immediately asked us what we were talking about and we told him and he proceeded to teach us everything about Slovak traditions, even cutting branches off of trees to show us how to make korbaciky, and asking questions about our church the whole time. Apparently, he had heard and met with us before, but he also was very surprised by the fact that we wanted to talk to him about him. I think I'm going to try this strategy more often, it got me 2 solid lessons.

I love you all, hope that helped your day a little.

Elder Brousseau

Spring rains in Trencin

Beautiful Slovak Sunset

Easter in Trencin, Slovakia

Springtime in Trencin

Nazdar!

Hey all, so the past week has just been a blast, let me tell you a little about it. So first off, it's starting to just be BEAUTIFUL outside. All these trees that just bugged me in the winter because of how black and ugly they were are turning out to have just gorgeous pink and purple blossoms all over them, it's awesome! Also, I think I see a metaphor in that last sentence. Dang it...But anyway, Let's talk for a sec about the Slovak Easter, they have some pretty off-the-heezy traditions that I TOTALLY want to get into when I get home, here are just a few of them:

1. First of all, Easter lasts a week here. Like not the whole, "Oh, this is big Saturday, or green Friday, or whatever else people celebrate for that week," It's EASTER all week. They call it Velkanoc, which translates as big night, which is kind of weird for me because the only record we have of a big night happening at any point in history is in the Book of Mormon...0_o...

Velkunocna baba--a traditional Easter meal

2. On Saturday morning is when the first of the festivities start, everyone is supposed to decorate their trees with painted eggs and ribbons and stuff until it's all completely gic, just great. That night, they also make this special dish called Velkunocna baba, which I went and learned how to make with a member. It's basically potatoes, eggs, bread, sausage, and parsley with some special water you put on it before you bake it that had onions and garlic and beans soaking in it for a while. It's WAY good, haha.

Easter meal with a Slovakian church member

3. Sunday is the day everyone sits around and enjoys each other's company, and so of course we had a great Easter program at church, we watched Nachadzanie viery v Krista, which is just classic. It reminds me a lot of every Sunday back home with my sister. Then our neighbor upstairs invited us over and said she wanted to be our Slovak grandma because she's lonely and we're 2 nice, polite young American boys, so she cooked us this wonderful lunch and talked with us for a while, it was wonderful, and then for dinner, we got invited over to a member's house. She is just a little angel, I have no doubt she's going straight to heaven when she dies, and I don't care where I am in the world, I want to be there at her funeral. She always makes the Elders eat a TON of food though, so that was pretty hard, especially considering we had had that big lunch only like 2 hours before she invited us over...But the tradition is just sit around and be lazy unless you have guests.

Meal number two on Easter

4. This is the cool one, on Monday morning, all the men in Slovakia have prepared these special little whips called korbaciky, and they go on what they call "Easter visits," where they run into somebody's house, find the women, and whip them with the thing and pour water on them. Obviously they don't whip them hard--that's mean. It's just supposed to be a symbolic thing. But here's the cool part. After they get whipped, the women are supposed to give the men chocolate and eggs and if they don't have those, money! It's awesome! And before all you feminists back home start getting indignant, the women get to do the same thing back to the men on Tuesday, no worries.

So this past week, we've just been relishing the culture. Our investigators are doing ok, it's really difficult to get people to church here, but we got one investigator to come to church, and also several less-actives we've been working with were able to come, but not one lady we've been teaching. I'm starting to be really worried about her. She's having more and more doctor's appointments, but it doesn't seem like she's getting any better. Keep her in your prayers so she can be baptized. Another investigator doesn't want to stop drinking and smoking, even though he hardly does it anyway, and whenever he does, he feels SUPER guilty, but he's not drinking coffee anymore, so we're making steps. We have a new investigator who says he's an aetheist, but it's really cool. He taught us God's entire plan for us in perfect sequence, almost word for word, having never met missionaries before or heard of Mormons. He just used a little bit different vocabulary. For example, instead of saying that God created us, he said we are a genetic experiment of an extra-terrestrial. The cool thing is he believes that the genetic experiment is for US, not for God (he calls God 'Frankie'), so that we could see if we were able to follow our "codex" or inner rule-book, which our creator imbedded in our subconscious. SO cool, I'm really excited to keep teaching him, and he speaks the 2nd best English of any Slovak I've heard, and he learned just from listening to American music like Red hot Chili Peppers and the Beatles, he's just awesome.

Trencin, Slovakia

I love you all so much! I have a lot more time to write, but I really have no idea what to say. Um...mom, I put in my lasagna tomato sauce, which I make, I use basil and bay leaves and oregano, and romano cheese, it's pretty good, and I found this place where I can get some meat that's really close to beef (I'm scared to ask what it actually is, but it's way good), and then I use these 2 kinds of cheese that you won't be able to get in America because it's illegal to sell unpasteurized milk products there, but Edaim and Bryndza, and yeah, it is pretty fabulous. My companions so far have all been really really grateful that I know how to cook, especially things like pizza and that french toast. I also figured out how to make Pirohy, I'll have to send a picture sometime, they're like ravioli, but you make it from potatoes and you can put stuff inside, it's way good. I swear, if anybody ever asks me what I did on my mission, I'm just going to say, "dishes." I do SO many dishes, just because I don't really mind hand-washing things anymore...weird, huh? Tell the future missionaries in my ward back home I'm so proud of them. I can't wait for those guys to get out into the field, they're just going to love it. And to my brother, you're going to love going on a mission someday, I can just see it. Does anyone know how a missionary in Tonga is doing, he won't respond so my emails. Anyway, Love you lots again, I hope you feel that every day.

Lubim t'a, Zelam vam vsetko najlepsie,

Elder Chris Brousseau

Happy birthday, Elder Brousseau!

Beautiful hike in Slovakia

Ahojte!

Hey so first off, it's my B~Day tomorrow! Jééééj...Lol. I don't think it's very fair considering I've pretty much forgotten everyone else's birthdays while I've been gone, so I'm working to make sure we don't celebrate at all, because basically the Sisters haven't been able to get out of me when my birthday actually IS, and I just got a new companion, so that's no prob. I'll celebrate on a day when we're not working. Beyond that, big news. So on Monday last week, we didn't really do anything, but TUESDAY... Haha, that was the Sister's year mark, and boy did we celebrate. We went to the Hotel Alžbeta for district luch, and I spent 30 Euros on my plate!!! We saved up for it all transfer so that it wouldn't mess with our weekly shopping, and haha, I'm so grateful that we did, because afterwards we were able to have a really successful day, and that was just the icing on the cake.

Sr. Missionaries in Trencin, Slovakia

The Kebab man

Wednesday: We went on a vylet with a guy who works at my favorite Kebab stand. He took us to a couple of castles where we learned about the lady who has the world records as the biggest serial killer of all time, it was nuts, but the important part is that we were able to really just talk with him, and he's such a cool guy. He's been all over the world, places like Nepal and New Zealand, and basically the philosophies he's gained from staying in tiny villages and just working with people his whole life are basic doctrines of our church, for example: don't push anyone into anything they don't want to do, all you can do is invite, everyone has their agency. On top of that, he invited his friend to come and meet with us afterwards, which went great, and she is VERY friendly, oh my goodness. Within 5 seconds of meeting me, she kissed me, I was NOT expecting that and I almost flipped out, but I just held it and said that she shouldn't do that because I'm a missionary. Anyway, that's my surprising announcement of the week, on a better note, I'm getting a haircut from her tomorrow, and I'm hoping she'll become a new investigator.

A sister teaching wreath weaving

Thursday we went up to a member sister's house, the one who's teaching us how to make the baskets out of newspapers. She lives in the Czech republic, it was really cool, and she has such a strong testimony, I can hardly describe it, suffice it to say, she doesn't have a lot of money, but she bought an old car, and drives about a half hour to church every Sunday, crossing the border between the countries. Awesome lady.

Acting Branch President Brousseau

Friday We got ready for general conference. No, I haven't seen it yet, we'll be watching it this week because it's not translated into Slovak yet. I heard there was supposed to be some big announcement that happened. Suffice it to say, they no longer send us DVD's so I'm in charge of making the dvd's for conference for our branch. Other big news, for about 2 weeks, I'm serving as Branch President in Trencin, how weird is that?

My new companion from Cedar City

Saturday was transfers. My former companion is now serving in Kosice, and I have a new companion who came just a few hours ago. He's from Cedar City, and he's pretty cool. I'm excited to serve with him. That's everything I can think of right now. One of the sisters in the branch confessed to us yesterday that she now feels ready to start working on her testimony again, and honestly, I'm so grateful and excited for her, she really is a saint. We're going to continue working with our investigators, and I would be surprised genuinely if we saw less than 2 baptisms this transfer, we are in a wonderful position with our investigators.

I love you all, thank you for the Birthday wishes, they mean the world to me!

Elder Chris Brousseau