Week 8 - Bratislava, Slovakia CHRISTMAS!

Well it has been quite the week!  Like i said last week we were in Kosice and we made it to Siba and found Hanis's. There was some snow and we walked through the cemetery and saw lots of familiar names! We then spent an hour with Andrea a Martin Hanis. IT was pretty cool! Tuesday we were in Kosice on an exchange for the morning. I was with Elder Arens who had been in the MTC with me, had to go home for a little bit and just got back a few months ago! That Was pretty cool! We had a good exchange and got to help one lady in her yard. That afternoon we set out to Brno (a six hour car ride). On the way i had a call in MLC. We got some more things figured out and we had a good night. Wednesday we had our Christmas training. In the morning we all went to the town square and sang a few songs. There were about 40 missionaries and we got some good crowds! 

Training was great! we, the sister training leaders, the other zone leaders, and the assistants and president all gave a training. IT was more of a spiritual thought though. IT was a really great meeting. My companion and i talked about Jesus Christ and his titles. WE talked about him being foreordained to what he would do. And we related that to us as missionaries being foreordained and we will accomplish that which has been promised. We just have to hold on! It was a fun day. 

Thursday, a lot of missionaries had stayed in Bratislava so we did a big service project cleaning up a park and had our Christmas concert. Someone we are kind of teaching came and sang. He and his wife are opera singers. I may have missed a little ;) Finally came Christmas eve which is the big day here but starts the three day Holiday. Our guidelines on the 24 were that we could visit people until about 2 in the afternoon but on the 24,25 and 26 no tracting or things like that. We had some great visits and brought banana bread with us. At 2 we made lunch for a member and went over and spent about two hours with him because he was alone and then we went to another members after that and had a classic Slovak Christmas without carp. It was a great day! ON Sunday we had an hour church, visited a less active and skyped! Yesterday everything was still closed so we did some service and a member invited us over for lunch and we had a lesson with the girl from Thailand. She came and said so I've been thinking about the purpose of life. What do you think? It was a great lesson!

This week is also full of some traveling and new things. We are excited to see how it goes. I love you all and wish you a happy new year.

S Laskou,

Starsi Hanis