Kostnice, St. Barbara's, and the Assistants

This is a picture of Elder Bently taking a picture of me, taking a picture of him. Actually, his companion, Elder Johnson, was taking a picture of the two of us taking a picture of each other. This is what we do in our spare time while waiting for President Slovacek to finish his interviews.

Last Saturday, Marv, Matt and I drove to Kutna Hora to visit a couple of sites. The first one, Kostnice, would be perfect for a Halloween party. In English, it's called The Bone Church, because it's decorated in hundreds of thousands of human bones. Below is a bin of bones. There are 3 other bins like this one in the church. Those are real skulls you're looking at!





Above Matt's head, the foyer is decorated in human bones. The chandelier in the next picture is made out of every bone in the human body. Evidently, some monk centuries ago got the bright idea to clean up all the bones from the surrounding graveyard, and decorate the church with them. My question is, wasn't there a sane voice in the group of monks? Did it not occur to ANYONE that this might not be such a good idea?? Who wakes up in the middle of the night and says, "Yes! Of course! We need to decorate the church in bones!" ??





Another site we visited in Kutna Hora was St. Barbara's Cathedral. It is a beautiful place that was built in the 1400's and was added onto throughout the centuries. The paintings and murals are masterful.

Usually Cathedrals bother me with their opulence; but this one has a different spirit. I was impressed by their devotion to the Lord, which is shown through their works of art.

Meanwhile, back at home, our assistants, Elders Johnson and Bently have moved into our home while their apartment is being renovated. I caught them cooking in my kitchen the other day. It's quite eye-opening to see what the missionaries eat. Elder Bently has his favorite sandwich which is made by placing uncooked Raman noodles between two pieces of bread with some ketchup. I think he puts something else on it, but I quit listening to him after he mentioned the ketchup.

Elder Johnson in the foreground is from Salt Lake City, as is Elder Bently.

Recognition of the Church in Slovakia

Marv speaking at the Bratislava ceremony, with his translator.





October 18, marked the one year anniversary of when the church was recognized in Slovakia. Since last year, five branches have been created and we have over 120 members of the church in that beautiful country. I rode the train to Bratislava and met Marv to attend a formal reception for the recognition of the church. The office elders and I spent a good deal of time creating a PowerPoint/video presentation for the reception. It was an important part of the ceremony, and it went really well. I was so glad!





The Bratislava elders sang the Slovak national anthem. It was pretty powerful. I looked around the room and noticed the Slovaks had tears in their eyes. I was filled with a great love for these people and the country they are so proud to finally call their own.

We have been so blessed to be here at this time. It is a wonderful experience to see the shroud of darkness being lifted and good people throughout both countries embracing the gospel. It is life changing for them (and surprisingly for me) to see them develop and grow. We feel as though we are directed daily in the missionary work. And oh how we love our missionaries! It's hard to believe we have only been here a few months. We have travelled through Slovakia and the Czech Republic so many times, and know each of the missionaries so well. It seems as though we have lived here forever and have 90 children to prove it. (Okay, they are not children. They are servants of the Lord; but they we love them as our own.)

More Service Projects!!

Brush clean up in Zilina.

We had a huge bonfire going in Zilina. As soon as we got it going, I was sorry we didn't have marshmallows to roast; but I guess that would've interferred with the service project...still...hot dogs would've been fun, too.

Elder Baughman and Elder Auger are cleaning blankets at the homeless shelter in Trencin.

Nature trail clean up in Banska Bystrice. Elder Van de Graff found a shoe. I was jealous! But later, Matt and I found a pair of jeans and a belt. Who loses a pair of jeans in a park??

Homeless shelter clean up in Trencin.

Evidently, Slovaks are proud of their uprising history. We found this place in Banska Bystrice.

Our nature trail clean up crew. The funny little man in the middle asked me to take a break and go get a drink with him. When I politely refused, he told me that he would pay. I could tell he already had a few drinks that morning. It scared me when he told me that he was a blood donor. Mental note: Do Not Accept Blood in Banska!

Service Projects and Youth Hostels Galore!

So....in celebration of the one year anniversary of the church's recognition in Slovakia, all 5 of our branches throughout the nation held a service project. We decided to take a week and participate in all of the projects. This time we took Matthew with us to land a helping hand. We drove 14 hours straight from Prague to Kosice. We were so tired when we finally arrived in the city. We could hardly wait to get to the hotel and unwind, but wait! There was no vacancy in sight! We looked for 3 hours and were ready to sleep in the car, until one nice young man found us a place at a youth hostel. It was kind of sparse and a little creepy, but hey, it was a room with 3 tiny little beds. It was past midnight, so we gladly took it, rejoicing in the fact that we didn't have to sleep in the car after all.

The next morning, we went to the service project. We cleaned a college campus that was pretty disgusting. We worked all morning and got quite a few stares--I think they were envious of our bright yellow tee shirts. They have "Mormon Helping Hands" written on them in Slovak. Yep, we were a pretty good looking lot! (I was the designated photographer so I'm not in most of the pictures.)