Vienna, Bratislava

So on Friday we drove from Budapest to Bratislava, Slovakia. We had a joint show in Bratislava with Lucnica, which is a local University dance group similar to ours. The two groups have become friends over the last 10 years or so at various festivals around the world. It was fun to see the Slovakians dance. On Saturday we went to Vienna. It is only about 45 minutes from Bratislava. We only had a few hours to spend because we had to get back for another show in Bratislava. 3 hours is not enough in Vienna. There is so much to see. Here are a few of the highlights.



The first church we went to was a Jesuit church and this is a picture of the dome when you first walk in the door.


Then you walk down the aisle and this is the same dome looking from the other side. We realized that it is an optical illusion painted on the ceiling to look like a dome. It was pretty cool.


We then made our way to the main square to St. Stephens Cathedral. It was so busy that day in Vienna we could hardly make our way into the church. They celebrated May day on Saturday instead of Thursday. They had similar fair type things going on as they did in Budapest. And there were all the locals downtown as well as the tourists.


Inside St. Stephens Cathedral.


Mark and I then got separated because he wanted to go eat Weiner schnitzel. So I went with another group. We went to see the church of the Knights Templar which is the church they talk about in the Davinci Code. It is right around the corner from St. Stephens but we almost missed it because it's just a small church built into the side of a building. We then walked around and came upon the Opera house (pictured above) I think this is the back side.

Behind the opera house is a large palace called Hopfberg Schloss. We didn't really know what it was at the time and had to ask Mark later what it was. It was pretty though. That was about all we had time to do. We had to go back to Bratislava for a small joint show with Sluk, which is the state folk ensemble in Slovakia. They were having an outdoor festival as well. They were amazing dancers.


After the show they fed us bratwurst and cofola. Cofola is a soft drink only found in Slovakia, similar to coca-cola but it has more of a licorice taste. It wasn't that good but we drank it for the cultural experience. Above, some of the dancers eating their bratwurst and cofola.


After eating a very greasy meal, the dancers had to go to a workshop where they learned some slovakian dances and then taught some American dances.


This is a few of the leaders bored to tears in the hall while the dancers were in the workshop for 2 1/2 hours. Boring.


This morning we got up and went to church at the local branch. They only have about 150 total active members in all of Slovakia so our congregation was quite small. Only 15 or so people. We quadrupled their sacrament meeting and they didn't have room to get us all in. They rent a portion of a building and have a small chapel about the size of our relief society rooms. Then they have two smaller rooms for relief society and primary and then the branch president's office. About half the members there today were Americans here studying or working and a few of the Slovakians spoke English. Plus there were probably 8 missionaries there who played the piano and blessed the sacrament. We had fast and testimony meeting and they didn't translate the slovakian into English unless you had a headset and we did not. One lady who got up was quite an elderly lady and they told us her story later on the bus. Her parents were baptized so she grew up in the church which is unusual for this area. She was baptized when she was 8 and the day after she got baptized in 1939 the Germans occupied Slovakia. She literally got baptized on the last possible day. There were no more baptisms allowed after that. She said that at the time the Germans came in there were 500-600 members here. Some left to go west to Germany or other places. The older ones died off. During the occupation, the church membership dwindled to almost nothing. During the occupation they had to meet secretly in peoples homes and they had the secret police watching them at all times. They are just starting to see growth in the church here after 50 years of Soviet occupation. The branch president is Slovakian and his wife taught our Relief Society lesson today. They actually did the lesson in English because there were only 5 sisters that were not part of our group and 3 of them spoke English. So they translated into Slovakian for the other two. It's amazing to me that there are only 150 members here and yet they have a hymnal and the Book of Mormon translated into Slovakian. I laugh back in my Provo ward when the sisters talk about living out in the mission field (anything outside of Utah being the mission field) But this is truly the mission field. These people are pioneers in the gospel. The small number of people must do everything in their little branch. It makes me feel guilty that I walk to church and can walk to see all my Visiting Teachees. And that I complain that sometimes I must do too much for my church callings. It was a humbling experience to attend church with the people in Bratislava.

After church we got to go to the old part of Bratislava and walk around. It is a quaint little old town that doesn't have too much tourist traffic yet.


This is a picture of their large cathedral there. I think it is call St. Matthias. That's Mark at the bottom. Inside they had a poster showing some of the bodies they've recovered out of the catacombs. A little gruesome but interesting.


Mark standing in front of a tower.


Another quaint street shot. We really have gotten way too many pictures of buildings here. There are so many old buildings that you would never see anywhere in America.
Tonight we had a fireside for the members and investigators. And that's been our stay in Bratislava. Tomorrow we travel to the Czech Republic and I can't wait to see Prague.