Božić!

Sretan Božić svakome!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I had a great day. On Friday we had a christmas party with our english students and members, and there were a lot of people who we were expecting who didn't come, but I think it was still successful. Our gingerbread houses worked really well, and we had some really pretty ones that people made. they were like 8x11x9 or so. it was fun. then we had a white elephant type thing, and that was fun. Funny story: We put Elder Lifferth in charge of invitations, and he took one that a member had made for a party in zadar and just changed a few things, and we figured he'd read the rest of it too, but he didn't read it very closely, so apparently we accidentally told people there would be dinner. I hadn't really more than glanced at them, and I read it as evening (večer) instead of dinner (večera) because in different cases the last letter changes anyways, and we trusted elder lifferth to look closer at it because the rest of us have been out 15-18 months shorter than him. Fortunately, nobody was upset, and most people didn't really look at the invitations much anyways. On Christmas day we woke up, opened stockings, and then went up to the church to have a last-minute practice of our program. It went ok. We had 5 members- Ervin, Zoran, Danaja and her son Filip, and Marijana (even though she got into a car accident and is in a neck brace and can barely move) we had 5 other people there- Robert (danaja's husband), Filip's cousin, Božo, zdravko (the elders' investigator), and a guy that comes sometimes. I forgot his name. then we went to Lidia's house for a few minutes to drop off presents. She makes the best desserts. Then we cooked njoki and mushroom sauce with smoked gouda like cheese. it was pretty good. we ate with the elders and we opened presents and such, called our families and stuff. it was good.
Ivona is doing well. Sister Creager asked her to write a list of things that are keeping her from being baptized. I think that will go well. We found some good potentials this week, but they don't want to meet until after the hollidays, so we'll see how that goes.
you're all lucky the internet place is open because today's a holiday too.

Well, I hope you have a great week. Love you!

Sestra Black

Hi!

Dear Family,

We had a few very promising potentials from last week, and nothing happened with that, which was a little disappointing, but we invited, and they still have their agency, and maybe something will still come from it. We have a new english student who loves the peaceful feeling in the church. We invited her to church, but she said she wasn't ready for that, and we were going to ask her to meet with us, but we didn't understand enough of the conversation to find a place to say it un-awkwardly. we probably should've just said it, but we let fear get in the way. Things like that happen more often than I'd like to admit. We tried to have a lesson with some less-actives, Evica and Jelica, but Jelica left right after we got there, so we just taught Evica. We learned that she can't read because her eyes are bad, and she can't come to church because she's worried about her heart, so the only thing she feels she can do right now is to pray, so we read a chapter of the book of mormon to her and discussed it, so that she can get stuff out of the book of mormon, even though she can't read it. We want to help Jelica start having family home evening with her kids, because we think that will really bless their family. This week we started doing personal progress with marijana. this is a big step because she's been fighting it, but now, even though i don't think she's way excited about it, she's willing to give it a chance. She invited a girl who she was in the hospital with to come to seminary. she didn't come, but Marijana invited her, which was awesome. We had a good lesson with Ivona this week before english class, and she actually came to church this week for the first time in about a month and a half. that was really exciting. We had her write down questions she wanted answers to, and she said they weren't completely answered, but that some of them were, and we reminded her that God doesn't usually answer all our questions all at once, but ˝malo po malo˝ (little by little).

We had a great short lesson with Lidia where we shared a Christmas message and about how Christ's coming is a message of great joy, like the angels say in Luke, and that since it's so joyful, we should share it with our neighbors. we could have done better at committing her stronger, but I think she felt the spirit, and for once, we were allowed to teach in Croatian without being made fun of or feel like it was pointless.

This week was Elder Lifferth's 2-year mark, so we celebrated by going out to ice cream. Ivona and 2 of the elders' english class students came to aktivnost. Their names are Andre' and Nijomza (or something like that. I don't know how to spell it). One's albanian, and the other is hungarian, which is sort of interesting because there aren't very many foreigners here. We're having a Christmas party with our members and english students next week, and we're going to try to make gingerbread houses with wafel sheet things. we'll see how that works. Marijana invited her Mom and step-dad, which is a big step for her because she's not on very good terms with them. Her mom said she'd make kolač (dessert), and her step-dad said he was excited to prove that we were dumb americans, but it sounds like they actually will come.

well, that was our week. I hope you had a great week, and I look forward to talking to you this week.

love,
Sister Black

Awesome week!

Dear family,

This week I missed a lot of sleep, but it was definitely worth it. On tuesday, we woke up at 3:30 and traveled for about 5 hours to get to zagreb for a meeting with Elder Kopischke, the Europe area president. It was awesome. He talked a lot about faith and vision. He told us ˝don't bury your dreams˝. I feel like a lot of people in this mission came to croatia with very high goals, hopes, and dreams, but many of them have stopped believing those dreams are possible because of being rejected so many people every day. They've stopped believing that Croatians are open enough to listen and change and be converted, or at least that they will be the missionaries to do it. We've been promised that Croatia and the whole area here will have a ˝rich harvest of souls˝, but it's a little hard to believe when you look at how slowly the work is progressing right now. One really cool thing he said was something like ˝God already sees a temple in Croatia. He knows there will be a temple there; he sees all times in one. but you have to keep in mind that vision. every person you bring closer to Christ, every person you baptize, is bringing more people to fill your temple. and as soon as you have enough people to fill your temple, God's vision, and your hopes, will be realized, and we'll 'see with our eyes that which we have beheld with an eye of faith (ether 12:19)˝. Anyways, the conference was great. Then Sister Lethco came home with me and I got to be senior comp for a week. We started meeting with an inactive family we haven't met with for a few months, and we got 4 potential investigators, except one called us this morning and said we can't come over today after all. it sort of sounds like she talked to her priest yesterday and he told her we were devil worshippers or something like that. That was sort of sad. I met someone named Arijana for the first time here. that was fun. On sunday, we woke up at 3, because the train times changed, and we went to Zagreb again for District conference and to get sister creager back. that was awesome. we have a district presidency again, instead of president rowe just running it, and we also have a district relief society. that was exciting. Marijana is awesome still. She read the talk from sat morning conference this year, and she asked ˝how many people do you need for a ward? for a stake? I just need to know how many people I need to get baptized.˝ I love her.

Have an awesome week!

I love you!

Sister Black

P.S.
If you send a package, just address it to the church (Crkva Isusa Krista Svetaca Posljednjih Dana), and put my name in the return address. there have been troubles with people not being able to get their packages because they're not there to pick them up personally.

hi

... I'm so excited for this week. Elder Kopischke is coming to Zagreb tomorrow, so we're going up then, and then on sunday, we have district conference with the members in Croatia in Zagreb, so we're doing a lot of traveling. I'm taking Sister Lethco, who's been serving in Zadar, back to Osijek with me from tomorrow to Sunday for an exchange, so I get to be senior comp for the week. Sister Creager's going to zadar. I'm pretty excited. I've heard really good things about Sister Lethco, and I'm way excited to meet her. English class has been really good. There's lots of good potential in this class. On wednesday, we had Seminary training with the Taylors, the Senior couple in charge of seminary. That was great. I love it when they come. Then Marijana came and we had seminary. It was really good. Since the taylors were there, she thought more about the questions we asked her, and was less likely to just say ˝I don't know.˝ The taylors brought a box of cookies that Sister taylor had converted into scriptures with a clever quote on the outside and they brought lots of chocolate. This week, Marijana was told by... i don't know, a family doctor or something... that she needed to go to the hospital right away, but she came to aktivnost instead. and then she went to the hospital. she's ridiculous. We went and visited her yesterday, and she looked good, so hopefully she'll be able to leave soon. We had a good lesson with Ivona this week. She likes to talk a lot, and she has a lot of questions and comments, so sometimes it's hard to not have them go on forever and to actually teach her what she needs to hear, but our lessons have been getting better. I hope she will actually meet with us this week though. she's sort of attached to sister creager, and she wasn't very happy when she found out that someone else was taking her place for the week. Ever since elder schouten went on an exchange to serbia and never came back, all the members and investigators are paranoid every time someone goes on an exchange. It'll be a good week. I'm excited. I like being in charge of my own schedule. We're having a friendly competition with the elders for contacting this week for a little extra motivation this week, and we're going to win. even though they both have a lot more mission experience than either of us. and they know croatian. oh well. I'll let you know next week how that works out.
Love you all!
Sestra Black

28 Nov 2011

Well, this week we had a mission-wide croatian fast, where we weren't supposed to speak any [English] all week. That's been hard, especially with certain people who speak english really well and make fun of us any time we speak croatian. On tuesday we started english again after a 3 week pauza, and our english students were saying how much better our croatian is now. That made us feel good. On thursday, we gave a spiritual thought about the Book of Mormon, and I talked about how my family is closer because we read the book of mormon together and apply its teachings, and one of our students was practically at the edge of his seat during the spiritual thought. I saw him take a copy of the book of mormon, but he left too quickly for me to ask if he wanted to learn more. I hope we can teach his family. On friday at aktivnost, we taught a spiritual thought about memorizing scriptures from elder ...scott?'s talk from this most recent conference.

Today we went to Đakovo for p-day, and we traded elder genther for elder adams, a new missionary in serbia, for a couple days. We visited the cathedral there, but there's not much else in Đakovo. There are some famous horses, but we didn't have time to go see them. we got back later than we were planning to as it was. It's amazing how much better the MTC program is now for learning the language. The new missionaries, starting with my group, are learning so much more in the mtc than the missionaries who are ahead of me learned. the difference is pretty obvious.

Well, I don't really have anything exciting to say this week. Nothing really exciting happened this week. I love you all.

love,
Sestra Black

Happy thanksgiving!

Hey everyone! I hope you're having a wonderful week. We're having thanksgiving today for p-day [preparation day, their one day a week to do laundry, read emails, and whatnot /kjb], so I'm pretty stuffed. We're going to go back for pie with the elders after emails. We made 2 pumpkin pies (1 huge and 1 normal sized) and an oreo cheesecake. I don't think we'll be able to eat all of it.

So, this has been a pretty hard week. We didn't have anyone to teach at all this week except for Marijana, who we taught twice. so, we had a lot of time for contacting and other finding [activities]. Once we took Marijana with [us] tracting, which was more fun than going by ourselves, and we had someone there who could actually understand everything people were saying. Monday night we tried to meet with an inactive named Kristina and her family. Only the kids were home though, so we just left them the cookies and a birthday card because it was Kristina's birthday this week. The kids said that they really hoped they could come to church this week, like they always do, but they didn't come, as always. It makes me so sad because they love church so much, but Kristina doesn't take them to church. On wednesday we helped Marijana, who is the branch historian, to finish the branch history for this year. We wrote short bios about each of the active members while Marijana wrote her conversion story. It's a pretty good story. She and her friend were on a tram, and they started making fun of the elders because they were apparently acting really weird. The elders told her that they could actually understand what she was saying about them, and gave her a pass along card. they were curious what the church was like, and they thought we were jehovah's witnesses, so they came to the church to see what it was like. One of the elders had felt like he should stay at the church a little longer after english sign ups, so they happened to be there when she came. So that's how she was introduced to the church. Anyways, it was fun seeing things that happened this year in Osijek. On saturday, we had a conference in Serbia. Sister Rowe and 3 of her kids came. Anna and Jessica turned 7 this week, so we made them a card and gave them gummy snakes. They adore Sister Creager. she served in Zagreb for the first few weeks President Rowe was here, so they're pretty attached to her.

Have you read the special Book of Mormon issue of the Ensign? it's so cool. I read the whole thing this morning from cover to cover. One thing I especially liked was an article from someone who had served in my mission, in Slovenia, about the book of mormon coming to Slovenia. They still don't have a Doctrine and covenants. When I was there we sometimes used the croatian one, but they usually just use the english. It made me really grateful of all of the materials we do have in Croatia, even though it's nowhere near what they have in English. I was also reminded that there are still places that don't have the book of mormon, like Slovakia. I'm pretty sure they just use the Czech one.

On the 6th, Elder Kopischke is coming to Zagreb, so we'll have a multi-zone or mission conference and we'll get to hear him. That sunday we have district conference with all the members in croatia, so we'll be back to Zagreb for that. That should be fun. in between those two, there's rumors of an exchange in my district. My guess is that Sister Creager is going to Zadar for the week, but Elder Lifferth won't tell us anything definite.

Well, Have a great week, and a great Thanksgiving.
Love you!
Sestra Black

Back in Osijek again!

Hey everyone!

I must say, it's nice to be back in Osijek again. I felt very missed. Everyone was overwhelmingly glad to have me back, and that I didn't just stay on exchange forever like Elder Schouten did when he went to Serbia on exchange.
Elder Lifferth is here instead of Elder Jacobsen. Elder Lifferth is on his last transfer, so he goes home in January. Elder Jacobsen is now AP. I am the only one out of the 8 of us in Croatia/Serbia from the same MTC group that is still with their trainer for their second transfer, because 7 or 8 new missionaries came in this transfer, and we have an extremely young mission. Elder Marcek is with a missionary who has been out for about a year, and Elder Adams is with Elder Schouten, who is a transfer ahead of us, but the rest are with missionaries who have been out for the same amout of time or less. Elders Smith and Mulder are together, and Defreitas and Armond are together, and Elder Bishop is training, on his second transfer, before his training is even done. crazy.

On Tuesday, I reached a milestone- I ordered food, and the woman I talked to understood everything I said and didn't ask me to repeat anything, and I knew what was going on for the whole conversation. that was great.

This week we've been speaking Croatian a lot more as a companionship, so that's been really good. I've been able to actually use croatian a lot more recently. and Marijana has been speaking more Croatian with us, so we've been able to get some good practice in. We made pies and had a lesson with Ivona this Thursday. the filling was more runny than we were hoping for, but it still tasted really good. We talked about the restoration.

We've been doing more with calling former investigators from the area book and less actives and updating the ward lists and things. We'd been sort of avoiding that because people are even harder to understand on the phone than in person, but we've had some small sucesses with that.

Oh, last week while I was gone, Sister Creager and Sister Staheli gave Ivona a baptismal date, but she freaked out a bit and said they were pressuring her and such, so that was a little disappointing. She believes everything we've been teaching and loves coming to church and activities, but she's scared of change and the future.

On another not so happy note, Marina stood us up on saturday and she says she wants to be baptized, but she's not doing anything we've asked her to do to prepare for baptism.

We had seminary on saturday about Genesis 24-33. have I said yet how much I love seminary yet? It was great, as always. She asked an interesting question saturday. have you seen the scripture in the new testament that says basically that it's good for women to have long hair, but not men? in corinthians maybe? anyways, she asked if men aren't supposed to have long hair, why do they have long hair (pointing to Heavenly Father and Jesus in a 1st vision picture). She sometimes has really deep questions, and sometimes very interesting ones.

Well, things are good in Osijek. have an awesome day! Make someone smile today.

love,
Sestra Black

Beginning a new transfer and back to Osijek

Dear family,

So, today marks the beginning of my second transfer* in croatia, and unsuprisingly, I'm staying in Osijek with sister Creager for another 9 weeks. In our district will be Elder Genther, who was here last transfer as Branch president, and Elder Lifferth, who has been in Croatia for about a year I think. That was pretty suprising because we all figured elder genther would be training or have someone who came to the mtc with me as a companion. It should be a good transfer. I'm excited.
[* In missionary-speak, a "transfer" is a usually 6-week period of time, synchronized across the mission, at the end of which some missionaries are transferred to work with a new companion and/or in a new city. /kjb]

[the next section talks about the work this past week in Ljubljana /kjb]
Wednesday night we went contacting in the center of town, and we met a man named Lenard, who was a philosopher type. He listened to us, but he was more interested in just having an interesting conversation than really coming closer to Jesus Christ in his life. Thursday, we had district meeting and then talked with a member named Mira, who has just barely started coming back to church recently. I didn't understand much, but it sounds like she has recently realized that she's been missing something in her life, and wants to feel the spirit more, so she's started coming back to church. Later that day we helped a woman named Duša move some things into her storage unit and read Helaman 5 together and talked about it. Friday, we had a lesson with an inactive member named Aiša. that was interesting. She was running around doing stuff most of the time, so it was hard to get a lesson. we talked about obedience with the kite analogy-- if you're flying a kite, it may seem that cutting the string of the kite will let it fly away, that the string is keeping it down to earth, and keeping it from flying, but in actuality, the string is what keeps it in the air. if you cut the string, the kite will fall. it's the same with commandments. Commandments are the secret to flying. God gives us commandments because he has a bigger perspective than we do. He knows what will make us happy and we don't. I don't know how much she was listening, but we got really good burek out of it. That evening we went to visit the Vidras family with the Taylors, a Senior couple, so sister Powell could translate for them. They're a wonderful family. they have a son with severe mental disabilities, who is in a wheelchair. They are really faithful strong people. their friend Marijetka and her 5 yr old daughter Laura came too. she was pretty adorable. Saturday we had a lesson with Sonja and her husband Bojan. we basically went through the articles of faith by their request and talked about each one. That evening we met with Monika, a girl who is going on a mission in like 2 weeks. She's awesome. She's going to england. I'm so excited for her. she'll be an awesome missionary. We had 6 lessons on the schedule, so it was a little disappointing to just have 2, but it was still a good day. On sunday, we took Marija, an older woman in a nursing home in her wheelchair to church. Church was awesome! I'm so excited for the day when Osijek will have a branch that strong. I know it will someday soon, as soon as the people there start believing it will happen. I didn't have to give a talk or teach a lesson for sunday school or give a musical number or a prayer or anything. It was great to just be able to sit back for a little bit and listen to other people teach, even though I couldn't understand anything but a few words here and there. Afterwards we had a lesson with Meta, which went ok, and then a lesson with a member named Dragica. She and her mother were from Serbia, so I could understand the mom about as well as sister powell, which wasn't very much, because she was mostly speaking Serbian with a few Slovene words here and there. Then we met Danica, who wants to be baptized, but her husband won't let her, and doesn't want to hear anything about the church. She's reading the book of mormon, preach my gospel, true to the faith, the bible... pretty much everything we have in slovene, but she's afraid if she comes to church too much or talks to us too much that her husband will stop allowing her to even do that. it's sad. She gave us bay leaves and apples they had grown and apple strudel she had made. that apple strudel was pretty much the best kolač I've ever had here in europe. it was amazing.

Anyways, it's been a good exchange [in Ljubljana]. I've learned a lot from sister powell, and i hope i can take some of those things back to osijek. I'm getting on a train to the edge of slovenia in like an hour, and from there, Elder maynes, the AP will pick up me and elder gonzales, and elder chandler and sister staheli will switch with us, and we'll drive to zagreb, where sister creager will be waiting. It should be a good day. I'm excited to see sister creager again and go back to osijek.

I love you all. have a wonderful week.
love, Sestra Black

živjo from Ljubljana!

hey everyone! I'm having a blast and doing a lot of work here in Ljubljana. Sister Powell is awesome. I had roasted chestnuts for the first time the other day, and they were pretty good. you'd think I would've had some in Osijek because they're all over the place, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. It's pretty interesting being here in Slovenia where I know even less of the language than in Croatia, and Sister Powell has been out longer than Sister Creager, so I feel more like a greenie than I did the first week in Croatia. I can understand some, and they can understand me a little, but there's a pretty huge language barrier. It's really interesting to see differences with how they do things here and seeing what I can take from the slovene missionaries and take it back to osijek. It's also way different here because there are about 50 strong members here as opposed to our 5 or so. it'll be even more interesting at church this sunday. it'll be nice to sit back and let other people run things. In zagreb I got to see elder smith from my mtc district, and here in slovenia, I got to see elder Bateman, who was also in my district in the mtc, so that was fun. the elders here in slovenia made a fort in a park with some fallen branches for their p-day. it was pretty cool looking. That night we had družinski večer (FHE), so I got to meet a few members. yesterday for day of the dead (dan mrtvih), we were passing out family proclamations with little candles, and Amy, a member from the philippenes, who is about our age, came with us because she didn't have work. She's about 5 ft, maybe shorter, and very cute. We taught Urša a new-member lesson about the commandments, and we played a memory game with it so it would be more fun. Her name is Urša, and she has cerebral palsy. She's very fun. I like her a lot. Then we taught english with a spiritual thought to Tomaž, who is a member, and Tončka, who is not. We read Alma 32 and talked about faith. I couldn't understand much after the english lesson, but Sister Powell said it went well. Today so far we taught a lesson to Tadeja, who was baptized last week about missionary work. Since her boyfriend from switzerland who has been a member for a while, was there, we taught that one in english, because he doesn't speak slovene. I was able to imput a little more, so that was good. Oh wow, I meant to say more about last week. So, as I said i think, Elder Schouten stayed in Serbia, and Elder Jacobsen stayed in osijek. All of the members and investigators are worried I'll do the same thing and never come back from slovenia, which could happen, but isn't likely. we should find out today or tomorrow what happens for transfers. I'm pretty excited about Ivona. I hope things continue to go so well with her. We had a good lesson finally for the first time with Marina. She's very anxious to get baptized, but doesn't think her dad will let her start coming to church again or let her get baptized until she moves out. He seems ok with it when we talk to him, but Marina says he just wants to be polite to us. We'll see what happens with that. We, or probably sister Creager and sister staheli while I'm gone, will talk to her dad with Marina and try to help him see why marina wants to be baptized. I hope that goes well.

Well, Have a good week everyone! Love you!
čao! adio! (ah-dee'-oh)
Sestra Black (črn here in Slovenia)

dobar dan from Zagreb!

Hey everyone, I've got to leave pretty soon to catch a train to ljubljana for an exchange for the week, so I don't have almost any time to email now, but I'll be able to email on wednesday. lots of exciting stuff going on in osijek. all of osijek smells like roasted chestnuts. Elder Jacobsen stayed in osijek for this week, the rest of the transfer. we thought he'd go home on thursday. We had an awesome activity where we made halloween cookies, and Lidia's non member daughter came and brought a friend, Klara. Marijana has decided to teach us croatian, so she made us a case chart. it was cute. what we really need though is conversation, and she has absolutely no patience for us speaking croatian because it's way slow and her english is really good. I love you all, and I'll finish this on wednesday. love you!
Sestra Black

from Ariana, 24 Oct 2011

Hello everyone,

So, I forgot to say an important bit of news last week. When President Rowe came last sunday and did interviews, he asked how I felt about doing an exchange to Slovenia. Probably in 2 or so weeks, I`m going to Ljubljana for a week. Crazy. I figured we wouldn`t ever get to do exchanges because we`re so far away from the other sisters in the mission. There are 4 in Slovenia and 2 in Zadar, on the coast of croatia, and the 2 of us in Osijek, but it takes like 8 hours to get to Zadar. and we never interact with Slovenia. It might as well be another mission. so I figured it would never happen. and I don`t even know Slovene. granted, I don`t know Croatian either, but more than Slovene. I can`t even say the word Ljubljana. This sunday we taught primary to Filip (who is 8 or 9 and baptized) and his cousin (who isn`t a member), and we were talking about Ammon and King Lamoni, and when we said the word ˝kralj˝ (king), they corrected us about 10 times, and then taught us the Croatian alphabet. I just can`t make the sound. It`ll probably be a while before I can say ˝lj˝ well enough that they stop giving me alphabet lessons. Oh well. that, and the difference between č and ć, are going to give me headaches.

anyways, I`m really excited about the exchange. So on thursday, we went to Serbia for zone conference. last time was just a training meeting. This time the AP came, and Sister Rowe was going to come, but then she couldn`t. It was very good. The branch president`s wife there in Sremska Mitrovica made Elder Adams promise that we`d go see them before we left. fortunately, they live next door to the church. Apparently, there used to be Sister Missionaries there in Beograd or somewhere close before the war, wherever she was living at the time. She was so excited to see us, and she told President that they should send sisters to actually work in Serbia. I figured there wouldn`t ever be sisters in Serbia while I was out, but now, I`m not sure. There`s a new sister coming out in January, and another 2 in March. President`s trying to get another one so we don`t have an odd number. or have a Croatian serve a mini mission here to be companions with one of them. My guess is that one set will go in Zagreb, but the other set? They could very well go to Serbia or Bosnia or somewhere completely different. There`s only one other city in Croatia that I know of that`s ever had sisters in it. Very interesting stuff. We`ll see what happens. We weren`t expecting any more sisters until Sister Creager and Sister Milius go home next September.

On Monday, we met a member named Zoran. He`s been living on the coast, so he hasn`t been in Osijek for like a year or something. He`s awesome though. If you look through the area book, his name is all over it because he helps so much in missionary work. and he`s a righteous priesthood holder. We had 2 native Croatians blessing the sacrament! it`s awesome. He was planning to move to Zagreb and transfer his records there, and when we told President that he was planning on moving, he said ˝tell him he can`t move. The Lord needs him in Osijek˝. On sunday, Zoran told us that he had gotten a job, so he`s staying in Osijek. The funny thing was that he wasn`t even looking for a job. Interesting how that happens, huh?

Speaking of sunday, we had an investigator at church. A girl named Ivona from the Elders` advanced english class is very interested in the church. The elders gave her a Book of Mormon, and she`s been reading it. Her mom is in our beginners class, and she broke her leg, so we went over there to visit, and we talked about what Ivona had read in the Book of Mormon, and we gave her some things to read and invited her to come to our activity on friday. She noticed a picture in our church of Jesus that she loved. She says that our church feels more like church should feel than the big cold cathedrals, and asked if we had a midnight mass for christmas because she said she`d rather come to our church. We told her we didn`t, but that we had church services every week on sunday that she could come to, and that Sister Creager was even giving a talk in Croatian. She said she`d come, and on sunday she said she`d try to come every week. She said that she liked the meeting, but that the talk by a native speaker seemed longer than necessary.

This week Marijana`s been in the hospital. that place is scary. We`ve gone over to visit a few times, and the elders took her the sacrament to her on sunday. I hope she gets better soon. It doesn`t sound fun to be in that place. A male nurse drew on her hand while she was sleeping with her markers. Creepy, huh? things like that don`t happen in american hospitals. And apparently, the only thing they give her most of the time is tea, coffee, and weird bread. and they get mad at her for not drinking her coffee. luckily she has her own juice and people bring her other food.

Elder Schouten is in Serbia for the week, so Elder Jacobsen is here. It`s interesting. He actually knows Croatian, but people still tell him to speak english. it`s not just us. It`s weird. Like just now, Sister Creager`s keyboard wasn`t working, so I asked the guy at the desk if we could switch it with another one, and he acted offended that I spoke in Croatian and assumed he didn`t know english. People do things like that all the time. It definitely makes it harder to learn the language.

anyways, it`s been a pretty good week. I hope you`re having a wonderful day. I love you all, and God loves you infinitely more.

love,
Sestra Black

Ariana's email address

Ariana's email address is:

Sister Ariana Black <ariana.black@myldsmail.net>

She can read incoming emails but is supposed to reply directly only to family or by post.

from Sister Black of The Adriatic Mission

Bok! Kako ste?
Hi! How are you?
It`s been a good week. especially yesterday. Monday evening we met with Ivana, a lovely 27ish yr old searching for more direction from God in her life. It`s been hard to meet with her because she`s uncomfortable with having her roommate there when she talks about religion, and she`s afraid of church buildings. It was a little disappointing because she feels too busy to read the book of mormon, too scared to go to church, and doesn`t think it`s worth our time for us to meet any more. So that was disappointing.
We were going to go to Serbia on Wednesday, but we got a call from the elders on tuesday night that we weren`t having it anymore. we didn`t believe them at first because sister creager is [very trusting], so they tease us sometimes, and that seemed more likely than that president would cancel it after we had already bought bus tickets, just the night before, but it was real. so, we`re going on this thursday instead. Oh well. On thursday, one of our english students brought us gunja (quinces). We`d never seen them before. they`re like apples, but a little more like pears, and a little more sour. they`re greenish yellow, and both the top and bottom sort of look like the bottom of an apple. they`re a little bigger than apples on average I think. on the coast they`re called dunja, which is probably closer to what Charissa might know them as. I dunno. we cut them in half, put butter and brown sugar on them, and baked them. it was yummy.

Saturday we visited a member named Kristina and her 2 kids, Ana and Luka. Kristina said she`d come to church and translate for president rowe for branch conference, but then she was sick. it was very sad. I love her and those kids. her kids need church.

Sunday was awesome. President Rowe came for branch conference. When elder genther read the sustaining names, it was much shorter than usual because it was just the general authorities, President Rowe, Brother Smart, and Elder Genther. That`s what happens if you don`t have a stake or any branch auxiliaries or anything. Sister Rowe (President`s mother), and Sister Turner, who are serving as senior sister missionaries, came as well. Sister Rowe was awesome. She went up to every single person at church and figured out what their family situation was like, how they needed to grow in the gospel, and then started to help them to get there. I wish we could always have her here. She just went around being everyone`s grandma. She made a deal with Alen that if he worked on learning about the priesthood, she`d work on croatian, and in 2 months, she`ll come back and check on him and see his progress. She knows how to say ˝Ja sam Baka Rowe˝ (I`m Grandma Rowe), but that`s about it. She`s trying really hard to learn it though. it`s cute.

We had 19 people at church yesterday--6 local members, 6 non-members, and 7 missionary type people. That may not sound like a lot, but it`s a record since I`ve gotten here. member and non-member attendance multiplied by 6 from last week. most people will never be able to say that. President should come every week.

Oh, about the subject-- yes, the name of my mission has been changed from the Slovenia/Croatia mission to the Adriatic Mission. The boundaries and everything are still the same right now, but they thought that name was better. Our mission used to have 7 or so countries, the ones on the adriatic coast under Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia... I don`t remember exactly which ones, maybe macedonia, i don`t remember, but then they were taken out, and right now we only have young missionaries in Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia. We have a senior couple in Bosnia, and it seems very likely that young missionaries will be put there soon. about the other countries, I`m not sure, but we`ll see. It`s an exciting time for The Adriatic Mission.

I love you all!
Sestra Black

Hey everyone

This week has been interesting. Did I talk about the Ukranian guy at english? well, he came back to english class, after we thought we`d scared him away by talking about the book of mormon. I`m glad, because he seemed really cool. Also, Alen read a chapter in the Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 18) without being asked to, and said he wanted to talk about it because it really touched him. that was cool. On wednesday, we had an awesome seminary lesson with Marijana. We talked about Noah, and how the flood was an act of mercy from God. The people who were destroyed were sent to the spirit world to learn about God in an environment where they could accept the gospel, and unborn spirits didn`t have to be born into a wicked world anymore. We also talked about the importance of marrying in the covenant, which is taught in that part of the bible, and we talked about the importance of temples. We were prompted to tell her that if she did everything she could to prepare to go to the temple spiritually, she`d have a way to go physically and monetarily the next time there was a temple trip, which should be next spring or summer. We were a little scared about that, because she doesn`t have money for the trip or a passport, which are really expensive here, but we felt we should promise that. Elder Genther called President Rowe, and it sounds like it really is possible, which was an awesome faith-strengthening thing to hear. Marijana also said that she`s going to be a full time missionary like us when she`s older, and that she`d read the whole book of mormon by the end of the year like we challenged, so that was awesome. On the tram ride home, we were talking to Marijana in english, and a guy named Zlatko started talking to us, saying he wanted american friends to improve his english. We gave him a flyer for our english class. He came to english class and our church activity on friday. he talked with the elders for a while, and said that he didn`t have much homework that weekend, so he`d read the whole book of mormon this weekend, and if he found out it was true, he`d get baptized and join our church. that was pretty crazy. On thursday, we took our investigator marina to the hospital, and it was pretty scary. I`m glad american hospitals are less scary. Sister Creager thought it looked like the asylum from batman. It wasn`t all that professional. At aktivnost on friday we had 8 people there, which is a lot for us. Marijana brought a friend she had met that day, and Zlatko and Marijana`s friend Filip came as well. We live the same direction as Filip, so we talked to him on the tram ride home. We had thought he was just coming to activities because he`s in love with Marijana, but the two of them aren`t on the best terms right now, and he`s still coming. He told us that he really likes the missionaries and how they don`t judge him and they care about him, and that he really wants to know if there`s a God, and basically said that if he could learn that God exists, that he would want to join our church and go on a mission. He met with the elders Saturday, and it seemed to go well. Crazy. We`ve been praying for priesthood here, and things are starting to happen. Speaking of which, I heard the Sacrament prayer for the first time by a fluent Croatian speaker yesterday. A member named Ervin has been coming back to church, and the elders have been working with him for the past month or so, and he blessed the sacrament this week. That was awesome. Also, a member named Zoran should be coming back in town from the sea this week. apparently he`s a ninja by profession, and he`s amazing. I`ve heard a lot of good things about him. That will be great. On friday we made an awesome apple pie for aktivnost. everyone loved it. we don`t have corn starch here though, so it was runnier than we would`ve liked, but it was really good. On saturday, we were visiting Marina in the hospital, and Filip was there, and he said a croatian word with an american accent. he started laughing and we decided he`s been hanging out with missionaries too much. It was pretty funny. he said ˝yeah, just ask my mom. She asks where I`m going, and I tell her I`m going to aktiiivnost (as american as he can say it). She thinks I`m crazy. Oh well.˝ Sunday was sort of disappointing. Ervin and Božo were the only people at church. Marijana was in Zagreb, so she didn`t come, and not even the sunday school teacher was there. The elders were expecting 5 investigators, and Božo was the only one who came. pretty disappointing. But we had a worthy native priesthood holder there. That was cool.

Croatian phrases to answer the phone:
Molim- it means like a bajillion different things. please, you`re welcome, I ask/request, etc... It`s the most common way to answer the phone as far as i can tell.
reci mi- talk to me
slušam- I`m listening
halo- hello

Love you all, hope you`re doing well.
Love, Sestra Black

week 5 in Croatia

So, I`ve been here for a whole month now. crazy.

On monday for FHE [Family Home Evening /kjb], marijana taught us a croatian game sort of like scattergories. it was so hard to think of croatian words that fit into the catagories. She beat all of us missionaries like 150 to 50ish. I got 2nd or 3rd place though.

On tuesday, for our spiritual thought for english class, we talked about the book of mormon, and a really cool man from ukraine talked to us afterwards. It`s so frustrating to not be able to communicate. He didn`t quite understand what we were saying. so frustrating. It`ll be nice when we actually know the language. He didn`t come back to english class thursday. He`s the only one we lost though, which is good. I wish people could understand what the book of mormon is, and how important it is. If only I could get people to read one chapter with an open heart, like 3 Nephi 17 or 2 Nephi 11 or Alma 32, before completely dismissing it as blasphemy, that would be awesome. The book of mormon testifies of Christ and brings people closer to him. I wish people weren`t so quick to condemn something they don`t know anything about. One thing we`re trying to do in our branch is challenge them to read the book of mormon by the end of the year. I don`t know if anyone besides us missionaries will do it, but hopefully it will at least encourage them to take it off their shelf.

After our intermediate class, one of the members, Vera, came and talked to us for a while about how she`s so busy, so she can`t fulfill her calling, and it`s useless anyways, because she`s in charge of fhe, and we never have more than like 5 non-missionaries come anyways. I wish we could help the members here realize how important it is that they start trying to help out the branch and do what they can to support it. If the missionaries had to be taken out Osijek, the church would not exist. The church is important to them, but they expect us to always feed it to them. that`s not how God wants his kingdom to work. He wants everyone, and every community to be self-reliant as much as they can. right now we`re trying to figure out how to teach the branch to fish instead of just giving them fish, spiritually. Dad, you probably have some experience with people not seeing why they needed callings and not wanting to do them. any advice?

On saturday, we watched conference with Lidia and her son, Alen. Her daughter, who isn`t actually a member, stayed for 2 talks, which was more than I was expecting. I love spending time with Lidia. I wish the elders would spend more time trying to teach Alen the importance of the priesthood. It would be so awesome for Lidia to have a priesthood holder in her home. I wish there were more that we could do to make that happen.

On sunday, we had normal church because conference isn`t until 6, and we don`t have a way to watch any of the old sessions during that time. We watched the morning session of conference at the house of one of the elders` investigators. It turned out that Lidia expected us to come over again, but we had misunderstood, because she originally said we couldn`t come because she wanted to watch it in Hungarian, because that`s her native language. Again, it would be nice if we could understand and speak croatian better. We felt really bad about that because she was waiting for us and had trouble getting it to work. She eventually got it working, but we felt bad that she was waiting for us.

Marijana has been really sick, so we didn`t have seminary this week. Lea was sick too, so we didn`t get to see her either.

I`m excited to see what this week brings.

Love you!
sister black

3 pictures from Osijek

See her first few pictures by clicking on this sentence.

"I wish I had some of people, but all my pictures got deleted, so that`s all you get. enjoy! love, Sestra Black"

26 September 2011

I hope everyone is having a good week.

Last p-day after emails, we had a picnic by the river with the elders, and it started to rain. It was fun, but Sister Creager was not happy to be wet and cold. oh well. For our activity for FHE we taught some american card games, and they taught us a croatian one. That was fun.

This week, Marijana called the elders and said she would give a talk in church. That was awesome, and really surprising because she`s really shy with things like that. She did very well, as far as I could tell. I couldn`t understand most of what she said because she was nervous and talked super fast. I know she talked about the Atonement, and shared John 3:16-17 and the scripture where Jesus forgives the soldiers who crucified him. We talked about the fall and how the atonement overcomes it in seminary this week. She continues to ask good questions and learn from the scriptures. Her friend, Marina, finally has agreed to let us teach her seminary, so we`ll have 2 students. I hope this means she`s not prejudiced against us anymore and will start coming back to church eventually. She was really mad last transfer when the elders she liked were taken out and sisters were put in Osijek, and she hasn`t come to church since.

I`m excited for general conference. I asked one of the members if we could watch it in their house because the church doesn`t have internet, so we`ll at least get to watch the two morning sessions Saturday and Sunday night. not that we`ll understand much of them, but at least most of the translators are american return missionaries, so they should be easier to understand than croatians. It`ll be a while before we get to watch the other sessions. So, all you people in america should take full advantage of how easy it is to watch conference there, and actually pay attention and watch all the sessions. let me know what people talk about, especially in the evening sessions, because I won`t get to watch those at all for a while.

On wednesday, we went to Danaja`s (one of the members) house, and she wasn`t there for 15 minutes or so, so we talked to her parents, who aren`t members, and usually don`t want anything to do with us, from what sister creager says. Danaja`s father got us some figs from his tree, and used his cane to get the branches down to pick the figs. it was pretty great. they were yummy figs.

Once this week we split this huge pizza with the elders that was probably 3-3.5 ft in diameter. it was practically bigger than the table. it was great.

On Sunday, during sunday school, a member from Bosnia that we didn`t know existed came to church. His name was Jakov, and he was just dropping by on his way home from sweeden or somewhere. so that was interesting.

Oh, we also got the ˝daughters in my kingdom˝ book about relief society. I heard about it in the mtc, but i figured we wouldn`t get them for a long time. I really wish they had them in Croatian. It would be great for the members here.

Fun word etymology: the word for decision is odluka. od means from, and luk means harbor (as well as onion and bow, like a bow and arrow, but that`s irrelevant to this). so odluka means ˝from the harbor˝, so once you make a decision, you`re sailing off from the harbor... yeah, that was a fun connection to make.

Well, have a wonderful week. love you!
Sister Black

Another day

Lydia looks great but the docs want to keep her one more night to make sure she will be OK at home. She's getting tired of being here, though.

Serbia

This week had some interesting things. On Tuesday while we were watiting for the tram, we ran into a drunk pentecostal who was telling us all about how the pentecostal church was the first church, and how we don`t have the gift of tongues or healing in our church, and how Joseph Smith added to the bible, etc. We just let him rant for a bit and didn`t really say anything or answer his questions because he didn`t want to hear what we had to say, and he was being really argumentative, so he wouldn`t have listened anyways. We just told him that we knew that the book of mormon was true and that it is a witness that God loves all of his people, and then luckily the tram came, so we just said ˝thanks for sharing what you believe. Have a good day˝ and then left. I`m sure he thought we just didn`t have any answers to why our church isn`t like the pentecostal church or why we believe what we do, but he wouldn`t have listened to anything we could say to defend why our church isn`t of the devil like he was saying. That was interesting.

On Wednesday, we met a woman named Ivana, who the missionaries had been teaching a few years ago, but then she got busy and just stopped having lessons. We ended up on the opposite side of town trying to find her house because there`s a street with the same name as the group of apartments where she lives. so she came and rescued us in her car. She gave us really good icecream. She asked us about how to get direction from God in our lives because she has a hard decision to make about her career. We talked to her about faith and revelation from prayer and scripture study. It was good.

Thursday, we went to Serbia for a zone conference. The 4 of us in our district left on a bus in the morning, and about 30 min from Osijek, Elder Genther realized that he didn`t have his passport, which is sort of important if you`re going to a different country, so they got off the bus at Vukovar and went back to Osijek, and then came back on another bus. so that left me and sister Creager alone on a bus to Serbia. Just before we crossed the border, we asked the bus driver when our stop was, because we didn`t want to miss it and go all the way to belgrade. He was surprised and wondered how we had even gotten tickets on that bus to sremska mitrovic, because the bus didn`t even stop there. He told us there was a stop close to there, and he could drop us off there, but it was just this little gas station on the side of the highway. We called the elders there in sremska mitrovic, and they came to the stop to pick us up. We were very happy to see them. It`s not fun to be lost in a country where you barely speak any of the language. The conference was good, and lots of fun. 3 of the 6 Serbian elders (Elder Adams, Defreitas, and Armond) were with me in the mtc, so it was like a little reunion. Before, when there were only 2 elders in Serbia, they were just part of the Croatian Zone, so this was the first time ever, as far as I know of, that sisters have gone to Serbia at all. This was my first zone conference, so I was never used to anything else, but sister creager kept saying how weird it was that we only had the 10 of us there, and that we couldn`t see the rest of the missionaries in Croatia.

Seminary with Marijana was once again a highlight of the week. She showed us how she had found answers to some questions of hers in the scriptures without us leading her to a specific chapter or anything, so that was really cool. She`s so much fun to teach because she has really good insights and she loves the gospel. Elder Genther is trying to get her to give a talk in church, but she`s too nervous to speak in front of people. It`s sort of sad, because any talk she gave would be better than having the branch always just listening to us missionaries trying to communicate in our broken croatian.

Yesterday I spoke in church. This was the first time I`ve written out everything I was going to say for anything since the 1st week of the mtc, but I figured it was better on the people`s ears if I wrote it out first. I had Marijana correct it so it would actually make sense and be grammatically correct. I talked about testimony. I think it went ok.

Well, that`s pretty much all the important stuff for this week. I love you all. I hope you have an amazing week!

Love, Sestra Black

Doing better

Lydia got here to SLCH at just the right time yesterday. She got her first doses of Tylenol and an i.v. antibiotic in the ER, but by the time she got to the PICU, her temperature was 40.3 (= 104.54 F), and she was having a tough time breathing. That didn't last long -- hooray for ibuprofen -- but she needed a ventilator. The trach made that easier. After 4 or 5 hours she was already off the vent, and by last night she looked like her usual self, plus a few tubes. Today she was transferred out to dear old 7 East, and was switched to oral and inhaled antibiotics. She tolerated room air part of the day. She fell asleep a short while ago during Dad hug-and-sing time, and looks comfortable on some O₂. We'll see how the night goes, but the expectation is that Lydia will go home tomorrow. With the worst danger apparently past, Winona was finally ready to tag with me and try for a night's sleep at home. Thanks to everyone who has been so thoughtful and loving, especially anyone I forgot below. Tom: thanks for being there and being prepared. SLCH doctors and staff: thank you again for your expert care! Jon & Rose: thanks for the help finding & printing the references for my talk while I drove home from the ER. All the presidency: thanks for your genuine concern, and for covering stuff for me. Steve & Cara: thanks for the friendship & time & ride. Tanya: I finally got some of the soup, and it was great. Thanks! Choir: thanks for dinner. Winona: thanks for being you, sweetheart! and for helping me attend conference.

Back in

Lydia's in the SLCH ER; plan is for her to go up to the PICU. Probably H. flu pneumonia. She's already had a dose of antibiotic, and we'll see but likely she'll start improving soon. She's also had a priesthood blessing.

Winona wants to stay with her today. Kids at home are OK.

P.s. before this week, she's been fine, with no vent, no lung or heart meds, & no oxygen for the past month.

Hello

Family,
Things are going well here in Osijek. Things I forgot from last week: 1. did you know that Croatians drive on the right side of the street like Americans? I would`ve expected them to drive on the left, like brittish. 2. I`d take St. Louis`s restaurants over Croatia`s any day. 3. Most people speak English at least somewhat. If we start speaking to them in Croatian, they almost always say, ˝It`s ok, you can say it on English˝. In Croatian, it`s ˝na Engleskom˝, and na means on. 4. I didn`t say anything about my trainer really. Sister Creager is pretty great. She has brown hair and brown eyes, and looks a little bit like pictures of mom when she was younger. The day I arrived in Croatia, we were wearing similar outfits, and the Rowes´ 6 yr old twins said that they had a hard time telling which of us was which. At church on Sunday, one of the elders started talking to me as if I were sister Creager because I was doing something with my back to them, and our hair was done similarly. She loves to laugh, and she loves to talk. She knows the scriptures pretty well and always has good ideas for object lessons and such. It`s a little weird finally teaching with a sister though after being with just elders for 2 months.

Guess what! We`re going to Serbia this week for a leadership training meeting. That should be fun. I`m excited. I didn`t think I`d ever go there, but since we`re now in the Serbian zone, and there are 6 Serbian elders and 4 of us in our district, we`re going there instead of having them come to Croatia.

Seminary with Marijana is great. it was one of the highlights of our week. We watched a clip from the seminary video with little kids talking about the old testiment, and how it isn`t as boring or complex as people sometimes make it. It`s pretty funny. I`d highly recommend it. We then talked about the plan of salvation, and she had some amazingly deep questions about it, about what happens if you are exalted and your husband isn`t, about what happens to children who die when they`re young, about the nature of God... lots of really deep questions, some of which we couldn`t answer to her satisfaction without going into theoreticals. We told her though that God loves each of his children, and he gives them each a chance to get all of the same blessings, no matter what their situation is in this life. I don`t know the answer to everything, but I know that God knows what he`s doing, and everything He does is to give us more joy and happiness.

I`m giving my first talk in church this week. Sister Creager and I are also giving the sunday school lesson. That`s what we get for having a small branch. This week we had Božo, Marijana, Lidia, and Vera. Vera is one of the most active members, but she`s been on vacation, so I hadn`t met her yet.

On Friday for aktivnost, we played that game where you write a sentence, pass the paper to the next person, they draw a picture and cover the sentence, and the next person writes a sentence based on the picture and covers the picture, etc. It was a lot of fun. The members had fun reading our poor croatian. At one point, I wanted to use a verb that I knew was irregular, stajati-to stand, but I didn`t know how to conjugate it, so I just pretended it was a regular verb because Elder Schouten was on my left, and I figured he would recognize the verb, but he wouldn`t know any better than me, and he wouldn`t know if I said something completely different than I meant to on accident. I was right. It turns out staja is a stable or a stall or something, but Elder Schouten read it as ˝he stands˝, so it worked. It was a lot of fun. My sentence was something like ˝Vodenikonji jedu misionare, jer nisu održali zapovijedi Boga˝. We made chocolate chip cookies for it. they were pretty good.

We`ve been really excited that Lidia`s son, Alen, has been coming to church and activities the last couple weeks. It would be great if we could get a non-missionary priesthood holder in this branch. unfortunately though, I think his improved attendance has a little too much to do with him thinking my companion`s cute, so we`ve had to be careful about how much encouragement we give him. We`ll see how things go with him.

We have 2 new investigators: Lily and her daughter, Lea. We`re helping Lea with her english as well. They invited us to eat lunch with their family last Sunday after only really meeting us once. I like them very much.

Mom- thanks for sending the blog address. Give Lydia a hug for me. I hope the surgery goes well.
Jon- I hope auditions for Peter Pan go well. The most popular icecream shop here is called Petar Pan. So far, I`ve gotten: nutela and pistašio, tamna čocolata (dark chocolate) and stračjatela (or however they spell it here), višnija (cherry) and čocolata višnija. They`ve all been very good. I usually do ˝pola pola˝ (half and half) so I can get twice as many flavors.
Will and Rose- good luck with college applications. those aren`t very fun.
Thanks for the emails and prayers.
Have a wonderful week everyone!
Love, Sestra Black

Croatia!!!

So, I`m here in Osijek. The keyboards are weird, but I suppose I`ll get used to that soon. Right now there are 4 missionaries in Osijek, one set of elders and us. Osijek is tiny church-wise. This week at church there was the 4 of us, 4 members, and 2 investigators, which is about normal. Our steadiest member here is a 16 yr old girl named Marijana (like my name, but with an m. a serbian friend of mine told me that she always wanted to spell my name Arijana, because that`s how you spell it here). She was baptized the weekend I came into the MTC, so she`s pretty new, but she`s pretty amazing. I like her very much. She`s been a big part of helping me feel welcome here in Osijek. She has extremely good english, like many of the youth here, so that`s been helpful as well, especially since not one of the 4 of us knows much Croatian. Marijana always teases elder genther that nothing he says makes sense, and elder schouten that his pronunciation is atrocious. Out of the 4 of us, she says I say her name the least horrible, and that it only sounds a little bit funny when I say it. so we`re sort of in a growing phase here in Osijek. It`s sort of nice sometimes that none of them speak croatian, since I can understand everything they say, so I know what`s going on in church, and it makes me feel better about my croatian that I can correct all of their grammar in my head. but at the same time, it would be nice to have someone to lean on a little when I don`t understand people.

The next most active person probably is Božo. except he`s not a member. because he`s Catholic. He`s funny. He always gives elaborate hellos and goodbyes, and he`s always way excited to talk to everyone. Our branch president is Starješina Genther. He was in the MTC with my trainer, sestra Creager, and they`ve both been out here 2 transfers, and today is their 4 month mark in the country. The other elder here is Starješina Schouten. I think that`s how it`s spelled, but I don`t know. it`s pronounced scout-in. He never wears a nametag because he only has a Serbian one because he was supposed to be in Serbia, and his Croatian badge hasn`t come yet. and people here in Osijek hate serbians. It`s weird having the whole church be run by us. It`s a little different of an experience than having a ward with a bajillion callings. Especially for fast sunday. we all have to bear our testimony and take up the whole block. I`ll be giving a lot of talks here. Yesterday, Lidija bore hers as well, so it was nice to have one testimony in real croatian. Her children, Alan and Lydia (we call her ´mala (little) Lydia´ to tell them apart) came as well, and they don`t usually, so that was nice. They`re about 20 and 17. We`re starting seminary tomorrow with Marijana and her non-member friend, Marina. I`m pretty excited about that. School started yesterday, so the trams this morning were horrible.

I`ve had a horrible cough for the past 2 weeks or so, and it`s driving me crazy.
On friday, we had an activity (aktivnost) where we played signs. A member named Kristina and her kids, Ana and Luca, who are 7 and 9 i think, and adorable, came. Marijana and her friend Filip were also there. It was a lot of fun. Luca didn`t quite get the game, so whenever we asked if he was it, he`d have to ask his mom ˝Jel´ sam?˝ (am I?) or something like that, and he and Ana ended up sort of playing their own game in the middle of ours. it was funny.

Have a wonderful week. Volim vas!

safe in Croatia

I'm safely in Zagreb. All of my flights went as planned. I'll be working with Sister Creager in Osijek, as I thought. I love you! have a great day!
love,
Ari

[note from webmaster -- all times for all the Ariana mission entries are Central time]

hi!

Ok, I didn't know I'd be able to email today, but I do get to, so hi!
It's been a good week so far. We had in-field orientation, which was sot of boring, but ok. We talked a lot about working with the members of the ward, ward council, ward mission leaders, bishops, etc, and I kept thinking of how nice it would be to have things like that. There are 7 or so branches in Croatia, no wards, and many of the branch presidents are just missionaries.

We had our last TRC on Thursday. It was probably my favorite one. Elder Bishop and I taught Nikola and Melinda, some of our favorite volunteers, about Receiving revelation through the book of mormon. We shared a couple scriptures and then shared about our favorite people in the book of mormon, and then how we can change our lives to be more like those heroes. We also met Brat Morris's girlfriend, which was fun.

I'm going to miss teaching our investigators here, even if they're not really real. It's been fun getting to know Srdan, Marilena, Zoran, and Vladimir, and trying to figure out their needs and concerns, and help them see how the gospel of Jesus Christ can bless their lives. It'll be even better to be teaching real people.

I'm so excited to go to Croatia. It's amazing how much love I already have for the people of Croatia. I'm so excited to serve them.

Ja znam da Isus Krist živi. Znam da Bog voli nas. Znam da je samo kroz žrtva Isusa Krista da možemo živjeti s Bogom ponovno. Ja znam da je Joseph Smith prevodio Mormonovu Knjigu kroz moć Boga, i da Mormonova Knjiga ima punina evanđelja Isusa Krista.

Volim vas! ‡
Sestra Black

(refer to the last email for the travel plans and calling time) love you!


‡ approximate translation, via Google Translate:

I know that Jesus Christ lives. I know that God loves us. I know it is only through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we can live with God again. I know that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon through the power of God, and that the Book of Mormon is the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I love you!
Sister Black

Last p-day at the MTC!

Hey everyone! Hope everyone's doing well. We got our travel plans on friday. We fly out from SLC at 10:47am on monday, get to chicago at 2:50pm, fly out from there at 3:40pm, get to Frankfurt, Germany at 6:50am on tuesday, leave there at 12:35pm, and arrive in Zagreb at 1:55 on Tuesday, which is about 6 here i think, or 7 back home. so that's 19 hours of real time and about 27 hours of fake time, once you take time zones into account. I'm so excited to go to Croatia!

I'll probably call from Salt Lake at 9:30-10 or so, which is 10:30-11 there in STL. We go to the airport way early, so I should have plenty of time then.

I'm so excited to have good fresh fruits and vegetables again. the food here's not that bad, but I'm excited to go to europe. The wife of a member of our branch presidency brought us cherry tomatoes from her garden yesterday. They were so good. it made me happy.

At TRC I got to teach Nikola again. It's always fun to be able to talk to someone actually from Serbia with a real accent and everything. Our teachers are very good, but definitely not natives. We talked about the plan of salvation, and he was so excited to talk to us. I like him very much.

I probably said this last week, but we've been teaching eachother as investigators recently. It definitely gives you a lot of insight and a new perspective to be the one being taught instead of teaching for once. On saturday we taught eachother lessons as ourselves, like we do at TRC. It's more like a one-on-one sunday school lesson or visiting teaching, which I like very much. but that's really how they want us to give all our lessons. Everyone can benefit from being brought closer to Christ-- non-members, members, and missionaries alike. Just like a missionary and a non-member have different needs, every single person we come in contact with has different needs, but at the same time, every single person can benefit from a deeper understanding of the same principles and doctrines from the same lessons. It's pretty cool.

Oh, I had a small miracle the other day. I was teaching Marilena, one of our investigators, and she asked a question. I thought of the perfect scripture, but then I realized that I didn't know where it was. I just opened my scriptures flat, trying to think of what to do next, and there was the scripture I wanted, just on that page. It was pretty cool.

Oh, my new companion went to LA last week, and on the way back to the airport they went to the LA temple. They invited their bus driver to the visitor's center, and he was really touched by it. they gave him a book of mormon and took a picture. it was a cool experience.

If you want to reach me in croatia, the address is:
Crkva Isusa Krista Svetaca Posljednjih Dana
Svačićev Trg 3
10000 Zagreb
Croatia
[We've been advised: if you send Ariana a package, do NOT include her name above this (church) address. Instead, write her name above your real return address. This is because if it is addressed to her then the Zagreb post office will only release the package to her in person, which won't work if she's living in another town. /kjb]

Have a wonderful week everyone! talk to you next monday! love you! read the book of mormon! it's awesome.

love,
ari

week 6

Family:

I only have 1 more p-day at the mtc! crazy. This week has been good. I got a new companion on wednesday. She's going to Bulgaria like sister meyers. She's about 5'1" and she has curly brown hair. She's way cute. I like her very much. Her name is CECTPA Tate. She's in LA today doing visa stuff with the elders in her district. She left at 4 in the morning and she'll get home tonight. I also have 2 new roommates who will be serving in Arizona.

Oh, I forgot to say last week, but I'm coordinating sister for my zone now. That means I make sure the sisters in my zone are doing well and that they're keeping the rules. My zone has 4 sisters serving english missions, and sister Izatt and me. We have 4 more english sisters coming in on wednesday, one from new zealand. so now sister Izatt is the music coordinator for our zone so i don't have to do both jobs.

At TRC this week we had 2 serbians: Alit and Nikola, so that was pretty cool. We talked about receiving revelation through church attendance, and we challenged the volunteers to write down questions or what they wanted to learn this sunday before going to church. I would recommend that to everyone reading this too. I have found that whenever I specifically am listening for how I can better help my investigators come unto Christ, or if I have questions I want answered and I'm listening for answers, I always get a lot more out of the church service than when I don't.

This sunday we heard from the general primary president, Rosemary Wixom. it was pretty cool. I got to talk to her for a minute afterwards and she told me to love the children of Croatia. I already planned on doing that.

President Samuelson, the president of BYU, came to speak last tuesday. it sort of felt like I was getting the back to school devotional once again. It's weird to think that they'll be starting in just 2 weeks or so, but I won't be going there. This will be my first year without marching band for 7-8 yrs, and my first year without being in school for over 15 yrs. weird.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week. Ja znam da Bog voli vas i ako slijedite Isusa Krista, Bog će blagosloviti vas da ćete imati radost i mir.
God loves you! never forget that. Be diligent in reading the Book of Mormon. I know that following the counsel in that book will bring you closer to Christ than anything else.

Love,
Sestra Black

Crazy week

Dear Family,

This week has been very interesting to say the least. On Thursday, Sister Meyers and Elder Seymour, the other Bulgarian missionary, found out that they didn't have everything done for their visas, and there was a chance that their exit date might be delayed. We also learned that President Rowe, wanted more missionaries in Serbia, so one Slovenian and one Croatian elder are now learning Serbian with only 3 weeks left to learn it. Luckily, Croatian and Serbian are virtually the same language besides the alphabet, but the Slovenian elder now needs to re-learn a lot. They're great elders, and they'll be fine, but it's way stressful for them. Oh, and that also means that the other Slovenian elder is now the only one in his class, and he's a solo missionary, so until this morning, we had 5 solo missionaries, 3 sisters and 2 elders, which is pretty much unheard of.

TRC on Thursday was good. We talked to the volunteers about revelation through the book of mormon. Instead of preaching to them, we just read some verses of Alma 5 and talked about them and about applying the scriptures to your life and listening to what the spirit has to tell you, whether it relates to what you're reading or not.

On Friday, we learned that Sestra Meyers and Elder Seymour were most likely not going to Bulgaria any time soon, so their flight had been cancelled, and they would be given a temporary reassignment in the United states. It was sort of fun to guess where they'd go, like it was a new mission call, but it was sad as well. Bulgaria is having a huge celebration this week for the 20 yr aniversary of the church in Bulgaria, and they were excited about going to it. and they're ready to leave the MTC.

On Saturday, we were about to go to personal study, but our schedule was changed and we were told to go to a workshop instead. It was about teaching with the Holy Ghost. As part of the workshop, the teacher pretended to be an investigator, and the elders started to teach him and ask him questions about religion in his life, trying to persuade him of the truth of the gospel. Then Sister Meyers spoke and just simply testified of truths of the Gospel, not trying to convince or prove anything, just to tell him of God's love for him and His plan, and all of a sudden, the spirit of God filled the room, and the whole tone of the discussion changed. It was amazing.

Monday afternoon, Sister Meyers and Elder Seymour were called to the travel office, and they were told that her visa had just arrived, and they were leaving this morning at 4 am. crazy, huh? Last night we stayed up until 12:30-1 packing and such, and we got up to take her luggage to the travel office just before 4, so I didn't get much sleep last night, but all is well. My companion's on a plane to Bulgaria! We were all so excited.

Cool Croatian trivia: hvala=thanks, hvaliti=to praise
I think to truly praise and worship God, we need to really be focus on gratitude.
otkupitelj=redeemer, kupiti=to buy. Our lives are not our own. Our souls were bought for a huge price. We have so much to be grateful for.

I love you! Have an awesome week, I'll say more next week. Only 3 more weeks until I go to Croatia!

Love,
Sestra Crn
(Sister Black :)

Hello again

Hi,
This week has been pretty good. Most exciting news of the week: We're leaving a week early!!!! Our new departure date is August 29 instead of September 5. Brat Morris wrote it on the board in Croatian, and then he left to become our investigator, Srdan, so it was a little while before we paid attention to it, and a little while longer until we figured out what it said, but once we found out, we were so excited. I'll probably send some pictures from that day.

I forgot to say last week, but we've had some new roomates for the past couple weeks. They are 3 sisters going to Desmoines, Iowa: Sister Madsen, Sister Brown, and Sister Neville (pronounced like Cruella DeVil, or however you spell it, but with an N) I like them very much. It makes it a little harder to get to bed on time though with 6 sisters in the room. They've had a lot of trials hit them in just the few weeks they've been here with medical and family things, but they're very strong girls, so they're pulling through.

I got a letter from the sister missionaries in Osijek this week. They figure that's where I'll probably start because sister Laws, one of the sisters there, is the one who I'm replacing. So, my trainer will probably be sister Creager. I'm so excited to go to Croatia.

I got a haircut this morning. I got 4ish inches off.

Oh, Charissa: I ran into a Sister Morgan last night, and she says her sister was your companion. It's a small world when you're a mormon missionary.

I played a flute duet in sacrament meeting this week. One of the roomates going to Iowa was a flute major at byu and she brought some duets. Sister Meyers accompanied us. We played "I stand all amazed". It was fun.

Oh, that reminds me: Sister Madsen, the one who plays the flute, had a birthday on Friday. We decorated the room with baloons and streamers for her birthday. It was a lot of fun. The cleaning check people wrote on our cleaning check report thing that it made their day to see our room.

Starjesine Mulder and Armond also had birthdays last week. Sister Meyers got 20 cupcakes from her mom the same morning as elder Armond's birthday, which is the exact number of elders in the 2 foreign language districts. It was great.

This week for TRC I taught with Elder Adams about prayer. We taught Sister Carter and a return missionary who we hadn't taught before. At first I was wishing we could teach someone besides our teacher because we teach her all the time as a progressing investigator, but it was a lot of fun to teach her as herself when she wasn't pretending to be someone else. We started off with reading Enos 1:4-8, and then we discussed how we could improve the quality of our prayers. God not only wants us to speak to Him, but He wants to speak with us. We could probably all do more listening and pondering with our prayers.

Volim vas! Bog voli vas!

I love you!
Sestra Black

July 26, 2011

Dear Family,

This week has been good...a lot like the last two weeks, but good. On Tuesday evening at the devotional, they took a picture of all the missionaries in the MTC. This is the second time they've ever done it, the last time being 10 yrs ago. so if you've ever been to the MTC and seen the panoramic picture of everyone, I'm in the new one they just took like that.

Thursday was the first time we taught in the TRC. We were lucky enough to have a volunteer from Serbia who has only been a member of the church for 15 months I think. He was pretty awesome. We didn't have too long to teach him, and at the rate we speak Croatian, it takes a lot of time to get anything across, but we got to know him for a few minutes, and then we talked about faith, how it motivates us to action, and how those actions in turn build our faith. We asked him to read Moroni 7 and then to make a goal of how he could strengthen his faith, and we made goals as well. I love the new way they do TRC. It's awesome.

One of the progressing investigators we've been teaching is named Marilena (she's actually Sestra Carter, one of our teachers). Yesterday we taught her probably the best lesson that Starjesina Mulder and I have ever taught. We were planning on teaching about the plan of salvation, but we ended up just talking about the holy ghost and prayer, that God is our father and he wants to hear from us, and that he is willing to give us knowledge that we seek. Even though Marilena isn't actually a real person, it's amazing how the spirit still tells me what she needs to hear and what will help her be happier and come closer to Christ.

So, the 50 words a day goal didn't quite work. I learned 150 words last week, which is still a lot, but not quite the 250 I planned to do. That was still a lot of words.

The temple is open again! I'm so glad. We get to go there later today. I'm excited.

So, I learned on Wednesday that the sister missionaries have been moved from Zagreb to a city farther east, i think it's called something like Osijek. so now they're there and in Zadar.

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. First of all, I had a lot of trouble falling asleep, and second of all, at 2am I was woken up by the most shrill fire alarm I've ever heard. maybe it was more shrill because I was asleep, but it was pretty loud and obnoxious. I was so confused; I had no idea what was going on for like 2 minutes. Then we sat outside for a few minutes until they said we could go back to bed.

I've decided that 2 Nephi is pretty much my favorite chapter in all of the scriptures. read it if you get a chance, even if you've never read it, or if you've read it a million times. It's awesome. (scriptures.lds.org)

I decided to read the whole book of mormon before leaving the mtc. that's about 10 pages a day. I've really enjoyed doing that. It's great to read a little at a time, but there's something special about reading it fast all at once. I love that book

That's my week. Thank you for your prayers and support. I love you all. I know that God loves you and knows everything that you go through. Turn to him and you will see his power blessing your life. Have a wonderful week!

Love,
Sestra Black

week 2

Drugi Obitelj, (except i don't know the vocative form for family. oh well)

This week has been really good. I love being a missionary. I'm learning the language really fast, but I still get really frustrated that I know how to say very little, and it takes a century just to say one sentence. I'm glad I have patient teachers.

I talked to my teacher, Sister Carter, who got back from Croatia a year ago, and she says there are only 2 cities where sister missionaries serve--Zadar and Zagreb. There are only 4 sisters currently in Croatia. One has been in Croatia for 3 weeks now, 2 have been there for 11ish, and 1 is coming home when I go out. So when I get out there, my trainer will have been out there for only 4 months. Crazy, huh?

They've been making a lot of changes here in the MTC in how they're teaching us. Because they've been putting so much more emphasis on having us focus on the needs of the people we're teaching and tailoring our lessons to what they need in their lives, there are a lot of changes. For instance, the people who we're teaching in the TRC are no longer supposed to pretend to be not members of the church. They're supposed to be themselves, and we're supposed to help them, as members, come closer to Christ by teaching the basic principles of the gospel. We still teach during class to our teachers and each other as we pretend to not be members of our church though. On Friday, we learned that the investigator we had been teaching was actually the Slovenian teacher, who also knows Croatian. It made it more real though to not know who he was.

Now we're teaching Marilena, who is actually Sister Carter, one of my teachers, but she's pretending to be a non-practicing Catholic from Zagreb. It's so much easier to understand her than Uroš, our old investigator. Partly because she wasn't throwing in Slovenian words, but partly because she talks more slowly.

I watched the new Joseph Smith movie on Sunday. It's really good. I would highly recommend it. It's made from the old one that they showed in visitors' centers, but they've taken out a lot of stuff and added other scenes.

So, some elders in my district have decided that they will learn 50 words a day, besides Sundays and P-days, and I couldn't have them passing me up, so I'm doing it with them. It's crazy. That's a lot of words to memorize in one day. I've still got 13 words left to catch up from yesterday. The elders in my district are so good at memorizing. It's not fair.

Wow, 30 minutes isn't very long. I need to get better at writing these.

I know that God lives and loves me. I know that the Book of Mormon testifies of Jesus Christ as does the Bible. We can find more happiness in life by reading those books than by any other book. I love you all. Have a wonderful week.

Sestra Ariana Black

PS- thanks to whoever sent the cookies. they were very yummy.
Also, someone who knows Sabina could tell her that her email didn't go through, that would be great.

First Week at the MTC

Dear Family, (and friends listening in)
Dobar Dan!

I love it here at the MTC. I have the most awesome district and companions. I'm a solo sister, which means I'm the only sister going to Croatia right now. There are 7 other elders going to Croatia, and 2 elders going to Slovenia in my district.

My companions are wonderful. I have one companion named Sestra Izatt, and one named CECTPA Meyers. Sestra Izatt is going to the Czech Republic. She's 6 ft tall, blonde, and looks like a super model, only prettier. She is very friendly and has a wonderful testimony. She left a boyfriend at home. She has a wonderful laugh. CECTPA (that's sestra in cyrillic) Meyers is going to bulgaria. She's my height, and she looks like rapunzel from tangled after her hair got cut off. (or that's what one of her teachers told her yesterday). She has one of the most gorgeous singing voices I've ever heard. She has been here for 4 weeks already, so she keeps Sestra Izatt and me on top of things. She's such a good quiet example. I look up to her a lot. I want to be like her.

I love learning Croatian. One of the nicest things about it is that there are no articles, and not as many verb forms as in other languages i've studied. Our district is doing a pilot program where, instead of starting out teaching in english and then switching to our language when we actually know it, we're only teaching in croatian. this is the first Croatian district to do this program. It's sorta scary because my second full day here, I was teaching a lesson about the gospel in Croatian. We did a lot of reading in that lesson. Pretty much all we could do was say a prayer and testify that God loves us. Oh, and I accidentally had him read John 4:16 instead of John 3:16. Don't do that. It doesn't exactly teach the same doctrine... I about died laughing when I went back to my classroom and found out what he'd read. But our pretend investigator kept a straight face the whole time. I don't know how he did it.

There is a huge focus in the MTC on getting to know the person you're teaching well and seing them as God sees them, and then showing them how the gospel will bless their lives personally. As representatives of Jesus Christ, it's our responsability to show people how much God loves them and how much God wants to make them happy through his plan of Salvation.

I love this gospel. I know that God lives! I know that Jesus is His son, and it is only through His name that we can be saved. I know that Joseph Smith resored the church and priesthood of Jesus Christ to this earth today and that a prophet speaks today.

I love you all!
Sestra Ariana Black
Crkva Isusa Krista Svetaca Posljednjih Dana

Contact information for Ariana at the missionary training center

Ari's MTC address:

Sister Ariana Black
MTC Mailbox #103
Slovenia-Croatia 0905
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604

Remember: you can send me letters for free at www.dearelder.com!
Mission = Provo MTC
Mailbox number=103
Mission=Slovenia-Croatia
Departure date=0905

Why I'm a missionary

Ariana explains her feelings about her call to serve a mission on this web page (click on this sentence).

Lydia update

Lydia’s been doing well overall. She is off oxygen about 90% of the time, she has tolerated walking and climbing stairs better, and she is sleeping better at night. Tonight she has a sleep study at Children’s, I think mainly to figure out if her episodes of shallow breathing and slowed heart rate during the night are important.

Yesterday we left her in her crib alone for a few minutes and she pulled out her trach tube and threw it out of the crib. Fortunately I heard her distress from where I was sitting about 15 feet away, and we had her breathing with a good airway within maybe a minute of when she started turning blue. We got to tell the 911 dispatcher that she was OK after all, so no ambulance this time, but now we are skittish about her ever leaving our direct line of sight when she’s awake. Sigh. This is way too much adrenaline.

Oh, and to correct my last post, I forgot to count her albuterol inhaler, so really she takes 3 meds. Still, that’s way better than when she was in the hospital.

Lydia's getting better

After the hair-raising experience described in that last post, I figure I'd better report on progress. Lydia is improving gradually and during the day she is more or less back to her usual self: playful, eager, loving, and at times mischievous.

She is down to only one medication, plus the thyroid supplementation she had been on before her pneumonia. But at night she is still on a ventilator. It drives us crazy with alarm messages that often are spurious but which, especially after last Tuesday, we can't ignore.

A brief reverse

By the time the ambulance arrived, Lydia had started breathing and was pink again.

(How’s that for an opening line?)

We had way too much excitement night before last, but all is well again. Around 12:30 a.m. early Tuesday morning, apparently something obstructed Lydia’s airway and suctioning did not clear it. Her oxygen saturation kept dropping and she became unconscious and stopped breathing. Breathing for her with an Ambu bag wasn’t expanding her chest, and we ended up doing an emergency trach change on the floor of her bedroom. After a minute or so of “bagging” her through the new trach tube, she started breathing on her own again and her oxygen saturation was back to normal. That’s when the EMTs came in. Winona rode up to the ER with Lydia, and I followed in the car. (Webster Groves’s finest stopped me for going 41 in a 30, but they let me go.)

Lydia stayed the morning and afternoon back on the 7 East ward at SLCH. She hadn’t been in her room for 30 seconds—she was still being connected to the wall oxygen—when she signed to one of the nurses who knew her, “Signing Time.” “Only Lydia,” the nurse laughed, and explained that she would need to wait to watch her favorite DVD. Two Little Hands Productions would love a video clip of that scene for promotional purposes.

Anyway, she stayed the morning and afternoon with no more excitement, and is back at home.

The worst of it was that two separate people in the hospital said something about how we had done well considering “this was your first time.”

We really don’t ever want a second time.

Life at home

So. Are you considering a career change? Want long hours, low pay? Want to work with various bodily secretions? A career in 24x7 home nursing may be in your future!

Lydia, and her pulse oximeter and portable suction machine and an emergency kit and a small oxygen bottle, came home Tuesday as reported previously on this site. That night we had a couple of mysterious (fortunately very brief, as in <30 seconds) episodes of dramatic oxygen desaturation right after we hooked her up to the ventilator for the night. During these episodes the anxiety level in the home was very high as two people with graduate degrees, plus Charissa, who's in grad school, tried to urgently troubleshoot a home ventilator that had supposedly just been put together and checked out by the home health people earlier that night. (The air was not flowing due to a connection that had not been connected.) Then around oh-dark-thirty after numerous alarms, Winona talked to the helpful on-call nurse and the home health equipment on-call people and learned all about the effects on alarm sensors of condensed water in the air hoses. The next morning Lydia was needing 3-4 L/min of O₂ rather than the 0.5-2 L/min she’d needed in the hospital, she looked somewhat lethargic, and her temperature was 101°F.

But long story short, by that evening, and perhaps thanks to a dose of Cipro called in by her pulmonary nurse practitioner, she was back to her usual self and has been fine ever since. At the moment I'm sitting beside Lydia’s crib because Winona needs a break, and Lydia’s asleep breathing 0.5 L/min O₂ on the ventilator with 99-100% oxygen saturation. All has been fairly uneventful since Tuesday night. Well, except for the EPA Superfund diaper clean-up yesterday morning—nothing out of the ordinary. (Thank you, Winona, for turning down my halfhearted offer to take care of it!) We are kind of sort of back to normal around here, except for jumping up in the night if anything beeps for more than 2 or 3 seconds. And needing to take a small caravan if we want to take Lydia anywhere. And suctioning yucky stuff from her trachea.

Lydia hospital day 62 ... Homecoming!

Hooray! We have worked with the hospital team, the ventilator nurse practitioner, our home pediatrician, the home health agency, an electrician, cardiology, pulmonology, the pharmacy, audiology, and some family-members-turned-stevedores to rearrange Lydia’s room. We have an oxygen tank, tubing, a portable pulse oximeter, a heat and moisture exchanger (“artificial nose”), an emergency kit, portable suction, and lots of disposable stuff. The final inspection of our house and final training session on the new equipment began about an hour ago. We are scheduled to bust Lydia out of SLCH at 2p.m. today.

To celebrate, she rejected her grapes and even her pancake, fussed over her chest PT treatment, spit out her Ativan twice, refused her pants, socks and shoes, and interfered with her blood pressure measurement. But she ate her scrambled eggs and took her other meds. Hey, she’s 3 now, so I suppose she’s acting like a typical 2-year-old.

We can’t wait to see her safely installed at home. Most of her new medications from the hospital will be stopped by mid-April, and by the end of May we will have a good idea of how completely her lungs have healed and how long we can expect her to need supplementary oxygen.

Thank you again to all of you who have prayed for us or helped us in one way or another. Hooray!

Lydia hospital day 60

Dear Old Dad only got about 3 minutes with Lydia today, but Winona spent most of the day with her and the kids (well, the kids that aren’t at college) all had a couple of hours with her. (Unrelated comment: Ariana had her final interview for full-time missionary service today and the week after next she will probably receive her call.)

Starting at 2 a.m. this morning she was breathing room air on the ventilator. They cut back on her albuterol dosing so she doesn't need to get it at night and gets less during the day. During the day she had her “talker” on (Passey-Muir valve) so she could talk. She went to the rooftop garden and liked swinging on the glider thingy for a while.

We are getting excited about getting Lydia—and her train—back at home with us. Traveling, even around the block, will now become a real production. . . . Until her lungs finish healing, anyway.

Lydia video #2

This morning at the hospital, Charissa took a video of Lydia, Rose and herself, singing one of Lydia’s favorite songs while Lydia signs some of the words. (Vertigo warning: handheld camera with frequent, sudden direction changes.)