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
