We finally got the translations for sister moody's papers from our lawyer, so we're closer to getting her visa. the temporary one she has now just lasts another week, and it usually takes a little while for it to get done. she should be fine though. The senior couple moved in thursday night. they're called the Ivins, and they seem pretty cool. their son served in the catania mission under elder toronto in bari, ragusa, and siracusa, so i'm guessing he knows charissa.
On friday, we left at 4:45 am from osijek, took a train to zagreb, then a bus karlovac and then to zadar. in karlovac, we took a break, and petar disappeared. elder bell found him a bit later smoking. so he'll have to have his baptism pushed back a little bit. that was discouraging. When we got to zadar, we took a ferry to ugljan island and drove to the estate where the event was. It was awesome being there with members from 4 different countries. this is the first time we've had anything like that since the war, and it was awesome. Friday night we had a fireside with speakers from the very first members in yugoslavia, including Mišo and Ankica Ostarčević, the first couple baptized in croatia, and Ann madsen, truman madsen's wife. The baptisms were going to be that night, but they were moved to saturday morning. Rafaela Plentaj, a girl in zadar that has had missionaries working on her family for her whole life, was baptized. That was very exciting. Mirjana was next. She got scared, and it looked for a minute that she wasn't going to go through with it. Rafaela's baptism was sort of shaky, and i'm pretty sure she ended up with a mouthful of sea water, so it's not surprising she was frightened. when Mirjana went under, it didn't look from the shore that all her hair went under, and her foot came up after, but the witnesses said it was good. A lot of people were worried about it, and i was worried they'd have to do it again. Elder Kopischke said it was good though, and nobody argued after that. Elder Marcek baptized her, and then, after she had changed, Elder Bell confirmed her.
After breakfast, we split up into priesthood and relief society and YSA/youth. We had an awesome meeting with Sister Kopischke and Sister Madsen. Sister Kopischke talked a lot about things that keep us strong in the church- testimony, prayer, scripture, holy ghost. We were sitting across from Mirjana, and we could tell from her face how much she felt the spirit and felt united with the saints. it was great. then sister kopischke had a question and answer session, and Mirjana asked what to do if you have family members who aren't baptized. Almost everyone in the church here deals with that very closely, so it was a perfect question. it was great. then Sister Madsen talked about upholding priesthood leaders, even when they're not perfect. It was an awesome conference thing. pretty tiring though. we woke up way early and went to bed way late every day from helping with cleaning and cooking and such.
Then we went to Zagreb on sunday for district conference. it was awesome. First we had a meeting about the 40 yr anniversary. the prime minister and lots of media people were there. there was lots of stuff about Krešo, and then elder kopischke talked a lot about how the church is helping the country of croatia to be better and stronger, and how we believe in having an organized government and hard work. that the way to have a strong country is to strengthen the family. he said that we will join any coalition that will defend our values, and the way to change things in a country is to not change the government, but to change every individual. It was an awesome talk.
We then had the normal district conference meeting. President Babić (the district president) gave a powerful talk. He started with a story about president snow bringing someone back from the dead to finish his mission, and then talked about how powerful the priesthood is, that it founded and created the world. He then told the saints that they needed to be one and work together. he then promised the members that if they were united, that we would have a stake in croatia in 2020. it was pretty powerful. everyone felt that. President rowe talked about how the time to build the foundation of the church in croatia is over, and it's now time to build the beautiful structure of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He then invited all non-members there, especially directed to the gov't and media people, to act on the feelings they'd felt in the meeting, and to join us in building the kingdom of God. There were lots of other amazing talks too, but those were the highlights.
On the way home we could tell Robert (remember that kid from last week that we invited to church on our way walking there and he actually came?) was completely converted. We drove with president rowe to the train station, and he taught robert in those 10 minutes all of the lessons. it was pretty impressive. he also told him to go convert his family in serbia, and to serve a full time mission and then get married to a nice girl. He's scheduled to get baptized 3 weeks from last saturday. on the train, he talked to tons of people about the book of mormon, and he very powerfully bore witness of the restoration and the converting power of the holy ghost. it was great.
Well, that was the highlights of this week. I'll send a few pictures from zadar.
Love you guys!
Never forget that God is a god of miracles!
Love,
Sestra Black
