[23 Jan 2012]

Family,

This week has been pretty good. We did a lot of advertizing for english class, and have already gotten more phone calls about english than we did the last two transfers combined. That was cool. Last night we went tracting from 6-8ish and did a couple street contacts on the way home, and we got 5 potentials, 2 of which look very promising-- a boy about our age we talked to on the street and gave a book of mormon, and a young mother who gave us her number and wanted us to come back. This week we also got an investigator that the elders found and taught a lesson to, and a lady we found in an elevator as we were going up to the top floor to tract the building. We talked to her on the way up. She's an interesting lady named Jadranka, who loves talking to people like JWs and us about God. That's pretty much the only time someone thinking we were JWs has ever helped us. It was really hard to have a lesson with her because she took the conversation off on lots of tangents. She loves talking to us, but she isn't really trying to learn from us or have us help her make her life better. We've got to figure out how to be clearer about our purpose and what we're here for. I'm so excited about visiting teaching. We had our first visiting teaching lesson in forever this week. Last Sunday we did a role play with Danaja about visiting teaching, and sort of talked her through what visiting teaching is and what it's for. On friday we went with her to visit Lidia. it was awesome. She set up the appointment and did pretty much all the talking with Lidia. We were just there for support. I feel like already that our branch is more united and working towards the strengthening and growth of the branch. It's exciting. Monday night we had seminary with marijana and her friend Filip came. We talked about Moses and why we have callings in the church, the 10 commandments and how commandments don't enslave us, but free us, and how the exodus is a symbol of our path to salvation. It was pretty cool. Filip ended up asking a really good question. I don't remember what it was, but it lead to a discussion about the word of wisdom, and to Sister Milius committing Filip to not smoke for the whole week. Tuesday we had a conference in Serbia. It was really good. We had a lot of good role plays and got some good advice. I gave a talk this sunday about service. It probably took a little too much time out of my saturday writing it, but everyone liked the talk a lot. Danaja even had me give her a copy of it to study. Marijana spoke on sunday too. She gave a very good talk on the articles of faith. It was great. she just called up elder Genther and said, ˝hey, can I give a talk next week˝. I think she was really hoping her friend Andrea and Filip would come, but they both slept in. It was a bit disappointing because the only non-member there was Božo.

Short funny story I forgot to say- Sister Milius's first week in osijek, we scheduled district meeting on Thursday, and when we got to the church for the meeting, the elders weren't there, so we called them after like 10 minutes to make sure they remembered. We asked where they were, and they said they were in Šid, a city on the border, in Serbia. Apparently, Elder Genther was going to drive the serbian Zone Leader car to Osijek and a serbian elder was going to drive it the rest of the way, but they couldn't find the driving video you're supposed to watch, so elder genther just drove the whole way, and then they got dropped off at a bus station, but Elder Genther's companion, Elder Wade, left his passport in the car, so they had to hop off the bus at the border, and they spent the night in Sremska Mitrovica and came back in the morning. Except they forgot to tell us that they were in serbia so they wouldn't be able to come to district meeting. This week, when we scheduled district meeting we joked ˝This time, make sure you're in the country, not in Serbia˝. We learned today though that he's going on an exchange in serbia tomorrow. It was funny.

Love you all!
Sestra Black

Hej bok!

Hello everyone! Hope everyone's week was good. This week was pretty good. Lots of tearful goodbyes and some hellos. I'm pretty excited about this transfer. So, last minute, the new sister didn't come after all, so it's just me and Sister Milius. Sister Creager and I got to the bus station, met up with the Zadar sisters, and turned around. That was a pretty long day. and lots of traveling. Marijana decided she would trick the new elder into thinking she didn't speak english, and since it would probably be good for his language skills, and wouldn't really hurt him, we played along. so at aktivnost and such, she pretended she didn't understand anything said in english. Since Filip pretty much refuses to speak croatian with us because he's impatient with how we speak, it was pretty funny. Marijana felt bad for tricking him though, and she felt bad for not helping him when he was struggling on a word and she knew exactly what he meant, so she's giving it up. Oh, the new elder is elder wade. he's from arizona. It's been cool seeing Elder Genther more excited about working hard and doing things well than he has been the whole time I've been here in Croatia. He has someone looking up to him now. Luckily, Elder Wade plays the piano pretty well. If he didn't, I'd be playing in sacrament. and that wouldn't be very good. We have a new Relief Society president, Danaja. We're giving her some help with seeing a vision of how things are supposed to work in relief society. It's weird being that person that everyone looks to as knowing everything. I still haven't gotten over that. We've been trying to help her realize she can do things by herself and not depend so much on us. We told her we were basically her servants in this, and we'd do whatever she wanted to help her do her calling and start visiting teaching and relief society. When we told her that, her eyes got about as big as dinner plates. She couldn't believe that we, who she sees as her spiritual leaders and asks parenting advice and guidance about even little things, were under her command. Can you imagine back home the relief society president asking 21 yr old girls for advice about how to do her calling? things still feel a little backwards here. It'll be weird going home and not being in charge of everything or having to speak every month or say a prayer and lead the music in every meeting. Maybe I'll end my mission in Zagreb and it'll feel a bit more normal. We'll see. We passed out about a billion english fliers, got some good potentials, and I got let in while tracting the first time ever [“tracting” is Mormon lingo for knocking on doors (cold contacting) /kjb]. a little sad, and she didn't really want to talk about the gospel. she just wanted to give us juice and chocolate. Maybe next time. We've been starting in our mission, and maybe all the missions have been doing this, a new way of tracting and teaching that seems to be working well. the elders got 3 investigators in one night when they used it. It basically consists of ˝power statements˝ and scriptures along with each principle in each of the lessons, cutting out all of the ˝hi, we're missionaries, we're sharing a message about _____˝ or ˝have you heard of Krešimir Čošić˝ etc, and going straight to things like ˝In olden times , God revealed his will to his children through prophets. He did this to demonstrate his love. Because he still loves us, he once again reveals his will through a modern prophet. If there were a prophet on the earth today, what would you ask him?˝ or ˝God has entrusted parents with the great responsibility to teach their children. God has given us the Gospel of Jesus Christ to fulfill this purpose. How do you feel the Gospel of Jesus Christ helps you to be a better parent?˝ etc. Going straight to teaching, and then asking a question.

Yeah, so that's been my week.

Love you lots!
Sestra Black

transfer 3

Merry Serbian Christmas. I hope you had a great week. We got transfer calls a couple days ago. Sister Creager is going to Zadar, and Sister Milius is coming here from Zadar, and we're going to have a greenie in our companionship as well. that should be interesting. they've been trying to find a native willing to serve a mini mission, but I guess it didn't work out. so, it'll be the three of us in osijek. Elder Genther is training as well. I figured that would mean Elder Genther would be a trainer, district leader, and branch president, but sister milius is the... district meeting discussion leader, or something like that. I don't know. it's sort of weird. Everyone is pretty distraught that Sister Creager is leaving. She was one of the 1st two sister missionaries here in a long time, and everyone loves her. and she's served here for 6 months. I hope people here treat the new sisters well. The people here really don't like changes of any sort. Especially Marijana because she hasn't been in the church very long and hasn't seen many transfers. we're going to Zagreb on Wednesday to pick up sister milius and the greenie and drop off sister creager with sister lethco. This should be a fun transfer. For the beginning, I pretty much get to have all the perks of being senior comp without any responsibility because I know the people and where things are and how things go in Osijek, but I don't have the title or the money or anything. and i'm not the youngest in the district anymore.

This week has been pretty good. Things are looking pretty good for the future. We had a lesson with a member again this week. We started teaching an old investigator from the area book named Tatijana. We don't have a new appointment set up, but there's definitely potential there. One of our investigators came to church for the 1st time since I came to osijek this week, which was exciting, even though I'm pretty sure the only reason she was there was because Sister Creager's leaving. I am excited about this next transfer, but a little worried about having a threesome because generally they're harder to work in. Marijana wants to help and go on splits with us, which I think will be good, and I think it will help a lot more work get done. That girl has a lot of faith. She's one of the few people I feel in this country that sees God's vision here, and she's willing to do her part. We've started doing personal progress with her, which I think is really good for her growth. We had a good talk with Danaja on Sunday, and she has some of the same desires for the branch as we have. She talked to us about wanting the branch to all be friends with each other and to uplift each other. Things here are a little slow, but God's work is going forward.

Thanks for your support. I love you!
Sestra Black

Sretna Nova Godina!

Happy New Year!

This week has been pretty good. This week we went tracting more than usual, which was good. nothing really came from it, but we got a chance to show God we're working hard. We had a first lesson with a boy named Luka this week who has a lot of potential. Sister Lethco and I contacted him when she was here on exchange, but it was right before finals and the holidays, so we haven't been able to meet with him until now. We had Marijana on the lesson with us, and she was wonderful. She taught about prophets and about prayer. It was cool seeing her face light up as she taught about something that has so recently completely changed her life. He went to Hungary for the weekend, but he wants to meet once he gets back. I'll be happy when the holidays are over. everyone said ˝We can meet after the holidays, or ˝ ˝you can call after the holidays˝, so hopefully it will be easier to meet with people towards the end of this week. Serbian Christmas is on Jan 7th, so all celebrating has to be done on that day. it's practically a criminal offense to have a tree up or any sign of celebrating on that day as far as I've gathered. And soon firecrackers will be illegal again and we can sleep better!

In other news, my bed broke this week. It's been broken for at least 3 transfers, since before I got here, but it finally broke and stayed broken, so I had the slats holding up my mattress replaced, and I'm much less afraid it will break in the middle of the night anymore. Also, last p-day, The elders wanted to play hearts, but sister creager is sick of that game, so I taught them ERS, and I creamed them like 10 times. It was pretty fun. On Tuesday, Elder Adams and Elder Schouten visited from serbia because elder schouten didn't properly de-register from the city when he left here, so he needed to go to the police station here. that was fun. they came to district meeting, so we had 2 extra people for role plays and stuff. then we all had lunch together.

Ok, well, that's pretty short, but oh well. I hope you have a wonderful week! love you!
ari

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