Hey everyone, how's your week been? So, as the subject suggests, my mission once again has a different name. as of the 15th, our mission is now the adriatic north mission, and the albanian mission is the adriatic south mission. So, I get to be one of a few people who had their mission change names twice while they were out, and i haven't even been here in croatia for half a year yet. For the more exciting news, Bosnia is now officially a part of our mission, and young proselyting missionaries will be sent there ˝in the near future˝, so probably in march when we have transfers, but we'll see. also, for the first time i think ever, every single country in europe is now open for missionary work!!! It's an exciting time to be a missionary in europe. things are changing. pretty soon the assumption that you can't baptize people in europe will disappear. In our mission alone, we had more new investigators last week than may of 2008, when there were 31 companionships, compared to the 22 we have now. We also are teaching more lessons than we have for years. also, in the last 6 months, we doubled the mission's baptisms from the whole year before that. and we're still very much on the up-rise. it's exciting to see these things happen.
Sunday was awesome. Jelena has been out of town, so we haven't seen her, which was a little disappointing, but we had 2 other investigators at church, both of which had never come before. One of the elders' investigators came too. He's a boy named Miro, who has been coming to english for a little while, but hasn't been really interested in learning about the church before, but for some reason something changed, and he's been praying and reading the book of mormon. For church, I gave a talk about baptism and Zoran gave a talk about the holy ghost, so it was awesome. it was the perfect first sunday to have investigators there for. after that, since we didn't have any of our teachers there, we just watched the restoration movie for second hour, which we just got a couple weeks ago dubbed in croatian. we also just got ˝finding faith in christ˝. it's awesome. those are our first movies ever in croatian, so it's really exciting. we had a couple that were subtitled just on a home program or something, but now we have some actually made for us. After the movie, President Bell, Sister Milius, Marijana, and Zoran bore their testimonies of the restoration. I couldn't think of something better for Andrea and Lea, our investigators there. for various reasons, neither one had really even had a lesson on the restoration, so that was a good introduction for them. Lea is a 15 yr old we've been teaching english, and i think she's mostly just fallen in love with the feel of the church and the people connected to it. we had one english lesson, and then we invited her to aktivnost, and then to church, both of which she came to. We've gotten permission from her parents to teach her english, and they know we teach spiritual thoughts with it, but i want to go teach them too so they know what their daughter's been learning and don't freak out that we've been brainwashing her or something. The only problem is she's here for school and her parents practically live in hungary. Also, this week, Andrea committed to stop smoking, which was awesome. She went from lots to 4 cigarettes in one day to 2 to 1. she's realized that everything she does, her daughter looks at and copies (she's 2 and adorable. her name is Emina). She knows what kind of life she wants for her daughter, and we're trying to help her see that she can have that in her own life too, and that that's the way to help her daughter have that life too. She said she wanted her daughter to get baptized, but said she was too old. We pulled out Nicodemus' conversation with Jesus and talked about it a little and told her to pray about it.
To sum things up, things are good and getting better. love you all. thanks for your prayers. God answers them.
love,
Sister Black
Monday, February 13, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Leif Enger, Peace Like a River
Wow. This is a book!I don’t think I’ve been this impressed with a novel since Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, which I hate to admit I first read sometime after I turned 45. I think I could find things to quibble over, but I don’t want to. Leading of course to the wannabe author’s key question, why do I like it so?
- I suppose this is part of how I know I like it, not why I like it, but I couldn’t wait to finish it. If I meet the author, I’ll tell him how he ruined two nights of sleep. Two consecutive nights. That quality has to count in the final judgment of literature: if you write a book in a forest and no one reads it, does it make any noise? Or some such mixed metaphor.
- I loved the diction. A novel that has a lot of words I don’t know is mostly just odd. That’s not this one. Low-frequency words that I’m prone to use tend to be Latin or Greek in origin—perhaps not surprising for a med school survivor. That’s not him. Here, every few pages, there are robust, healthy, but above all surprising, usually Anglo-Saxon or at least venerable English words that came by their Latin roots honestly, via the Normans. Minnesota words, you might say. North Dakota winter bar-the-door words, maybe. I’m thinking of "jeopardous." "Besmirched." "Bushwhacked." "Fictive." "Allegiant." Even "scapegrace," though that one was flung in by a precocious latency character who was showing off. The words themselves made you pay attention just for the taste of them ... but, strangely, not so much pay attention to the words, but to the message, like makeup so artfully applied that you notice the woman not the paint.
- The perfectly knitted, quotable sentence was rare, but there were a few happy exceptions, most especially the last half page of the book. I also marked this one: "We supposed over that obituary for most of the day, Swede and I—mostly Swede, whose vaulting imagination revealed mine as miserly and torpid."
- It has wonderful but not impossible characters; it has what I am surprised to keep noticing in books I like: a believable, not cloying, love story; it has at least a small story-within-a-story—sure, this one’s obvious, but I liked it anyway.
- Not least, the author had some things to say, and (I checked on his bio page) his perhaps most obvious message was nevertheless a heartfelt one, a truth told with an understated passion that almost made it feel immanent.
Miscellanous
Lots of others in the past year that I was embarrassed or too busy to list given everything else going on my life. Here are a few, to catch up.
- Orson Scott Card, Children of the Mind: that rare thing in scifi world, the end of a series that really ends it well. The literary ending, anyway, not the sales ending, but the guy has to eat and you sell what people buy. More importantly, the quality of the writing and of the messages are OSC at his best, inducing me to forgive his books I hate and again conclude that he’s the most skilled LDS author I’ve ever read.
- Jorge Luis Borges, El Aleph. I’m about halfway through this book of essays in Spanish (and Portuñol, sometimes), mostly as an airplane book. Short stories that take effort to read may be perfect for the 20 minutes or so at a time when you can’t turn on anything electronic. Plus it is a small pocket edition. Don’t know what to say about the actual writing. I suppose I don’t usually actually enjoy reading the stories, but they are almost all terribly thought-provoking, and you can’t help but respect his ability to tell a short story that is short and a story, and I am suitably cowed by his expansive grasp of philosophy and literature, or at least it seems that way to this dude who has read some things but whose eyes cross at most philosophy discussions.
- All the Ranger’s Apprentice books. Frankly, I loved them. Character development, unvarnished exciting plots, love found and lost by a teenager—you’ll have to read them yourself. Made me smile and cry at the right moments.
- All the Garrett, P.I. books. Gumshoe meets fantasy. Opinions in this household differed as to how appropriate these were for this household. OK, the first few books were all plot, one of them was cringingly, well, somewhere between outdated and non-PC and hateful, and there was always a surfeit of nubile redheaded women chasing him for unclear reasons. The actual detail was generally in the PG range verging toward PG13. According to some in this household. But they were very fun reading and gradually had better mysteries and became more thoughtful. By the last one, I think Our Hero’s words about himself—"Mama Garrett’s boy done growed up"—could have referred just as well to the author.
- Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed. A former college roommate recommended this (via Facebook). I was surprised to like it since I remember disliking one of her books. Several interesting passages that made me think.
- Charles Dickens, The Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. "Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster." I had seen movies and plays but I had never read the original. With apologies to a friend who loves to read Dickens, I had never much loved what I had thought of as his ponderous, prolix prose. I had mostly been proud of his perspicacious insights into neuropsychiatric illnesses in his characters. The Christmas Carol, however, was delicious fun to read at every page (or, actually, phone screen).
- G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Knew Too Much. Enjoyed this.
- Alexandre Dumas pere, The Count of Monte Cristo. Loved it!
- Stephenie Meyer, the Twilight books. OK, I don’t care if she used to look like Jen Purvines. This chick is weird! Meaning Mrs. Meyer. Of course this is not a professional diagnosis, just a total guess based on the weirdness in her books. Not the obvious weirdness that’s supposed to be weird (vampires, whatnot), I mean the relationship weirdness and the suffering-in-silence weirdness and ... oh well, if you read these books, you know what I mean.
- Henry Rider Haggard, The People of the Mist. Well, it was a free page-turner.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Snijeg pada! It's snowing!
Hey everyone! we've had some crazy snow here this week. europe's got lots of records for temperatures and snowfall this week. on friday we had about 2.5 feet of snow, and it's been pretty much snowing ever since with a few small breaks since that. everywhere looks like an ant farm--lots of little pathways everywhere where people walk, but besides that, you can't see anything. that much snow is probably nothing to mom, but i don't think i've seen so much snow ever in my life. So, i'm writing today instead of yesterday because yesterday, when we got here for internet, a girl texted us asking where we were. to make a long story short, there was a miscommunication, so we ran off to the church so she didn't have to wait in the snow forever for nothing, so there went the rest of our internet time. so, we got permission to come back today. i'm very glad of that because lots of cool things happened this week. We taught Jelena a couple of lessons, and she's really searching for truth, but doesn't feel like she ever gets any answers when she prays, goes to different churches, etc. She's willing to do whatever it takes to get her answer, and she's been doing just that. In our first lesson, she prayed with us, and that was her first time praying aloud, and the first time using her own words. She was very hesitant to, but afterwards, she said it felt good, different than she's ever felt before when praying. She came to church this week, so that was the first investigator we've had at church that wasn't just there to say goodbye to missionaries in a long time. We only had 2 members there though because of the snow, which isn't the most fun on a fast sunday. so lots of just sitting and meditating, which i guess isn't a bad thing, it just tends to get uncomfortable for people. We started teaching a family with a 3 yr old (3.5, but she admits to 4 at social gatherings). We found them through english [classes], and at sign-ups, the mom, Mihaela, said she was interested in learning about the gospel outside of english class, so that's been good. She was listening very attentively while we taught... at least as attentively as you can with a 3 yr old begging for your attention. Her husband knew a lot about the bible, and asked interesting questions, but he wasn't just the type of person who tries to make themselves look smart by bringing up facts in the bible he knows. I like that family very much. last sunday, we met a couple while tracting. Their names are Milica and Drago. We taught a bit and then set up another lesson with them. we weren't sure how that would be the next time because they were a little tipsy when we came, but when we returned, Milica had read from the book of mormon and they were ready to learn from us. We had a lesson with Gordana on thursday. she was really closed at first, because the chapter was about baptism, and last time we came, we had asked her to be baptized, but we started talking about faith and repentance, and she relaxed a lot, and when we talked about baptism with authority and about receiving the gift of the holy ghost, her attitude changed, and she was actually trying to learn from us, instead of just being curious and passively collecting interesting information. She prayed with us for the first time, which was really cool. Right after that lesson, we went with Danaja to Evica and Jelica's house for visiting teaching. It was one of the coolest things ever, and it strengthened my testimony of visiting teaching a lot. They haven't seen each other since Evica and Jelica stopped coming to church, and Danaja visiting them did more for their desire to come back to church than years of them being visited by missionaries. It's been a good week, but it's just getting better.
Oh, and guess what! Osijek has its first baptismal date scheduled for about a half a year. It's exciting. it's someone the elders started teaching last week. Exciting things are really starting to happen in Osijek. It's on the brink of a lot of cool things. just you wait.
Lots of love,
Sestra Black
Oh, and guess what! Osijek has its first baptismal date scheduled for about a half a year. It's exciting. it's someone the elders started teaching last week. Exciting things are really starting to happen in Osijek. It's on the brink of a lot of cool things. just you wait.
Lots of love,
Sestra Black
Monday, January 30, 2012
[30 Jan 2012]
This week has been really good. Elder Genther's leaving today, so I'll be the only one here in Osijek that was here a month ago, and we'll have Elder Bell as Branch President. He's been in Karlovac, which is near Zagreb and has the second biggest branch in Croatia, so it'll be a little getting used to from being in a city with a local Branch President and people with callings that share the load, to being here, but there's been a lot of growth there in the past couple transfers, so hopefully he helps bring some of that success to Osijek.
Hey, wanna hear a cool miracle that happened this week? So, we passed out 4000 fliers (us and the elders) for english class. We passed out the last couple hundred in mailboxes in buildings by our house, even though we'd originally planned to go to a different area. one of the last apartments by our house we went to had about 50 people in it. we rang about 20 people's bells to get let into the building. We decided that was ridiculous and left without ever getting in. Then we finished passing out the rest of our flyers. At sign up night, we had over 100 people sign up. The last person to come, a girl named Jelena, talked to us for a while, and elder Genther basically shared the whole first lesson and got us a return appointment for tomorrow. She is looking for something more in her life and wants to know if she can find it in our church. It was awesome. We looked for her apartment building on our way home yesterday to make sure we could find it, and then tracted some buildings around there. her apartment is the very last one we put flyers in. if we hadn't been so diligent in passing out flyers, or if we'd been let into that one building, or if we passed them out in that different area instead of by our house, or if tons of other if's these past 2 weeks had happened, we would have never found that girl. it was exciting.
Tuesday we found and taught a college-aged girl named Evica. She had a roommate, a sister, and 3 other friends there, some of which were mildly curious, and others were very much not interested, one of which ran out of the room giggling and laughing during the prayer at the end. Hopefully she was laughing at butchered croatian, not the gospel, but either way, she wasn't at all interested. We found Evica when we were tracting, and we taught her about the restoration. when we started to talk about Joseph Smith, she said something like ˝that's just like me. there are so many churches, and i'm looking for the truth.˝ She's one of the first people I've ever met here like that, who wasn't content with what they had and wanted more. She said she'd read the book of mormon, and we set up another appointment. unfortunately, when we called that day to confirm it, she said she was actually really busy and didn't have time for something like this right now. I just hope the peer pressure didn't scare her off. That day we also talked to a student named Zvonimir. He seemed really interested and said he'd read a the book of mormon and meet with missionaries to talk about it, but when we called him back, he laughed and hung up. that was a little frustrating.
On wednesday, we taught a mom named Žužika who had a 3 yr old girl named Sara and a 8 or so yr old boy named Petar I think. Her husband came in towards the end. They're a really cool family. They weren't really looking for anything more in their lives or interested in changing their lives, unfortunately, but it felt really good to be in the home of a family that loved each other and worked together and where the parents worked really hard to love and teach their children. I hope we can show them that the gospel really can bless their family like it's blessed mine.
Seminary was good. Marijana brought a friend named Mihael. She's really good at sharing the gospel and bringing friends to things. At church we had almost 20 people at church yesterday, including missionaries, some of which haven't come for months, and 1 of which had never come before. A lot of the people were there just to see and hear elder genther before he left, not for the gospel, but it was still nice to have lots of people at church.
Well, that's my week. love you all!
Sestra Black
Hey, wanna hear a cool miracle that happened this week? So, we passed out 4000 fliers (us and the elders) for english class. We passed out the last couple hundred in mailboxes in buildings by our house, even though we'd originally planned to go to a different area. one of the last apartments by our house we went to had about 50 people in it. we rang about 20 people's bells to get let into the building. We decided that was ridiculous and left without ever getting in. Then we finished passing out the rest of our flyers. At sign up night, we had over 100 people sign up. The last person to come, a girl named Jelena, talked to us for a while, and elder Genther basically shared the whole first lesson and got us a return appointment for tomorrow. She is looking for something more in her life and wants to know if she can find it in our church. It was awesome. We looked for her apartment building on our way home yesterday to make sure we could find it, and then tracted some buildings around there. her apartment is the very last one we put flyers in. if we hadn't been so diligent in passing out flyers, or if we'd been let into that one building, or if we passed them out in that different area instead of by our house, or if tons of other if's these past 2 weeks had happened, we would have never found that girl. it was exciting.
Tuesday we found and taught a college-aged girl named Evica. She had a roommate, a sister, and 3 other friends there, some of which were mildly curious, and others were very much not interested, one of which ran out of the room giggling and laughing during the prayer at the end. Hopefully she was laughing at butchered croatian, not the gospel, but either way, she wasn't at all interested. We found Evica when we were tracting, and we taught her about the restoration. when we started to talk about Joseph Smith, she said something like ˝that's just like me. there are so many churches, and i'm looking for the truth.˝ She's one of the first people I've ever met here like that, who wasn't content with what they had and wanted more. She said she'd read the book of mormon, and we set up another appointment. unfortunately, when we called that day to confirm it, she said she was actually really busy and didn't have time for something like this right now. I just hope the peer pressure didn't scare her off. That day we also talked to a student named Zvonimir. He seemed really interested and said he'd read a the book of mormon and meet with missionaries to talk about it, but when we called him back, he laughed and hung up. that was a little frustrating.
On wednesday, we taught a mom named Žužika who had a 3 yr old girl named Sara and a 8 or so yr old boy named Petar I think. Her husband came in towards the end. They're a really cool family. They weren't really looking for anything more in their lives or interested in changing their lives, unfortunately, but it felt really good to be in the home of a family that loved each other and worked together and where the parents worked really hard to love and teach their children. I hope we can show them that the gospel really can bless their family like it's blessed mine.
Seminary was good. Marijana brought a friend named Mihael. She's really good at sharing the gospel and bringing friends to things. At church we had almost 20 people at church yesterday, including missionaries, some of which haven't come for months, and 1 of which had never come before. A lot of the people were there just to see and hear elder genther before he left, not for the gospel, but it was still nice to have lots of people at church.
Well, that's my week. love you all!
Sestra Black
Monday, January 23, 2012
[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
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
Monday, January 16, 2012
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
Yeah, so that's been my week.
Love you lots!
Sestra Black
Monday, January 9, 2012
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
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
Monday, January 2, 2012
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
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
Monday, December 26, 2011
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
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
Monday, December 19, 2011
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
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
Monday, December 12, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, December 5, 2011
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
Love you all!
Sestra Black
Monday, November 28, 2011
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
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
Monday, November 21, 2011
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
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
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