Marc Elliot, What Makes You Tic? My Journey from Tourette's to Tolerance

This is a delightful, extremely honest book. It has a great message. I am proud to own an inscribed copy.

hey everyone!

well, this week has been pretty good. we beat all our weekly goals except for sacrament attendance. Either we are horrible at helping people understand why church is important, or... something. it's easier for people to commit to baptism than to attend a church service. i don't know why. if anyone has ideas for fixing that problem, i'm open to advice, because i'm out of ideas. or if someone wants to move here and buy a car and help drive people to church and never move away, that would be appreciated as well. well, here are the people we have on date for baptism: Andrea- I'm so excited she finally agreed to a date. and she's not living with her ex-boyfriend anymore, so that's a huge step. and i'm glad she's meeting with us more regularly now. I'm excited about her. Mirjana- Marijana's grandma. She's great. she doesn't understand 100% all of the concepts, so we'll have to re-teach some things like the plan of salvation and such a couple times, but she's committed to do everything she can to support this church because of all we've done for her family. Ivica- Marijana's brother. He just needs to stop drinking coffee and smoking. and we have to figure out how he can go to church because his job makes him work on sunday. The working on sundays will be the hardest part. His grandma's way excited about that though. She's been saying for the past couple weeks how much she wished Ivica would start caring about religion and coming closer to christ. We were having a lesson with mirjana, and he was passing by, so we asked him to sit and talk with us a bit. Marina- Her dad still doesn't want her to get baptized or go to church, so we'll need a miracle for her to be able to be baptized right now. and i have full faith she'll get that if she does everything she can to make this happen. the hard thing is that she's not putting this first right now, so we'll see. she still can definitely do it though. Petar- He's some guy that asked us for help with writing a letter in english, so after we helped him, we read a couple scriptures with him, and asked him to be baptized. he said sure, as long as he's not in america (he wants to get a job in america. we'll see if he gets it.) we're going to hand him off to the elders though. it'll make things easier.

I'm pretty excited about these. It's great, because the biggest reasons people have for not being baptized or interested are: I'm too old, I've been catholic too long, so i can't change now, and once in a blue moon, I'm muslim. but andrea's muslim, and mirjana's been very catholic for a very long time.

Elder Texeira is coming to our mission on thursday, so that should be cool.

Suzana got a job on the coast and is moving tomorrow. she says if her fiance doesn't change his mind about letting her get baptized by the time she gets back, she's moving out on her own. I'm pretty sure she'll get baptized this year, even if i'm not still in osijek when it happens.

We started teaching this man from india because we were eating lunch last week in his restaurant, and we started talking to him. We gave him an english book of mormon for now, until we can get him a hindi one. we went back on friday, and he was asking us tons of questions about how he would know if it was true and what happens after death and such. it was fun. usually people don't ask questions about things like that, things that actually are important questions to ask. it was nice. so now we're teaching an albanian, nigerian, and an indian man. i think that's pretty much all the foreigners in the city, besides serbians or bosnians. osijek's not very diverse.

We met with Vera again. I asked her this week if she believes that Jesus is her savior. she seemed really offended that i would even ask, but then basically said that Jesus was a great example of how to live, but He wasn't any different than muhammed or buddha or any other religious figure. It's really sad, because she's only been baptized a little over a year, and already she's rejected most of the things she accepted as truth then.

Well, have an awesome week. love you guys!

čao svi

Hey everyone, how's it going. it's only been like 4-5 days, so i don't really have that much to say... so I recently met the first black person I've seen in osijek. His name is something like Cyriecus (he says to call him Sirius, but i don't know how his name's supposed to be pronounced). He went on and on about how in his country, everyone talks to each other and accepts each other, but Croats just look at like you're crazy, and they all go to church, but they're not really Christian. He studies at the Evangelical college down the street from our house where everyone thinks we live. We also met a man from india who owns a restaurant just a block away from our house. As much as I love Croats, it was fun to talk to someone who wasn't one.

I may have talked about this before, but the 2 main philosophies we fight here are ˝Bog je jedan˝ and ˝Svi ima svoje˝ I'm so tired of those phrases. The hard thing is that they're true in a sense, but they use it to mean something completely false. ˝Bog je jedan˝ means God is one, and svi ima svoju vjeru means that everyone has their own faith/religion, and you shouldn't try to change that, but just respect that we're all different. There's only one God for the whole earth, and we all pray to the same god, and people can come closer to God by following any religion. that's true, but they use it to mean that God doesn't care how we worship him, and that yeah, Jesus said everyone has to be baptized, but he couldn't have actually meant that because hindus and muslims have great religions too, and what matters religion-wise is just that you follow the traditions of your forefathers. It drives me crazy. When noah was a prophet, everyone on the earth had to listen to just that one prophet, or they'd drown. God hasn't changed. If he wants the whole earth to do something, he tells the prophet. I don't see why people think that's such an incomprehensible concept. It's bold, but not scripturally unfounded or illogical

We made Marina (Marijana's friend that has been investigating for about a year) a calendar to help prepare her for baptism and fix her relationship with her dad. If she does everything we she possibly can to be ready, God will do the rest and soften his heart. We read Moroni 7 with her, 29-33 or so, about how God will do miracles, if we have faith, that we can do ˝everything that's expedient˝ in Christ. and then we read the next verse, of what's expedient in Christ-- to be baptized. She really felt like those verses were written for her. She has been doing more than she has before, and she doesn't quite have faith that our plan will work, but she's putting forth work.

We finally met with Vera for the first time since elder lifferth left. She thinks that she made the decision to be baptized way too fast, and that it wasn't really necessary, that it doesn't matter what church you belong to. that was really sad to hear from her.

Last night when we were tracting, we ran into a woman whose daughter is in a hospital in Rijeka because she has autism to the point of aggression. We felt the spirit really strong as she shared her concerns about God and we just testified that God loves her and that our trials in life are because God loves us and wants us to grow, not because He doesn't care and wants to make us suffer. She didn't let us come back or have her number, but she said she'd read the plan of salvation pamphlet and hopefully get some answers that way. I think I'll write her a letter about some of the restored truths we have from prophets in our day on this subject. and maybe give her the conference talk from last year that had the story about the girl in the icu who had angels watching over her. I wish the people here in croatia could understand how much they need what I'm trying to give them.

Well, that's all for today. Transfers are in a week. I'm pretty sure I'm staying here for another half a transfer at least. I'll let you know next week though. Thanks for staying tuned. Have an awesome week!

love, Sestra Ariana Black

Ariana’s bye week

Ariana told us a week ago that she might not write this week. She and her district were meeting in Bosnia, or something like that. . . . [Update] so of course 5 minutes after I get around to posting this, I see she wrote today. :) /kjb

Another author for KJB to read

Recommended by an Argentine co-worker when he heard I'd read some Borges: Julio Cortázar

Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

Zdravo!

Well, Bosnia was fun. I got permission to do emails today since we were gone on monday. This week was pretty good. I gave marijana a list of the 3 or 5 inactive members who are her age, and she looked them up on facebook and asked if they'd come to church, and one of them, a boy named Toni accepted the invitation. his mom used be an active member and play piano for our church, but then she got a paid job to play piano in a different church, so she stopped coming. Toni has started to read the book of mormon, starting with suggested chapters from marijana, and now he's just reading from the beginning, and he came to church on sunday, and he's working towards receiving the priesthood, and he says he'll start going to seminary. I'm way excited about it. Hopefully that will lead to the rest of his family being active again.

I almost planned myself an exchange to bosnia (with president rowe's permission of course), but it's ridiculous going from osijek to sarajevo and back again, or meeting somewhere in the middle and switching companions, so it didn't work out. but we might still do it a different time. It would be interesting going from a catholic to a muslim country. (don't worry mom, i still have been practicing my asking for big things skills)

So I don't know how much I've said about this, but on the 1st of June, we'll have a celebration to commemorate the first baptism in Yugoslavia 40 yrs ago, and it'll be a huge event with tons of famous people there and lots of cool activities and events, including baptisms in the Adriatic, a history tour of where Čosić translated the Book of mormon, hiding the manuscripts because of communism, where the first baptism was, the first place they met, etc., so we're working really hard to get all of the members and their family and friends to come to the event. and maybe the missionaries will be able to attend as well. it depends on us making our goals. And then we have district conference that sunday in zagreb, which will also celebrate how this is the first time of having missionaries in every european country, with the opening of Bosnia, Montenegro, and Macedonia this transfer.

The most heartbreaking thing of the week was that Kristina decided that our church isn't different enough from the catholic church to be worth disappointing her family and being baptized again. It was really disappointing. We haven't quite given up on her completely, but it was really sad. Things were going so well, and then all of a sudden, she gave up. I've been told several times that I'm not allowed to get discouraged, but it's frustrating when people don't want to make the changes in their lives that you know will make them happier than any other choice they could make.

Did I tell you Marijana's grandma's getting baptized? We set a date for the 19th. I'm excited. That shows all the people I talk to every day who say they're too set in their ways to change religion. we had a lesson with her where basically she just talked forever about how she knows our church is true because it helps people and does what Christ would want it to do. The biggest problem is her husband thinks she's crazy and isn't very excited about all of this, but he'll come around hopefully.

President Rowe was here on sunday, which was awesome, as always. He visited with all the members, and his croatian is getting a lot better. he's been slowly learning. after Church he gave marijana a blessing for her health problems and the surgery she was going to have on monday, but the surgery was pushed to the 16th. It was a really great blessing about God showing his power through her. I wish she could be a normal healthy kid. She's got a lot of faith. In less than a year, she's helped the branch here more than all the other members combined except maybe zoran, and probably more than some of the missionaries that have been here. My experience here would've been a lot different without her.

Oh, speaking of zoran, he moved to the coast for the summer, like everyone else in this city, so we're down to no priesthood besides the missionaries once again. luckily, Toni and Alen are both working on being more active and receiving the priesthood.

Well, things are pretty good here in Osijek. Have an awesome day.

love,
Sestra Ariana Black

Avery, From Mission to Madness: Last Son of the Mormon Prophet

I read this biography of David Hyrum Smith maybe a few months ago. It is missing important details one would want for definite diagnosis, but it probably has all the biographical information that is available. A must read for LDS psychiatrists.

Orson Scott Card, A War of Gifts

This long short story must be one of the most unlikely, not to say bizarre, Christmas books ever written. Yet it shows remarkable skill in its craft, and extraordinary insight into human motivation.

James Rollins, The Last Oracle

Re-read this a few weeks ago. Was worth one read, probably not two.

Charles Dickens, Hard Times

It was one of my 50-cent library discard airplane reading books. Picked it up mostly because a smart friend with good taste loves Dickens. I still avoided it for a long time. Finally took it on the plane and finished it a day or two later. I can't believe the dude's skill. He wrote this for serial publication, i.e. keeping to a strict deadline for each chapter. Good characterization, plausible motives, a morsel of mystery, and of course lots of plot. A somewhat too-obvious theme (though the introductory essay by Robert Donald Spector argues for a more nuanced message). I can't believe Dickens published this book that is so down on monogamy with a poorly suited partner, knowing his wife would read it ... but then again, he reportedly took no pains to hide his mistress either.

It was fascinating that the day after I finished the most persuasive pro-divorce chapter of this book, I had a most inspiring conversation with a faithful Protestant colleague who was remaining faithful to (as he phrased it) "the woman I covenanted with before God," even though she had recently divorced him. He was living the advice of Ephesians 5:25.

Otto Reimherr, ed., Quest for Faith, Quest for Freedom: Aspects of Pennsylvania's Religious Experience

Includes an essay by Reimherr, "The Susquehanna: Mormonism's Jordan," but I also read essays on two early African-American clerics, Isaac Leeser and his remarkable contributions to American Jewish culture, a comparison of 3 early Roman Catholic intellectuals in Philadelphia, and a history of Katherine Mary Drexel.

Rick Riordan, The Son of Neptune

So despite not thinking much of the first one, I like reading these books. The quality is improving.

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

The book was on my dresser for a year or so after I started it, waiting to be finished. I finally did.

I'm sure it's been said before, but . . .

Still waiting for a plot, waiting for interest, waiting for relevance, waiting for enlightenment. . . .

Hey everyone!

I hope you're having a wonderful week. Things are pretty good in Osijek. This week has had some miracles and some big disappointments. Dužanka, who I thought was about to get a baptismal date, gave up. She was beginning to get answers, but it was too much work, and things didn't happen as fast as she wanted, and she's overwhelmed with life, and she says she can't do it anymore. We haven't given up on her yet, but if she's given up believing she'll get an answer, she won't get one. The highlight of the week was friday. We had a lesson with Kristina where we watched the restoration movie, and we finally got her and Marijana together. It was awesome for Kristina to have someone who's going through what she is. My testimony of member-present lessons was strengthened. At aktivnost, Matea, an investigator who is going to school in Zagreb, but is from here, came, and she brought 2 friends.

Marijana's grandma came to church this week, and we asked her if we could meet with her, and she agreed. Marijana asked her if she'd get baptized, and she said maybe. I knew she was ready. she's seen how much the book of mormon and this church has blessed Marijana's life, and she wants to learn about that. Marijana has been sharing scriptures that she's found through her scripture study with her grandma, and it's been softening her heart to the book of mormon. I'm so excited about that. and seeing how excited Marijana is about it makes it so much more exciting. For english spiritual thought, we made a chart for questions of the soul, and invited people to find answers from the book of mormon, and it got a few people more excited about the book of mormon. that was cool. We also had a very good lesson with Žužika, a woman who has a really cute family who we met with once, but haven't seen in a couple months. She really got a good understanding of our purpose, and I feel like we were bold and loving in our invitations. She didn't accept everything, but I feel like I did everything I could to help her understand our message.

Elder Wade and Mulder were here for some visa stuff for a couple days from Varaždin, so we sent them on some goose hunts for us to find people. It was fun to have some servants for a couple days.

Seminary was awesome, like every week. Elder and Sister Taylor, who are leaving in a couple days, came to visit for the last time. I love having lessons with her. We'll be talking about something in the old testament, and she'll bring up a scripture in the Book of mormon that goes along perfectly with it that she found in her scripture study that week. She knows much more about the book of mormon than most kids her age, especially ones that have been members for less than a year. She really understands the principle of finding answers and revelation through scripture study.

On sunday, President Babić, the district president, came to Osijek with the district Relief Society president and her councilor. That was cool. They've never come before. I was disappointed Kristina didn't come. She needs to come to church, or she can't get baptized. I would've loved for her to hear President Babić's talk too. it was really good. I gave a talk about charity too. It's sort of annoying. there isn't really a good translation for the word charity. in the bible it usually just uses ljubav, but that's love, and most of the official church stuff uses dobrohotnost, but most people I've talked to say that's a horrible translation, and I'm not sure what connotations it has. I think the new Book of Mormon they're translating uses the word dobrotvornost... i don't know. I can't wait until the new Book of Mormon comes out. That'll be exciting. They're pretty much done, they're just working on finishing the guide to the scriptures that's in the back.

have an awesome week!
love you guys!
Sestra Ariana Black