Week 26: A lot of Visa Stuff, and Some Moves

Hello once again, friends and family. I hope you've all been doing well recently. This week we found out about transfers! The news is that I'll be staying in Sarajevo with Elder Perry. One of the two sisters in the city, Sister Locey, is getting moved out, though. So, our city will not be entirely without change.

Sister Locey was transferred to Zadar, Croatia. She will be missed in Sarajevo!

Tuesday started off with us doing some visa work, again. Visa work takes up a lot of our time, really. Later in the day we had a second lesson with the guy from last Thursday. It doesn't seem like our message is quite clicking with him in one way or another. We're trying our best though, and maybe something will hit a light bulb soon. Our other lesson fell through. The rest of the day was mostly just regular stuff, including English Conversation Group. After that, for dinner, we went to this cool Palačinke place for dinner. It has a whole bunch of awesome old stuff everywhere, with old music playing. Quite an interesting atmosphere, with really good food too.

Wednesday we did more visa work, and a notable amount of contacting. We also got stood up for 2 lessons, one of which was supposed to be with our golden investigator from Monday. So, that's sad. It's ok, though.

Thursday we did more visa stuff (don't worry, it's pretty much done now), and found out about transfers. We also helped the Ostergaards meet one of the recent converts here, and it was decided that we'd be starting an institute class here! First one ever in Sarajevo, if I understood correctly. So, we'll be teaching that soon.

On Friday we finished up doing my visa stuff, so that's good to have done. We also had district meeting, of course. Later in the day, after language study, we went back to the church and discovered that Sisters Locey and Rougeau had set up a scavenger hunt for us (for Elder Perry's year mark). At the end was a big chocolate cake that they had made. Happy year mark to Elder Perry! Later that night we had a lesson with a recent convert, and he really liked the cake too.

Elder Perry with his cake to mark one year in the mission field!

Sisters Rougeau and Locey made the cake for Elder Perry and put together a scavenger hunt.

On Saturday we had a lesson with someone we'd met on the street a few days before, and he talked a lot. It was definitely good, though, haha. Later on, we got to go with the Newtons to do some service, helping with therapeutic horseback riding, and that was pretty cool. While still in our service clothes, we also went to help someone move, in a way. First time helping someone move while on the mission! I'd call that a solid Elders' Quorum activity.

Elder Echols and Elder Perry helping out at Riders of Hope

On Saturday night we had Sister Locey's farewell dinner. (Whenever a missionary gets moved out, the Newtons treat the district to a dinner at the choice of the departing missionary). We had dinner at a rotating restaurant at the top of a really tall building. It was super fancy, and generally awesome. In case you haven't heard, Bosnia is really inexpensive, so our meals were something like $15 each, despite it being one of the nicest restaurants in Sarajevo. 

Sister Locey at her farewell dinner. That's a giant creme brulee in front of her!

"American Pie" is on the menu!!

On Sunday, we of course had church like we do every Sunday, but this time I had a talk. I feel like it went pretty well. Also, Sister Rougeau had a special musical number, and it was splendid. After church, since Sister Locey is getting transferred, we got a bunch of photos of her and the branch together. For the rest of the evening, Elder Perry and I did a whole lot of phone calls to set up some lessons and such. A lot of phone calls.

Elders Echols and Perry, Sisters Newton, Locey and Rougeau, and Brother Newton.

Your homework for this week is to listen to (or read) Come Unto Christ, a speech given by Henry B. Eyring at BYU back in the day. I don't know really what to say about it, except that it's really good. It's fairly self explanatory. It talks about how we can be better disciples of Christ.

Here are some pics of the city from a huge tower. Sarajevo is pretty cool.

The view from the top of the Avaz Tower in Sarajevo

Selfie 35 floors up!!

I hope you all are doing well, and that you have a great week!

--

Elder Ryan Echols
Adriatic North Mission
Svačićev Trg 3/1
HR-10000 Zagreb
Croatia