Week 50: A Mystery Microwave Lasagna, and a lot of Enchiladas

Hello everyone! I hope you all are doing well and enjoying life. I don't really know what else to say as an intro, so here we go.

I forget what I told you last Monday about what we did, but long story short is that we went up on the mountain again to see the old Olympic bobsled track, and old WWII memorial, and some other stuff. After that, when we came back into town, we made a stop at one of the huge malls, and I bought a tie that was 75% off of its original price. That evening we also had branch FHE, which was mostly playing sports in the park. We had a few of our friends from ECG also show up to that, and it was great. That night, Elder Smith and I finally took the baptismal font down, now that the hole is (hopefully) patched and sealed up. I guess we'll see how well that patch does its job the next time we have a baptism, haha.

Me and Elder Smith at the Olympic Bobsled track in Sarajevo.

On Tuesday morning, we had a "lesson" in a café with the husband and wife that I mentioned a long time ago (right when we got the new Croatian translation of The Book of Mormon). That was the first time we'd been able to meet with them since that first lesson out at their place. Let's just say the setting was less than ideal, with how loud it was and everyone smoking, but I still think we made a small amount of progress. When we left, we smelled like cigarettes. At some point in the afternoon, we went to go pick up a package that we'd ordered a while back that finally arrived. The package was a Croatian triple combination (so, scriptures) that we were getting as a gift for our newest member. That's the 3rd Croatian triple combination I've seen in my life, since they're so new. Anyway, we ended up writing some notes in it (the sisters too) in preparation for giving it to him.

Wednesday wasn't terribly eventful, except for having tacos for lunch, and then something that happened while we were contacting. We talked to a lady who seemed interested, but she said that she lives outside of town, so she wouldn't have time to come into the city later in the week, but that she had time right there. So, she got her two granddaughters out of the nearby store, and then we all sat down at a nearby café and talked about The Book of Mormon and such. Apparently she was Orthodox, and she was really funny. She kept jokingly asking us if we were some sect and if we were trying to pull her off the right path. She was pretty interested in what The Book of Mormon said about Jesus, though, and how that lines up with the Bible. At the end, we gave her a Croatian copy, and she looks at it, then asks if we have it in Cyrillic. So, we say yes and I give her the one Serbian copy that I happen to have in my bag. She was pleased with that.

My Bosnian nametag against the backdrop of the Bosnian mountains.

That night we were doing some phone calls to potential investigators to try to set up lesson, and towards the end we get a call from an unknown number. Elder Smith talked to him, and apparently the guy said that we'd called him, but he'd just missed the call. The confusing part is that we didn't have his number in our phone anywhere at all. Our phone didn't recognize it. So, either he has two phone numbers and just called us back from the other one(?), or that was a miracle. He asked if he could come to church, and we obviously said yes, and gave him the details.

Thursday morning we had a huge runaround with an investigator that lives out of town that told us he was in town and could meet, but then ditched us, mixed in with the repair guys surprisedly calling us saying that they were already at the church to look at our AC unit (and we weren't there to let them in). A bit off a mess of a morning. Though, one big highlight of the day was lunch! Haha. We decided to make mashed potatoes and fried chicken, with gravy. That was probably the most classically American meal that I've had in a good while. So good. They have burgers and pizza around here, which are good, but they do it a bit differently from in America. In any case, we're planning on having that again for lunch this week at some point.

Fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, which me and Elder Smith made ourselves.

Later on in the day, just before ECG, we had our first actual lesson with that lady (who we originally met through ECG) that had come to the recent baptism. We also had a member present on the lesson: the most recent convert! He was super useful to have on that lesson, and helped answer her questions in a really clear way. That night for dinner I really didn't want to put any effort into it, and somehow found a microwave lasagna in the freezer, even though I didn't remember buying it. So, I guess you could call that another miracle for the week, haha.

On Friday we visited Haris, and discovered that he was feeling sick, so we gave him a blessing. He then helped us figure out who some inactive members might be for us or the sisters to visit, and we made some good progress there. On the bus ride back, we talked to some cool college-age kids that were apparently learning English, and invited them to come to ECG this next week. From the bus, we had to rush over to a lesson with a guy that Elder Perry and I had contacted back on my birthday, in March. He's in a branch of Islam that specifically focuses on love and tolerance, and avoiding hate. What a great guy. We ended up having our lesson in a café, which is of course sub-optimal, but it actually wasn't too bad this time. We had a very respectful conversation, and learned plenty about what he believes. He told us he'd talk to us in a month or two when he finishes reading The Book of Mormon... that's fine. Immediately after that, we had a lesson with our most recent member, and talked about the priesthood a bit, and answered some of his questions. I love that he always has questions.

The old WWII Memorial in Sarajevo.

Saturday morning we had service, and so we went up kinda early. We had the same rider as last week (in case you forgot, the service we do here is hippo-therapy: therapy for children with special needs, using horseback riding), and he seemed to have a really good time with it again. That afternoon we cleaned the church and such, and set some goals for August with the sisters. After that, we went to visit our member-friend across the city that likes to paint. Stuff still hasn't quite finished up with the sale of his mother's old property, but it should be soon. He is doing better, though.

On Sunday, we of course had church. Most of church was just as good as normal, but then at the end we had a big potluck lunch (which was of course awesome). Sister Newton brought a whole bunch of enchiladas, and so we of course ended up taking home a very large quantity of leftovers. We're set for our meals this week. It was really good to have some time to get to know everyone even better, and get various members talking more with each other.

Now, your homework for this week might be kinda hard. I'd like you to read/listen to a series of talks called "A House of Glory" by S. Michael Wilcox. The only problem is that I think it might cost money. We've listened to it over the last week or two, since Elder Smith already had it. In any case, as a backup plan, your secondary homework is to read section 88 in the Doctrine and Covenants, which is the section that says "establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God" in verse 119. See what you can learn about temples. Now, if you don't know what a temple is, your tertiary homework is to read this talk: The Holy Temple—a Beacon to the World, by Thomas S. Monson. Or maybe you can just do all three homework assignments for extra credit. Just learn more about temples!

The Washington D.C. Temple. Our church has about 150 temples worldwide.

Well, that's all I've got for this week, folks. I hope you all are doing well and also doing good (that is, doing good things, perhaps like serving others). Here's a photo from last Monday up at the WWII memorial and a panoramic from the main road in a village in the Bosnian countryside.

Have a great week!
--

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

Week 49: Exchanges, and a Pigeon-Slaying Cat

Hello Everyone! Here we are again at another Monday and I have to figure out something to write about. Good thing I have my journal as source material. Anyway, the weather this week has been about the same as before: just really hot, but not to the point of dying.

Last Monday, after emailing we met two young guys for a lesson, but they had to be somewhere else soon, so it was a very brief lesson. From there we went to do some contacting, and then met the sisters over by the Cathedral to go to the Srebrenica museum. Somehow this was my third time, and I'm still learning stuff about the Yugoslav wars.

This is the Srebenica Museum.

That evening we had another FHE activity for the branch, which included making grilled cheese sandwiches and watching Meet The Mormons. Our newest member was there of course, and he brought his girlfriend! It was really good to have them there, especially with what movie it was. She didn't really know who we are, and he didn't really have any exposure to what the church is like outside of Sarajevo. I think it was awesome for them to get to see that we're a world-wide church with full-size congregations across the world. (If you want to watch the trailer to the movie, click the first image below. If you want to watch the full movie, click the second image below).

"Meet the Mormons" Movie Trailer

 "Meet the Mormons" Full Movie

On Tuesday we started off the day with some phone calls (you end up doing a lot of phone calls as a missionary, trying to keep up with all of your not-quite-investigator friends), and then around lunch time the Banja Luka elders got into town to start exchanges. Elder Smith went up to Banja Luka, and Elder King stayed here with me, so it was like he'd never left! Right off the bat, we had an awesome first lesson with a college-age guy, teaching the Restoration. After that we had a lesson with another pair of younger guys, both Muslims, one being a painter and the other a trumpet player. The painter just kinda chilled and looked at the paintings around the church while his trumpet playing friend grilled us on all of the questions designed to stump Christians. Thankfully we aren't quite like the Christians that he's accustomed to talking to, and we held up really well against it, and committed them both to read The Book of Mormon to see if it's true. After that we had language study and ECG, and at ECG we got one of our participants to agree to meet up with us to learn more about the church! She's the one that came to the baptism, and she's really cool.

Enjoying ice cream during exchanges with Elder King, the Sister Missionaries, and Sister Newton.

Wednesday, Elder King and I went up the hill to visit that less-active member and deliver some cookies, but he and his wife weren't there, so we just left the cookies on the doorstep (they undoubtedly got melted beyond all belief before anyone could eat them), and then started knocking on nearby doors. We got some pretty interesting stuff, including a lady that said she was 90 years old who got really mad at us for preaching religion, and she even simply insulted our language skills. She didn't seem to speak English, though...anyway, we did find one new investigator and one "almost" one that we'll come back to visit sometime soon. After lunch at Woki, we had district meeting and then comp study. Our appointment with that ECG participant lady then fell through, but we were able to meet with a different ECG participant whose father passed away recently and buy some magnets from him. Long story. To shorten it up, we're trying to make sure that he knows that we're here for him. Also, on the way over to that, we found a wallet on the ground filled with Turkish money and credit cards. Thankfully there was a phone number on a business card that had the same name as all of the credit cards, so we called it, had our native-Bosnian friend from ECG talk to him, and then he went to return the wallet, around the corner and across the street to the place where the guy apparently was. That evening, the Newtons took us all to the rotating restaurant, since Elder King never got a farewell dinner, but he was in town again for the exchange.

The view from the rotating restaurant.

On Thursday morning, Elder King and I had to sit at the church to wait for another repairman to come to check out the air conditioning. Yaaaay. A bit later in the day, our RM friend, Haris, came into town to help us with some missionary work. We went contacting with him, and got a new investigator really quick. It was a girl that had actually met the missionaries 2 or 3 years ago. I always think it's cool to know that missionaries have been in this city non-stop for the last 5 years, talking with people almost every day the whole time. When you add it up, that's kinda a lot of people that have spoken, even briefly, with missionaries.

Missionaries stay busy all the time and talk to a lot of people!

After contacting, we had a second lesson scheduled with that really cool young guy from Tuesday, but he didn't show up and wouldn't answer his phone. #whiffed. At that point, Elders Smith and Hole arrived back from Banja Luka in preparation for interviews with President Melonakos and the end of the exchange. The Melonakoses were a bit late though, so we were able to get Elder Smith's stuff back into the apartment really quick before interviews. While President was interviewing everyone, Sister Melonakos sat with the rest of us in the other room, just talking. We also learned the new "mission song" and had a good time with that. The Melonakoses are really great. I'm glad that they're here. After that, Elder Smith and I had a lesson with an older lady, and of course the lesson ran long, almost making us late to ECG. That's fine, though.

On Friday morning we started off with a lesson with our good friend/investigator that's been around since shortly after I arrived. So, we've been teaching him for something like 5 or 6 months. He's still doing well though, he just has a hard time finding time to meet up because of his job. This was the first time we were able to meet up with him since he attended the recent baptism, so we got to talk about that with him. He said that he was surprised how happy everyone was; everyone was acting like it was their own baptism and special day, they were so happy, not just the baptism of one person. After that lesson, we had a lesson with our newest member again. We talked with him about his questions, about the priesthood, and then set up an account for him on LDS.org and FamilySearch, so now he can go do family history work! He seemed pretty excited about that. That evening, we got on a bus to go out of town a bit to visit a member and meet his family some more. They fed us ice cream, some cake, and then sandwiches (in that order). The mom told us some stories from the war, and it was really interesting to hear from a first person perspective.

Saturday morning, we of course had service up at the horseback riding place, and that was pretty great. After that we cleaned the church and such, and then spent some time with that ECG participant whose father recently passed away. Then we went to visit that member that lives in that center across town. He's doing a lot better already, just knowing that he'll be out of there soon. While we were sitting outside talking, I saw a cat sneaking towards a large group of pigeons. Shortly thereafter, the group of pigeons exploded up into the air as the cat ran at them, leaping into the air and grabbing one of the pigeons. The cat pulled it down to the ground and killed it, while some crows made a huge ruckus about the attack. Then the cat calmly walked off with it's dead pigeon. During this whole time, Elder Smith and I were having a hard time paying any attention to what our member friend was saying. Oops. In any case, it was a good lesson, and we got to see a feral cat take down a hideous flying beast. From there we went home, made some more phone calls, and had dinner.

 

As for Sunday, we of course had church, and that lady from ECG came! So, we're making progress there. I might've mentioned it a week or two ago, but Branch President Newton asked me to play a special musical number on accordion today. So, I did. This week I had borrowed an accordion from a member to practice some, and then during church yesterday I played "If You Could Hie To Kolob". People seemed to like it. Haris taught Sunday school about sunflowers and our tendency to follow after things pertaining to light and truth, and then at the end our investigator/ECG friend lady (I apologize for not being able to use names) asked a bunch of somewhat unrelated (but very good) questions. It was great to have her there.

Me playing the accordion.

As for today, we started off with going grocery shopping and doing some reimbursements, and then we went with the sisters up on the mountain to look at the bobsled track and get some cool views of the city.

  

Your homework is to read Why the Church by Elder D. Todd Christofferson. Why would God establish an imperfect organization of imperfect people and call it his? Why do we even need to go to church? Read and find out ;)

Have an awesome week! I hope you all are doing well. Enjoy the pictures.
--

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

Week 48: FHE, Translation, and Pizza

Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a great summer so far and that the weather is nice wherever you are. Over here it's been going between being barely too hot, and just right. So, no complaints here.

Anyway, last Monday evening we missionaries held a branch Family Home Evening (FHE) activity to start facilitating friendships between members and investigators. We played some games, including crazy Uno, and it was great. The turnout was pretty low, since it was the first time, but the people that did come were one member and one investigator, so I think it was effective anyway. We'll be doing it again this week, but we've had more people say that they're coming already.

On Tuesday we went to an inactive member's house to visit him and his wife who isn't a member. They fed us lunch, and we taught them the Restoration for our spiritual message. After that we contacted, had comp study, had a lesson with our recent convert, got ditched for a different lesson, had dinner, and then ECG. Pretty standard day, I guess. The new investigator that we found was a guy from Holland, and he apparently is here on an internship.

Sarajevo is a beautiful place.

On Wednesday we tried getting some appointments set up with a less-active member or an investigator that lives out of town, but those didn't work out, so we ended up with just district meeting and a lot of finding. We used that large block of finding time to go out to a part of our area that is far enough away from our apartment that it never really gets touched. While we were out there, we happened to discover that there's a place where you can go bowling: in Zetra, the old Olympic Hall. Apparently they've re-purposed the place into a recreational center of sorts. We're definitely going to check that out one of these P-days.

  

Thursday morning we were supposed to meet a guy for him to fix the AC in the church, but we were kinda late getting there. I guess it's a good thing he was almost two hours late...? A bit later we had a quick park lesson, and then for lunch we had some leftover burritos. Our lesson with our Dutch friend fell through, and his number wasn't working, so we ended up going out to visit that less-active member. It was a pretty good visit, and as some spoilers, he ended up coming to church this week! While we were visiting him, he also told us some good news; pretty soon he and his siblings will be selling their mom's old property and splitting the money, so that'll be enough for him to buy an apartment. That'll be really good, since right now he's pretty much in a homeless shelter that has plenty of mentally unsound residents. It'll be good for him to get out of there.

Sisters Turner, Orchard, and Beus teach the advanced class in our English Conversation Group (ECG).

Anyway, that evening for ECG, we switched groups with the sisters so that we were the ones with the advanced group. That was pretty fun, getting to know those other participants a bit better. After ECG, our newest member and I helped Sister Turner translate an article for the church's Bosnia page, and that was pretty funny. Sister Turner or I would translate a sentence from English into Bosnian, knowing of course precisely what it means in English, and then our native friend would say that it doesn't make sense, but he'd agree that we got the translation right. So, he was basically just complaining about what it said in English, haha.

We see lots of interesting buildings while we are out and about in Sarajevo.

Friday we had a lot of contacting, and contacted down the river a bit to a really good pizza place called Montana's. After we ordered and were waiting, we discovered that they had stuffed crust pizza. So, now we know what we'll be ordering for next time! A bit later in the afternoon, we did a "finding activity" with the sisters. A scavenger hunt of sorts. We each had a list of particular people to find and try to talk to, such as "an old man with an ice cream cone", or "a college-aged couple". It kinda seemed like any time we'd contact a normal person who wasn't specifically on the list, then someone would walk by us that was on the list, while we were busy talking. In any case, the sisters won, and so we bought them popcorn from the movie theater (we might not be able to watch movies, but that doesn't mean we can't walk into the theater and get popcorn, haha). After that we spent some time with our newest member and his girlfriend, so that we can get to be friends with her too. At the end, even though we didn't specifically talk about religion the whole time, she saw the copy of The Book of Mormon that Elder Smith was holding, and asked to see it, asking what it was. He of course explained it to her, let her keep the copy, and she said that she'd read it. Progress!

The streets of Sarajevo at night.

For Saturday, we started off with contacting, and then had a lesson in the afternoon with our newest member, talking about the priesthood. We don't have any details yet, but the plan is for him to receive the priesthood really soon. So, we're excited for that. After that lesson we cleaned the church with the sisters and figured out a special musical number for church. That night after language study we went contacting some more. We met a guy that basically said "I don't really get what you want to talk about when we meet up, but I'm down. Recently I've been having some really bad luck with dating, and maybe you all can help me figure it out" so that was pretty funny. Sadly he had to cancel for the lesson because he was feeling really sick, but we'll get him eventually.

On Sunday I played the piano for a musical number sung by the other missionaries.

On Sunday, we had a visiting family of members come to church. They've been living in London, but are just on vacation right now around the Balkans. One of the sons passed the sacrament, some of the daughters helped with primary, and I sat with some of them during Sunday School to translate for them. It was really great to have them there. They seemed to enjoy getting to see how the church is doing well even way out here so far from any temples or stakes. After church, we missionaries had a bit of lunch together at the church while Elder Smith was waiting for the office to be free and while the sisters were waiting for a lesson. The rest of the day was just kinda planning and the regular stuff.

Have I mentioned how much I like the food here? Look at this dough pocket full of sausage!

The grocery stores have lots of fun snacks

Today we've paid bills and gotten haircuts and gone grocery shopping and looked for printer int, and it's not even 12:00 yet. Adventures yet await.

Your homework for this week is a bit of a correction from last week. I'm pretty sure I mixed up two chapters. I said to read 2 Nephi 2, but that description was actually about 2 Nephi 31. So, whichever of those two chapters you didn't read last week, read this week. Sorry about the confusion!

Have an awesome week and enjoy life! Talk to you next week.

--

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

Week 47: Intros, Watermelon, and a Baptism!

Hello everyone! Before you ask, yes the baptism did happen! Our investigator got baptized on Saturday just as planned despite some technical difficulties. But if you want to hear about that, you'll have to read through the rest of the email ;)

On Monday after my wallet got stolen and we did our emails, we went with that our investigator and the sisters up the hill a little bit to see some fortresses and such. There are some really cool views up there.

 

On the way down, we somehow decided to run/skip all the way down the huge steep hill. It was pretty fast, but we've been pretty sore this week from that =P From there we met up with the Zone Leaders so our investigator could have is baptismal interview, and then the ZLs slept at our place for the night.

On Tuesday morning Elder Smith and I went for a run, and by the time we came back, Elder King had put on some very American patriotic music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!! Later that day we went to lunch with them at a place called Burger Bar, where they have really good burgers (naturally) rivaling Red Robin. The potato wedges were also pretty killer.

A hearty lunch at the Burger Bar with Elders Smith, Hole, and King.

Shortly after that, Elder Smith and I packed up and got on the 5.5 hour bus ride to Banja Luka so we could get to Zone Conference the next day. We slept at the ZLs' apartment, and so did the APs. So, that was 6 Elders in a 2-person apartment. Some of us were on the floor. Nevertheless, it was good to see all those guys (Elder Perry and Elder King, former companions of mine, were both there).

Elder King and Elder Perry were both at zone conference.

On Wednesday morning we went out and hit a Pekara (bakery) for some breakfast. While there, I happened to look across the street and see a watermelon stand that said "BEST WATERMELON IN THE CITY" (in Bosnian). Then I looked to my right, right next to the Pekara, and saw another watermelon stand owned by a different guy. That one also said "BEST WATERMELON IN THE CITY". Those two guys must be pretty serious rivals, haha. From there we went to the church a bit early and helped set up for Zone Conference a bit. ZC was really good. Since this is President Melonakos' first round of Zone Conferences (oh, we got a new mission president about a week ago, btw), most of it was introductions and testimonies between all of us. It was really good to already get to know President and Sister Melonakos. They'll be great. At the end of the conference, I totally wrecked the intro to the closing hymn and had to 100% start it over. It was pretty funny, though. For the way back to Sarajevo, Elder Smith and I rode with the Newtons, packed in with a whole bunch of other stuff such as leftover pizza that we were taking home from the Zone Conference lunch. #missionaryLife

Zone Conference in Banja Luka

On Thursday, we went to the church to set up the font for the impending baptism, and then we started making programs for the event too. Then the sisters came and we all practiced our musical number for Sunday. We all had lunch there at the church that we'd brought with us. We the Elders had leftover pizza from ZC, and the sisters had panninis plus fruit and vegetables. Thankfully they shared some of their healthy things with us, haha. After district meeting, we had another lesson with our investigator where we watched "Finding Faith in Christ", which is kind of a summary of Christ's life in the old world. I really like it, and since our investigator has never read the New Testament and grew up as a Muslim, a lot of the stories were new to him. That evening we had ECG like usual, and we found out that one of the frequent participants from the advanced group had lost his father very recently. We're already pretty much friends with him, but we're now trying more to make sure that he knows that he's not alone, and that death isn't just the end. After this life we'll still be able to see our friends and family. Anyway, after ECG Elder Smith and Sister Turner practiced their special musical number for the baptism. There have been a lot of musical numbers in the works recently, btw. Apparently I'll be having one in church in 2 weeks too.

Friday morning we went for another run. This time we went more through "Tsentar" and "Bashcharshia" (sorry, I don't have a special keyboard right now). That area is the more touristy spot. So, we ran past a Cathedral, a giant Mosque, some old Turkish buildings, an Orthodox church, and a whole bunch of shops. In case I haven't mentioned it, Sarajevo is a pretty cool place. For almost all of Friday we were just running around printing the programs and getting other stuff ready for the baptism, including practicing some more music with the sisters. Also, we discovered that the quarter watermelon that I'd bought on Monday went bad. Reeeeally bad. Really fast, too. And it took with it the nearby leftover pizza that we had in the fridge.

Now for Saturday. The baptism was scheduled for 3pm, and Sisters Martineau and McColm were each coming from their respective cities with their companions so they could be there, since they got the investigator started on this path anyway. So, we got over to the church right at 10 to start filling up the font. But, the water heater kept turning itself off every 62 seconds. I didn't want the water to be cold for the investigator (or myself), so I had to go push a button on the water heater every 62 seconds to keep it heating. 

This is the font we use for baptisms.

Not too long later, we noticed that the floor around the font was wet. When I say "not too long later" I mean about an hour, or maybe two. Turns out there was a leak, and we started stuffing towels under it to dry it up and maybe stop the leak. They were just getting soaked really fast, though. Elder Smith found the leak on the outside and put his finger on it to stop the water. It was actually really effective, but he was stuck there a while, and I was still going to push that button every 62 seconds to restart the water heater. Party. At some point the sisters and the Newtons showed up with some duct tape to try to help.

Contrary to popular belief, duct tape does not fix everything.

The duct tape didn't work, so the Newtons went to buy something better, while we and the sisters drained the not-so-empty font. We had a lot of buckets and stuff, and Sister Beus ended up getting in the font so she could help hand us buckets of water to dump into the street.

Sister Beus was very helpful.

We also had a pump going, thankfully. Oh, I forgot to mention that the font was basically sitting on top of some electrical panels. Anyway, the whole place got pretty wet and messy with all the buckets going everywhere, but none of it got into the electric panels (we were watching them very closely). The Newtons came back with some superglue type stuff, so we patched it up and had lunch while we waited for it to dry. Then we started filling it back up (this is probably at about 1pm). The Newtons and sisters left to go change and such, and we stayed to continue filling the font. This time we had those buckets and pitchers, and we had every faucet in the place turned on. We were basically running in circles switching out buckets and taking filled ones to the font and dumping them in while other ones were filling up. We also had the main hose as before helping. And the water heater was still turning off every 62 seconds (see the video below). The investigator himself showed up shortly after 2pm, and started helping. Just before 3pm, people of course started showing up, and the font wasn't quite as full as we would've liked, but it was definitely at a level we could work with. So, I went and changed and we had a total of 6 non-members there, plus a whole bunch of missionaries and some local members. The program was great, including that musical number by Elder Smith and Sister Turner, and talks by Sisters McColm and Martineau.

Sister Turner and Elder Smith sang a beautiful song about baptism.

As for the baptism itself, I was the one to do it. Since the water wasn't terribly high, I had to put him down pretty far, and then help him back up a lot. We got it first try, though, so that was great. He was starting to tear up a bit when he came out. It was great. Anyway, after the whole program we had some refreshments and it was great having everyone there for our new member. Once everyone left, we of course had to clean up and stuff, and dry out the font that had been pumping ever since the baptism itself was over. So, that baptism took our entire day, but it was obviously worth it.

  

Yesterday at church, he (our newest member) got confirmed and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. We also did a musical number with the sisters, and that was fun. Later in the day, we had a lesson with a guy we'd met on Friday. I'd noticed before that his hat had Hebrew written on it, and he was wearing it again for our lesson, and it turns out that he's a Jew. So, that's pretty cool. We kinda just find anyone from a bunch of different religions here. He seemed pretty interested in The Book of Mormon and what it says, and we're excited to keep working with him. For the rest of the day we had another lesson, did some planning and phone calls, etc.

Your homework is to read 2 Nephi 2, which is about how Christ provided us with a perfect example by being baptized and following the commandments of the Father. It's pretty good stuff.

  

Here are some photos! Have an awesome week!
--

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