Hello, friends and family. Yet another week has rolled on
by, and here we are again. Thankfully some interesting stuff has happened this
week, so I still have something to write about!
For starters, last Monday evening we had a 3rd sister
missionary arrive! So, now Sister Turner is here with the other two sisters as
a trio. They're really doing well already. Later that night, we had dinner at a
part member home with the Newtons also there, and of course gave a spiritual
thought at the end.
On Tuesday we got to see another member that's been having a
hard time coming to church the past while, and it was really good to see him
again. As a bit of a spoiler, he ended up coming to church again this week!
Anyway, after that we had district meeting at the Newtons', during which I got
to talk about President Grant's last weekly letter for our lesson. I'm gonna
miss him. Then we all practiced teaching about why Christ as our savior is
necessary, since almost everyone here belongs to the Islam faith, which holds
the belief that there is no need for Christ or any other savior. You know,
sometimes it is good to think about why Christ is necessary and how he actually
does help us, since we wear his name on our name tags and it's by the entrance
to our church buildings and everything like that. The main point that I seemed
to figure out is that Christ didn't enable God to forgive us, but rather
enabled us all to really repent and become better people and inherit the
Kingdom of Heaven in the end. From district meeting, we did some running around
to get to a lesson on time and then get to the church on time for online final
interviews with President Grant, plus another lesson and then ECG.
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| Jesus Christ's Atonement is needed for us to get back to our Heavenly Father |
Wednesday started of with us getting a call from a
maintenance type guy (that the building manager had apparently asked to fix
something) saying that he was coming to fix the something in 15 minutes, so we
had to drop what we were doing and run over there to open the doors for him. He
never even came. I don't even understand. For lunch we met up with one of our
friends/investigators that we met through ECG. He's a Muslim, and we talked
over lunch about some of the big similarities between Islam and our religion. I
shared some scriptures with him from the Book of Mormon that showed some ways
we believe in similar things as them. After lunch we headed out to another
lesson with one of the guys we'd taught just the day before, on Tuesday. We
tried teaching him the plan of salvation, but he had so many questions that we
didn't even get half way through it. It just so happened that one of the
questions he asked was why Christ or any savior would be necessary? His
thinking was mostly, "why can't we just tell God sincerely that we repent
of our sins and have it be over with?" It's a good point, of course, but
like we explained to him and had just talked about at district meeting, the
purpose of Christ as a savior isn't to enable God to forgive us, but to help us
to repent and really change on the way. After that we had another lesson with our
main investigator, the one on baptismal date, and we talked about the Word of
Wisdom, our law of health (what things to or not to eat/drink/etc). It just so
happens that he'd already read a bit about it on LDS.org and has been living
it. What a great guy. For dinner that night we went with the sisters of to the
home of one of the embassy families that's here in the branch, and we had a
solid American meal of barbecue pulled pork sandwiches. Being that I recently
discovered that they own an accordion, after dinner we spent some time playing
and singing some church songs together, me on accordion and others on ukulele.
That was pretty fun.
On Thursday we had some business to take care of in the
morning, then a lesson with one of the investigators that Elder Perry and I
found shortly after I got here. We've been having lessons with him here and
there as often as he has time for (which isn't too often), but stuff is going
pretty well with him still. He has a few hang-ups (but pretty much everyone
does), but he knows that the Book of Mormon is true, so he's on the right path
so far. For lunch we went to Woki, the restaurant that's right next to the
church, as is not uncommon. We had the same waitress as always (we're pretty
good friends with her by now), but she told us just before we headed out that
she would be leaving Sarajevo for a while, and probably wouldn't be able to
work there again when she got back. So, we got her phone number and gave her
our information about ECG and when we have church and everything, so that she
can come to all that stuff once she's back. I don't know why we haven't invited
her before... Anyway, we also gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon as a
parting gift, and she seemed excited about it. After that we had another lesson
with that same guy as the two days before, but this time we got to finish
talking about the plan of salvation. At the end of the night we got together
with the Newtons, the sisters, and some other friends of the church, since it
was someone's birthday. Elder Smith and I ended up talking with her parents for
a while, teaching them about the restoration, the Book of Mormon, and how our
church is different from other Christians. The dad at one point asked,
"how can I get a copy of that book?" so we just handed him a copy of
the Book of Mormon right then. That kind of missionary work is my favorite,
like with the waitress at Woki. The kind where just end up being someone's
friend, and get to share with them the whole reason you're even over here in
Bosnia.
Friday we finally got in some contacting time, since we'd
been busy the rest of the week with other lessons and business stuff. Not a
whole lot of people really listened, but I guess that's fine. We also of course
had another lesson with our baptismal candidate, and stuff is still going
really well with him. We've been working out some details for his baptism, like
the white clothes for him, or who will talk at the baptism. Hopefully before
you all get another email from me, there'll be another member of the church in
the Sarajevo branch. It'll be great.
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| Me and Elder Smith with Sisters Turner, Orchard, and Beus at a cafe where we stopped for a cool drink on p-day. |
On Saturday morning we had service like usual, where we go
up to the horseback riding place and help with therapeutic riding. The sisters
came too, and so there was some weird stuff about rides on how to get us all up
there and back. On the way up, Elder Smith and I just got picked up super early
and did our studies up there while the sisters then got picked up. On the way
back, though, we had to get a ride from someone up there that I hadn't ever
met. He drove us back down off the mountain and into town, but he dropped us
off in an edge of the city that I'd never been to before. So, we asked some
people for some directions, and started walking the way they pointed. After a
solid half-hour or so, we got to somewhere I recognized, and then another
half-hour and we were finally back at the church to start cleaning. Even though
we definitely left service before the sisters, they'd mostly already finished
their part of cleaning the church. Thankfully they were willing to stick around
a bit longer and help us with our cleaning, since we were behind schedule. That
evening we of course had another lesson with our friend who's getting ready for
baptism, and we finally finished teaching him everything. He's such a great
guy. A bit later, we had a lesson in the park with a guy that had apparently
known the missionaries about 7 months ago, and he was pretty cool. It's always
really interesting to me to think that there's been at least 2 missionaries in
this city for all of the last 5 years, and how many people in total all of
those missionaries have talked to, and where those people might be or if they'd
be willing to learn more. Thankfully we have an "Area Book" that's a
huge binder of stuff like that written down, but unfortunately a lot of the
phone numbers in their don't work anymore, or if there's an address it's
extremely hard to find without something like a GPS.
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| This building in Sarajevo still shows signs of the war. |
Sunday started off with church, of course, and I played
piano for that like usual. The interesting part this time was for the closing
hymn, Called To Serve, when I totally wrecked the intro. It's fine though,
haha. Our main investigator came, of course, as well as one of the sisters' new
investigators that they'd found this week. And as I mentioned earlier, that member
came who had been having a hard time getting here! It was really great to see
him there again. After church we did our weekly planning, and a bunch of phone
calls to try and set up lessons, since it was raining. It's pretty interesting
to see how few people go outside here whenever it's raining. The streets just
go vacant.
Today I lost my wallet. Or rather, someone pick-pocketed me
while on the crowded tram. I remember when I put it in my pocket, and it was
only maybe 5 minutes later that it was gone. Sigh...
Your homework for this week is to read Alma 40-42, which
talks about mercy, justice, Christ's Atonement, and related things. Try to read
it with the perspective that Christ performed the Atonement so that we can
really become better people.
Have a great week! Watch your pockets. Here are some photos.
--
Elder Ryan Echols--
Adriatic North Mission
Svačićev Trg 3/1
HR-10000 Zagreb
Croatia
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