Week 67: Telekinesis, Tracting, and Thanksgiving

Hey everybody! Sorry the email last week got cut short. Here's the rest of what happened last week, starting with Saturday evening:

That evening we of course helped clean the church like we do on Saturdays, and then we had our game night. That was really good, again. One of the younger members brought a friend, and apparently they needed to practice for a performance they have coming up soon, so they performed a few songs for us. She sand, he played guitar, and they were both incredibly good. It was quite remarkable. After that, we all played Uno as they kept practicing.

Playing Uno at game night

On Sunday the district president was here from Belgrade with his family, and he spoke in church. After the meetings, we all had lunch together there at the church, and it was great. Once we got home, we of course did weekly planning.

Now onto this week! This week's weather has been pretty good. Most days have been relatively sunny, and even though it's cold, it's not awful.

So, on Monday morning we started off with a lesson from the area book that I'll call "Pete". He's fairly peculiar, but really nice. He's met with missionaries before, but I'm not sure how much he remembers since it was a number of years ago. He hasn't been baptized, even in the orthodox church, but he wants to. He also says that he has telekinesis and seems to honestly believe it.

After that lesson with "Peter", we headed out with the other Elders for Belgrade. They were headed up there already to start exchanges with the Zone Leaders, and we figured we'd tag along to go see other missionaries. So, we had lunch with all the Belgrade missionaries at a restaurant called Burger House that has really great burgers. Surprise. After emailing and exchanging some mail, we drove back to Sremska, but this time with Elder Sorensen and not Elder Jones. We immediately headed over to a member family's home for dinner. When we got there, they had balloons all over the place, since it was Elder King's birthday (happy birthday!) We had a great dinner, and since it was P-day, stayed to play some music with them and just talk. Then the Deckers wanted us to come over to give us some treats, and we of course obliged.

On Tuesday we started off by trying to go find the place where a potential investigator said she'd be at a certain time of day, and we discovered that the name she gave us is not a specific shop as we thought, but rather an entire suburb. She didn't answer our calls, so we didn't end up managing to find her. After lunch we had some studies and such, and then we had a lesson with a guy from the area book. Turns out he's the kind of person that agrees to meet up so he can try to prove us wrong. He pulled out a lot of the typical stuff, and we explained it all the best we could, but he has a fundamental lack of understanding about the role of modern day prophets, and he wouldn't listen to us trying to explain, so it went nowhere. Eh. After that we had ECG, and 2 church members came, plus another friend of ours. It was pretty good. After ECG I made some calls to make sure people turn in their numbers about church attendance and ECG, since I'm the "Data Master" now and it's my responsibility to make sure that that happens. So far it's been really great to get those excuses to talk to old friends from across the mission. I also get to occasionally do some computer programming to help stuff better stay in line.

On Wednesday we had district meeting, then the Deckers briefly came over to our apartment to get some pans to borrow to use for pies. After some studies and stuff, we went tracting: knocking on doors. Then we went contacting: talking to people on the street. Then we bought some food during our dinner time, met the other Elders at our apartment, and made some food together.

Thanksgiving Dinner

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! So on Thursday we started off with some phone calls and such, then I made some good progress with a mini-project for the Data Master stuff. We had a mini-lunch, then had some studies before going contacting. After contacting we headed over to the Deckers' for dinner. If I haven't mentioned, Sister Decker's cooking is really good. Definitely a lot better than mine, haha. The other Elders were of course there, plus our dear atheist friend that comes to Sunday dinner with us all, and occasionally to church. He's great. After that we had ECG like usual, and only one person came. But that's ok. After that we had some time off because of the holiday, so we had the other Elders come over and we played some games for a bit to end the night.

Sister Decker is a great cook and made a wonderful Thanksgiving Feast.

Friday we made some phone calls, had comp study, did some contacting, got lunch, then went with the Deckers to visit a member family. Sister Decker talked recipes with them for a while, and somehow I didn't need to translate. Sister Decker has quite the food vocabulary in Serbian. More than me, definitely. I really only know how to say a few kinds of meat, sugar, flour, eggs, and a few fruits and vegetables. At the end we had a spiritual though about member missionary work, since that family actually has a son out on a mission, and it seems like they've got a friend that they're about ready to bring to a church activity. From there we rushed back to the church since we were running a bit late for a lesson, but thankfully our guy "Pete" was there waiting for us. He's a cool guy. Right as we unlocked the door to go in the church for our lesson, his brother showed up, and joined us for the lesson. Thankfully we had the first lesson planned, the Restoration. So, we did that, and we really drove it home with a lot of good scriptures, and they seemed to really understand it, and both of them agreed to read the Book of Mormon. Also, "Pete" talked more about his telekinesis and some government conspiracies involving televisions.

Learning more Serbian language skills at District Meeting

After that we had language study, then went tracting. A lot of tracting. Then we had this kind of "4th floor last door" moment when the very last door that we knocked on before we were gonna head home for the night was some guy that let us in. I can't remember the last specific time that someone let us in right from the door. But, the other funny thing is that these buildings have a lot more than 4 floors, and we always go top down. So, it's less "4th floor last door", and more like "4th building first floor". Weird. In any case, I think he had Mormons confused with Amish a bit, but we cleared that up and gave him a quick version of the Restoration. He seemed ok with it, but not convinced. He also said he'd never change faiths, since everyone is Orthodox. I asked him what he'd do if God himself came and told him to change faiths. He didn't give me a straight answer. I'm not sure he's going anywhere very soon, but we'll stop by again soon to give it a shot. That night we made tacos for dinner.

On Saturday we cleaned the apartment thoroughly for cleaning checks, some repair guys decided to come over on short notice, then we went for a quick round of contacting. Then we had comp study, our cleaning check got cancelled, and we went with the Deckers to visit another member family. This time when we got there it was only the grandmother and the young daughter that were there, not the whole family. So, we talked with them for a few minutes until all the rest of them showed up. They had been out helping with some construction stuff at the uncle's place (he's a church member too). They offered us some fried pig fat.

After we left, Elder Criddle and I had some language study, then I did a bit more of that Data Master stuff before we had our branch game night that is every Saturday now. It was good, like always, but with fewer people this week. A few new people did come for the first time though. After that was over, we cleaned the church before going home.

Playing ping pong at branch game night

Sunday was of course church, and Elders Criddle and Jones spoke. After church we had a mini-lesson with our investigator that came to church, and we answered some questions that he had about the Priesthood and such. It was good, and I think he's starting to understand stuff a bit better now. After church we had some lunch, did our weekly planning, then had dinner at the Deckers'. Like usual, the food was really good. A bit later we helped Elder Decker get some stuff set up on his computer, and then came home to finish planning.

Your homework for this week (and last week) is to read 1 Nephi 10-11 (yes, that's two chapters). They talk about Christ! Who doesn't like reading about Christ? Hopefully you do. (If not, you can start practicing now).

Well everyone, have a great week! Talk to you then.

--

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

Week 66: Pizza XL, an Audit, and an Unfinished Email

Hello there, friends and family. It is once again Monday, and that means that you once again have something from me sitting in your inbox. This week the weather we pretty consistently just overcast. Very grey. It didn't really rain, though, so that was good.

On Tuesday we started off with a lot of phone calls and stuff from the area book until we had lunch, then we went contacting for a while. We also fixed up a survey thing to use for a different type of contacting, and almost got it finished. That evening we only had 1 person come to ECG, but he's awesome so it was ok.

We've had a lot of gray weather! This is Elder King; notice the old phone booth on the right!

Wednesday started off with more contacting until lunch, and then we had district meeting. Elder Criddle gave the language tip on the three words that all can mean "from" in various contexts and when to use which. Elder Decker gave the lesson on discouragement and how to try to fight it. After that and after more contacting, we had language study back at the apartment, during which I started translating a short article into Bosnian for the church website. Since the article was about a branch party over in Sarajevo, I discovered that I really don't know how they say names of American foods such as Chili, S'mores, or marshmallows. That evening we again went with the Deckers to visit one of those member families from before. This is the same family that had a friend there last time who was interested in learning about our church a bit more. Unfortunately, she wasn't there this time for us to get to know her better. In other news, I again translated almost the entire conversation between the Deckers and the family both ways the entire time. It's so crazy with so many people talking at once, but I really love it. It's kinda like a game to me.

Thursday morning we again started off with calls from the area book, and then we had lunch at a restaurant called Pizza XL, for something new. It's a pretty cool place with good food, and not really expensive either. It kinda reminded me of some of the restaurants in Sarajevo. For language study later I finished translating that article, and then we of course did more contacting. No one showed up for English, but Sister Decker brought garlic rolls so that made it ok, and then we finished up putting together that survey thing, with the input of the other elders. They wanted to try Pizza XL for dinner, and we kinda gave in and just went with them for round 2. But don't worry, I ordered something different the second time.

Enjoying some great food in Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia with Elders Criddle, King, and Jones.

Friday morning we had a pre-audit thing for the branch finances, and since Elder Criddle and I are the Assistant Branch Clerk and Branch Clerk, we were there with Elder Decker. It was really quick since it was a pre-audit, but then I finished up some stuff on the computer that needed to get done, and then we had grilled cheese for lunch back at the apartment. That afternoon we went out with the other elders into Centar to try out the survey thing. It was a lot easier to get people talking to us when we had a pen and paper in our hand and asked if they could take a survey. Also, we of course put questions on the survey like, "Have you ever heard the word 'Mormon' before now?" and it was pretty easy to get a discussion going with them from that kind of thing. There was one funny teenage couple that we talked to that may or may not come to ECG soon, since we told them about it. At the very least, we got to be pretty good friends with them pretty fast. I really like this survey thing. I don't know why missionaries don't do it more often or why I've never done it before, since it seems a lot more effective to me than normal contacting. After that, we had another lesson with "Miles", then came home for dinner. We had American pancakes, then made some phone calls to set up lessons, and finished off the day with language study.

Visiting the Burger House...I love the food here!

Saturday started off with a typical round of contacting before lunch and studies. Our original plan for that afternoon was to use our survey again, but we ended up making calls from the area book again and getting a good number of appointments set up. That evening we of course helped clean the church like we do on Saturdays, and then we had our game night.

I'm totally out of time now, so I'll finish next week. Here are some pictures. Sorry! Have a great week!
--

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

Week 65: Exchanges, Pink Eggnog, and Old Slavic Graves

Hello everyone! Welcome back! I don't know if you went anywhere, but welcome back. This week, the weather was just kinda boring. Grey skies. Winter in Serbia.

So, last Monday we finished weekly planning since it didn't get done on Sunday, and then later in the day we went to go find a guy that we had a lesson scheduled with, but he wasn't at his store nor his home. There were some nice old people that talked to us on the way over there, though. A bit later we of course did our emailing. That's pretty much the only interesting stuff that happened on Monday.

On Tuesday we got with the other Elders to get some documents scanned for our visas, and then we went to the police office to turn them all in. That took a notable amount of time, so then we had lunch together at Tešić again and got ćevapi. That evening, a new lady came to ECG, and she's pretty cool. Apparently she's applying for a job on a cruise shop, and wants to refresh her English skills. After ECG we went with the Deckers to visit two members, a mom and her daughter. She had some really good questions, and it was more good translation practice for me when the Deckers got involved in the conversation.

Tuesday we had district meeting, after which we started exchanges. I went with Elder King, and Elder Criddle went with Elder Jones. After that, basically me and Elder King just did a lot of contacting, since we didn't have anything else to do. We talked to this one guy that really liked talking, even though he didn't really want to listen to what we had to say. He was pretty funny. Anytime he'd start walking away, he'd start telling us something else that'd keep him around for another 5 minutes. Elder King even got him to stay around to hear a joke before talking more. Eventually we finished the conversation, and continued on. We got tired of contacting after a number of hours, so we got some ice cream. Elder King ordered some mystery pink ice cream, and it ended up being eggnog flavored, I guess. Then we went home to do area book work.

Thursday morning, while I was eating a freshly-opened box of cereal, the cereal box tipped over and fell straight downward to the floor while upside down. So, about 70% of my cereal ended up on the floor, and the other 30% either landed on my bag or was still in the box. Oops. That morning Elder King and I went over to a lesson that the other Elders had, and it was an older lady that was pretty cool. Then Elder King and I had comp study before another lesson with "Miles". We talked about recognizing the Spirit, and it seemed to really click with him. After that, I did some work for Data Master, and Elder King started making a survey for us to use soon during contacting. Then we went contacting. Once ECG rolled around, we switched companions again so that Elder Criddle and Elder King could go to a member home for a birthday dinner. Btw, it was Elder Criddle's birthday. Sister Decker brought cinnamon rolls to ECG for him, but he wasn't there. Elder Jones and I had tacos for dinner after ECG before switching back to me being on exchanges with Elder King.

Cinnamon Rolls for Elder Criddle's birthday!

On Friday morning we had breakfast at the Deckers' so that Elder Criddle could have some of those cinnamon rolls. They were super good, btw. After that, Elder King and I did more contacting. Somehow we ended up looking at the big old gravestones around the outside of a little Orthodox church. Apparently the oldest church here in Sremska Mitrovica. The gravestones were written in really old Slavic writing, and it was really interesting to us. We met up again with Elders Criddle and Jones to switch back, but first we ordered some really low quality food for lunch. Elder Criddle and I had some study, some phone calls, then some contacting. He and Elder King were going to go to help Elder Decker with some service stuff, so I almost switched to be with Elder Jones again, but the thing got cancelled at the last minute.

A really old gravestone with Slavic writing.

On Saturday morning we had another lesson with "Danny", and we answered some of his questions. We also went through the talk from this October 2017 General Conference about miracles, by Elder Hallstrom. At the end he had some more questions, and we read a chapter from the Book of Mormon with him, since he hasn't been having the desire to read it at all. We had lunch with the other Elders over at Te[i] again, and then had language study before Elders Criddle and King went off to that service thing (football practice) that got re-scheduled. Elder Jones and I went contacting a while, including trying to find a guy that Elder King and I had met, but the store where he said he works was locked, even though the hours said they should be open. Then we went over to a different lesson. That guy was pretty old, and definitely an atheist. He said he wouldn't believe in God even if an angel came and told him to believe. He was nice, though. That evening we had a branch game night, and it was great. We played some ping pong, had some music, played some Uno, and had some desserts.

Yesterday, Sunday, we of course had church, and a lot of members showed up, but not many investigators. Good talks, good lessons. After church Elder King translated a meeting for Elder Decker, Elder Criddle and I did the tithing / fast offerings stuff, and then went home for weekly planning. After that we had a wonderful dinner at the Deckers', finished planning, had language study, etc.

The Sava River, here in Sremska Mitrovica.

Today we had another lesson with "Miles", and he's doing fairly well. Still having some problems with making it to church, but he shows up to lessons consistently. We also got lunch with the other elders, of course, and here we are emailing. That's pretty much it for today, besides our normal stuff.

Your homework for this week is to read that talk, Has the Day of Miracles Ceased? by Elder Donald L. Hallstrom. It's really good, and helps explain why good people may or may not get the expected answer to their prayers.

Elder King and a really warm coat.

That's all for now. Here's a photo of Elder King trying on a coat that he might eventually by, plus a panoramic from along the Sava river, here in Sremska. Have a great week!

--

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

Week 64: More Translation, Mission Tour, and The Testaments

Hello friends and family! Another week here in Sremska Mitrovica has passed, and I'm still here! Not much of a surprise there, though. Anyway, on to the interesting things of the week.

On Tuesday we got some posters to advertise for our English Conversation Group (ECG) and went around town posting them wherever we could, also trying to tell people about it. Then we had lunch and studies before working on getting the computer some, since we needed to finish putting the new one in. We also had a really good lesson with "Miles", focusing on repentance. That guy really seems to "get it". It doesn't even matter what "it" is. He just gets it. Anyway, we put him on date to get baptized on November 18th, and he said he'd of course come to church on Sunday. Foreshadowing: he didn't end up coming, so we'll have to push back the baptism. That evening we of course had ECG, but no one came, so the other Elders had their language study, and we finished the computer thing for good, finally. That evening we quickly stopped by the graveyard to see if there were any candles out yet for All Saints' Day, but there weren't yet, so then we went home and did some work in the area book.

Me and Elder Criddle, in Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia.

Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia

Wednesday for lunch we called in an order to a little grill place around the corner so they'd have our food ready when we got there, but when we did get there, they said that we didn't call. Apparently we called a different place with the same name... oops. We had district meeting and it was of course pretty good, and then we went with the Deckers to visit a family in the branch. It's a husband and wife who have a son that's serving as a missionary at the moment. They're really cool people. Of course, they only speak Serbian, and the Deckers are still practicing their Serbian, so I got to translate almost everything, both directions. Live translating is actually really fun, though. I'm a lot better at that than speaking for myself in Serbian. Immediately after we visited them, we went to the building next door to visit a different family in the branch, and it was about the same thing, where I translated both directions. So in total I was speaking almost nonstop for 2 hours, haha. Again, I really like translating. Anyway, at the lesson with that second family, they'd brought a friend of theirs that isn't a member of the church and had been there before when the missionaries had come and taught the restoration, so we also taught the Plan of Salvation. Now we just need to get them to take her to church! At the end of the night, the Tuzla elders (Elders Snell and Woodhouse) were coming in to stay at our place for the night since Zone Conference was going to be the next day, and it was one combined with Bosnia and Serbia zones. Apparently they got stuck at a country border for over 3 hours. That reminded me of the time last year when I was in a car that got stuck at a border for over 4, if I remember correctly. In any case, they came in kinda late.

On Thursday we grabbed some breakfast from a bakery with them and then drove up to Belgrade for the conference. There was a bit of a crazy parking situation when we got there, and it was a mess, but somehow we particularly found a single free (i.e. available AND not requiring payment) parking space. Almost everyone else was late to the conference because of the parking stuff. Elder DeFeo from the 70 was there, and he was great. The whole conference was great, really, including the Chinese food for lunch. After the thing ended, there was of course a great commotion of people taking pictures and talking with old companions and such, and like always, it was really good to see good friends that I haven't seen in a while.

It was wonderful to be with so many missionaries during our special zone conference.

We picked up some packages and letters, and then eventually headed over to the bus station, since our bus wasn't for a good hour or so. On the bus ride home, some random guy nearby started talking to us, and apparently he used to be neighbors with the missionaries in Sremska, so he knew generally who we were. At one point I asked him about his family, and he showed us some photos on his phone, and in the end I gave him a "The Family, a Proclamation to the World" that I happened to have in my bag.

I got to see the Newtons at our zone conference!

On Friday we of course did contacting, phone calls, lunch, studies, etc. For language study I read some of the Bible in Slovene, to try and make sure that I don't forget Slovene. Right at the end of language study, our landlady showed up to ask if there was anything that needed to be repaired, or things like that, and so I had to of course speak Serbian. While I didn't have any problem really speaking Serbian right after reading 5 chapters of the Slovene Bible, my brain was definitely confused. I kept questioning whether or not what I'd just said was correct, since I was speaking Serbian but still somewhat thinking in Slovene. Oops. Anyway, we had another lesson with "Miles", and we read 3 Nephi 11 with him, and he said again that he'd come to church. A bit after that lesson, we crossed the river to look for some new people to talk to, and we did actually find 2! One of them was a lady that agreed to meet us the next morning right next to the bridge. That night for dinner, we went with the other Elders to the home of a really strong member family. They have one daughter off on a mission, and the other one still home, and the mom does some translation work for the church. They're really cool people. I got to have Sarma again for the first time in a long time, and it was great. Also, even though all 3 of them speak really good English (the daughter's English is just about as good as mine, haha), they spoke Serbian to us the whole time, assumedly because they know that we love and need the practice.

My Slovene nametags came! I'm not sure I'll ever need them now.

Saturday morning we of course went to meet that lady by the bridge, and she did actually show up. Though, the meeting lasted about 3 minutes, since she basically just ran off as soon as she had her free copy of The Book of Mormon in her hands. #freeStuff. Then a guy came up to us to ask for money. Long story short, we ended up inviting him to come to church on Sunday. After that we had interviews with President Melonakos at the chuch, had American pancakes for lunch at our apartment, and then later had a lesson with "Davis", and he still won't read the Book of Mormon, but he had a lot of good questions about Apostles. After that we cleaned the church with the help of a dear non-member friend and the Deckers, Then we went to get some food really quick, and there was another ordering mixup. Oops. To end the day off, we had a branch activity where we watched "Zaveti" or rather, "The Testaments" with Serbian subtitles. I love that movie. Our dear non-member friend was there for that, and everyone (including him) was crying at the end, since the movie is so good. I'd highly recommend it.

A scene from the movie "The Testaments"

On Sunday we of course had church, and that guy that asked us for money did actually come, and he stayed the whole time. I'm not sure we're ever going to see him again, though. I taught Sunday School, and it was ok. Like I said before, I highly prefer translating what someone else is saying than trying to come up with stuff on my own to say. Oh well. I think it went fine. After church we counted tithes and fast offerings, since I'm the branch clerk, and then I got my last bit of training to be Data Master. That is, I maintain numbers for all the branches in the mission. I don't know what the Venn diagram looks like, but I'm also mission clerk. After that we had dinner at the Deckers with the other elders and that dear non-member friend, and he discovered that his favorite basketball player from back in the day is Elder Jones' grandfather, who was pals with Krešimir Ćosić back in the day. #zadarBasketball

Well folks, your homework this week is to watch "The Testaments" if you can find it. I'm sure it's out there somewhere. My favorite part is at the end when Christ approaches Helam, calls him by name, then heals his sight. I like it because Christ already knew him by name, without being introduced or anything. He knows each of us personally.

Here are photos, one of me and Elder Criddle here in Sremska, and then one of my new Slovene nametags! They finally got here! Haha. Have a great week!

--

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