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