Hello everybody! Sorry about
the short email last week. We were in the middle of transfers, and stuff was
kinda crazy. I'll try to get you a quick recap of the end of last week:
On Wednesday we cooked some
food with a local member and then a bunch of people came over to their place
for lunch, and it was great. The rest of the day was pretty boring.
Thursday morning we found out
about transfers! Later in the day we had district meeting, and then ECG in the
evening where I said bye to the attendees that came, since I was going to be
leaving before the next time I'd see them.
Friday morning started the
packing and cleaning, and then in the afternoon we met up with a member for a
while and had some cake that was apparently Swedish. That night for dinner,
Elder Love and I went to Dva Zmaja, a Chinese restaurant, since it was
apparently the Chinese new year.
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| Yummy Chinese food! |
Saturday morning we cleaned
more, had cleaning checks from the Monsons, and then later met up with another
member for me to say goodbye and for us to read a chapter from the Book of
Mormon together, since he wasn't going to be able to make it to church. That
evening Elder Love and I went with the Monsons to a pizza place called Koper as
my farewell of sorts.
Sunday at church not a whole
lot of people came since most people were sick or out of town or something, but
3 investigators came, some that was cool. Elder Love and I each had a talk, and
then I taught Sunday School. One of our investigators stayed for all of the meetings,
and it was his first time at church, and the members seemed to welcome him
really well. After all of the meetings we had a big lunch as a branch, it was
really good to get to see people one last time before leaving.
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| Having some fun with our cameras and mirrors... |
Then we went
home and I packed the rest, we had a really small dinner with the Monsons, and
then Elder Love and I took the car to Ljubljana to meet up with most of the
other Slovene missionaries to switch around luggage and companions, so I ended
up going with Elder Jensen to spend the night in Maribor. When we finally got
up there to Maribor to Elder Jensen's new apartment, we discovered that the
sisters had given us one set of keys, but not the keys we needed to get into
that apartment; the keys we needed were still way back in Ljubljana with the
sisters. Rather than drive all the way there and back and go to bed at 1am or
something of the sort, we decided to check with the Crniches in Maribor to see
if they had an extra set of keys for that apartment, and they managed to dig up
a set, so we were saved, haha.
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| Sister Hall and Elder Echols |
Monday morning we drove with
the Crniches from Maribor down to Zagreb and helped them do some shopping at a
place called Metro. While we were there, I happened to see a package of meat in
the exotic section that was Zebra meat. Interesting. In any case, Elder Jensen
and I ended up at the mission office with the APs and a bunch of other
missionaries to email and play Spikeball and such. We even got President and
Sister Melonakos to play Spikeball with us for a bit. We also got to see 4 of
the 5 departing missionaries as they passed through to weigh their luggage.
Then at the end of the day we had to do some fun car switch-arounds at the
mission home before going over to the APs' apartment for the night.
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| Reunited with old companions: Me and Elder King |
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| Reunited with old companions: Me and Elder Perry |
In the morning, Elder Crapo
made all the Elders there palačinke (crepes) as we took turns showering one by
one. Eventually we all headed out to the giant Ikea there in Zagreb for our big
transfer meetup where a lot of people change companions and move luggage between
cars. Elder Heaton my new companion was of course there, and I so we headed out
for Sremska Mitrovica. Right about as we were getting to the Serbian border out
off Croatia, he realized that he'd forgotten in passport in the mission office
back in Zagreb. So, we drove all the way back, got it, then gave it a round 2.
When we got to Sremska, we unloaded our stuff into the apartment, went with the
Deckers to visit a member family, and then had ECG. After that, we had a great
lesson with these two younger guys that Elders Jones and Perry had apparently
contacted last week. The two guys are in the military right now, so they kinda
travel around, but they're so cool. One said that, when he was talking with
Elders Jones and Perry, they gave him a verse to read out of the Book of
Mormon, and that when he read it there with them on the street, he had this
feeling that he described as like a guitar string getting plucked. These guys
are really prepared. We gave them each a Book of Mormon, and set up to meet
again the next day.
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| Teaching ECG with Elder Heaton in Sremska |
On Wednesday we got some
groceries to survive for the rest of the week, got some stuff we needed from
the other (now empty) Elders' apartment, did some planning, did some phone
calls, and then had that lesson with the two military guys. This one was
shorter, but still really good. I might've misunderstood, but the one may or
may not have said that he'd read all of 1st Nephi already. I don't know. But,
they said they'd be in Belgrade for the next few days for work stuff, so we
kinda have some nomadic investigators right now.
Thursday started off with us
getting Elder Heaton's "white card" at the police station, and then
later having our apartment checked out, since most of our electricity had gone
out. It's fixed now though, so we again have hot water, haha. That night we had
ECG, and it seems like there's a "regular crew" of sorts that comes
every time. They're pretty funny people.
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| Me and Elder Heaton out in the cold! |
Friday morning we had another
really good lesson, but this one with a different guy that the previous elders
had been working with. He had a lot of really good questions, and we taught him
about the 10 Commandments and repentance and a bunch of other great stuff that
doesn't seem to fit together, but it somehow went really smoothly. He has a lot
of promise, but he'll be busy for the next week or two, so I guess we'll have a
little pause with him for a bit. After that we did a bunch more calls, trying
to get in contact with the investigators that the other elders left for us
(there used to be 4 elders here in Sremska Mitrovica, but with the transfer,
they all left and me and Elder Heaton came to replace them). Later on we
visited that member family again, and went outside for some contacting in the
snow. Unfortunately, it wasn't too effective.
Saturday was mostly more of the
phone calls and such, until we had a game night in the evening. And it was
Elder Heaton's birthday! For the game night, two investigators showed up, and
that was it, haha. We still had fun though. And one of the two guys that showed
up apparently has the same birthday as Elder Heaton! So 50% of the people there
were celebrating their birthday. After the activity, we all cleaned the church
together.
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| Elder Heaton and his birthday cake |
Sunday started off with church,
of course, and there were a lot of people there! Almost everyone that I can
remember ever coming to church in Sremska was there, plus some people from the
District Presidency. We had some really good lessons (in fact, so good that
church as a whole went over by 40 minutes, haha), and then had a big lunch all
together after. It's been really good to see these members again. The rest of
Sunday was pretty much just planning and more phone calls to try to get in contact
with people.
Today we went with Elder Decker to visit a member lady that
lives way off in another little city, and had a nice little visit. She fed us
some really tasty baked treats, and gave us home-made cherry juice mixed with
carbonated water to give it some fizz. That was really good. Since she'll be
having an operation soon, we gave her a priesthood blessing, and it was great.
Thanks for making it through
that long email! Your homework for this week is to read Helaman 14, part
of Samuel the Lamanite's prophecy. I think it's quite remarkable to think that
even prophets on the other side of the planet were teaching of Christ through
the years before Christ was even born. See what you can learn from it!
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| Samuel the Lamanite boldly prophesied of the birth of Jesus Christ. |
Anyway, have a great week! Here are some photos!
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Elder Ryan Echols
Adriatic North Mission
Svačićev Trg 3/1
HR-10000 Zagreb
Croatia
Adriatic North Mission
Svačićev Trg 3/1
HR-10000 Zagreb
Croatia
