Week 77: Burek, Sinuses, and Wet Socks

Hello everyone! Greetings again from Celje, Slovenia. 

Before I get any further, I should mention that my P-day next week will not be on Monday, but rather Tuesday, on the 13th. Why? Because the 13th is a Slovene holiday, and we're going on an adventure with other missionaries. I'm not going to give you spoilers though.

The weather here has been fairly wintery this week, because we got snow! Though that means that we've had wet socks and shoes for the last few days, and no one else is really outside, so maybe it's not actually too good, haha. It at least looks nice, though.

Anyway, last Monday we tried to go to the doctor for me to get my illness checked out, but they were already closed by the time we got there. We did some shopping and emailing and the other normal stuff, of course, and ordered pizza at the end of the day.

On Tuesday we did some contacting, had some studies, etc., and then had burek for lunch! This particular burek was from a place that's well known for having great burek. It was indeed quite good. Then we went to the doctor's office and they took some of my blood and told me I didn't have a sinus infection and to just move on with life. At least they broke my 50 Euro bill when I paid, haha. The rest of the day was just the typical Celje stuff like contacting and phone calls, and also ECG.

Wednesday started off with Elder Love and I having our weekly district meeting by ourselves, since the Monsons were on a "business trip" of sorts over in Serbia. It was good, but it's better when there are more than just 2 people that are already together 24/7. We did some contacting, had a lesson with a guy that talks really fast (who had met with missionaries before), and then did some more contacting. That was about it.

This is the kind of bike you see everywhere in Slovenia

Thursday started with a bit more contacting, but then we hiked up to the Celje castle and past it, wearing suits. Why, you ask? Because we were going to attend an annual lunch for representatives of faith-based organizations, put on by the Mayor / City of Celje. We would've used the car to get up the mountain, but the Monsons had it in Serbia. Anyway, we were the first ones there, and there was a bit of a news crew, and other representatives showed up, and there were handshakes and photos were taken of those handshakes, and it was all very formal. We all sat at a big long table, the Mayor gave a little speech, a guy from the Catholic church gave a speech, and then we all had a really fancy meal in this fancy restaurant up on the hill, overlooking the castle and all of Celje. It was quite high class, and the food was pretty good. I was sitting next to the Islamic representative, and I think he, I, and Elder Love were the only ones not drinking wine. When it came up in conversation that I'd been in Sarajevo (a city where the predominant faith is Islam) for a while, he was pretty interested in that. Anyway, after the whole thing as Elder Love and I were walking down the hill towards town, the Mayor drove past us a bit, pulled over, and offered us a ride. We of course took him up on it. The peculiar morning was compensated for by the rest of the day not being terribly interesting, except ECG, and when it started snowing that night.

The fancy restaurant where we got to meet the mayor.

Friday was of course then the day that the wet socks started, because of the snow. Anyway, we met up with a member that hasn't been coming to church regularly, and got to know him a little bit. The conversation did turn to the topic of how we can help him resolve his problems with some certain other members. After that we did some more contacting and tracting, since it's really hard to find anything else to do while there's snow everywhere. We did go back for another lesson with that guy from Wednesday that talks really fast. He said that he firmly believes that The Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but also that the other churches were true and that he was going to stick with his own church. Later that day, for dinner, we went to a Chinese restaurant with that other member that we've been working with. To sum it up, 2 Americans and a Serb were sitting together eating Chinese food... in Slovenia. It was really good, though.

Scenes like this are common in Celje.

Saturday was pretty much just contacting and tracting in the snow, with more wet socks. I got burek for lunch, and that was a highlight of the day, even though it wasn't from "the burek place". For any of you that've forgotten (or never heard), burek is a dense pastry of sorts, typically baked in pieces about the size of a very thick, full-sized pizza, which they then cut in fourths to sell individually. It's typically stuffed with ground meat, or cheese, but it could also be something like potato or spinach, or even something more desserty like cherry pie-filling. Anyway, at the end of the day we stopped by the Monsons' place to say hi, since they'd just gotten back from their big Serbia trip to take care of some Seminary and Institute stuff.

Yesterday, Sunday, we of course had church like always, and we had a pretty good turnout. Nothing particularly exciting happened, but as they say, "no news is good news", and all the meetings were really good. Then we did weekly planning before going to visit a member family. The husband is from England and is learning Slovene, and the wife is from here in Slovenia and knows pretty good English, and their son speaks both Slovene and English, so we ended up talking in English the whole time. We go to know them better, taught them a quick version of the restoration, asked if they had referrals, and if we could help them at all, all in English. I kinda felt like I was a missionary back home in the US (or perhaps in England) and it was a fairly odd sensation. In any case, it was a great visit, and then we went to have dinner with the Monsons. The menu was hispanic food this time, and it was wonderful. Me gusta.

Good food is an important part of Slovenian life!

As for today, we did all the normal P-day stuff, plus we delivered some treats to a few members, and ran into a funny old lady that thought we were Amish. She started going off about how much she hates cars and technology and war and thought we didn't use cars or technology and didn't eat meat. So, we explained a bit more, and walked with her some, and in the end gave her a card and a copy of The Book of Mormon. But she doesn't have a phone, so it might be hard to get in contact with her again, haha. On the other hand, I would believe it if she read the entire Book of Mormon in less than a day and then came to church on Sunday and asked to be baptized; you never know, especially not with people like her. We'll see. We also discovered that the library's computers were not available for public use today, so we kinda shared the one computer in the church.

Working on the computer at the church.

Your homework for this week is to read "The Peacable Things of the Kingdom" by Elder M. Russell Ballard, from the April session of 2002 General Conference. He basically talks about how and why the gospel of Jesus Christ brings peace into our lives. It's quite a good one.

Learning about and following Jesus Christ and his gospel brings peace.

As for photos, here's one of the strangely-proportioned bicycles that they have around here, and a last name that seems funny to us English speakers. Also, a cool little arch in a small spot of Celje that I hadn't explored yet. Have a great week!

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