Week 80: Recap of week 79, and the Return to Sremska

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.

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.

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.

Sister Hall and Elder Echols

Now for this week!

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.

Reunited with old companions: Me and Elder King

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.

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.

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.

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!

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