Week 84: a Russian War Dog, and some "Annual Events"

Hello everyone! So, this week, thankfully we had a bit more sun and warmth than we did last week. It's been good.

Tuesday morning it was still snowing for the most part, and no one was really outside, so we did some more business-y stuff that needed to get done at some point anyway. Later in the day we went with the Deckers to visit a member family and talk about their plans with the upcoming annual temple trip that'll be in the summer. Members from the mission here all carpool up to Switzerland or Germany (the temples in each are about the same distance from here) and stay there for a few days, since we don't have temples over here. That evening we of course had English Conversation Group as always.

Wednesday we got ditched for a lesson and then had lunch. In the afternoon we had district meeting with the Deckers, and Sister Decker taught a great lesson about the Book of Mormon and why it's important. In case you didn't know, the Book of Mormon is important. It teaches about Christ, like the Bible does, and also confirms the Bible. It adds to our knowledge about God's plan, and proves that God speaks to prophets even today. I'd highly suggest reading it.

 

Thursday started off with companionship study and then going contacting. For lunch I made some sort of fried chicken, which was pretty good, and then we had language study before going contacting again. We didn't get very far though that time, since we got a call from President Melonakos saying that he and Sister Melonakos would be arriving early for interviews. That meant that we had to just turn around to go back to the church, and we all arrived at the church at the same time. They brought the mail with them, which is always great. While Elder Heaton had his interview, I sat and talked with Sister Melonakos and the Deckers, and then some members that showed up to get their temple recommends for this year's temple trip. After they had their interviews with President, I had mine which included in part getting my "ecclesiastical endorsement" for BYU, so that I'll be able to go back to BYU in the fall. After my interview, we played some ping pong and Elder Heaton showed Sister Melonakos how to serve the ball with a spin on it. After they left to continue on their voyage, we had ECG, and then Elder Heaton and I went off to have a lesson with some guy that had called us saying that he wanted to learn more about Jesus. We had a bit of a hard time finding his place in the snow, but we eventually found it. When we got in and met him, I recognized him as someone that Elder Criddle and I had met once while we were with Elder Decker.

On Friday, Elder Heaton woke up feeling sick enough that we couldn't really go anywhere, so we stayed inside and I got some extra study time. We did have a lesson set up for the very end of the day, and Elder Heaton was feeling up to it, so we went to that, but the person bailed on us.

Saturday while we were in the park contacting, we met a cool older guy that had a dog. It was a Russian war dog, or something like that. It wasn't even 2 months old yet, and it was already pretty big, but you could tell from its paws that it's going to bo absolutely huge when it grows up. Anyway, the guy was willing to talk to us for a bit, and though he wasn't willing to set up to meet or anything, we got him to take a Book of Mormon and he said he'd read it. After lunch we went with the Deckers to visit some members, which was good, and then at the end of the day we had our branch game night again. We played some ping pong and Uno (always a favorite), and then cleaned the church all together.

Playing the piano for a musical number in church a few weeks ago.

Yesterday, Sunday, was the Deckers' 41st wedding anniversary! And also when the daylight savings change happens over here. It was also my birthday. A lot of people came to church, including some visiting members from Belgrade, a number of investigators, and pretty much all the regular members. It was quite a turnout. After our church meetings, we all had a big branch lunch together. At the start, everyone sang for me the local version of the birthday song, and congratulated the Deckers on their anniversary. It was really great to have that many people there.

Your homework this week is to watch General Conference! General Conference is a semi-annual broadcast when we get to hear messages from the leaders of our church, most notably from the Prophet (Russel M. Nelson) and the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. It's definitely worth checking out. If you watch it with a personal question, like "How can I be a better parent?" or "How can I be happier?" or something similar, you'll come out with a definite answer.

It's kinda a long story how exactly this happened, but for dinner this week at one point my "pigs in a blanket" meal ended up more as a hotdog pie. It still tasted good, but here's a photo of that, plus a certain Lego something that I received for my birthday. Have a great week!

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