Week 101: Rootbeer, Black Pen, and Pioneers

 

Hey everybody! I hope you all are doing well and that you've had good weather wherever you are. Thankfully we've had good weather here in Novi Sad =)

So, on Tuesday this week we did some calls to try to set up lessons, and we got one set up with a member that we haven't seen in a few weeks. We set it for Thursday. I also called a guy who lives in Subotica and apparently wants a Hungarian copy of the Book of Mormon. So, we'll see what we can do about that. During lunch, we got a call back from that member asking if we could meet that day, instead of on Thursday, so we set a time for later that day. Elder Bird and I went to the church to do some studies before that, but then our member friend showed up 45 minutes early! I guess he just couldn't wait to see us, haha. We read a chapter from the Book of Mormon with him, and then finished our studies. When we did our Facebook work, I ended up talking with a guy from Sarajevo that opened up a fair amount. We're planning on him meeting with missionaries there as soon as he gets back in town to Sarajevo. For English group that evening, we had a pretty interesting discussion. Somehow it ended up on politics, which is of course often a touchy subject, and it kinda got heated. I think everyone is still friends, though, haha. When we were getting dinner after that, we saw one of the sisters' investigators yet again (we see him almost every single day) riding past on his bike. He saw us, came skidding to a stop, and then came back to talk to us for a bit. I'm going to call him "Shawn".

On Wednesday we went to the MUP (police station) to turn in Elder Bird's visa papers. That place is always pretty crazy, but it wasn't too bad this time. That afternoon we had district meeting with the Nields and the sisters, and Sister Icke gave a wonderful lesson on the Atonement, including references to my #1 most favorite talk, "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox. Also, since the Nields like feeding us delicious things, we had rootbeer floats. Later, for language study, I started translating an article thing about pioneers into Serbian, in preparation for pioneer day. I really like translating, since it does so many things at once. It helps me figure out grammar stuff and use more words, but I think it also helps me to better understand the original English content. "The effort to translate, or to improve a translation, is valuable, not so much for the version it produces, as for the understanding of the original which it awakes." --J.R.R. Tolkien

ANM missionaries at the Ikea in Zagreb, Croatia during the last transfer

In any case, on Thursday my blue pen ran out of ink and I couldn't find another blue pen, so I started writing in my journal with black ink for the first time on my mission. That morning we had to get another official paper copied and turned into the MUP for Elder Bird's visa, but that didn't take too long. That afternoon we figured out some business stuff, and then Elder Bird and I had our Facebook work. Something cool happened with that: someone sent us a message seemingly out of nowhere asking to meet with missionaries in Belgrade the next day. So, I of course got that set up really quick and it was great. For language study I finished translating that article thing about pioneers, and then we had English. Though we had dinner at Waffle Boss, where we most often run into "Shawn", we didn't find him that night.

For Friday we helped the Nields prepare some stuff for our branch Pioneer Day party that we were going to have that day, and then Elder Bird and I had ramen for lunch. Then we tried visiting one of our old investigators here that seemingly vanished a few months ago, but he still wasn't there. I think he moved. Anyway, for the activity that evening, we had ordered some food from a nearby place, so we went to pick that up and then finished setting up the church. The sisters had made some pretty cool decorations. We had a reeeally good turnout for the party, too. There were of course us 6 missionaries, and 9 local members, but we also had 12 people there that weren't members (ok, so 4 of them were young children that came with their dad and grandmother who aren't members, but it was still a lot of people!) It was great to have so many people there. We talked a little bit about pioneers to start with, and how these people are really pioneers here, and then we had food. Somehow we did have enough food, and even extra.

Our Pioneer Day decorations included colorful paper and writing on the white board

On Saturday morning we cleaned the church with the sisters and the Nields, scanned some bills, and then had lunch at the legendary Gyros Master. After some studies when we went contacting, we happened to get one lady's phone number, and also met a guy from Costa Rica (if I remember correctly). He was really chill and talked to us for a bit. Before their German group that we have on Saturdays, the sisters had another lesson with "Shawn", and we found out after that he agreed to be baptized on August 18th! We're excited.

We of course had church on Sunday, which is always great. This time we had some visitors! It was a family of 3 who had roots in Serbia and Montenegro, had lived in Argentina (I may be mistaken there) for a long time, and who have been living in Canada for quite a long time more recently. So, they were here visiting relatives. Someone else that came was someone that I'd never met before that we'd simply found in our phone's list of contacts and who we'd invited to church. Apparently he speaks German, so he ended up talking to the sisters some afterward. Anyway, for sacrament meeting, one of our members gave a very passionate talk about Brigham Young and the pioneers, and had me translate for him. After a great Sunday School by Sister Marinkovic on faith and her personal pioneer story, and an Elders' Quorum lesson on Ministering, that member that spoke had me give out copies of that article about pioneers that I'd translated for him so that all the members could read it too. After church we had our boring business-y stuff, and then later on we had a delicious dinner at the Nields' place.

As for today, we were planning to play tennis, but it turned out that it started raining, so we're probably just going to play table tennis later, inside.

Christ visiting the people in the Americas

Your homework this week is to read 3 Nephi 18. That's the chapter, while Christ is visiting the people in the Americas, when he administers the sacrament among them. That is, he blesses bread and wine and gives it to them, telling them to always to the same in the future in remembrance of him. The sacrament is really important. So, read that chapter and think about what Christ says its purpose is, and how it can help us.

The sacrament is important for each one of us.

Here's a photo with some of our decorations for the Pioneer Day party! Have a great week!
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Elder Ryan Echols
Adriatic North Mission
Svačićev Trg 3/1
HR-10000 Zagreb
Croatia