Hello everyone! We're here once again at the church
emailing, so I figured I could tell you about our week a bit. To start off
with, it's been pretty rainy.
Anyway, on Monday last week we had some travel stuff for
transfers and ended up in Zagreb (where I emailed you all last time). After
that I said bye to Elder Christensen, and a bunch of us helped move luggage
around and at the end we 5 elders went to a mall to get some food, before
heading to the Assistants' apartment to spend the night (though, the Assistants
themselves weren't there).
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| Transfer adventures...fitting everyone and their luggage in the car |
Tuesday started with the 5 of us going on an adventure to
try to find food. The GPS knew where some McDonald's places were, but one was
under construction and another one didn't have a drive through and another one
didn't actually exist. So, we ended up having 3 of us park and stay with the
car so they could move it if needed, while Elder Strong and I ran in to order.
That was a reeeeeally fancy McDonald's. Also, the lady gave me a funny look
when I said that I wanted 7 breakfast sandwiches, and there were only two of us
standing there. After that we all made it over to the big Ikea in the outskirts
of Zagreb for our giant transfer meet-up / swap. We took some pictures,
switched luggage, and then I got in a car with Elders Bird and Jensen. If you
don't remember, Elder Jensen was my companion in Celje when I first went to
Slovenia and started learning Slovene. This transfer he got moved to Belgrade,
so now he's learning Serbian for the first time! In the car ride across Croatia
I answered some of Elder Jensen's initial questions about the differences
between Slovene and Serbian. We made a stop in Sremska to drop some stuff off,
continued on to Belgrade to drop off Elder Jensen, and then circled around back
to Novi Sad for me and Elder Bird. Transfers are always an adventure. We got
there right at the end of English, and Elder Bird met Sisters Icke and Marinković.
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| Me and Elder Jensen at the Ikea meet up during transfers |
Wednesday wasn't terribly interesting, since Elder Bird had
to unpack and I had to plan some other stuff while he did that. In the
afternoon we went to the Nields' for district meeting, and then had some
studies and transfer planning. At the end of the day we got dinner at Tortilla
Casa with "John" and the sisters. "John" is an investigator
that's been ready to be baptized for quite a while, except that he hasn't been
living in Novi Sad and couldn't come to church regularly. But, this week he got
a job in Novi Sad and moved into town, so now he can come all the time!
Thursday we had some unusual stuff to do on Facebook, since
our bosses wanted numbers. It was cool to actually kinda count stuff and see
how much good stuff we've gotten out of this Facebook work. A bit later the
Nields and the Deckers showed up, and they unexpectedly handed us a pizza box.
That was particularly great, since we hadn't had lunch yet, but we also didn't
have time to go get lunch because we had a lesson scheduled to show up very
soon. But, then the guy didn't show up on time, and texted us 15 minutes after
he was supposed to come, saying that he was on his way. He eventually showed up
40 minutes after we were supposed to meet and told us he didn't have time to
meet right then... Later on, we met with "John" right before English
to talk about our plan, now that he can come to church. What's the plan? He's
going to be baptized on August 4th! We're really excited for that. He's so
ready.
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| Language study! |
On Friday morning we made some phone calls to try to set up
more lessons, and then finally got around to buying groceries (since we weren't
here on Monday to buy food for the week). After lunch we had some business-y
stuff to do at the church (someone's gotta do it). When we went contacting
after that, it was looking the whole time like it was going to rain, but all we
ever got was a slight mist. Until we got back to the church. Then it started
DUMPING rain. Nice. We did eventually have to leave the church, and the streets
were looking more like rivers than roads. Too bad these shoes aren't waterproof
anymore. That evening we went to American Corner to help local students
practice English, and while we were there it stopped raining. After that we
went with some of the older students to get some dinner, and we ended up having
some good discussions about their beliefs, which was nice. As a sidenote, most
of us ordered sandwiches. It turns out that the one I ordered was about twice
as big as everyone else's and it was probably the best sandwich I've ever had.
So good.
Saturday started with more business stuff that comes at the
end of the quarter (since I'm the mission clerk / "Data Master"), and
then we got lunch at Gyros Master, which is always really good. Since stuff
always falls out of people's gyros, there are always pigeons around. This time
there was one pigeon that looked like it had been swimming through a sewer or
something. After a companionship study, the sisters and one of our members came
to the church. We 4 missionaries cleaned the church, and that member lady
decided to make us some food, which was really nice. After the 5 of us ate
together, the sisters had a lesson, and then we had the sisters' German class.
At the end of that we of course had a closing prayer like always, but this time
the person who said the prayer was one of their investigators that came. Cool
stuff. After that, one of our members that was there stayed around so we could
help him with family history, since he's going to the temple in Switzerland
this week with the big group from across the mission. Since there's no temple
in our mission, there's a big annual trip that gets put together every year.
That's this week. Anyway, after we got him some names printed off with him to
take to the temple, we went to Waffle Boss for dinner. That lady again started
shaking out her rugs out her window, but thankfully the wind was in our favor
this time so we didn't get covered in dog hair.
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| Me and Elder Bird taking a silly photo |
Yesterday, Sunday, we of course had church, and this week
was fast Sunday, so people gave their testimonies during sacrament meeting. I
also played piano for that meeting, since Elder Christensen isn't here to do it
any more. In Sunday school we talked about Joshua and the verse that has
"choose you this day whom ye will serve... but as for me and my house, we
will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15). One thing that we talked about with
that is that it says "choose you this day", not something
like "choose you when it's convenient". We have to be on the
Lord's side at all times and in all places, not just on Sundays or when it's
easy. Anyway, the rest of Sunday was just the normal stuff, like weekly
planning.
Your homework for this week is to listen to a talk from April General Conference.
It's important to get guidance both from books like the Bible and Book of
Mormon, but also from current leaders that receive revelation and guidance for
the exact problems we're facing now in this time.
Well, here are some photos from this week! One is from one
of our many over-packed car rides, two are from the Ikea meet-up, and the last
one is here in Novi Sad with Elder Bird.
Have a great week!
--
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
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