Elder Echols

Elder Echols

Monday, August 13, 2018

Week 104: More Visa Work, Stuffed Peppers, and an Ordination


 
Hey everyone! It's been another good week. The weather has been pretty warm over here, but not tooooo bad.

Last Monday, we actually did some pretty interesting stuff besides emailing. For example, we got burritos for lunch, and I got a haircut. Later on we also went with the sisters and rented a 4-seat bicycle cart thing at the riverwalk. I did the steering, and Elder Bird did the majority of the pedaling. Needless to say, it was a pretty exciting ride, and we did some "off-roading"of sorts, haha.

On Tuesday when we went contacting it was reeeeally hot compared to normal. Don't know where that came from. That evening just before English we found out that Sister Marinković hadn't been feeling very well, so the sisters didn't come and we had to fend for ourselves, haha. When we got home, I made tacos for dinner for the first time in forever. I couldn't find a proper cheese grater, though, so I ended up using a potato peeler to shred a whole block of cheese by hand. That kinda took a while, but the tacos tasted good in the end.

Wednesday started off with another visit to the local visa office. Yaaay. After that whole thing, we had district council (which is district meeting, but with a new name) at the Nields' place, and we talked about the importance of the message of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. After that Elder Nield had a meeting with a member over at the church that I had to be a part of, so we did that, and then we tried to have our Book of Mormon class, but no one showed up, not even the sisters (since Sister Marinković still wasn't feeling well). What a shame. Thankfully we got Waffle Boss for dinner, so that helped make up for it, haha.

As for Thursday, Elder Nield and I had another meeting with a member at the church, so that was our morning. From there we took Elder Nield to get Gyros Master, and he discovered that he really likes it, haha. That evening we had English, and it turned out that Sister Marinkovic was feeling better, so we had the full group back together.


Friday started off with another trip to the visa office, but hopefully this was the last one, since now Elder Bird has his visa! Finally. Later on, when we were doing our Facebook work, we had some pretty good discussions with some people. In the meantime, the Relief Society sisters were all downstairs making food together, and they happened to invite us (and Elder Nield) to help eat the results. They'd made stuffed peppers, a fairly traditional dish from around here, and it was pretty darn good.

Saturday of course started off with us all cleaning the church together, like usual, and then we had a little meeting to plan out some stuff, such as the fact we're going to try to start a class thing to go through the church's 12 step Addiction Recovery program with anyone that wants to come. We had lunch at Gyros Master, and then some studies before the sisters had a lesson with "Shawn". When they were done with that, I had the opportunity to do the "baptismal interview" to double check and make sure he's ready. That's the first one I've ever done, and it was pretty cool. In any case, "Shawn" is going to be baptized this Saturday! Just after that interview, when we did our daily Facebook work, I ended up teaching almost the entire first lesson to a guy over chat. It's really interesting when stuff like that happens, since they very often live off in distant parts of Serbia where we don't have missionaries or members, and where missionaries rarely (if ever) go. After that, the sisters had their German class, and we attended. That was great as always.


Yesterday, Sunday, of course started off with going to church. During sacrament meeting the sisters had a special musical number, and so I accompanied them for that. We also had the District President there with us from Belgrade, and he spoke. For Sunday School, I taught a lesson on the Word of Wisdom to help get people to realize the potential need to come to the Addiction Recovery course we'll be having. We had a lot of good participation for that lesson. Then during our class for Elders' Quorum, "John" received the priesthood! That is, he now has the authority to do stuff like baptize or bless the sacrament (bread and water in memory of Jesus Christ). Right after that, we had a great lesson about the priesthood, that authority, from another visiting leader that came from Belgrade with the district president. We also had a great dinner at the Nields (though the cook, Sister Nield, might disagree, haha) that evening, and it was a good Sunday.

Anyway, your homework for this week is to read Doctrine & Covenants 20. It talks a little bit about Joseph Smith and how the Book of Mormon is proof that God speaks even today, but also about how baptisms should be done, and the priesthood authority that is required for ordinances like baptism to be valid. It's a fairly important section.


Anyway, here are a few photos! Sorry if they're not terribly interesting this time. One is of my soles, the other is of the church's yard. Have a great week!

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


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