The entire Bosnia missionary zone came into Sarajevo Sunday evening for a "Super P-Day" on Monday and Zone Conference on Tuesday. President and Sister Melonakos were still here and Elder and Sister Swendsen decided to stay an extra day to play with us before returning to Serbia. The only three Sisters now in Bosnia stayed at our apartment.
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| Sisters Heder, Melonakos, Smith, and Livingston |
The girls are all cute and fun to be around. We have twin beds in the spare room so one Sister had to sleep on the couch cushions on the floor. Sister Smith is from Australia, the other two are from Utah.
We did have a great activity on Monday. The Zone Leaders wanted to do an escape room, which is what they always do when they get together. I suggested we ride the cable car up the mountain and hike down. Sister Melonakos gently persuaded them to do the cable car.
Work on the original Trebević cable car (funicular) began in 1956 and was operational by May 3, 1959. The 2100 meter-long-system (6,890 feet) connected the city to Mt Trebević and was the top excursion site in town. The base was at 583 meters (1913 feet), the top at 1160 meters (3,806 feet). The old system had 50 cars that held 4 or 5 people. It took 12 minutes to reach the top. 800 passengers could be transported, both directions, over the course of an hour.
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| View on our way up. The base building is in the middle of the picture. |
By the time of the Siege of the 1990's, millions of passengers had ridden the cable car, making it one of the most recognizable symbols of BiH's capital. One of the first victims of the war was Ramo Biber, who ran the top station and was killed by joint JNA forces on March 2, 1992. The cable car was destroyed during the early days of the war and Mt Trebević was on the front lines. When the war was over, the funicular was not a priority. Mt Trebević was full of land mines and divided between two entities, the Federation of BiH and the Srpska Republic, and remains divided today.
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| Another view on the ride to the top |
The Sarajevan people and government slowly came around to the idea of restoring the cable car and with the help of generous donations, it reopened on April 6, 2018. And we are lucky enough to live here to enjoy it! The new system has 33 gondolas, all black except for five, which are the colors of the Olympic rings (blue, red, yellow, green, black) and one with the colors of the Bosnian flag. Every gondola can hold 10 passengers and the ride to the top takes about 8 minutes. A total of 1200 passengers can be transported within an hour. The top station was name after Ramo Biber.
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| At the top, watching the cable cars |
The view at the top is spectacular. We hiked around a bit, posing for groups photos.
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| Bosnia zone (John is taking the picture) |
The excursion took about 2 1/2 hours for the slow ones (Coopers and Swendsens) but we enjoyed chatting and comparing our mission woes. The downhill trek was
very steep. I had put on a new pair of socks that morning that rubbed on one heel, producing a huge blister. Our knees and calves were pretty tender for several days. It was an Aleve week for us! After we all made it to the bottom, we went into Old Town for traditional ćevapi and flat bread. Then we went home to put our feet up.
The Sisters had done their emailing at our apartment before the activity. All the Elders were trying to use the one computer in the chapel. Elders Hanks, Shaw and Woodhouse asked if they could proselyte their way to our apartment, then do their emails home. They spent about an hour with us, then it was back to work.
Tuesday was Zone Conference, probably one of my least favorite things we do on this mission. The young missionaries all love it and they get to spend some time together. And it's good training for them and gives the president time to cover any issues the zone might be having. We've had a lot of information on social media rules and safety, which is always needed in today's world. We find it interesting because we are not a media mission - meaning they are not allowed to use tablets or computers of any kind except on P-Day when they email home. They do not even have smart phones. And while we're on the subject of social media, did you know that the Bosnia LDS Facebook page is one of the top two pages viewed of all the LDS Facebook sites? We find that rather amazing, considering the low membership we have here.
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The Elders of Bosnia: Crapo (AP), Leach, Armond, Cooper, Melonakos, Roberts, Sharp (AP), Snell;
kneeling: Woodhouse, Evans, Shaw, Hanks |
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| The Sarajevo District: Elders Shaw and Hanks, Elder and Sister Cooper, Elders Evans and Roberts |
Today we visited Tuzla for church. When we started at 10:00, only one faithful member was there. Two more came in late so we had the Sacrament again at the end of the meeting so the late ones could partake. Tuzla is an audience participation congregation - there is often help with the language and other comments offered during the meeting. We love going there and being entertained. When we have such small groups, we adapt and do whatever it takes to make it work.
Our district is having a special fast today for help with the work. The Elders get pretty discouraged when there is so little success for all their hard work. We decided to set a date for a baptism or other positive results to happen and we are all fasting with faith that it will happen. And of course the Elders decided we should all break our fast together at guess whose house for dinner? They requested lasagna. We took a pan to Tuzla for those Elders and they plan to break their fast at 5:00 PM with us.
We're off on another traveling adventure next week. Have a good week!
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