Summer Zone Conference

It's been another busy week for us and we're exhausted!  John is asleep in the big chair and I'm trying to stay focused long enough to get the blog written for the week.

We did apartment inspections at the Elder's apartments early in the week.  They do pretty good, for the most part.  I'm sure it doesn't always look as good as when we inspect...  We have been gone so much lately that our apartment could use a good cleaning as well.  I'm glad no one comes to inspect us!

Most of Wednesday afternoon was spent baking cookies for summer zone conference in Zagreb.  We left early Thursday morning for Zagreb.  Zone conference didn't start until Friday but we wanted to finish our project with the Red Cross family center on the same trip.  We took Elders Shaw and Hanks in the car with us.  Elders Evans and Roberts had taken the train to Banja Luka for some training with the zone leaders earlier in the week.  We had Elder Roberts with us from Banja Luka to Zagreb.  The Tuzla Elders also came through Banja Luka and brought the other three Elders to Zagreb with them.

We stopped in Banja Luka long enough to hear transfer announcements.  President decided to do announcements via Zoom video rather than email this time.  It was pretty chaotic with all the missionaries screaming and laughing and high-fiving throughout the announcements.  Maybe it wouldn't be so bad at home with only our four missionaries but in a room full of 11 Elders and Sisters, it was deafening.  Oh, to be young again.

President Melonakos on Zoom - with an electrical box under his nose

Elders Snell, Hanks and Shaw

We had lunch after announcements and headed for Zagreb.  We stopped at the refugee family shelter to drop paper work.  As soon as we got out of the car, the little children ran to us and hugged our legs.  They followed us into the building, chattering in a language we didn't understand, all smiles.  It is amazing how resilient they are, despite their tough circumstances.

After dropping the Elders at the mission office, we checked into our nearby hotel.  We had hoped to see a little more of Zagreb but it was the evening before a major Croatian holiday and the city squares were full of people.  Lots of bands performing and other festivities going on.  Croatia was also playing Argentina in the World Cup that night and football fans were out celebrating. Croatia won, by the way.

It was 99 degrees when we pulled into Zagreb.  A storm came in during the night and Friday the temp dropped into the 50's and it rained all day.  Zone conference was at the mission home, where all the young missionaries stayed.  The four seniors stayed at a nearby hotel and prepared the meals for the conference.  We were combined with the Slovenia zone for this conference.

The APs teaching us - Elder Crapo and Elder Sharp

The theme for conference was motivation - how to we get motivated (through faith and hope) and stay there.

The Bosnia senior Elders Brewer and Cooper

A room full of awesome young missionaries

One of the senior couples serving in Serbia is friends with the gentleman who did the stained glass for the Rome Temple.  The theme for the windows and décor throughout the temple is the olive tree/branch.  They had pieces of stained glass left and he asked if the mission would like some.  He did a short video explaining the glass, then we were all presented with an olive leaf made from the leftover window glass.

I can't wait to see the Rome Temple in person!

The scripture on the card is the mission scripture that we recite at every zone conference.  The conference ended around 3:00 pm and we started for home close to 3:30.  We had to go through Banja Luka again to drop Elder Snell off.  One our way into Banja Luka, we saw something I never thought I'd see in Bosnia, but we were in the orthodox Republic of Srpska where there are fewer Muslims than where we live.

This little pig went to market...

We dropped the Elders at their apartment at 11:30 pm; we dropped into bed around midnight.  Elder Roberts was sick during the night and all day today with chills and fever and feeling overall lousy.  He stayed home from church with Elder Hanks, who was bitten by some bug or spider at the park in Zagreb while they were playing kickball.  He's okay but a little concerned as the bite mark seems to be changing a little and he says his leg is starting to feel tight.  We tried to find somewhere for him to get it checked but nothing is available on Sunday except the ER, which does not have a great reputation here.  We gave him a supply of ibuprofen with instructions to call if it gets worse.  He will get it checked out in Zagreb on Tuesday morning during transfers.

Yes, we are losing two great Elders after only one transfer.  We were sad to loose the Sisters but we adore these two guys and are sad to see them go.  We are getting a set of Sisters back this transfer.

Elder Hanks and Elder Shaw have walked the soles off their shoes

The Elders took the car home with them tonight after dinner.  The Sisters will return with it on Wednesday, so we are kind of stranded until then.  We do have an appointment tomorrow morning and will have to take the tram or a taxi downtown.

I think that's it and it's way past bedtime so I'll finish.  Have a great week!

Father's Day 2018

We spent Wednesday with a new potential partner who is helping the refugees here in Bosnia.  We visited their headquarters in Sarajevo first.  It reminded us of a smaller Humanitarian Center / Deseret Industries.  They are very organized and have many volunteers helping them. We watched a steady stream of donations coming in while we were there - from money to clothing to food.  We visited the safe house for refugee families.

Family safe house

There are currently 19 families at the house, including 46 children.  We hope to help provide some of the furnishings needed at the house.

Our next stop was the large parking lot of the main train station/bus depot in the city.  This NGO (non-government organization) estimates they feed between 500-700 refugees on the streets every day.  The train station is one of three location where they bring food.  They stay until the food is gone, maybe 1-2 hours.

Food on the street served from the back of a car

The menu was a pasta dish with lamb and traditional flat bread.  They serve the food in the yellow plastic bowls you see in the black bag.  There were about 300 hundred bowls in the bag; they ran out and switched to paper plates.  The bowls are taken back to the center and washed for the next meal.  Many of the people like their food spicy so they had large jars of hot pepper to shake onto the pasta.

At the water station

We noticed several children in the group and were told that IOM (International Organization for Migrants) was there and would take the women and children to a safe house or hostel so they are not on the streets.

Ramadan ended Friday evening.  Friday and Saturday were national holidays in Bosnia. It's been very interesting for us to learn more about Ramadan and what happens during that month.  What unites us is bigger than what divides us.

We had a break from feeding the Elders today.  Brother Rhees invited us to his house for chicken curry.  I think he's been a little lonesome without his family here.  After dinner we went with Elder Hanks and Elder Shaw to visit Suada, one of our members who lives about 30 minutes outside the city.  We were invited for cake but when we arrived she fed us a full meal and a huge plate of dessert.  Suada and her son Haris joined the church together.  Haris is the only member from Bosnia to serve a mission.  He served in the England Manchester mission and we learned tonight that he served with our grandson Josh.  It is such a small world in the church!

Dessert at Suada's house with Elder Hanks and Elder Shaw

It will be a short work week for us.  Transfer announcements are this week and summer zone conference will be in Zagreb with Bosnia and Slovenia zones.  We go to Zagreb with the Elders on Thursday.

Another good week

We are at the point where time seems to be flying by.  Another good week here in the Adriatic North Mission - hard to believe we are approaching our six month mark.  But who is keeping track??

We made another quick trip to Zagreb during the week.  We drove up on Tuesday and back home on Wednesday.  We were delivering some items to the family refugee center in Kutina, just outside Zagreb.  We actually purchased the items in Zagreb, as we can't get things across the borders here.  We can't even bring a box of Bibles or Books of Mormon into Bosnia, which is an issue.  But that's a story for another day.  When we were at the store to purchase, we discovered that they had given the Red Cross a significant discount so we have money to buy a few other items they had requested.  We'll go back the end of the month to purchase and deliver the additional items.

John, Mario and Badi unloading the van (mostly Badi)

We placed LDS Charities stickers on all the car seats and booster seats

The children were so cute and wanted to help us with everything.  We needed some photos for our reports so we placed a car seat in the Red Cross van and let the kids take turns sitting in it.

Mario is a gem with the little ones

We have met and become friends with some awesome people that we partner with on projects.  They are compassionate and caring and we know this is more than just a job for them.

It took three geniuses to assemble the crib (instructions are there somewhere...)

One of the family rooms at the center, now with a crib

Friday night we had another bad thunder storm with lots of wind.  We had an appointment on Saturday in Maglaj (Mag-lie) to visit some schools that have no clean water.  One of the schools had a very large poplar (we think) tree fall on the roof and do significant damage.

Fallen tree on a school roof

Someone had cut the tree back from the roof and covered it with a tarp

We were with the principal and this was her first look at the damage.  There is still a week of school here before summer break.  She made arrangements with the teacher in charge to have the children enter from the rear of the school and not to use the front classroom.  The ceiling in that room is saturated with water and they are afraid the roof will cave in.  We are kind of dumbstruck that they would even consider allowing children back into the building.  But they have so few options.

This principal took us to four of her elementary schools that do not have clean water.  The bathrooms are squatty potties that are disgusting to use, especially for girls.

Squatty potty in an elementary school

Whoever thought those were a good idea?  Obviously a man...  They are all in deplorable condition; some of the metal is flaking off the pipes, they don't flush properly and often the sewer backs up into the bathroom.

Metal flaking off the pipes

There is no clean water for drinking or washing hands.  They have put signs up everywhere to warn the students.  They say it has been this way for 40 years.  The public health institute comes yearly to analyze the water and tells them every year it contains bacteria and is unsafe to use.  It goes no further than that.  The school districts have no money to fix anything.  That is where we're hoping we can be of assistance.  The schools need to do much prep work before we can come in, though.  We gave them a list of things to do - find out where the source of bacteria is from; in the community water source?  In the school well?  In the old metal pipes from the well into the school?  We need to know what to repair/replace before we start.  And again, we are dumbstruck that schools would be allowed to operate with these conditions.  We count our many blessing daily.

I've had a nagging earache for two weeks that traveled down into my throat and was heading for the other ear.  I hoped that it would just turn into a cold or better still, go away on its own.  I finally had one of our local partners make a doctor appointment for me on Thursday evening.  The office looked okay and the receptionist spoke enough English to help us.  The first doctor spoke no English, the second one who repeated everything the first one did, spoke a little English and apologized for his Russian accent.  If I didn't already have an infection, I'm sure I would have had one when I left.  No one wears gloves.  None of the equipment, like tongue depressors, are disposable, all are metal.  They pulled them out of a drawer and I can only hope they were sterilized at one point.  There is a very reputable medical school here in Sarajevo and I find it hard to believe they are teaching some of the things we saw.  They wanted to look at the back or top of my throat so got a small dental mirror from the drawer, warmed it in some machine that blew warm air, then rubbed the glass part on their hairy arm.  Both doctors did exactly the same thing.  And now you're putting that in my mouth???  I was fairly sure all I needed was an antibiotic but went away with prescriptions for an antibiotic, allergy medicine (I have no known allergies), pain medication and nasal spray.  We Googled all of them before going to the pharmacy and decided to fill only the antibiotic.  I'll take it for 7 more days and am feeling so much better already.  I let it go much too long.  We count our blessings every day.

Brother Rhees joined us for dinner today.  Camie and the five kids flew to Utah on Thursday and will spend the summer in Utah and Arizona, where her mother lives.  The baby is due July 19; Rhett will be here until early July, then join his family for five weeks.  We have invited him to have Sunday dinner with us every week while he is alone.  Today it was spaghetti and meatballs, salad and bread sticks.  We are amazed at how much the Elders eat each week.  And they are all so thin.  They went through two full boxes of noodles, 4 large jars of sauce, 40 golf ball size meatballs, 32 bread sticks and a huge bowl of salad.  It's a joy to watch them eat and to spend an hour with them.

We love serving in Bosnia and love what we are doing.  We bear testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel and the Book of Mormon.  We know Jesus Christ is our Savior, that he lives and loves each of us.

Heartache and wonder

We have been having some terrific thunderstorms nearly every day the past two weeks.  I love to watch lightening and hear the thunder roar.  The storms haven't disappointed.  I don't recall hearing such loud, ferocious thunder in a long while.  It is usually late afternoon, after a warm humid day.  Some days it is humid enough to change my perfectly coiffed hair into my "African" do.  I can feel it curl as we walk down a street!  On Tuesday we were driving between Mostar and Bihać.  The rain was so heavy we had to pull into a petrol stop to wait it out.

Almost a 6-hour drive Mostar to Bihać

We were in Mostar again to meet up with the LDS Charities vision specialist from Utah.  He and his soon to be replacement were following up on the latest vision screening project in Mostar and to present equipment to the local hospital.  We went to an elementary school first to visit a third grade classroom and watch how they conduct the vision screening.  It is very basic and the teachers are trained to do the screening.

Eye screening at Zalik Elementary School in Mostar

The cantonal (county) minister of education met us at the school.  He is very personable and was very appreciative of what LDS Charities has done in his city.  He was so impressed that he offered his assistance with anything we might need.

Specialists Ike Ferguson & Dr John Tanner, school principal, Minister Rašid Hadžović, Karen & John

Next we went to the cantonal hospital for a press conference with the director of the hospital and the ophthalmology department, and the minister of public health.

Press conference at the Mostar Cantonal Hospital

They all had a prepared statement to read, then opened it for questions.  The first question to the minister was asking his stand on a local issue.  Ever the suave politician, he diplomatically said that was unfair - we are here to talk of the vision project and how it is helping our canton.  Good for him!  During the press conference, LDS Charities presented several pieces of new equipment to the hospital to aid in additional testing when school children are referred from the initial screenings.

One of four autorefractors donated to the hospital

Not to complain, but the major initiatives like vision screening and greenhouses have a huge budget.  And they need it, but this one project was double what our entire budget is for one year!  Here is a link to an article published in the local paper.  You won't be able to read it (unless you Google Translate everything or are fluent in Bosnian) but you can look at our pretty faces.  We were also featured on several TV news stations.

https://dnevni-list.ba/mostarska-bolnica-dobila-opremu-vrijednu-112-tisuca-maraka/

We drove to Bihać (Bee-hawch) after the press conference.  It is about a 6-hour drive from Mostar on 2-lane roads. Bihać is about 17 kilometers from the Croatian border.  It is located on the Una River, population around 60,000.   We arrived at 8:00 PM, checked in to the hotel, had dinner and called it a night.  The hotel's dining room overlooks the river.

Nice home and dock on Una River across from the Hotel Opal in Bihać

This reminded us a little of the river by the Idaho Falls Temple

We were in Bihać for two reasons.  The first was to hopefully kick off a new vision screening project in that canton.  We met with the hospital director, the assistant minister of education and a doctor from the public health institute.  Ike gave a little presentation and they all readily agreed to go forward.  They had already heard positive things from previous cantons where we've had vision screening projects.  Dr. Tanner asked if he could look at their equipment in the ophthalmology department to better assess what they might need.  I have to say I was aghast.  The hospital buildings where the clinics are housed are literally falling apart.  Even I recognized the equipment was so antiquated, I wondered how they function.  Just a new eye chart would be an improvement.  They still use old charts that hang on the wall and the doctor points to the letters.  Each of the various clinics we passed had long lines of patients waiting.  The doctor said they may wait as long as two months or more for an eye exam.

We said goodbye to the specialists and went to our second reason for being in Bihać.  A new refugee camp has emerged in the past month.  Bosnia is not an EU nation and has very little to offer refugees.  We knew there were 300-400 refugees staying in one area of Sarajevo but no one has paid much attention to them.  Surrounding countries have tightened their borders and cut off the route refugees were taking.  The ultimate goal is to reach an EU country, who will offer more assistance.  So now they are coming via Greece, Macedonia and Montenegro into Bosnia.  There were a few hundred camped in a city park and they were bused down to Mostar.  It's a mystery how they all know where to go, but they must have a strong network to pass info along.  They like Bihać because it is so close to the Croatian border.  The Red Cross estimates there are around 450 people there already; just in the past two weeks.  And growing each day.  The conditions are deplorable and the Red Cross is struggling to manage the situation.  The German Red Cross donated a field kitchen that is in their warehouse in downtown Bihać.  They can afford to feed them only one meal each day.  Lunch is served at 2:00 PM and that is all they get.  The food is transported from the warehouse to the camp about 2 miles away.

Field kitchen in the Red Cross warehouse-not very sanitary conditions

Warning: this place broke my heart and moves me to tears just writing about it now.  The building is a former college dormitory, damaged during the war and never restored.  It has been vacant for years.  No windows so it is open to the elements whenever it rains or the wind blows.

Refugee camp near Bihać

Entrance to building front

One room for single men

A family room

Hole in the concrete floor by a sleeping mat

No place yet for new arrivals that day

A sweet moment - children always bring joy wherever they are

Whew, that was a hard day for us!  We're waiting for some direction from Frankfurt as to what and how much we will be allowed to do.  On our way back through town two days later, we saw several men walking along the road.  We knew immediately they were refugees, headed for the camp.

This is becoming quite a lengthy blog and we still have another adventure to get through!  This one is much more pleasant.  We took a couple days off and went to Plitvice (Pleet-veet-seh) Lakes National Park across the border in Croatia.  The Rick Steves tour book describes it as one of Europe's most spectacular wonders.  "Imagine Niagara Falls diced and sprinkled over a heavily forested Grand Canyon.  There's nothing like this lush valley of 16 terraced lakes, separated by natural travertine dams and laced together by waterfalls, boat rides and miles of pleasant plank walks."

John at the park entrance

It took us a few minutes in the park to realize what was different - it is strictly look and don't touch.  You can hike on the plank pathways only; there is no recreation happening - no swimming, boating (except the official park boats), fishing.  Just busloads of Japanese tourists with their selfie sticks.  And we thought they were all on Temple Square... The park is awesome and well worth the drive but it does take us through one of the poorest, remotest areas of inland Croatia.  This part of the country is still war torn.  We saw bombed out churches and homes in many villages.

The lake water was so clear we could see the fish swimming

We took so many photos it's hard to choose which ones to include.  Here's a video of one of the falls.

Electric boat ride to the upper lakes area

We hiked the lower lakes, then rode a boat the the upper lakes area.  From there we hiked back down to catch the tram to the parking area.  You could probably hike for a few days in the park to see all the lakes and falls, but four hours was plenty for us.  It was a hot day so we went back to our hotel to swim and sit by the pool.

View of pool area from our hotel room

We stayed at House Tina in Grabovac (Grab-oh-vats), a few miles from the park.  It was in a quiet, peaceful area away from the tourist chaos.  It is family run and the dad does "BBQ" for the guests each night.  The menu is always the same - meat platter or trout.  Both come with grilled veggies, potatoes, fresh salad and bread.  The meat platter is a chicken cutlet, a pork chop, a sausage, 2 ćevapi (local sausages), and two pieces of bacon.  Way too much food, but so delicious.

John had the local trout our second night at the hotel

It was such a relaxing, serene place we were sad to leave.  The drive home on Friday was about six hours.

Today we viewed the Western Europe Regional Conference broadcast.  Elder Kearon conducted, Elder Uchtdorf presided.  They both spoke; we also heard from Sister Jones and Elder Hallstrom.  It was streamed live via the internet and went okay except for a few moments of buffering when we missed the intermediate hymn.  We had visitors from Taiwan, Las Vegas (originally from South Africa) and Washington DC today.  And three investigators.  The gentleman from Vegas was alone and has been traveling for a month.  He said his wife is 86 and won't go with him anymore.  He is 89.

The Tuzla Elders were here today so we had six dinner guests.  We did haystacks and I cooked 24 cups of rice.  They ate it all but a few grains and a large pan of brownies after.  Elder Evans told me that everything I cook is divine.  I guess I'll invite them back again - how can we not after a remark like that?

This has been a good week for reflecting on all we have been blessed with.  I am reminded of Elder Kearon's remarks from his April 2016 conference talk, "This moment will not define the refugees, but our response will help define us."  There has never been a time in my life when I went without food or clothing or a safe place to sleep at night.  I always knew that I was loved and cared about by someone.  May we all be full of gratitude and respond to others with kindness, love, compassion and generosity.