Pioneer Day week

We barely knew it was Pioneer Day on July 24th.  There was no parade, no fireworks and no rodeo.  We celebrated by getting the oil changed in the car.  The Wood family invited the young missionaries over for a "Utah" dinner of pulled pork sliders, funeral potatoes and green jello.  There is only one American in the bunch but they all appreciated the good food.

We had a movie night at the church on Friday.  We watched "17 Miracles" in English with Croatian sub-titles.  That was a good pioneer story for the week, I guess.  The movie notice was posted on Facebook and had over 400 hits.  50 people responded and said they were coming.  The Elders were so excited and went to a lot of prep work for the night.  We didn't want to discourage them but tried to hint that if 50 said they were coming, 20 might show up.  They were so confident there would be a big crowd that they asked the Tuzla Elders to come and help them talk to all the people.  On the drive to the chapel, I guessed there would be 10 people show up.  I was wrong, 11 came.  The Elders were so disappointed but we reminded them that 11 was a good turn out for Sarajevo.  We're still eating all the popcorn they made for the movie!

Today we had a linger-longer potluck for our second hour.  It is usually quite a feast but some of the embassy families are away and I didn't have the energy to cook.  Our contribution was cheese and crackers.  Franz and Mira brought wurst salad.  It looked like bologna cut into strips with diced onions in an oil and vinegar dressing.  Kind of tasted like bologna but Iris (English speaker) said it was probably chicken wurst, whatever that might be!

Our fairly recent convert, Zlatko, spoke in Sacrament meeting today.  He is very shy and was extremely nervous.  He speaks with a stutter, which makes him even more hesitant to speak.  By the way, he never stutters when he blesses the Sacrament.  He did a good job but it was short so President Cooper asked me to bear my testimony.  I was reading the July Ensign article about Faith in Isolation and saw our good friends the Assards in the article.  So I talked a little about the small number of members here and that we must remain faithful and keep our covenants so others will join the church.  The few members here will be pioneers like the Assards and I know that one day there will be many wards and stakes in Bosnia, just like in Cote d'Ivoire now.  It was the best I could do on short notice!

We traveled to Bihać and Velika Kladuša in northeast Bosnia to check on the refugee situation.  It is estimated that there are nearly 10,000 migrants at or near the border now.  It is very easy to enter Bosnia illegally and almost impossible to get out illegally because the other countries have tightened their borders.  We drove to Velika Kladuša first and the Red Cross told us to stay away from the camps.  There had been incidents of violence and one man was stabbed to death the afternoon we arrived.  Supposedly fighting over a shower but I'm sure there was more to it.  They didn't have to tell us twice - we drove on to Bihać.

Bihać is located on the beautiful Una River.  We had dinner at a nice restaurant on the river banks.

View from our dinner table

Hungry Elder Cooper, tired of waiting for his food

Many of the restaurants try to have the menu selections in both Bosnian and English.  We could probably get a job translating menus.

Check out # 5

Thursday morning we visited the dormitory where the refugees are housed.  We posted photos a few blogs ago.  The refugee population has at least tripled since our last visit - getting close to 1,000 at this location now - there are tents and ropes between trees holding up blankets everywhere.

Outside the dormitory

Inside the dormitory

Trying to have clean clothes in filthy conditions

I just can't wrap my mind around all this.  It is such a horrible situation and there are as many stories as there are people, some good and some not so good.  We just have to keep doing what we can and are allowed to do and try to imagine what the Savior would want us to do.  We are so blessed.

Tonight we had breakfast for dinner.  We recruited the Elders to make the pancakes while I made the buttermilk syrup and John cooked eggs.

It takes 3 men to flip pancakes - they all look so serious

Elder Roberts was cooking, Elder Evans added the blueberries and I guess John was offering advice.

This afternoon we were invited back to House For All to a children's activity.  This is the refugee family safe house here in Sarajevo.  LDS Charities provided supplies for the children's room.  They had a room set aside for the children but there was nothing in it.  We had a great time purchasing paper, paints, crayons, markers, string, glue, tape, buttons, pipe cleaners, paper plates, glitter, scissors, etc.  Anything that looked like it might be used for a children's creative activity, we bought.  Today they were making cats.

Elder Cooper holding the cat example

Creating a cat with golden glitter eye lashes

The kids seemed to have a good time.  It was kind of hard getting photos without anyone's faces in the picture.  They are darling kids and I would love to snap their faces but then we can't use the photos.  So all you get to see is the craft items and a few hands doing the creating.

Who wouldn't have fun with all that glitter and glue?

Everyday is an adventure for us.  We are busy now submitting a couple new projects and catching up on all our travel paperwork.  Next week should be a little slower for us.

How could I do that?

We've had a busy week on the road.  We left home Tuesday morning for Tuzla to finalize a project proposal there.  We hope to renovate a retail space in the town center for an organization that helps handicapped and disabled adults.  I reached for the camera to take photos of the space but it wasn't in the normal pocket of my bag.  I thought I must have left it in the other bag in the car so I just used the phone to snap a few pictures.  The meeting went well and we headed for Banja Luka.  We arrived safely at the hotel.  We attempted to check in but discovered we had no passports with us.  As instructed, we NEVER leave the house without our passports.  We both panicked a little - it could become a very difficult situation if we were stopped for any reason.  The hotel was very nice and said if anyone at home could email them a photo of our passport page and Bosnian visa, it wouldn't be a problem.  The missionaries do have a key to our apartment but we can't get across the border without a passport so we knew we'd have to go home anyway.  We had planned to have dinner with the new senior couple in Banja Luka so we decided to do that, then return to Sarajevo.

Wild flowers along the roadside near Banja Luka

We had already been on the road for five hours at this point.  We had two appointments in Banja Luka Wednesday morning and two in Zagreb Thursday morning and a non-refundable hotel room booked in Zagreb.  After dinner with the Brewers, we drove four hours back to Sarajevo.  We arrived about 10:30 pm and got up at 5:30 am the next morning to drive the four hours back to Banja Luka for our appointments.

Cat in the grass in Banja Luka

We were waiting for our first appointment in Banja Luka when I looked up and saw a little face peeking out from the grass near the parking area.  No one is really concerned over mowing lawns and keeping grassy areas neat and tidy here.  The grass and flowers were nearly twice as tall as the little cat.

Those of you that know me very well know that I tend to be over-organized (if that's possible) so leaving home without passports was simply unbelievable for me!  No passports, no wallet so no money, personal credit cards or driver's license and no camera.  John carries our Church credit card with him, thank goodness.  And he had his wallet and some Bosnian currency in his pocket.  The next evening I left my bag (with passports, wallet, camera, etc.) sitting on a chair in the restaurant.  I think I'm losing brain cells or just having a bad senior moment week.

We saw the coolest thing on our way out of Banja Luka Wednesday afternoon.  We had to turn around to take pictures.

Stork's nest a on telephone pole near Gradiska

Your babies are on the way - we saw the storks preparing to fly.  We're told there are many storks in this area of the country.  We had no idea this is where babies come from!

Storks standing in their nest

After our appointments on Thursday, we took the rest of the day off and saw a little of the Zagreb Center Square.  It was a very warm day and lots of tourists everywhere.  There is still a lot of World Cup excitement and pride in the city.  We saw the red and white checks everywhere we went.

Statue of Josip Jelačić on his horse, wearing a cape of the Croatian colors

This statue was removed in 1947 when the new communist government of Yugoslavia denounced Jelačić as a "servant of foreign interests."  In 1990 during the breakup of Yugoslavia, Jelačić's influence was again considered positive and he was returned to the square.

Directly behind the statue is the Dolac Market.  There are hundreds of vendors selling meat, flowers, produce, fish and just about anything else.  It is quite colorful with all the red umbrellas over each of the stands.

Steps leading up to Dolac Market in Zagreb

The painting on the steps is an apple vendor from the old days.  The other section of steps has apples.

Apples on the Dolac market steps

John's new friend at the top of the steps - he doesn't want to get too close!

We were immediate friends!

We drove home on Friday.  Everyone else had the same idea of leaving Croatia as we did and we had a very long wait at the border.

Waiting in line at the border to enter Bosnia

Our wait at the border was an hour and a half on Friday.  We figured the line was nearly two miles long.  You can't tell from the photo but the line goes through the bridge over the Sava River and on into Bosnia.

This is what we spend a lot of time doing when we're home.  Paper work and spreadsheets.  This is only from last week's travels.

Sorting through receipts from our travels

 

Someone shared this on Facebook and I liked it so I'm sharing the words here.  Not sure who the author is.  "You may think that you are completely insignificant in this world.  But someone drinks coffee every morning from their favorite cup that you gave them.  Someone heard a song on the radio that reminded them of you.  Someone read a book you recommended, and plunged headfirst into it.  Someone remembered your joke and smiled, returning home from work in the evening.  Someone loves himself a little more because you gave them a compliment.  Never think that you have no influence whatsoever.  Your trace, which you leave behind with even a few good deeds, can not be erased."

Go Croatia!!

All everyone here is talking about these days is Croatia playing in the World Cup finals tonight.  We were in Zagreb the night of the Croatia-Argentina game and the city was a mad house.  I'm glad we aren't there tonight!  John has mixed emotions about who to cheer for - his beloved France (where he served as a young missionary) or Croatia.  I love France as well, but how can we not cheer for Croatia when we live next door and it's part of our mission?

We've had a busy week meeting with several of our partners.  We were in Tuzla all day and met the Elders for a late lunch.  I neglected to take their picture and these are two Elders I don't think we have blogged about before.  Both are good young men and we really like them.  I've mentioned before how much responsibility the Tuzla Elders have running the branch group by themselves, plus all their other missionary and teaching duties.  No slackers are assigned to Tuzla.

Our church meetings have become more interesting lately.  It gets a bit noisy at times with translations taking place in English, Bosnian and German.  A local member was teaching the second hour class from Elder Echohawk's conference talk on forgiving.  There was quite an animated discussion between the three Bosnians (one an investigator) about if we forgive, then we forget.  It had been going on for awhile and I wasn't getting real good vibes, even though I didn't understand much of what they were saying.  Voices were being raised and they weren't looking at each other very kindly when I asked Elder Evans if things were okay or if we should attempt to move them onto something else.  It worked out okay and part of it is simply the Balkan way of discussing things.

We learned in District Meeting that we don't have District Meeting any longer, we have District Council.  And we no longer have investigators, we have "people."  I have a feeling "Mister Brown" will be returning to the missionary lessons (discussions to those who served missions in the 60's and 70's).  Ha ha!

Since I neglected to take photos of anything we were doing, you get to meet some of our branch members today.

Ian, Alexis, Shay and Malcolm Wood

The Woods are one of our embassy families.  Shay served in this mission when it was the Slovenia/Croatia mission and has retained his language skills.  He is the first counselor in the Branch Presidency and a big help with anything language related.  Alexis is the Relief Society President.  Ian is 4 and Malcolm was baptized in June.

Mira and Franz Graff

Mira is Bosnian, but lived in Germany after the war here.  She met Franz there and was married.  They returned to the Sarajevo area when her parents died and she inherited the family home.  She speaks Bosnian and German.  Franz speaks German and very little Bosnian.  He is not a member yet but brings her to church faithfully each week.  He joins the meetings, taking a smoke break in between.  He was baptized a Catholic and doesn't see the need to be baptized again.  He brings Mira to church because he knows they will receive blessings from it.

Iris Beglerovic with Sister and President Melonakos

Iris is also the only member in her family.  She was the first member baptized in Sarajevo about seven years ago.  She speaks English very well and translates emails and documents for us.  Her birthday was last Sunday and she brought a cake to church to share with all of us.

Sister Dunn, Kaleena McKell, Sister Smith

Kaleena is here doing an internship with an NGO.  She joined us almost 4 months ago and will be returning to BYU in 3 weeks.  She served a mission in Russia and can understand a lot of Bosnian.  The missionaries have enjoyed having another young member here with them.  We're going to miss Kaleena when she leaves.

Elder Roberts, Mario, Elder Evans

Mario is a special "people" that has been visiting off and on for about 6 months.  He lives in Rijecka (ree-yeck-a) but his mother is in Sarajevo and very ill so he visits her as often as possible.  When he is here, he tries to come to church.  Mario is very quiet and soft spoken and has a very sweet spirit about him.

Elder Evans, Zayko, Elder Roberts

Zayko is another "people" the Elders are working with.  He has very strong Christian beliefs and bears his testimony on Fast Sunday.  He struggles with life in general and works so hard to support himself but he has a great attitude.

We will be traveling most of next week.  Back to Tuzla to see if we can finalize a project proposal, then to Banja Luka for a day and on to Zagreb (hope the football craziness is finished before we get there).

In spite of all our complaining and murmuring, we love being missionaries.  We love living in Sarajevo and wish you all could come visit to see what we get to see every day (that was a hint...).  We testify of the reality of Heavenly Father and of Jesus Christ.  To quote Elder Echohawk's talk "The tomb is empty.  He lives."  We know him.  We love him.  We are trying to represent him well.

4th of July week

The 4th of July was just another day here in Bosnia.  It rained most of the day and there were no fireworks.  We would have had a little celebration with just the missionaries but two are from Australia and one is from Germany and everyone thinks we're Canadians, so... We had district meeting on the 4th and the Elders announced they were celebrating by having tacos for dinner.  When I said "tacos?  Tacos are Mexican, not American,"  they both said oh, ya, I guess that's right.  Oh well.

We had a very productive meeting with a potential partner this week.  We hope we will be able to partner and make some good things happen.  We have been scouring the old projects and partner lists and making appointments to renew old acquaintances and remind them that LDS Charities is here and ready to assist.  We have some great ideas and are trying to get things underway but haven't been too successful yet.

Saturday we were in Zenica (ZEN-eets-ah) to kick off a new project to help mothers caring for severely disabled children.  A psychologist will do group and individual sessions to teach them better coping skills.  We planned for 20 women and 30 showed up.  The NGO we are working with has done some amazing things already.  The president of the NGO, who is the one who started it, has a disabled 12-year old son that reminds us of our nephew Corey.  We told him a little about Corey and he was so thrilled that we might understand a little about his circumstances.

Banner with donors that will hang in the center until the project completes

The people here are so hospitable and kind to us, everywhere we go.  One of the mothers who came for training had baked a cake to share with us that morning.  It was still warm and oh so good.  Then the president and the social worker insisted on taking us for coffee.  Going for coffee is an excuse to sit and talk for awhile and a very big part of the culture here.  It is a rather nice part of the culture that allows you to slow down for a few minutes (or hours) and enjoy each other.

After we returned from Zenica, we had dinner with Edina and her family at one of our favorite restaurants.  Edina is one of the good women we work with at Muslim Aid.  We have been hearing about her family since we arrived and we finally got to meet them.

Edina, Davud, Tarik and Harun

You can see Davud and Harun's faces better in this photo

The twins are 3 1/2 years old and very well behaved.  They ate pretty well also - they liked the sea bass and vegetables and even the salad.  The best part was the chocolate ice cream that came in the little jars you can see in front of Davud.  They each had their own jar and were happy little guys.

On Friday the six Sarajevo district missionaries did a service project at Riders of Hope.  Riders of Hope is an equestrian therapeutic riding program for disabled children and adults.  They also do many other things like summer camps and riding lessons and trail rides.  The owners have been great friends of the church and are willing to help us with anything.  We called to see if we could come by to visit and she explained that they were painting and doing some other work.  I asked if we could bring the missionaries to help.

John filling the wheelbarrow

John and I cleared the spot where the ramp had been sitting.  It was full of weeds and grass and large rocks.  We removed all the debris and raked it level.  It felt good to do some physical work.  When the wheelbarrow was full, John started to move it.  The clamp holding it onto the wheels came off and the barrow (is that what it's called?) fell off, spilling all our hard work.  Sister Dunn rushed over to help.  She is a tiny thing, under 5 feet tall.  She picked up the big scoop shovel and went to work as soon as John had the wheelbarrow reassembled.

Sister Dunn's shovel full of dirt and rocks probably weighs as much as she does!

Elder Roberts, Sister Smith and Sister Dunn painting

Elder Evans was painting, too.  He was hidden in the previous picture.

The ramp was moved to a new spot and needed a good paint job.  It was a hot afternoon and the paint dried on that metal almost as soon as they applied it.  They used almost all the paint and completed the job just as it was time to leave.

The missionaries just left our house.  The food consumption has decreased significantly now that we have sisters back with us.  Today they were full of funny stories about the meaning of people's names.  From there we moved on to communism and how the people here still love Tito and the old Yugoslavia when everyone had a job and a place to live and food to eat.  This is a fascinating place to live!

Cold and rainy

We continue to be fascinated by the lovely gardens all around us.  The cherries and strawberries are all gone; we are enjoying corn on the cob and raspberries now.  The corn was a little disappointing - I said it isn't sweet and tender like the corn we buy from Schmidt's Family Farm at the Farmer's Market and John said it sure isn't Taber corn.  All you southern Albertans will know what he means.

The garden directly behind us

I think the last photo of the neighbor's garden was just after they plowed and had started to plant.  Look at it now!  Rows and rows of potatoes, onions, corn, beans, cabbage, spinach, peppers, carrots and squash.  Probably more that I can't see from our window or don't recognize.

Our personal deck garden

We have had an unusually cool week - in the 50's and lots of rain every day.  We even had to turn the heat back on one day.  It's just as well, I got the zone conference flu bug Monday and John got it Tuesday.  The car was in Zagreb for transfers with the young missionaries so we spent most of the week on the couch wrapped in a blanket.  All those dark days and so much rain was starting to get a little depressing.

Saturday we ventured out to shop and visit the Catholic Cathedral and the Srebrenica Exhibition in Old Town.  We had lunch at Apetit, a restaurant we had not tried previously.  It was a little pricey for lunch but good.

Inside the Catholic Cathedral, Old Town

Inside of Catholic Cathedral

We have toured many churches and cathedrals around the world and this was probably one of the least inviting.  Maybe it was the grumpy old man at the back who kept yelling "stop running" or "don't touch that" and the mean sister (nun) at the front that was shooing people away so she could do her flower arranging.

During the siege of Sarajevo, the church's front door was dangerously exposed to snipers and antiaircraft machine guns, which were used periodically to spray bullets across town.  I forgot to snap a photo of the outside so borrowed one from the internet. Blurry, of course.

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Srebrenica (sreb-reh-neet-seh, means silver mine) is located in eastern Bosnia along the Serbian border.  Before the war the population was about 36,000.  The UN declared Srebrenica one of the "safe zones" and the population swelled to as many as 60,000 at one point.  If you're interested you can google and read what a miserable failure the UN peacekeeping forces were.  General Karadžić's ethnic cleansing troops overtook the city in 1995.  The Serb forces culled out any men between the ages of 12 and 77.  In that moment, families were ripped apart forever as husbands, fathers, and sons were taken away to be summarily executed.  Many survivors still don't know what happened to their relatives; they simply never returned.

At least 8,000 people, mostly men, were murdered by the Serb forces over the course of a few days.  Mass graves are continually being discovered.  The remains are pulled out of the ground, identified through DNA testing and given a proper burial in a collective funeral every year on July 11.  The best the victim's families can hope for is that their remains will be someday be identified so they can bury them properly.  Srebrenica is the worst massacre since WWII.  One of the quotes at the exhibit (holocaust survivor, but I don't remember who said it) "It happened once.  That means it can happen again.  It can happen anywhere."

We did not get through the day without a downpour.  We were walking through Old Town, looking for the restaurant and the skies suddenly opened.  We did have an umbrella but took shelter under an awning until it let up.

This street was crowded with tourists 30 seconds before the downpour

We decided we needed to do something more productive on Friday so I started cleaning the bathroom.  I started with the window and noticed a spider nest or pod, whatever they are called, up near the ceiling.  We cleaned it off and that was a mistake.  We realized how dirty the tile walls were.  We're not sure how the heating works here - it is gas but we also have radiator units in each room.  The "white" walls are all gray up near the ceilings.  We have gotten permission to have the apartment painted.  We noticed this when we first arrived and see the same thing in many apartments.  I guess we didn't think it would be the same on the tiles.  So the bathroom got a real deep cleaning from top to bottom.  I post this picture at the risk of you thinking what a lousy housekeeper I must be.  Which may or may not be the case, but... I'm not taking the blame for this one.

Dust on the bathroom tiles

Almost forgot our big exciting outing on Thursday.  We were guests of Brother Rhees at the US Embassy for the 4th of July celebration.  We guess it was a week early so they can all have a proper holiday on the real 4th.  It sounds a little silly but it was kind of comforting to have our feet planted on American soil for a couple hours.  We had to submit our names the week before and enter through metal detectors, etc.  The party was outside under tents, with a southwest theme.  We found it interesting that all the murals they used for decorative backdrops were of southern Utah.  We recognized delicate arch and other landmarks.  There was lots and lots of food, a live band, a magician and lots of games for the kids.  There were tacos, burgers, hot dogs, potato salad and on and on.  The only thing they were missing was green Jell-O.  We met the ambassador, who asked about our name tags and what we did.  She is a lovely lady and very well liked by the embassy staff.  We were not allowed to take photos but I snuck a couple under the tent.

US Embassy July 4th celebration

US Embassy July 4th celebration

Not very impressive but the best I could do without fear of being deported.  I needed some proof that we were there!

Happy Canada Day today.  Today also marks our 6 months in the mission field.  We're already one-third of the way through.  How did that happen so quickly?

I taught the second hour class discussion at church today.  We used President Nelson's conference talk "Revelation for the Church, Revelation for Our Lives."  He said one of the things the spirit has repeatedly impressed upon his mind since being called as President is how willing the Lord is to reveal His mind and will.  The privilege of receiving revelation is one of the greatest gifts of God to His children.  He also said through the manifestations of the Holy Ghost, the Lord will assist us in all our righteous pursuits.  And an invitation to all of us, "I urge you to stretch beyond your current spiritual ability to receive personal revelation, for the Lord has promised that 'if thou shalt [seek], thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things - that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal.'"