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.