October 21, 2018

Creating a title for the blog each week is harder than the actual writing.  Maybe I'll just start using the date rather than trying to be clever.

We had a great branch outing yesterday.  We went to Mira and Franz's house in the country for a picnic.  We would say bbq but that doesn't really happen in Bosnia.  Not like we think of bbq at home, anyway.  Their home is about 30 minutes outside the city, in a lovely setting by a stream.

Many of our members and some people being taught by the missionaries have no transportation so we rented a van to get everyone there.

Franz did the cooking for us

Franz had the fire going and the meat cooking when we arrived.  He did a great job with ćevapi and chicken wings.  We all brought fruit and veggies, chips, drinks and desserts.

Branch members waiting at the food table

The afternoon turned out a little cooler than we thought it would be, but it didn't rain.  It was nice being out in the country with lots of room for the kids to run and play.

Janey and Kaiya playing soccer

Janey and Ian doing ?  Kind of looks like she put Ian in a trance

The "big" kids playing football

Paige was too small for the ball games so played with the many cats in the yard

Elder Daines, Elder Thompson and Rick Twelves

Rhett Rhees, Sara's dad, Shay Wood

I know Sara will be reading this, so I'll apologize for not knowing your parent's names.  I certainly should by now.

John talking with Sara; Zayko is standing at the end of the bench by Elder Thompson

Sara and her parents started coming to church a few months ago.  They are such good people and we have grown to love them.  Sara lived most of her life in Switzerland and has a real gift of languages.  She speaks Bosnian, German. English, and Italian.  I probably missed a few.  She is smart and capable and is always the first to help us with whatever we need.

Sara's mom holding Sommer Rhees

This is my favorite photo of the evening.  Sara's mom was so delighted to hold the baby.  Sommer wasn't complaining, either!

It was transfer announcements on Thursday.  We were out of town all day at a project but found out we will have 5 Elders in the city with us.  There goes our food budget again!  Elder Daines and Elder Thompson are both staying in the city.  They will be in a trio with an Elder that was in the MTC with Elder Thompson.  Elder McNeil is coming from Banja Luka and will train a greenie arriving from the MTC on Tuesday.  As much as we love having Sisters in the city, it truly is easier having all one gender.  We don't have to be with them as much, they can all ride in the same vehicle together, etc.  They arrive Wednesday night and we leave Friday morning for Paris.  We feel kind of bad abandoning them when they first get here.  But not bad enough to stay here.

Thursday we went to inspect a water project that is finally completing after about 5 years.  It is a very long story, but the first contractor went bankrupt and stole most of the equipment for the build.  Then the terrible flooding occurred in 2014 and a landslide destroyed the site.  LDS Charities agreed to absorb the loss and start again in 2017.  Now about 300 homes are enjoying clean, drinkable water with enough regulated pressure to reach the homes and land in the area.  The gentleman from the municipality forgot to bring the key with him so we only saw the outside of the hut.

Hrasno water project hut

I know it's hard to be impressed just looking at a little utility hut, but what's inside and the pipes taking the water to the homes are the important things.

I am fascinated with the haystacks around here.  They all look like what I pictured in the story of Heidi in the Swiss Alps.  We have watched them cut and collect the grasses and build up the stacks.  Some are perched on hillsides and supported so they won't fall over or slide down the hill.  They are a work of art for me!

Haystacks in the country

A work of art

I think we need one of these beauties in our yard at home

I won't be sending a blog next Sunday.  We will be in Paris, too busy playing to write.  But we'll have extra to talk about the following week.

Senior Conference week

Today we watched the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference for our church meeting.  The embassy families all watched from home so only 5 of us viewed in English.  We had more viewing the Croatian version and sweet old Franz asked if we could do German for him.  John sat with him in a classroom and together they watched the German version.  During the intermediate hymn he went outside for his smoke break.  He was apparently paying attention to the speakers, as he laughed at Elder Uchtdorf's German shepherd joke.

We are starting to see fall here.  We'll have to go to the mountains and get better pictures but the leaves are changing colors and starting to fall.

Changing colors at Vraca Memorial Park

Vraca Memorial Park

We hosted the Adriatic North Mission Senior Conference here in Sarajevo this week.  We have been planning and working on it for 6 months, since the previous conference in Slovenia.  The part that took the longest amount of time and the most effort was finding a suitable location within our budget.  We probably contacted 20 facilities and visited 10 of them before deciding on one.  We chose the Radon Plaza Hotel, which is only a few blocks from our apartment.  It was the last one we checked out, and only because we drove past one day and thought "why not?"  It is a 5-star hotel and we assumed it would be out of reach for us.  It is also further from Old Town and Centar, where we were to spend our free afternoon.  We used our LDS Charities email for the initial contact - they came back with such an unbelievably low room rate, we had to check further.  We made an appointment to meet with the hotel event planner.  We introduced ourselves and started to explain what we were doing when he stopped us and said, "I know who you are.  I Googled you.  I know what you're doing in my country and you can have whatever you want."  Thank you LDS Charities!

Conference name plates

The conference theme was "Can you imagine..." taken from President Hinckley's talk about pioneers in the church.  Each couple introduced themselves and talked about what they envision or imagine for the mission, these countries or their assignment.  We had name plates made for everyone.  You can't see it very well in the photo but we quoted Elder Holland "We are sometimes so close to history, so close to miracles... that we don't realize we are experiencing a miracle."  That's how we feel about serving here.  Just the fact that we are here is a miracle.  Having a tiny branch of the church here is a miracle and the members are indeed pioneers.  We are experiencing a miracle!  It is exciting to be a small part of it.

Emir Kaknjašević speaking at our conference

The first evening we asked our local attorney, Emir, to talk to us about his role in getting the church registered in Bosnia.  He has been with the church every step of the way and is the best friend the church could have in this country.  One of the missionaries asked him why he did some of the things he did.  At first he joked and said for the money.  But he seriously said he feels it is good for his country to have religious diversity and tolerance.  And the church does such good things - he referred to LDS Charities work again.

Emir joined us for dinner at the revolving restaurant on the top floor of the hotel.  President and Sister Melonakos nabbed him away from us for dinner, saying we get to see him all the time.

Emir with President & Sister Melonakos, Sister Ezard and Sister Turville

After his part concluded, we asked if he wanted to leave.  He stayed and listened to a few couples introduce themselves and even stayed to be part of the group picture.

ANM Senior Missionary group photo - Sarajevo, October 2018

John & Karen with Valerie & Reed Elder

Look at that view of a city that we have grown to love!  The food was delicious, too.  The following night we had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Old Town.

Group dinner at Dveri Restoran in Sarajevo

After all the planning, we decided that the most difficult part of being in charge is herding people from place to place.  Getting them on the shuttle and off the shuttle and into the restaurant and to the conference room on time.... Seems like someone is always missing or lagging behind.

One of the best activities of the conference was going to Vraca Memorial Park at sunrise.  This is where then Elder Nelson dedicated Bosnia for missionary work.  President Melonakos read the dedicatory prayer to us.  I had heard parts of it before but was very touched this time.  President Nelson pronounced wonderful blessings upon the people of this country and blessed the pioneer members.  It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it now.  I know one day the church will thrive here; I have no doubt.

President Melonakos at Vraca Memorial Park

Wednesday afternoon was free time to see the sights before dinner at Dveri.  I love this picture.

Sister Rands and Sister Turville sharing a fresh pomegranate juice

Rands have been here 3 weeks, Sister Turville 4 days (when this photo was taken).  I didn't get pictures of all the seniors but here are some and their assignments.

Donna & Carl Loveridge from Bountiful; mission auditor, MLS

Becky & Jon Rands from Sandpoint, ID; CES Seminary/Institute

John & Cathy Swendsen from Calgary; humanitarian

Jennifer & Everett Brewer from Taylor, AZ; MLS

Margit Ezard from England, via Germany; Self-Reliance

Louise & Dean Fitches from Santaquin, UT; MLS

You'll just have to wonder about all the other cool people that are serving here!  It was a wonderful conference and we are very glad it is over.  Now back to work to catch up on everything we neglected for the week.

General Conference week

General Conference weekend - just about our favorite way to spend a weekend.  The times are little late and we don't get to spend the day in pajamas watching conference, but it's still good.  The Elders and Zlatko came for dinner last night and we watched the Saturday morning session together.  We weren't really surprised about the 2-hour church block announcement.  We have been hearing it for years and are happy about it.  We have a 2-hour block in Bosnia now, so we feel it only fair if the rest of the world is shortening church by an hour, then we should follow and go to a 1-hour block here.  The Sarajevo Branch President (John) agrees but doubts we'll get permission.

John and I stayed up late to watch the afternoon session that ended at midnight our time.  We had a short night but it was worth it.  The Elders will be back later today for dinner and to watch the Sunday morning session with us.  Next week at church we will watch a session together as a branch.  It takes a few days for the audio translations to be completed and ready for viewing.  We wish we knew a way to get the local members more excited about watching conference.  They don't seem to connect very well with the concept of listening to prophets and apostles.

We have been busy all week putting the final touches on the ANM Senior Missionary Conference we are hosting this coming week.  We have been preparing for six months and hope it all goes as planned.  All the seniors in our mission will come to Sarajevo for three days.  Right now there are 12 couples and 2 single sisters serving.  Two more couples are arriving in October but not in time for the conference.  The 12 couples includes the mission president and his wife.  To have the mission fully staffed, we should have 18 senior couples, plus the 2 single sisters, plus the mission president.  We need more seniors, so come on all of you that are considering a mission!  Get your papers submitted and get over here - you will love it!

The Elders took our car to Zagreb for return and report on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Return and report is what all new missionaries get to do at their 6 week point.  We had some errands to do while they were away; we would normally take the tram but it was nice weather and we decided to walk part of the way.  We have been trying to walk about an hour each day (prepping for walking around Paris the end of this month).  We walked to the attorney's office - that took an hour.  We needed to be at the chapel later and decided to keep walking a bit further.  We walked all the way to the chapel - now we know it takes an hour and a half walking briskly.  The last 20 minutes probably wasn't very brisk... but we did it!  We are grateful to have a car and that we don't need to walk each time we go to the chapel.

We have been having foot clinics at our apartment all week.  Elder Daines had an ingrown toenail and Elder Thompson has an infection on his toe.

Elder Daines soaking his foot

The ingrown nail was removed on Thursday after they returned from Zagreb.  It looked a little different from what I remember when I had an ingrown nail removed.  We hope the doctor knew what he was doing.  He sent Elder Daines home with no after surgery instructions and it was bleeding quite heavily.  We had him soak his foot in Epsom salts, then apply peroxide and Neosporin.  He returned to the clinic the next day to have it re-wrapped.  He asked the doctor for an antibiotic and was told he didn't need one.  We are keeping our toes crossed that he doesn't!

Elder Thompson treating his toe infection

We aren't sure what Elder Thompson's foot problem is but he is treating it with peroxide and Neosporin as well.  After going to the clinic with Elder Daines, he swears he will never go to a doctor here.  I don't blame him.

Beautiful Sarajevo at night

We live in a beautiful city and are excited to show it off when the seniors come to visit.  The large building was the former national library.  It was bombed and badly damaged during the war.  If that wasn't bad enough, they also went in and burned 3 million books and countless artifacts.  It reopened in 2014 and houses the national and university libraries, the city council and a museum.  We have not yet been inside and plan to do that on our free time during the conference.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!  Eat lots of turkey for us - we aren't sure what our Thanksgiving will look like here.  We're being optimistic and I've started saving dry bread for the stuffing.