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.