Stretan bozic

Today we had a lovely Christmas Sacrament meeting.  Almost everyone in the Branch participated.  We had music, scriptures and counsel from general authorities read to us.  Our second hour was a big lunch with turkey and lots of other good food.

Hard to tell what all the food is, but it all tasted good!

The Primary children with antler headbands

Iris, Holly and Tim

Holly was in charge of the dinner and did a super job. Her husband Tim came to church with her for the first time today.  I sat by him and discovered that he spent his high school years living in Hamilton, MT.  His mother worked for the NIH lab at the time.  These small connections seem to make our world a much smaller place.

How many of you received a personal Christmas greeting from the First Presidency?  We did - as personal as the same letter that 70,000 other missionaries received anyway.

Christmas greetings from the First Presidency

We learned this week that the Church membership in Europe is approximately 480,000 and weekly attendance at Sacrament meeting averages 100,000.  That was startling to me but it is probably not any worse than other parts of the world.  The Area Presidency is very concerned about declining member activity and participation.  Member retention is very bad in our mission as well.  There are about 1600 members in the 5 countries and only 200 average weekly attendance mission wide.

Look what we saw outside the grocery store entrance on Saturday.  I'm sure Tupperware is still around at home but I never hear anything about it or get invited to the home parties anymore (not complaining about that).  I don't know if it's new to Bosnia or if I've just never noticed it.

Tupperware booth outside the grocery store entrance

Thursday we drove to Tuzla to have a contract signed with the Children's Home where we will help renovate 4 bathrooms.  The Elders met us there to help translate and we accomplished the task without any problems.  We treated them to lunch before we returned home.

The smog and pollution has been very bad the past two weeks.  It gets trapped here like the Salt Lake valley inversion, only worse.  The air quality index has been in the 300-400 range for days (below 50 is okay, I think, and over 100 is getting into the bad range).  Tuzla has extremely poor air quality due to the coal industry and other factories in town.  I took a photo on our way out of town that explains part of the problem.

Pollution in Tuzla

This is a coal-fired thermal power plant and is the largest power plant in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  The plant burns 330,000 tons of coal annually.  Wikipedia says that the World Health Organization ranked Tuzla 2nd among Europe's most polluted towns.  No surprise that there are many respiratory problems here.

We love this time of year when we are more focused on the Savior, his birth and Atonement.  We testify that he lives and are grateful for his love for us.  We are grateful for the blessings of serving a mission and love where we have been called to serve.  We see goodness and kindness and love among the people here.  We love you, our family and friends. 

Stretan bozic i sretna nova godina or Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!