February 3, 2019

Weather update first - we have had howling winds and rain the past three days so most of the snow is gone.  There is standing water everywhere so now we'll probably hear about flooding.  Not to worry though, more snow is predicted for tomorrow.

Elders Christiansen and Thygerson spent Tuesday night with us so we could all get up at 4:30 am Wednesday morning and drive to Banja Luka for Zone Conference.  I probably don't need to remind you that ZC is one of my least favorite missionary activities, especially when we have to drive to another city.  The drive is normally 4 hours but we discovered that a new section of road has been opened.  Driving that section at 130 km rather than 80 saved us 20-25 minutes drive time.  We usually return the same day but we scheduled appointments in Banja Luka Thursday morning.  The Elders and Zone Leaders returned to Sarajevo on the train and we stayed the night.  We had dinner with President and Sister Melonakos at the hotel.  We rarely have any one-on-one time with them so it was nice.

As part of ZC we were given some play dough and asked to sculpt something that portrayed our mission or what we thought our mission should be.

Play dough sculptures at Zone Conference

There were some interesting thoughts and explanations.  John made the rhino looking cow in the upper right corner.  It was taller and more cow-like but he knocked it onto the floor and the poor cow's legs shortened an inch in the fall.  Mine is the basket in front of the cow.  It has gifts in it of self-reliance, service and sustainability (the LDS Charities project goals).  I also added the gifts of hope and opportunity.

Thursday morning we visited the women's shelter in Banja Luka.  They have several things they would like help with, so we told them to send everything and we will see what we can do with the budget we have.  We then visited Nova Generacija, the children's daycare center.  We have completed our project to install a new pellet stove to heat their building.  They have been using an old wood stove that wasn't very functional and the cost of wood was getting too expensive.  We provided a new stove and another partner contributed a two-year supply of pellets.

New pellet stove at daycare center

The new unit takes a lot of space in their kitchen area but they are loving how well it works and keeps them comfortable.  A two-year supply of pellets also takes a lot of space - their storeroom is full, the front porch is full and even under the stairs is stacked with bags.

Pellet bags stored under the stair way

We brought the Sisters back home with us Thursday afternoon.  One of the tunnels is under construction and we waited 20 minutes to get through.  The Sisters counted 140 vehicles waiting on the other side.  Our wait going was only 3 minutes so our timing has been good.  We have heard of waits up to 45-minutes.

I forgot to mention that the women's shelter has a therapy workshop for the women, where they can make items to sell.  They always want to give us a trinket to show their appreciation.  This time it was a small ship; quite well made and nicely painted and decorated.

Decorative ship from the women's shelter

One of our good partners and now good friends as well is the NGO Merhamet.  They are a global humanitarian organization that does much good around the world.  We have partnered with them on some refugee projects.  Whenever we visit their offices or a project site, they take many pictures of us.  We weren't sure why, but when we visited last week, they shared their summer bulletin with us.  There was a one page article about what we were doing together.

Past Merhamet president, us and Sidik, the Merhamet Secretary-General

They took several pictures while we were in the office on Monday and someone mentioned the web site so when we returned home, I pulled up the site and there we were!  Less than six hours later, we're making headlines.  I'm having trouble pulling their website or would give you the link.  Maybe next week.  My laptop automatically translate into English and this article is proof that not everything translates well.  We donated 1,000 foil emergency blankets and an electric commercial cooking pot/unit so they can produce more food to help feed the refugees.  The English version stated that we donated 1,000 muffins, a cake and cigarette holder.  If the Presiding Bishopric learns how we are spending LDS Charities' money, we may be sent home early.