Sunday February 10, 2019

We took one of our NGO partners to lunch on Monday to thank them.  The entire office showed up, but that's only six people so it was okay.  We selected Klopas, as it is one of the only smoke-free restaurants in the city.  We arrived first; the waiter greeted us in excellent English and asked how we found the place.  We have eaten there before but don't recall this waiter.  He asked where were from and when he heard Utah, he exclaimed that he is a Utah Jazz fan (we hear that a lot here).  But this one truly is an avid fan.  He pulled up his pant leg and showed us his tattoo of the Jazz logo on his shin.  Then he said his mother and sister are nurses and live in West Valley City.  His grandmother had gone to Utah as a refugee during the war and his mother followed later.  Is it a coincidence that we live next door to WVC and met this man?  We don't think so.  We gave him our card and asked him to tell his mother about us.  We'll return before we leave here to get their names and numbers.  I thought later about asking if I could take a picture of his tattoo, but didn't do it.

We had a nice lunch with the Muslim Aid office.  They are our partners on the cow project.  We'll be with them tomorrow all day doing follow up visits to meet the new born calves.

Muslim Aid office staff lunching with us at Klopas

The three ladies on the left are the project managers that we interface with most of the time.  The other two ladies are office support staff and the gentleman is their agronomist.  They are all a great group of folks to work with on projects.

We left early Wednesday morning for Tuzla.  The mountain roads were a little icy going over but the day warmed up enough to melt everything on the roads and we had a smooth drive home later in the afternoon.  We had three visits to make - the first one at Red Cross to get a project agreement signed.  We are helping with a spring garden project in five smaller rural municipalities close to Tuzla.  Next we went to the Lotosice retail space in the Center Square that we helped to renovate.

Our friends Enisa and Enisa at Lotosice

They had their grand "reopening" last week while we were at Zone Conference in Banja Luka.  We presented them with a framed certificate to hang in the store.  It just says that Lotosice and LDS Charities partnered to renovate the space.

Back and front page of Lotosice catalog

Lotosice works with disabled women.  The retail space is where they can sell the souvenir products they manufacture.  They were kind enough to put the LDS Charities logo on their catalog.  They use a laser tool/blade/beam (not sure the correct term) for many of their intricate items.  They have some very nice products and gave us each one to bring home.  We always offer to purchase the items, as we feel guilty taking away their revenue, but they are so gracious and insist it is a gift of appreciation.

Gifts from Lotosice

Enisa's daughter Vedrana and new baby boy

This is the baby we made the quilt for last fall.  He is adorable.

Our next stop was Teočak (tay-oh-chalk), a rural community about 40 kilometers outside Tuzla.  We provided new desks and chairs for the kindergarten classrooms in three rural schools.  The furniture they had was falling apart.  We also donated a new laptop, projector and screen for the largest classroom.

New furniture in the Teočak kindergarten classroom

No more slivers from the old wooden desks and chairs.  The children were so excited to see us.  The teacher put our names on the overhead projector and the children clapped for us.  They are just starting to learn English in school so can't talk to us yet.  Their English teacher was with us to translate (the principal speaks no English) so they counted and showed off a little for us.

Our names projected in the Teočak classroom

Teachers and principal with us in classroom

The tall gentleman with his head in the light is the English teacher.  He played professional basketball (another Jazz fan) in the European league for a few years.  We invited him to play in the annual Krešimir Ćosić tournament in Zagreb in May.  He said he was too old and has a ruptured disc but we're going to keep working on him.

Today is the opening ceremony for the EYOF2019 Sarajevo. I wasn't aware of this mini-Olympic event in Europe until we arrived in Sarajevo.  It's quite a big deal.  It is a European Youth tournament and considered to be the most important sporting event to take place in Sarajevo since the 1984 Olympics.  1,350 athletes from 46 European countries will compete over the next five days.  The mascot is named Groodvy and resembles a ball of snow.  His multicolored hair represents all of the athletes who will be participating in the competitions.

Groodvy, the EYOF2019 mascot

I'm posting this for my friend Nancy who likes to know what her friends around the world are eating.  Missionary dinner tonight was meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy and cauliflower.  You all know how much missionaries can eat.

3 kilo meatloaf before going into the oven

3 kilos is about 6.6 pounds of ground beef.  I didn't take an after photo but the leftovers fit into a quart-size zip lock bag.  And some of them weren't as hungry today because the finally admitted they had eaten a bunch of pancakes around 3:00 pm before coming to dinner.  Elder Thygerson's 19th birthday is on Wednesday.  We will be out of town so we celebrated with him today.

Elder Thygerson's 19th birthday cake

All the missionaries got a small heart shaped box of chocolates tonight, as we will be gone on Valentine's Day as well.  This group is a great group and we will miss the ones who are transferred in March.  Some of the Elders could really use a mom hug once in awhile, but we can't do that.  So John hugs the Elders and I hug the Sisters.  Mission life is the greatest!