Putovanje proširuje toleranciju. Words of wisdom found on the wall of the bus terminal while we waited for the Elders. It means "travel teaches tolerance." There were a few others I will share in future posts.
We have been without water all day today. One of the embassy families called last night to alert us of the outage, otherwise we never know until we turn on the faucet and nothing comes out. It is city-wide today so they can change valves or something. We were concerned about the church but we had water there until church was over. Today was conference Sunday for us. We watched the Saturday morning session with three members and two investigators. The Elders watched in the office with Franz so he could listen in German; the rest of us in the chapel hearing Croatian.
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| Elder Gerulat and Elder Schmalz |
I don't think I've written about our new missionaries since they arrived last month. Elder Gerulat is from Hamburg Germany, speaks English very well and this is his first area. Elder Schmalz is from Saratoga Springs Utah. He also speaks English very well and his Bosnian is even more impressive.
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| Sister Scofield and Sister Fritch |
Sister Scofield is from Queensland Australia and this is her first area. Sister Fritch is from Pennsylvania and is the only missionary we got to keep from last transfer. They are all awesome young people and work hard.
We were thrilled to hear the Budapest Temple announced in conference. That is only a 7-hour drive from Sarajevo; much closer for other areas of the mission. Now we go to Frankfurt or Bern - they are both a 14-hour drive from Zagreb. Having a closer temple will be a blessing to the members here.
By law, we must have winter tires on the car by October 15 and summer tires on by April 15. We had our tires changed last Monday. After the tires, we met our friend Elvis from Baptist Aid for "coffee". Elvis is from Sarajevo but lives in Zagreb now. He was passing through town and asked to meet with us. Such a nice man; fairly young and smart and compassionate about his work. His friend owns the café where we met and came in to meet us. He is president of the local Anglican society and also does much good in the city. He asked us how we were finding Bosnia, the people, etc. Then he said "and spiritual?" We have not had anyone outside our church ask us about spiritual experiences. We said that we have had many spiritual experiences while here and he said "Not me. This is a dark, dark place." That made us feel bad for him and we didn't know what to say. We have great hope for the people here.
Tuesday morning we drove to Serbia for our Senior Conference. Hard to believe we hosted the one 6 months ago and it is time for another one. On our way we stopped at a service station for a potty break. We had been following this trailer for a short distance and he pulled over, too.
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| Utility contraption / trailer |
We see a lot of this kind of contraption on the roads. We also see the wagons being pulled by horses but haven't been able to get a picture of that yet.
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| Hotel for Senior Conference |
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| Etno Vrdnik Spa Resort |
The conference was held at the Etno Vrdnička kula resort bordering the Fruška Gora National Park. Mt Fruška Gora is only 1768 feet high so that isn't really the attraction to the area. There is supposedly a lot of wildlife (we didn't see any), 15 working monasteries in the area, and a lot of grape growing and wineries. It is a very pretty area but was a little rainy and cool while we were there.
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| ANM Senior Missionaries |
One afternoon we toured three of the Serbian Orthodox monasteries. Most of the descriptions are words taken from their websites, as they can explain it much better than I can.
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| Entrance to Ravanica |
The monastery Ravanica, with its church of the Ascension of the Lord was built by Prince Lazar between the 70's and 80's of the 14th century. It holds special importance in Serbian medieval history, both because of their historical role and because of their importance for the development of Serbian architecture, ornamental sculpting and painting.
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| The church exterior |
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| One of the nuns tending the small gift shop inside the church |
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| Plum tree on the grounds |
While we waited for the group to finish, we sat on an old wooden bench under a plum tree. You can't see in the photo but there were dozens of bees working their way through the blossoms.
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| I love it - what is it? |
We see a lot of these trees in the area - can anyone tell me what it is? If it will grow in Bosnia we should be able to grow it in Utah. I would love to have one in our yard.
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| Krušedol Monastery, eternal home of the Serbian greats |
The legend says that the monastery Grgeteg with the Church of St Nicholas was founded by Zmaj Ognjeni Vuk for his blind father back in the 15th century. At one time this monastery was well-off, with four mills, nine watermills and 200 acres of land under arable land, vineyards and meadows. In the second world war the monastery was badly damaged; a belfry was broken down and a large part of the monastic quarters was destroyed. Today the monastery complex is made up of a church, shelters on four sides and economic buildings.
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| Front entrance |
The conference ended at noon on Thursday. A group of us went into Novi Sad and toured the fortress.
Petrovaradin Fortress is nick-named "Gibraltar of/on the Danube." It was a significant military fort of the Austrian rulers who, at the time of Napoleon's conquests, hid their treasures here. Today it is the city's art center and home to festivals. It is the second largest fortress in Europe. There are four floors underground with 16km of tunnels.
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| Fortress clock tower |
I never thought I'd see the Danube River and here it is again! How blessed we are to be living in this part of the world for awhile.
No blog next week. We will be traveling with my sister and having too much fun to write!
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