Father's Day 2019

Happy Father's Day to all you men who influence us for good every day.  The Rhees children sang in Sacrament meeting and gave the men a special gift they had made.

Father's Day gift from Rhees children

They also put two small candy bars in the bag with the rock.

We had very low attendance at Sacrament meeting today.  Iris and Sara were the only local branch members.  We admire their faithfulness every week.  It is transfers tomorrow so the three departing missionaries spoke today.  Sister Scofield is the only one remaining in Sarajevo.  I took the Elders to the bus after Sacrament meeting - they are both headed to Serbia.  It was just the Sisters for dinner tonight and they requested a salad bar.  We had fresh Bosnian strawberries for dessert.  The Sisters took our car tonight so they can leave for Zagreb first thing tomorrow.

After church we went to Vraca Memorial Park with the Rhees family.  That is the park where President (then Elder) Nelson dedicated Bosnia for missionary work.  They had not been to the park and asked us to show them where it is.  We shared a little picnic lunch with the zillion ants and took some pictures.

John & Karen with Camie, Sommer and Rhett Rhees

Paige, Janey, Kaiya, Camie, Sommer, Rhett, Preston and Gunnar Rhees

The Rhees family will return to the Washington DC area the week after we leave Sarajevo.  We will miss seeing them at church each week.  They are a great family and have been an asset to the branch here.

Our last visit to Vraca Park - our beloved Sarajevo in the background

We were at Summer Zone Conference in Zagreb Monday and Tuesday.  Both days were full of training on the new smart phones.  They have lots of filters and any app has to be approved by the missionary department in Salt Lake.

Talking on our new phones

Bosnia and Slovenia zones combined for summer conference

The missionaries that are about to go home are asked to bear testimony at their final zone conference.  So we had the opportunity this time.  We'll say opportunity but it's difficult to leave!

Bearing testimony at our final (yeah!) zone conference

Missionary shoes

Seeing all the shoes at the entry of the mission home always touches me.  Not sure why looking at a bunch of dusty, worn out shoes gets to me but it does.  Maybe it's knowing what those shoes are doing every day is why.

In the kitchen of the mission home are two white boards - one with mission stats and the other tracks the missionaries that have served with the Melonakoses.

Missionary board

Those currently serving are in the map area, the ones who have gone home are on the left and the ones now in the MTC are at the bottom.

ANM statistics

In the five countries there is a total membership of 1365.  The average Sunday attendance is 200 for the entire mission.  It is a great concern here and in all of Europe.

On Friday we drove 3 hours to Sapna again to close our mobile library project.  There was a little media ceremony then we were asked to cut the ribbon across the rear of the van.

Ribbon cutting ceremony for "Molly"

We helped with some renovations on the van, new wraps on the outside, new flooring on the inside and of course new books and a projector.

School children lined up to tour the van 

Book shelves line both sides of the van interior

Many of the rural schools have no library and would not have access to books if not for the mobile library.  The van also carries national curriculum books to help the teachers prepare lessons.

"Molly" the mobile library

We see many thing here that we find humorous and we will miss seeing them.  This is our neighbor's gate.  The mail has been in the gate over 3 weeks now.  Part of the top batch blew away during a wind storm last week.

Mail delivery in Bosnia

Menu with great looking salad photo

I can't get the photo situated correctly, but you can see the great looking salad photo.  We stopped to have lunch on our way home from Sapna.  It was a hot day and a salad sounded good.  I asked our partner to ask the waiter what kind of salad it was and if I could order it.  He said they didn't have it, it was only a picture.  Hmm, I saw another picture and asked about it.  No, it was also only a picture and not on the menu.  I just gave up and asked what they had.  I ended up with a chicken filet in mushroom sauce.

Life is such an adventure!  We have only one more full week in our apartment.  Since we are without transportation for three days, we will spend part of our time cleaning cupboards and getting ready to move out. 😢