Monday June 10, 2019

We arrived in Zagreb last night at 9:00 PM.  By the time we got to the mission home, chatted with President and Sister Melonakis and unloaded the trunk I was too tired to write the blog.  We have some free time this morning before Zone Conference begins and all the young missionaries arrive.  We brought the sisters with us to Zagreb.  ZC is starting earlier today so the missionaries can purchase their smart phones and be trained.  The smart phone nightmare is beginning.  The leaders received their phones last week at MLC and we already see their faces glued to the screen all day long.  We just have to be positive and trust the missionaries will be obedient... And we won't be here to watch it much longer so we don't have to endure the process!

The drive yesterday took us longer than it ever has.  The usual 5 1/2 to 6 hour drive took us 8 hours.  There is a tunnel under construction and no reasonable detour to avoid it.  We have had near perfect timing with tunnel traffic until yesterday.  The line of cars was almost 2 miles long and our wait was 1 1/2 hours.  We would normally have a book on tape to listen to but can't do that with young missionaries in the car with us.  I had downloaded the priesthood session of conference but forgot to bring the stick with us.

Tunnel construction near Zenica

The construction began about 8 months ago, so anticipate it will continue for another 8 years if it follows the Bosnian plan for road construction.

Inside the tunnel - it's a little creepy

After the tunnel wait, we arrived at the border to a line almost as long.  The wait there was an hour.  When we exited the highway outside Zagreb it took 15 minutes to get through the toll booth.  And that was with 8 booths open.

Going to Zone Conference is a chore for me - I may have mentioned that a time or two - so the tedious drive didn't help my attitude.  My next least favorite chore in the mission is doing apartment inspections at the young missionary apartments. We are supposed to do an inspection once a month and always before transfers.  Transfers are approaching so we did the inspections last week.

Apartment inspection checklist

It's a pretty lengthy checklist to go through and takes some time.  John does the bathrooms so I don't have to look in someone else's toilet.  Most of the missionaries do a passable job, but others... Those of you that have children who will be serving missions, please teach them how to clean before they get here.

The Red Cross of the Federation of BiH hosted the federation first aid training in Sarajevo on Saturday.  They staged several different scenarios; car accident, playground accident, heart attack, land mine explosion, construction accident, etc.  The teams from the local Red Cross offices respond at each of the stations.  They are timed and judged on how they responded and executed the first aid techniques.  Red Cross is one of our best partners and we were invited to attend.  We didn't stay for the entire day but had a good look at what they are trained to do.

Red Cross competition in Sarajevo

Photo op with the Red Cross leaders

Starting on the left, Jasmin is the medical/health coordinator; Namik is the Secretary General; beside John is a representative from the Turkish Red Cross (Turkey financially supports a lot of Red Cross activities in Bosnia); the last gentleman, whose name I cannot remember, is the RC president.

We will be at Zone Conference until Tuesday afternoon, then drive back to Sarajevo. We're keeping our fingers crossed that a Tuesday afternoon won't have as much traffic or such long delays.

It is getting close enough that we are starting to count the days!