Small and Simple things.....

August has come and gone, I guess that my lack of blogging this month deserves a little explanation. My last blog if anyone read it was about watermelons and the plethora of them here in this country. I guess I got a little political in my commentary and forgot that we are here at the pleasure of our host government, so with that being said, until I had a mighty attitude adjustment I took a little break from blogging. I’m back….. Just call me “Pollyanna” and realize that there will be much to talk about when we come home. With that being said I will try to recap August. It might take a few posts to do it all, but I'll do my best. To those of you who e-mailed me and encouraged me to get blogging, I thank you, it is because of your encouragement and love that I swallow my pride and move forward!


We did have an eventful month. I guess one of the highlights was being on Croatia National T.V. We had a news crew follow us around for about 3hours and a five minute spot on the Catholic Program, “Peace and Good” was the result. They told us at first that it would only be a 2-3 minute spot, so we were a little surprised at the length of it. It was a fun experience, a bit scary, but we felt like it was a blessing to help bring the church out of obscurity. We are always humbled to realize that we are here and having opportunities to be a part of this great work. “Behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.


“And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.” (Alma 37:6–7.)

I’ve thought a lot about how we are here doing this work, and how so often we feel so totally inadequate for the task at hand and yet we always feel as if this work will go forth; Mostly in spite of us, not because of us. As we bumble our way around and just try our best, it seems that the Spirit holds us up, sustains us and guides in every situation.

For example: One of our hardest, yet most rewarding, responsibilities that we have is to have church every Sunday here in Bosnia. We have the Tadic family, they were baptized in June. They made a goal to be sealed in the temple on June 19th 2012 in Frankfurt, Germany. So here we are, responsible to get them ready for that huge commitment! So many things to teach, so many hurdles to jump over, such an ambitious goal! We seem to make such slow progress. We have been trying hard to teach the principle of tithing. Our hearts break for this family. Their income is so low, six children, debt, medical issues and the list goes on. Tithing is a huge obstacle for them, a struggle to say the least. Last week, our little Vickie, she is 18, came over on Sunday night and said she needed help filling out a tithing slip. I sat down with her, explained all the lines, told her to keep the yellow copy, seal the envelope, put her name on the outside and give it to her priesthood leader, (Jim) , that not just anyone could take the envelope from her. She followed my instructions, gave Jim a hug and then started down the stairs. On the way down, she said, “I can’t believe how wonderful that felt! My first time paying tithing! I never could have imagined it would feel this good”! Progress is being made! Vickie got a job at the first of the summer to help bring income into the home. She is putting off any thoughts of college for herself because the lack of income is so great, which is a real heart breaker because she’s so smart! She worked for 10 hours a day for a week and a half and never got paid. When she asked for her pay they fired her. Only after her mother got involved did they finally give her some money; 30 BAM or about $20.00. Do you see why tithing is such a hard thing? Given these harsh circumstances, it was not just progress; it was a great showing of faith and testimony. “By the small and simple things….”

Another example: This last month we attended a conference in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Sarajevo is in the southern half of Bosnia which is not our area. They just recently put a proselyting senior couple in there in anticipation of the church becoming legal soon. The conference was for all the senior couples who are in the “Orphan” countries. Those countries being, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Bosnia. These countries are not assigned to any formal mission because the church isn’t a legal entity yet. When we are in Croatia we are assigned to the Slovenia/Croatian Mission, but when we come to Bosnia we are in an "Orphan" country. We had never been to Sarajevo; it is much larger and congested than Banja Luka. I walked every morning we were there, leaving about 5:45 and getting back to the hotel in time for a shower and to meet the others at the appointed time for breakfast. On the last day there, I don’t know why or how, but I got lost, very lost. Really I got so turned around that I felt like I was a rat in a maze! Jim said I forgot all my cub scout training about staying put and hugging a tree, but does that really work in a big city, lot’s of traffic, no phone, no wallet, no telephone numbers if I had a phone? Not a very realistic approach, I think. Anyway, I kept walking thinking that just around the corner I would find something that looked familiar. Not so much. I did find a bus stop, however. There were several people standing at it and I went up to two of the younger women and asked them, “Do either one of you speak English?” Ne. ne….. Then I heard this cute little voice pop up and say, “I speak English, lady”. Ahhhh my hero! A thirteen year old boy who spoke perfect English! I explained my situation and asked him if he would point me in the right direction to get to the new McDonalds, it’s the first one in Bosnia and everyone, even here in Banja Luka has been talking about it, also it was a half a block from our hotel) He said, “Oh no Lady! That’s Waaaaay too far for you to walk to” “Well, I walked here, I’m pretty sure if you just give me directions I can walk back”. “Oh no Lady, you can NOT walk that far, you go on the bus, I will take you.” “But you don’t understand, I left my hotel with no money, I don’t have money for the bus.” “That’s Okay, just get on, they won’t ask for ticket.” “No, I don’t really feel good about that; could you just get me going in the right direction?” “Oh, It’s Okay Lady, I have marks in my pocket, I will pay”. And so after not so much more persuasion, that is what happened, he paid my way onto the bus, got me to McDonalds, pointed me up the street and asked if I could make it Okay from there. What a cutie he was!!! A perfect gentleman! I didn’t even have a paper in my pocket to write his name down! We made it to our meetings for the day with not so much of a breakfast, but in our meetings they read the dedicatory prayer that was given by Elder Nielson about a year ago for this country. He asked that Heavenly Father would bless the servants that came to this land to spread the gospel and gather the blood of Israel that they would be safe and that harm would not come to them. I feel that this prayer was answered on that bright August morning. In the small form of a 13 year old boy, who spoke English, who had a soft place in his heart for a silly old American lady, who had marks in his pocket, who was willing to share those marks, and who knew where McDonalds was in that very busy city of Sarajevo. By the Small and simple things…..

Today is our "hump day"....

If you look at the little counter on the right of this blog, you see that we have 11 months, 2 week until we come home. It's hard to believe isn't it? The young elders make a big deal of it, but we are not burning anything, no suits, no ties, no skirts or purses. Must mean we're old! The only thing that really gets me thinking about is, WOW! we have sooooo much to do before we go home! How will we ever accomplish it all!
The most concerning is Bosnia. The legal department of the church is still working on getting Bosnia registered. There isn't much we can do about that, and that in it's self is frustrating. We did find out last week that the process might be streamlined a little and that things were looking up! It would be wonderful to get things legal because it will impact us immensely! To be able to have missionaries in the country, that know the language is enormous! Right now we hold church in our living room in Banja Luka. We have the oldest Tadic daughter translate for us. She does a great job, but she does have a life and if she is not in town or doesn't come for whatever reason we are up a creek with out a paddle. So last Friday we interviewed a cute girl and hired her to come translate for us just on Sundays. This will give us a back up translator for when Vicky isn't there, but also will enable us to have a Sunday School lesson with the kids and a Gospel Principle lesson with the adults. Each class with a translator.

I am teaching out of the Primary Lesson manual for 9 and up kids. We are just starting the New Testament lessons. Because they are for the most part a little older I think I will be able to combine two lessons a week so that we can hopefully finish by December with the rest of the church. They love "Follow the Prophet" and "I am a child of God". With the help of the computer we have music played, that helps a ton. Singing is NOT my strong suit, but they really catch on fast and are pretty good. They put up with me! OH how I wish I could sing, but they seem pretty forgiving and really enjoyed our Primary/Sunday School lesson.
  One thing we have realized is that they really are scripturally infants. It's a stark realization that even though they profess to be Serbian Orthodox, the whole country really was communist not that long ago. They don't have Scriptures in their homes, they have no idea that Johna was swallowed by a whale or that Noah built an ark! I asked them where we got the stories about the prophets in the song, they said, "at church, maybe at EFY, or maybe from the church magazines?" It made me ponder and be so grateful for the scriptures. Growing up in a Judeo/ Christian nation I don't even think I ever thought about what life would be like without Scriptures. We bought a Bible for them; it hasn't been translated into Serbian so it's a Croatian one, but close enough. I showed them how to find chapter and verse and challenged them to read and pray and find out for themselves how important the scriptures are. It will be fun to go next week and see how they did. How do you erase 50 plus years of communism from a nation? One little person at a time. It’s such a privilege for us to be a part of that.


We try not to think about when it will be time to go home. The months just seem to fly by, we find ourselves learning, growing and stretching with each passing week. This last week we had the Croatian National News channel follow us around for a morning. They interviewed us and a couple of our partner organizations. Who ever thought we would be on the news? Or that I would ever be able to say anything intelligent to a news reporter with a camera rolling?

We had our Mission President and his wife come to Bosnia on Sunday and speak at our Sacrament meeting. It was a wonderful meeting and we really enjoyed having them.

News from home included a missed graduation and ensuing party, Isaac graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in Philly with his Doctorate in Bio-medical engineering, he starts a new job in California in a couple of weeks. So they have been moving west. We are so proud of him! We had always planned to go out for his graduation and it was with a little sadness that it passed without us being there to support him.

The other great news is that one of our Philly boys, Kilief is going to the temple this week in anticipation of serving a mission in Ghana. We wish him well!

Chase has muscles, Sariah and McKayla have a new gerble, Russ got a raise, Dawson promises to be obedient in the first grade or he gets his couch privileges’ taken away, Makenzie had a wonderful birthday, Crystal is hating her job, Noemi didn't plant much of a garden this year and Tiffany's been away too much to care for hers, Blake and Crystal went to California for a great vacation and Daniel has moved back to Ogden. My sister’s long time friend, Toby died. She couldn't stand it, and so on her birthday she adopted not one but two cats from the pound. Everyone is getting together for great family fun in Island Park this week and next. Life goes on without us pretty well, don't you think? We miss them, especially those hugs from grandchildren, but a year will go fast, too fast and then all of this will be a sweet, wonderful memory.  With all that we are missing, we aren’t wishing for it to go quickly because we know it will pass all too soon! Love to you all from Croatia/Bosnia.

Zelco getting helped into his new wheelchair by Jim and Ante Shola (president of Caratis)

He said he feels like he's on an airplane! It just flys!

Jim, Zelco, Me, and Ante. The wheelchair is called a "Rough Ryder". It is made to go easily on cobblestone and uneven terrain.. It's also made to help promote the self-reliance for those with strong core muscles to propel the wheelchair themselves without assistance.

International EFY Europe: Believe. Hope. Endure.

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul- We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things. 13th Article of Faith




What a great week we had! We traveled to Blaubeuren, Germany with our Tadic family teenagers for EFY. We left Sunday night and went as far as Zagreb where we stayed in the mission home over night, picking up two darling Croatian girls that rode a bus from their home town in Zadar, it's on the Croatian coast, and then the office couple brought them to the mission home to meet up with us. President and Sister Rowe hosted us, fed us a wonderful meal and had a fireside for the kids. It was a wonderful way to start our trip. The next morning we got up at o dark hundred, which would be 3:30 in the morning, we herded the cats, no, did I say that? We herded the kids to the van and only an hour late met up with Elder and Sister Taylor in Ljubljana, Slovenia. They had a van full of Croatian and Slovenian teenagers. We ate a little breakfast and away we went.

Dinner with President and Sister Rowe in the mission home.

The Tadic teenagers have a cousin, Victor, he's from Serbia and they wanted him to go to EFY with them. Even though he isn't a member, we made arrangements for him to come providing he cut his hair to be in accordance with church standards. He showed up with his long hair. Our cute Mission Mom made short work of it and he absolutly LOVED his new look! He was always surrounded by cute girls, I think that helped a lot!

Arriving in Germany we couldn't help but love the coolness that the soaking rain had brought. We had been so sweltering in the Bosnia/Croatian heat that the cool felt like a great gift. But really? Rain for the whole week??? Be careful what you ask for is my new slogan to live by. It did rain all week; we drove up there in a driving rain and drove home in a driving rain.



But for all the rain, it didn't dampen the spirits of our cute little teenagers. They had a great week and we felt it a privilege to be able to be there with them. The best part of it was they got to see about 300 other kids from 27 different countries and I think they really understand that they are part of a worldwide church and that they are not alone. They made great friends, exchanged addresses, e-mail addresses, face book and Skype information. They felt the spirit in abundance and strengthened their testimonies. It meant that we took a week off from our humanitarian work but it was worth every minute to see them so excited and enthusiastic about what they had experienced this last week! We've sent a few of our own children to EFY, We've stood in the hot sun for what seemed like hours in the BYU parking lot to get our dear Philly youth registered and into their rooms, we've seen our oldest grandchild, Chase go to EFY and heard many a testimony from our different ward youth coming home from EFY, but I think that after this week I have a whole new appreciation for all the effort that goes into one of these events. All I can say is, WOW! Hat's off to those wonderful people who love our youth and orchestrate such an amazing program to help strengthen them. In the world we live in today, they need all the help they can get, don't they?



We drove straight through yesterday, arriving back in Bosnia about 10:30 P.M. It was good to sleep in our own bed, wish I could say that we got to sleep in a little, but we had to get the van back to the rental place early. Tomorrow we go back to Croatia and try to get some things done there. We will be back in Bosnia on Thursday.



Before I start posting pictures, I just want to tell you one little experience that we had while in Germany. We had been having such hot weather here in Banja Luka, that even though we knew it was going to be a little cool in Germany, I didn’t pack warm enough clothes. I found myself freezing to death. We had our wonderful rain slickers that my niece VaLinda had sent us with our humanitarian logo embroidered on them, but they are not much for warmth. I was not the only one that was freezing, I went into the food tent one morning and Vanja, our 15 year old, was just about blue with cold. She was shivering just as much as I was, I asked her why she didn't have a jacket on, she dipped her head down and said, "I forget it". After our duties were finished that morning Elder and Sister Taylor and Jim and I went in to a little village close by the EFY facility and we found a clothes store. I bought myself a sweatshirt and found a cute little one for Vanja. Hers only cost me about $7.50. When we got back, I pulled her aside and said, "Vanja, I have something for you" "For me????" I pulled the sweatshirt out of the bag and gave it to her, it took me a minute but I realized that she could hardly talk; she just stood there hugging her newly acquired sweatshirt and sobbed! "Oh thank-you, mama, oh thank-you!" She had me in tears at that point and I realized how small a thing I had done, but how huge it was to her. She wore that sweatshirt every day we were there and this morning she had it on at church! As we said good night to them that night, she again hugged me tight and said, "thank-you mama, and then she went to Jim and did the same, “thank-you, daddy”



Our mission is made up of one after another of these small moments....we will be forever changed by those small little moments in time. How grateful we are for this opportunity of a lifetime to serve and be a part of this great work.

Our kids from Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia

Meals were served in the "food tent".  They were very much European meals. Sandwiches for breakfast, hard boiled eggs, Sandwiches for lunch, and sandwiches for dinner. It's all in the eye of the beholder, the kids thought the food was one of the best things at EFY!!!

This is the Tues, night dance. I chose to show you this picture because it's the only one I took that has the flags in it. 27 countries were represented at this International EFY and all their flags hung around the gym . It was really pretty cool. Jim and I helped with the translation devices.  We of course took care of the Serbian devices and also the Polish an Ceck translations. I was surprised at how many American kids there were. Embassy workers and Service personal from all over Europe were able to send their children to this EFY.

Jim with Vanja and her friend. She has her sweat shirt on.

Time to leave....many group hugs,

Heating up, wheelchairs and garden project....

Something woke me up, in the haze of half sleep/half awake state it startled me a little. Slowly as I got my wits about me I realized that it was cool air streaming in through the open terrace door in our bedroom. When had it cooled down so we could breathe? I'm not sure, but sometime during my sleeping hours the insufferable heat of the day had turned to an amazing coolness that I quickly realized would be fleeting. I had better get up and out walking or I would be sorry. So I drug myself out of that wonderful cool place, tied on the shoes and out I went.
I have two or three routes I take. The one hour walk, the half an hour walk, the 2 hour walk or the 1 1/2 hour walk; It took the 1 hour walk today and enjoyed every minute of it. A cool breeze was blowing. The city was just starting to wake up, so shop owners were spraying off their porches or terraces getting ready for the day. Someone had thrown a match into the dumpster down the street and a fire was lustily burning, the smoke being caught by the breeze and dissipating quickly. Busses packed with workers stopped at the different bus stops as I walked around. And I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. It can't be pleasant in those busses, no air conditioning, overcrowded and stinky. How fortunate was I that I was walking! I got home and Jim was already starting to close up the house. Our day begins.

Yesterday it got up to 39.5 which is about 103 degrees, that was on the freeway coming to Bosnia. Our cars air-conditioning was having a hard time keeping up with it. By the time we got to our house it was 38 which is about 100. The humidity is the killer, and with no air conditioning we are spending a lot of time complaining. Our bedroom is on the third level, remember me complaining last winter about how cold the house is? Well, it's not cold any more. Sleep comes hard.

We had a container or wheelchairs come into port last week and on Tuesday they arrived in Varazdin. Ever wonder what a container looks like? It's a huge semi-truck, they don't load and unload the container from the ship; they just use big cranes to move it from the ship onto the truck. Very smart, I think who ever invented that plan wins a prize! The president of Caritas in Varazdin called us about 8:30 in the morning and said that the truck had arrived. He asked us to be there in 30 minutes to help unload. We got our cute missionaries and started helping the 5 or 6 guys that were all ready there. They had gotten a head start on us and already had the back of the truck unloaded. We were working away and all the sudden a ripple of excitement went through the work men and those around watching. The Bishop was coming! Now if you remember correctly we had been trying to get an appointment with him since we first came to Croatia. Today it happened, work clothes and sweat we met the Bishop of the Varazdin Diocese.

Elder Chandler, from Meridian, Idaho.

Elder Bridge, Eagle Mountain, Utah

Elder Kirkam, South Jordan, Utah. The chairs are being stored in the basement of the Bishops living quarters.

Water appeared from somewhere, poor Elder Kirkam couldn't keep his glasses on. I think it was so hot that the persperation just made them keep slipping off. He finally gave up.

Sister and Elder Erickson, Ante Shola, (the head of Caritas) The Bishop and the priest who translated for us, he also helped haul wheelchairs.

It was a great opportunity for him to see the church in action. We spent some time with him explaining the humanitarian program of the church and expressing our thanks for allowing us to partner with Caritas in Varazdin. It really was an honor to meet him and realize that although our doctrine might be very different, our desire to serve our fellow man and to follow Our Savior's example is the same.

Yesterday we dropped down to Karlovac, Croatia before coming to Bosnia. We wanted to see how our little farm project was going. I got a few pictures that I will post. We are excited to see it looking so wonderful!

Today we are just trying to get all our ducks in a row to leave for E.F.Y. on Sunday. It’s supposed to be in the mid 70's in Germany. Yeah! Here we come! Really, no more posts for a week. I just didn't want to have our wonderful wheelchair experience be over shadowed by or trip. Love to you all!

I'm about 5'4" so you can see how tall the corn is and it's just loaded with ears. They dry the corn, grind it and use it for breakfast cereal and also for corn meal. I suppose they eat some of it fresh, but I never see it in the grocery stores so I'm not sure.

I think it's interesting that in the U.S. we use fancy tomato cages for our tomatoes. These sticks seem to work just fine!



They dug a well and now have a water source. This large container fills up and then they dip buckets  to water the garden.  This is a three year project, so next year we hope to help them get some kind of irrigation system in place now that the well has been dug.