The Whites of their eyes!!!

Last Wednesday was a milestone in Bosnia. WE GOT MISSIONARIES!!!!  Wow it feels good to say that! We have waited, prayed and looked forward to them for our whole mission and it finally happened!  We have not been disappointed.  They are amazing young men and they will do a wonderful work in Banja Luka. Already they are out hitting the streets, learning the language, teaching investigators, interacting with our little branch members and loving their new assignment! And we LOVE them! Think about it. Banja Luka has never seen missionaries, never seen young men with name tags, dressed in white shirts and ties, never had the opportunity to accept or reject the message that they bring, never been amazed that someone would come so far, work so hard or learn their language and love the country like missionaries do. We are sooo excited for the country. Not only did we get missionaries but Sarajevo, (in Southern Bosnia) got two sets of missionaries as well. They got a set of sisters as well as elders. These missionaries are ground breakers and we invite you all to join us in praying for their success in opening up a new country to missionary work!





Elders Radosavljevic and Hansen

Elder Rad (the name I call him because my tongue just cannot wrap around his name and spit it out) is of Serbian decent, thus the name, and is from Tasmania, Australia. His Grandfather migrated there 50 years ago, so he doesn't know the language of his ancestors but is excited to learn and really for just coming out of the MTC he is already doing very well.  Elder Hansen is from Kaysville, Utah and has been serving in Serbia, so his language is great and he is an amazing young man with great leadership skills.

 


This is a terrible picture, I hope it doesn't hurt your eyes, I should have looked at it and got a better one but I was hungry! We were in the middle of wheelchair training and had our Utah short term specialists with us so we invited the elders to come eat with us on their first night here. It was a great evening and a good chance to get to know them.



This was their dinner, have I told you that  meat is a big deal here. Our friends in Bosnia love their meat!

This was Jim’s dinner, another really bad picture, my camera was on some strange setting....good excuse for bad pics. Have I told you that I think I'm a partial vegetarian? I didn't order a meal at this restaurant, I know better. I ordered my favorite side salad and just played Helen Keller from other peoples plates. I left stuffed!

We had a great night out with our new Elders and our short term specialists. It seemed a little surreal for us to be sitting across the table from missionaries, after waiting so long for them, to have the blessing of seeing them actually be allowed into the country was something we had almost given up on. Our time is short here and we feel it a great blessing to see the whites of their eyes before we go home.

Watch us Grow....

See our little branch GROW!

Meet our newest member in Bosnia…. His name is Goran, and Jim baptized and confirmed him this last Friday night. It was a wonderful occasion, one that left us once again marveling at how The Lords work continues to go on. Some months ago we had a conference in Sarajevo, Bosnia and we were reminded that the dedicatory prayer in Bosnia had said, “Those individuals that have the blood of Israel are here in this country, waiting to be taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ."  Goran is one of these people. He found us. We did not seek him out or find him. He was looking for truth, and when he found it he grabbed hold of it with all his strength and Friday was just the beginning of a new chapter in his life. We were so excited for him! He just couldn’t stop grinning all night and even the next day when Jim ordained him a Priest. I won’t soon forget when he went up to the front of our little meeting room and sat down in the chair that Jim had pulled forward for him. As he settled into the chair he had a smile as big as all outdoors just covering his whole face! What a sight it was!

We are so privileged to have had this amazing experience. We have been told that it is rare for Senior Missionaries to be a part of the process from start to finish like we have been with Goran. He came to us as an internet referral, requesting a personal visit from representatives of the church and a Book of Mormon. Since we are the only missionaries in Banja Luka we were asked to respond. We brought Vicky, our translator with us when we went to his home, but soon realized that he spoke pretty good English so language was not a barrier as it so often is for us.

Every week for several months, he would walk the 7kilometers (4 ½ miles) from his house to ours for missionary lessons and for church. He never missed a Sunday. We always do dinner after church and he stays for that and then Jim takes him home. We challenged him to baptism several weeks ago, but he felt he needed a little more time to finish reading the Book of Mormon. Then a the week before last, Jim was taking him home and he said, “So when can I get baptized?” We didn’t let grass grow under our feet and the very next Friday we had everything planned, guests invited, font borrowed from Croatia (we held our breath when we went through the border) and the baptismal program planned. Here are a few pictures of our evening.

This is a portable font, all I can say is that it's a good thing Jim's a mechanical engineer. We needed it to figure out how it went together. No furniture yet in the missionary apartment downstairs so the living room area was perfect to set it up.

This is a portable font, all I can say is that it's a good thing Jim's a mechanical engineer. We needed it to figure out how it went together. No furniture yet in the missionary apartment downstairs so the living room area was perfect to set it up.

Goran and Jim

Goran giving Jim a big hug after the confirmation.

This was the whole group minus our translator Maja who was taking the picture.
We had two sets of missionaries there for the evening, the AP's from Croatia and a set from Serbia.
This was the first time we have seen real missionaries in Bosnia so it was a pretty significant milestone for us and the country.
President Rowe was there with his family, our friend Damjan, (in the back with the striped sweater) the Tadic family and Jamie, the Rowes niece/nanny.



This is what Miss Tina was up to while we were in the meeting. I had a stack of plates, cups and forks on the table, thinking everyone could just get a plate and and go find some where to sit. But Tina, knowing that we sit at the table every Sunday decided to help set the table. She was so PROUD of herself! Everyone told her how beautiful it was and she just beamed! What a cutie!
The other day one of her sisters called her "Miss Tina" and she said, "You aren't DEBBY!" 
I guess I'm the only one that gets to call her that!

 Once again I end by saying how grateful we are to be here and to be a part of this great work!

Super Saturday in Zagreb

Monster Cookies made, drinks bought, permission slip signed by parents, van rented and picked up, kids ready to rock and roll and we were on our way to another great Seminary Super Saturday event. This time it was in Zagreb, Croatia. All of our youth came and also our translator, Maja. It’s only a 2 hour trip from Banja Luka to Zagreb but we were prepared with treats and music to make the time go fast. Our last Super Saturday was in Belgrade, Serbia and the kids remembered how fantastic that trip was so they had been looking forward to it ever since they had gotten the invitation to come.


We always worry a little about crossing the border with a van full of minor children, so we make sure we have a legal document saying that we have their parents’ permission to take them into another country. This time we got a border guard who was exceptionally nice, laughed a little and asked if we were a sports team! As we left we gave him a little packet of 4 monster cookies wrapped up in plastic wrap and tied with some of my left over yarn. He was soooo impressed! What is this? Cookies and a thank-you! And off we went, leaving a little sweetness behind!

I had gotten the wild hair to make monster cookies about 8:30 on Friday night. Our kids had sent us peanut butter, m&m's, and assorted chocolate chips for Christmas and I had been saving them for a special occacion. I ended up staying up pretty late to get them all baked, but I was so glad that I went to that extra effort. I put 4 cookies stacked on top of each other and wrapped them in some glad wrap that one of our American neighbors brought with him as a gift from his wife to us, (Thanks Kate) and tied them with yarn. I made enough for the kids to give to all the Croatian leaders and teachers who were doing the Super Saturday event. It was entirely planned and executed by local leadership. I also printed little note papers from a web site and gave each kids three empty note papers and asked them if they would during the day when they enjoyed something, or if something especially touched their hearts would they please write a quick thank-you to that person that was in charge of the activity or lesson. Anyway, it was my effort to teach the principle of gratitude, we talked a little about what a privileged it was for them to be invited to come join the Croatian youth and if they were EXTRA grateful that for sure they would be invited back. As we watched our youth during the day I was so impressed to see them hunting in their stuff every once in awhile to find their papers and writing their notes. At the end of the day, they delivered their little thank-you notes with a stack of monster cookies. It was pretty cool that absolutely every one of the people that helped got at least one thank-you note, they even remembered the lady that played the piano. I think they left with a great spirit of gratitude and love for those who had gone to all the effort to provide such a wonderful conference for them.

These activities are no little thing to these kids. They are the only members in their whole country so to get together with other LDS Youth is just really a big deal! Where our youth have weekly opportunities to see their friends at church, seminary or YM/YW activities our youth here have no such advantage. They are IT. It is such a joy to us as missionaries to see the love, acceptance and learning experiences that these opportunities provide for our kids. We asked two of our youth to report in Sacrament meeting the next day on our Super Saturday. Vanja reported that it was, “the best day of her life!” and our sweet Victorija bore her testimony about how she knew the gospel was true and how she couldn’t wait to go to the temple to be baptized for the dead.

As for us, well, we love our mission. We go to bed each night with such grateful hearts. Sometimes we are so tired that we just fall into bed exhausted. But it’s a good tired. We are worried about when we come home. What will we do that could ever compare to what we are doing here?  How will growing vegetables in our garden ever compare to seeing these wonderful people growing in the gospel? I can’t think about it now, all I know is that a little piece of my heart will be in Bosnia/Croatia and I will come home not quite whole.

These are all the Youth from Croatia and Bosnia. Elder and Sister Taylor are CES Missionaries that are over Seminaries in our mission. They go home the 1st of May and will be sorely missed!

They divided up into small groups for one of the lessons.

Maja on the left, Vicky on the right....they were playing a game where they divided up into teams, each team sent a player up to the front and then they were given a scripture story to mold with their clay while the others guessed what it was. Vicky's team won this round. It was Noah's Ark.

I think our Vedran (on the left) had a real advantage over this young man from Croatia. We had just had the lesson in Seminary the Saturday before about Ammon. It was easy for his team mates to guess when he made a man with no arms. The young man on the right is going to be baptized this week.

They had a lesson about family history and how important it was. They also had a wonderful presentation on the temple with encouragement for them to prepare themselves to take a bus trip in August to the Frankfort Temple to do baptisms for the dead.

They got to go into the family history library and learn from Sister Lydija about how to use the computers for family history and  other resources that were available to help do geneology.

Jim and I with Vicky

Time to load up and go home. Who rents a perfectly ugly yellow van? Car rentals in Bosnia are always an experience! I felt like I needed to be playing "Yellow Submarine" on the radio!  We had a great day, wonderful lessons and fellowshipping with deeper meaning than we can comprehend!

Leadership from Germany visits....

   Every so often we get a visit from someone that really gives us pause to remember that we do have leadership in Germany that really cares about us and what we do here. Last week was one of those times. We had our supervisors, Elder and Sister Leonard come to meet us and spend some time getting to know not only us but our countries as well. The Leonards came into Germany in July and have had the enormous job of supervising 10 European countries. Sister Leonard said it has been a hugh learning curve and I believe it! I can't even imagine how difficult it must have been to learn all the computer programs, direct the financial affairs and keep track of 10 sets of senior couples roaming all over the European continent. They have spent the last 6 months traveling when they could, to individually meet or humanitarian counter parts in the different countries and getting to know their new "children", that would be us. We are one of the last countries that they needed to visit.


We took advantage of having them here by scheduling a closing ceremony for our water project and for our container of new born/hygiene kits and blankets. We had the ceremony in Varazdin which was nice for us because we didn't have any travel involved. We had a ton of press and then the Red Cross took us out to lunch. All in all it was a lovely day and a perfect ending to those projects. And we were so happy to be able to share it with the Leonards.

We left Croatia the next day and brought them to Bosnia, we met with both the Red Cross and The big Rehabilitation Hospital here in Banja Luka. Wheelchairs and wheelchair training was the topic of our conversations with them. We just got a container of wheelchairs into the country for these two organizations and in March we are going to have physical therapists come here to train those who are going to dispense the wheelchairs how to fit them properly. The church wants to make sure the chairs don't do more harm than good with an improper fit. Once the organization has been trained, we will be able to bring more wheelchairs into them as needed. The days of giving out a wheelchair without a proper fitting are hopefully in the past.

We had a wonderful weekend, introducing the Tadic family to the Leonards and showing off our amazing meeting room. They also graciously consented to speak in church, thereby giving our little family a break from Jim and I. They did a great job! Our Tadic family loved them. Monday, we took them back to Croatia to catch a plane back to Germany and said, "Good-bye" with a new appreciation for all that our wonderful leadership do for us.

If there was any doubt that I am on a picture taking mission, I hurriedly snapped this picture before we even said Hello!

Elder Leonard officially giving the "letter of donation" to the head of the Red Cross, Tihana is our translator and really got a work out that day. We appreciate her soooo much!

This is after all the remarks. We presented a mother to be with a blanket and a new born kit. The Red Cross will distribute the container to those who need it the most.

He is explaining to the press what was in the container. Elder Leonard and I both made remarks to the press.

 
 
 
You might ask what it is that we say during a press conference,  everytime it's something differernt, but this is a good example of what we try to express in our remarks. I usually do the press interviews, It's Jims effort to make me feel important I think and our partners are usually surprized that it's me that will speak.

"We are so excited to be here today to celebrate with our partners, The Red Cross, two humanitarian projects that we have been working on for some time. The first one is clean water. The World Health Organization estimates that around the world there are 884 million people without access to clean water for themselves or for their animals. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is committed to make a difference in that number. We have had a commitment to the people of Croatia to help them achieve that goal for clean water. I remember a story about a man on a beach hurriedly picking up star fish and throwing them back into the ocean after a high tide had left thousands on the beach to die. Someone asked him, “Why are you doing that? You cannot really make a difference and then, the man answered, “NO, But to this one, it matters, and he threw a starfish back into the ocean.” We are like that man on the beach, we cannot possibly fix the worlds clean water problems, but here in Croatia, one by one, the wells are being cleaned out by the brave men employed by the Red Cross. We appreciate and applaud their dedication to this project, their diligence in administering to the needs of the people here in Croatia.


The second project we celebrate today is the bringing into country a container of new born kits, hygiene kits, and blankets. These will be distributed by The Red Cross in emergency situations and to parents in need all around Croatia. The scientist, Lousie Pasture said, ~When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become~


We as members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints have those same feelings…Tenderness for the new born and for the miracle of new life…for what that child is, truly a child of God, we also respect what he may become…Your children here in Croatia are your greatest asset! They are your future and we are proud to be able to help supply them with needed items at the time of their birth.


The humanitarian funds from our church do not come from rich Americans; they come from members 14 million strong, from all over the world. They donate time, money and supplies freely each month that they may follow the admonition of our Savior. “When ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”.


We are privileged and humbled to be here in your wonderful country and see that these sacred monies are spent with care, hopefully to make a difference to “The One”.


And to not just be good,


Because good is not enough. We want to be good “for something”. Gordon B. Hinkley. We feel we must contribute good to the world. The world must be a better place for our presence. We again thank the Red Cross for helping us make this possible. Thank-You"

We are back to our regular routine, we came to Bosnia today and will take our seminary students to Zagreb on Saturday to a Seminary Super Saturday. We made calenders the other day and it's getting hard to think about going home. As much as we miss our families, leaving here will be bitter sweet.