Turn Right on Trail.....

This is the castle we went to see. I didn't really take this picture....well it's a picture of a picture.

These are all just pictures of the beautiful countryside. The first one is a grave yard. Then one of many little farms and the third is of a small church, looking down from one of the high points of the castle.

Another busy week for us in Croatia. Our Area Welfare Specialist and his wife came to Varazdin to do some training with us. We were to go to Zagreb airport to pick them up. The week before we went down just to make sure we knew what we were doing, a dry run, so to speak. Any way, Weds. morning we got in the car and Ned, our GPS refused to wake up and work! Panic set in, prayers were said over Ned, all but a priesthood blessing...About a half an hour, maybe 45 mins, into the trip, he woke up and decided to go to work! My were we grateful for his presence! We got to the airport with his help, even though we had made the dry run, we just weren't very confident that we could make it.

We went to Bosnia with the Coltons, visiting the Red Cross, meeting our translator, visiting an agricultural high school and coming home. All in the most horrible rain I think I've seen since we lived in the mid-west. Seriously, it didn't quit raining all day long, hard torrential rain.But Ned did us proud. We got where we needed to be with his Bosnian maps!  Another blog will give you more details on the humanitarian needs we found there.

It continued to be rainy all week. On Saturday however the sun came out and blessed us with warmth! It was Preparation day. We determined to go see a castle about a 45 minute drive from here. Jim had driven for about 7 hours the day before to Bosnia, so being the senior companion that day, I asked Elder Colton if he would mind driving. What a beautiful day! We saw some of the most beautiful conuntyside ever! The castle was amazing! Ice-cream to die for and and Ned out did him self!

Elder Colton, knowing how his sweet wife loves to take pictures, took an interesting way home....Let's just say we kind of ended up in someones front yard. Ned was cool though, just kept telling us to turn right or left. But toward the end of our meandering....his last instruction just cracked us all up. You guessed it,

 "Turn right on trail ".  Ned is just one of our many blessings! What would we do with out him? We did, this week get Ned an upgrade, now he can be brought into the house and charged, Jim figured that would solve the problem of him going to sleep and not wanting to wake up. Also I have forbidden Jim and Ned to play while they are driving! Just good common sense, don't you think? Ned seemed very happy with his new upgrade and is now on time for work every time we get in the car.

Some other of our blessings...
We have a teaspoon. I found it in some of the old missionary cast offs at the church. It's just one. No 1/4 teaspoon, 1/2 teaspoon or TBS. measuring. But I feel blessed to have a teaspoon!

I found a cook book at the church as well. Some how, I wasn't present when the computer was loaded, and I got here with no cook books. Now I have one titled, "Where Is Mom Now That I Need Her"?

I also have a plastic cup that besides the metric measuring it has ounces. Makes things much easier for me.

I have a hamper for my dirty clothes. No bleach, but I'm adjusting!

I have 4 bath towels now. We bought 2 new ones, brought 2 from home. So now I can wash my bath towels, and I have 2 new ones to use while the old ones are drying. It takes like 2-3 days for towels to dry. I brought nice fluffy ones. If I had brought yucky ones they would have dried faster. Need to buy some more sheets so I can do the same with them, but getting Jim into a bedding store is proving to be difficult, maybe when he gets tired of dirty sheets!

We did go shopping for winter coats this week. It was so cold and rainy all last week that we thought maybe we should get prepared for winter, so we bought boots for me, sensible ones, and coats for both of us. Apparently I am the biggest European size ever, and I also have the biggest European foot ever. Not good for my self-image, but I will be warm. This week has been absolutely beautiful, So far not a drop of rain, nothing but sunshine! The coats are in the closet just in case! Yeah!

We have a car. One of our biggest blessings. The missionaries before us, bless their hearts, did not. We are sooooo very grateful. It took us 31/2 hours to get to Banja Luca by car, can you imagine how hard it would have been by bus?

We have darling missionaries to work with. They help us in any way they can. This week we have used them to be our social coordinators. We invited some investigators for lunch and they don't speak English. So the missionaries are arranging a time so we can meet with them.

Now the best! We got a new grand baby this week! Her name is Eden Erickson. 6lbs and 5 ozs. 19 inches l From the pictures I've seen, she is beautiful! We are so grateful that she is here. Healthy and Well! A little sad that we can't hold her. She will almost be two before we see her. But we can hold out hope that they might come visit. What do ya think?

Any way, that's just a few of our blessings. Of Course having friends and family loving and supporting us are the best! We love you all and pray for you. Hope you all have a great week!

Our Humanitarian work begins!

We have had another wonderful week in Croatia! We have spent some time just getting to know our city and enjoying the little bit of Summer that we have been lucky enough to see here. It has rained off and on and one morning we woke up to the clouds hanging right about the 7th floor of our building. Right off my deck! It was just beautiful!
   We went to church for the first time on Sunday. Counting us there were 11 people there. It's a struggling little branch, we could feel their strength and the spirit. It's hard to remember that we are Humanitarian Missionaries and supporting and strengthening the branch is not our priority. You just want to do it all!
   Monday we got up and drove to Zagreb, the capital city, and picked up Elder and Sister Colton. After we ate lunch, at McDonald's, we visited the Croatian Red Cross. It was such an amazing meeting, they are partners with the church to bring wheelchairs into the country. They were so respectful, and appreciative of our help. One shipment of wheelchairs, 250. are on the water at this moment and we are hoping to get another shipment in as soon as we can get the project written up and processed.. They also asked for newborn kits. All those kits you sisters put together...oh I wish you could all be here to know how much they are apprecitated!
    We are headed to Bosnia tomorrow. It will be our first trip there. We have another wheelchair shipment on the water for them as well and have a neo-natal resuscitation training set up by our predecessors for November. We are going over to meet with the Bonsian Red Cross. To make introductions and see what we can do for them.
    We are going to try to meet with someone soon that knows about and what the needs are of the Roma people, (gypsies) they seems to be the ethnic problem children of this part of the world. My first exposure to the Roma has been just to see them digging through the garbage in the dumpsters. We saw one little boy eating food that he had gotten by dumpster diving, he was standing in a driving rain storm hungrily eating his prize. It really broke my heart! I know that not every starving child can be helped, but I will at least see to it that any leftovers I have from now on will be in a CLEAN plastic bag, hung on the OUTSIDE of the dumpster! It might be a small effort, but I hope it will help some little tummy not be hungry.
  Well, that's my week in a nut shell.. We are happy, safe and well. We Love You All!

 And in doing these things thou wilt do the greatest good unto thy fellow beings, and wilt promote the glory of him who is your Lord. Wherefore, be faithful; stand in the office which I have appointed unto you; succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees. D&C 81:4-5

   This sweet little lady received on of our wheelchairs 10 years ago, she is still so grateful that she just cried!
Her daughter recognized our badges and went in their house and brought her out to meet us!

We have pictures!

Our wonderful bed and YELLOW! BedroomOur Entrance hall/ dryer room

Our cute kitchen. Living room and computer roomLooking out my kitchen window.Looking out my bedrrom window.Looking out off our deck.Our first service project in Croatia! The sun shining through the trees in gratitude! Did I tell you we LOVE it here???

Home away from home...Croatia!

 Beautiful Croatia! We are finally in Croatia. After a very long exhausting trip, via New York, Vienna, and Slovenia we are home. Flying into Slovenia was just amazing. Little clusters of homes with red roofs and beautiful old churches spotting the landscape. It reminded me of reading "Heidi" when I was a girl and all my imaginations of the Swiss Alps. Although I didn't see any goat boy with goats in tow. The A.P.'s met us at the air port with Sis, Hill (The mission Pres, wife ) and the missionary couple that takes care of the office,(The Robinsons from up Park City way). We stayed with the Robinsons for the rest of the day, They took us on a little sight seeing jaunt to see an old castle. I forgot my camera and was so disappointed to not get a picture! Maybe we will get back that way sometime in the next two years! Anyway we finally got to sleep, but I'm afraid I have to admit that I slept on Jim's shoulder during most of the three meetings on Sunday. Some great missionary I am! After church the A.P.'s brought us across the boarder into Croatia. It is also very beautiful, but Varazdin is a bigger city and so far we have not strayed far from our apt.
   We have been so blessed! While we were in the M.T.C. we found out that we had gotten a car. Yeah! We will be so much more effective with our own transportation. Then when we got here we found out that Sister Hill and the A.P.'s had worked overtime looking at apartments for us. And my did they do it up right! Our apt. is just awesome! Very modern, European, clean and safe. What more could we ask for? It's in a good location in the city. With little shops with in walking distance and even a park by the police station.,  Every wall in the house is painted a different color. When you walk in, the entry way is lime green, our bedroom is YELLOW! Yeah! I love yellow. A different shade on each wall. Living room is blue and orange. Kitchen is black and white. It all makes for a very cheerful and European feel. Windows are huge so we get lots of fresh air and sunshine and all the floors are wood except kitchen and bath and they are ceramic tile. We never hear our neighbors. Jim thinks the floors and ceilings must all be made of cement, no sound of feet walking over head. That's all good and well, just hope we don't have an earthquake!
   This week we have been told to nothing but rest and get ourselves settled. So that is what we have done so far. Some how that has eevolved into some pretty fun adventures! The best adventure so far started with us waking up the first morning with backs that felt like we had been sleeping on rocks! I have absolutely no problems with my back, Jim however does have a back that we baby a little. But Monday morning came around and yikes! both of us were walking around like the old people we are. Where was our wonderful Simmons pillow top? We determined that we would go look for a store that perhaps would have some memory foam, or foam of any kind to put over the mattress.  We looked and looked, couldn't find a thing. Then we found a store that had the memory foam mattress pad, but they only had one and we needed two. And it was $200. that stuff is pricey! So anyway, we gave up on that and went to another store that ended up being a store much like IKEA. At that store we bought blanket, sheets and pillows. The night before Jim used a towel and I used a sweat shirt and slept on bare mattress. As we were leaving the store we saw that they sold mattresses as well. Well, the rest is history! We bought each of us a new mattress made of memory foam. They were $250. each. Now we had to get them home in the littlest car you can imagine. We stuffed the first one in over the car seats, mattress sitting on our heads as we crouched down to see out of the windshield.. We drove home in a raging rain storm, giggling and feeling like college students! Brought the first one up the stairs and repeated the process again with the second one. We now have a wonderful bed! The side benefit is that by the time we stacked the new mattress on top of the old one, we now have a bed that is a normal (for Americans) height. They don't use box springs here so most beds are very low to the floor. What a day!
   Yesterday we did a little wash, no dryers, no chlorine bleach either. Guess I will have to get over my whites fetish quick huh?
   Today we found a dry cleaners, and a new and better grocery store. We have tried three different stores now and this one is the best. It had a few spices that I have been looking for. Chicken seasoning, chili powder, steak seasoning, garlic and cinnamon. I soaked some beans overnight for chili and have made some for dinner tonight, but it's a little strange. Chili powder just isn't the same. It will do though. One thing they do not have here is Splenda. Some one told us that at the M.T.C. so our son, Russ, brought us two big bags of it to the airport. We squeezed it in and are sure glad we did. (Thanks Russ) They also have no Crystal light, sugar free hot cocoa, or spray butter. We both gained so much weight at the M.T.C. that we really are working on getting it off. Keeping to our missionary schedule, getting up at 6:30 and exercising will help, we already are feeling a difference.
      Next week the Area Welfare President and his wife will be here for 5 days training us. We are looking forward to getting that training and starting our work. We also are thinking of driving back to Slovenia to be at a member fireside that Elder Nielson is going to be speaking at. Not sure if I feel comfortable with that, but we are considering it. The young missionaries here are delightful and hard working. We will enjoy working with them and getting to know them better. The weeks ahead will be challenging as we feel our way through the Humanitarian work ahead. One of our first projects will be in Bosnia as we will help with a neo-natal resuscitation training up at one of the hospitals there.
   I tried to download some pictures for you, but for some reason could not get it accomplished. Jim said it might be that the computer is on a wireless Internet. He will look for some new cords, wires or whatever they are to hook it up directly to the source. We are just grateful that we managed to get Blogger into English. It kept defaulting to Croatian and we don't know enough Croatian to read the directions on how to change the default. I love that I have a family full of computer people! Thanks again Rusty!