Friday, October 25, 2013

Our apartment explosion!

I can tell that the time must be starting to pass more quickly because it seems like I type the blog and then it's blog time again.  There are days that I am happy that time is passing quickly but as our time grows shorter, I find that it makes me sad.  I look at the people we have met and learned to love and I think that I will probably never see them again, at least here on Earth.  I now know what my sons meant when they said that it was harder to leave the mission than leave home.  It's kind'a like birth and are born, leaving heaven and the ones you love to come to Earth to ones you learn to love and then you die and leave Earth to go back to ones that you love.  We will deal with it once, but the people over here deal with missionaries coming and going all the time....sometimes they really struggle with knowing that they won't see them again.

We finally have the church transformation completed.  The members, and even our English class people (non-members), are excited.  We have new paint, new furniture, and large nice pictures.  They even gave us some money to stock the kitchen that only had pans and sacrament cups.  Now we have a few dishes, silverware, utensils, and real water pitchers.  We look like a real church instead of sterile building.  We find that people gather in the foyer to talk and they linger longer because it is comfortable.  It has given the missionaries an inviting place to have lessons with investigators.  And it has given members a place they are proud of.
Entrance coming into our church (Before)

Entrance now coming into our church...we still need to get
a table cloth for the table.  The line by the loveseat is
a copper pipe for water.  They don't hide water lines.

Hallway to Branch Pres. office and kitchen (Before)
The kitchen is a very small galley kitchen.

Looking up the stairs to the hallway

Looking back down the hall--the door below goes into the
chapel. (After)

For many many years the church here in Sremska has been perceived as a cult church and there has been negativity attached to it.  Mainly because some people joined for money reasons and when they didn't get the money, they talked badly about our church.  We are trying hard to move past this image and doing the humanitarian hygiene and school kits has helped greatly.  Recognizing mostly Alan, because of his white shirt, people are beginning to say "Dobro Dana" (Dough-bro-don) and smile at us more because their children have come home from school and told their parents what our church donated.  Even our branch President has said the feeling is changing and we hope this opens up more opportunities for our missionaries.  Alan just arranged for two more wheelchairs for two community people and we hope that to will help more people realize that we are a caring, Christ centered church.

The "Only in Serbia" moment is kind'a odd this time.  When we were in Rijeka with Daniel and Anna we stayed at a hotel that had a beautiful pine tree outside and on this pine tree were some unusual pine cones that I had never seen and I loved the look of them.  Alan was looking around the base to see if any had fallen and a man from the hotel started talking to him.  And you know Alan, before we knew it the man had pulled over a chair and was retrieving off the tree some of those pine cones for me.  We bought them back to our apt and have enjoyed them for weeks, but one day we heard a 'pop' and looked over and one had exploded....then two days later the other one exploded. :o{   I guess we won't bring them home as a keepsake.
A before explosion and after explosion.

That little spike ran through the middle of the cone

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Who turned the tap on?

Well, the humidity is 89% and I feel like I could shampoo my hair just standing in the open.  For those of you who have lived with humidity, you know that it changes everything; makes the air heavy to breath, makes it cooler or hotter, ruins hairstyles, crackers are never crisp and cookies are soggy; clothes and bedding feel damp, etc. etc.  Anyway all moisture aside, things are going well here.

Saturday we put our humanitarian kits together.  We put 200 hygiene kits together and 70 school kits for the Roma children who attend school.  We had a great turn out of a great turn out over here is different from what might happen at home.  We had 6 investigators and 6 members there to help us.  And sadly, the Masons organization we invited did not come.
We had fun doing this...we did just like the Humanitarian
Center and just passed the kits along.  We laughed a lot.

Having Breakfast and talking.  You can see some of the new
furniture that makes everything more inviting.
 We also gave the School 10 white boards, 20 lab chairs, 35 desk chairs and 15 double desks.  They were so appreciative.  Some of the chairs and desks they were using were by our standards "throw aways"...  It has been a great experience and one that the branch really enjoyed.

Our sister missionaries are doing great work.  They are teaching about 10 people and have committed one family of parents and a 16 year old boy, Nimahnja, to baptism on Nov. 23.  For Nimahnja, it is like his spirit has always known the gospel...he is reading the BOM and loves and understands it.  He has started coming to our Seminary class.  But the best is that he has ask Aleksander (our lost sheep young man) to baptize him.  Aleksander is so scared and yet so honored.  This is a great growing step for him.  (Aleksander is the young man in the picture above laughing)  Nimahnja's father smokes and is a very nice man, but he said it  may take a little longer than Nov. 23rd before he is ready.  His mom we are not quite sure of yet.

We are getting another missionary ready to go on a mission.  He is almost 26 so we have to hurry.  He and Alan are at the dentist and doctor as I write this.  He speaks English very well and has been going to the University in Novi Sad.  But school is different here.  They do not give release time where you can miss two years of school and then come back and pick up where you left off.  They would make you start all over....unless they can see merit in what you are doing.  We hope that the fact he will travel to another country and learn a new language will make them guarantee that he can come back.  But also, they make you pay tuition to hold your place.  The church pays out a lot of money to ensure that kids in these countries can go on missions...but then "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all else will be added unto it".  Hopefully that will be the foundation that is needed here to help the gospel grow. (Speaking of the word gospel, very often here people say, "what means gospel"?  It is such a common word for us and yet most people haven't heard of it and if they have, they think it is the Bible books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).

We did take the Sisters to the Belgrade Zoo on Monday for their P-Day.  Belgrade Zoo has 20 white lions and tigers.  The most in all the world at one Zoo.  We didn't see them all and not even the new baby white lion that was reported on Utah News, but I have included a picture of a white tiger. It is a very old Zoo that was built in part of an old fortress and on a hill so there is a lot of stairs and up and down walking.  (Just what I love)  It is an OK Zoo and had some different things like bulls and cows....but if you come from such a large city, you may never get the chance to see farm animals.  They had one lonely Elephant, one lonely giraffe, and one Hippo, but there seemed to be multiples of the other animals.
White tiger

This shows how old and the stairs

Part of the Fortress wall
After the Zoo, we took the Sisters to the Delta City Mall so Sis. Palmer could get a new camera....and low & behold the Belgrade Elders came walking by.
A great bunch of young people!  The Elder in the crazy shorts
is from Tasmania, island off Australia.  The taller Elder is from
here in Serbia, others from US.
"Only in Serbia":  There's a lot of kissing in public in Serbia and to prove it, here's of photo of Alan and I kissing in public.  He's always been a great kisser!


Sunday, October 6, 2013

A DEATH, A BAPTISM, AND A MISSIONARY RETURN! (Sounds like a Mormon movie title)

As soon as we drove away from taking Daniel and Anna to the airport Alan's phone started to ring.  The missionaries were calling to tell us that the little lady we had been helping get to the doctor and helping to get morphine to ease the pain of her cancer was in the hospital and it didn't look good.  We rushed home to the hospital and her daughter and grandson were there in tears.  The daughter said that the hospital said she had to go buy diapers for her mother 'right now'.  So we took her to the store and got the diapers and returned.  She rushed them into the hospital but by the time she got there her mother had passes.  They think differently over here....they don't tell people that they have a terminal illness and maybe they feel it is better if the family does not have to watch a loved one die.  They also do not embalm people here before burial, at least they don't provide that for the poorer people.  So we had her funeral on Wed. and since she wasn't a church member and an Orthodox Christian, the funeral was very orthodox.  They pay the priest to conduct the funeral.  It is held at the small chapel at the Cemetery. He chants and waves incense around as the people attending the funeral stand (no benches in the church).  Everyone has to light a thin candle that each person holds while the Priest chants from the book of John.  It doesn't last long (about 5 minutes while the candles burn down) and then everyone moves out to the cemetery and the coffin is lowered into the grave on ropes and everyone throws a handful of dirt into the grave and then the workers immediately shovel dirt over the grave as everyone stands there.  Since that time we have been at the daughter's house and every night she lights an incense ball and carries it around the house to insure that her mother goes to the right place in heaven.   (Now aren't you thankful for the knowledge and the blessings of understanding that we have in our lives)  The daughter is investigating the church but we are not sure if she is gaining a testimony or is more dedicated to the friendships she formed.....but even that is a start.

On a happier note, our sweet man who walked nine miles to church (by the way we did loan him a bike which makes it much easier) requested baptism earlier than scheduled and he wanted it done in Belgrade.  He has a brother there and we think that he was hoping that he would come (he didn't).  So on Friday, Sept. 27th, the branch traveled to Belgrade for his baptism.  We have never seen such JOY radiated from someone being baptized.  One of the missionaries said it best, "His smile was too big for his face".  He was so excited and happy!  He was hugging everyone and even kissed one missionary on the cheek.  We had to calm him down a bit.  But his joy was infectious.  (So much we take for granted)
Our three wise Sisters who taught him, our branch pres. who
baptized him, and one of our past Elders that initially
started teaching him.

Our sweet nine mile man!

He comes faithfully every Sunday and next week he will be made a Priest.  He is so excited to help with the Sacrament.

And finally our young "live in" O'Brien missionary returned from the MTC on this last Wednesday.  We were so excited to see him and he could not stop talking about how great America is.  How beautiful and hugh the mountains are; how big the freeways are; how kind people are (they smile at you even when they don't know you); how good the MTC food is (?); and how he will live there one day and be a policeman.  We had forgotten how much he talks and how fast he walks.  We took him to the Ukrainian Embassy to arrange for his Visa and then to the Belgrade Elders to be his temporary mission companions.   He will leave for the Ukraine in about 10 days.  He learned Russian and the Ukraine languages while he was there....he really has a talent for languages cause he speaks like a pro.  But then how could we tell :o).....
He wouldn't stand still long enough for me to get a
better picture.
And now for the awaited "Only in Serbia" moment:

Now if you look up Serbia on the internet or in any brochure this picture will be shown.  It is a very interesting building.  But we have found out that here in Serbia it is called "The Two Idiots" building.  It seems that this tall apartment building was built with new elevators and technology, but they forgot to put stairs in the if and when the power goes out, people are stranded and sometimes, they say, for days.  The part that the banner hangs over is abandoned with no one living there.  We joke about "Only in Serbia", but if we start looking around, we will find our own "Only in America" moments as well.  Start looking!