Zima is here

Dobro jutro,

I've really seen the hand of God in my life this week. One quick example: So we taught two hours of English classes, covering one class for the Elders and then we ran up and all around by the church looking for the car we share as missionaries in Rijeka. We were going to drive it home to take it the next day for an exchange. We found it finally- and we get in, Sestra Durfee stands behind the car to back me out and I  try to turn it on- the key wouldn't turn. The wheels were locked, you know how cars do that? Anyways I was just kind of at the end of my patience rope for the day, I told her to get in the car because I was going to pray. She got in, I spurted out a really impatient, but really sincere prayer in English (we never pray in English) and told our Heavenly Father that I really just did not have it in me to try and figure out the car right now. I ended the prayer, we sat there for a minute. I turned the key- it worked. I shed like three tears as we drove away safely to our house and Sestra Durfee prayed again and thanked God. Just so many blessings I see. Every day. 

Our English class is really getting into asking some great questions. At the end of every class we give like a three minute spiritual thought. They had lots of good questions, we ended up talking about the restoration.  I am really excited to talk and teach them more. They are really excited too. 

I finally watched some of conference in English- wasn't Elder Bednar's talk powerful? How he said, "In a future day, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Jesus the Christ absolutely is the Only Begotten Son of the Eternal Father. As members of His Church, we witness He lives and His Church has been restored in its fullness in these latter days." What a powerful testimony from an apostle of God!

We had an exchange this week- Sister Orgill came and Sestra Durfee went! We met two hours between Zadar and Rijeka. That was so nice. Sestra Orgill is like the perfect missionary ever in my eyes and she taught me a lot! So that was in total 8 hours of me driving this week! It was really windy on the roads.. like the warning signs said cars were going to blow off the road! And they have before.. so we had to be careful. It also snowed in Otočac a little as we were just driving through. Crazy! Sister Durfee is from Arizona and was so thrilled with the snow. 

I finished studying Matthew this week. My testimony of the Savior continues to grow. He loves us so much. I think of how much I love my brothers, and sister, and everyone! He loves us that much and even more perfectly and He died so we could all be together as a big family forever. There is nothing really much cooler. 

One night Sestra Durfee made a whole pan of brownies, the next night I made a pan of peach cobbler. We ran out of food at the end of the week but had flour, sugar and cocoa and I found an old can of peaches! Sestra Durfee said "I am becoming so domestic and will "get wifed" so quick when I get home." I told her I am not cooking again the rest of my mission. Hahahaha. It got FREEZING here this week. I got yelled at a few times for not wearing tights so I got those out for the winter and my coat and mens sweaters (thank you Target) and that was that.

GUESS WHAT. So remember when we contacted that Catholic minister? We got to teach him yesterday! And his wife and their 4 year old son! They are the most precious little family! We taught the restoration, we taught them how to pray. He said a really sincere prayer at the end and they totally agreed to read the Book of Mormon! When we talked about the authority of God they really listened and did not argue, did not question, we just talked about how they can ask God themselves to see if what we teach is true. THEY ARE SO SO SO GREAT. They gave us sok and fruit and were just so great! They were sad to see us go when we left. I asked him why after that initial first time we met him on the street he wanted to talk with us more. He said he just felt like this special glow all around us and something special. We walked out of their house yesterday just beaming. We rounded the corner nearby and I shed like two tears and we offered a prayer of thanks to God for leading us to this special family! The wife owns her own salon so I joked I might get a new hair color or trim so we can have even more time to talk with them! I can not even explain how happy we are for them.

I love you all!

Sestra Richardson

carving pumpkins for aktivnost, a boat thing from last p day, IT IS SO WINDY and cold

Krštenje AnaMarie

Bok bok bok,

I just got fingerprinted! My visa is almost done! That is exciting news. BUT MORE EXCITING...

ANAMARIA CHOSE TO GET BAPTIZED. 

It was so beautiful. 

She was so happy. 

It was like that innocent, peaceful, happiness and the spirit of God was there! There is nothing better. I promise. You just can't trade a worldly moment for seeing something as special as that moment was and feeling the spirit like that. We have been teaching her for about a month, her dad is a member. She has wanted to be baptized for a long time now, it was just kind of a matter of making it happen. We set up the font (big pool) and filled it up Friday, it took several hours. I played the piano (thanks mom) and said the opening prayer for the service. It was so beautiful! And one of our investigators came because he wanted to see how it worked! It was just such a blissful day. Just the fact that I got to see it was just. So cool. She was beaming after, really excited. 

More things: we went to Bakar for last P day, we got there and realized all there was to do was look at like old houses and a church and so we just came back. But a cute little city.  We had a mexican night for family home evening. Sister Durfee and I made a pinjata out of water bottles and made it into the shape of a cactus. It was.. ghetto. Robi totally destroyed it with a bat and we ate tacos.  Some guy we contacted we talked to and he asked us if he could take a picture of us. I was looking great- no makeup, spilled something on my skirt. It was great. Not sure why he asked that. But he was heading to the states in a few days to go on a Caribbean cruise. SO long story short, if you see a pic of Sestra Durfee and I floating around on the internet, that's where it's from. 

We went running in pouring rain. Need I say more? English class was great, as usual. Tracting this week we had lots of people tell us we just came by a few days ago (the Jehoviah's witnesses) and a few people like "there are two girls at the door- Mormons- from America who can't speak this language!" and just laugh and laugh at us. It was quite the experience. 

We have some awesome investigators, one we read the Book of Mormon aloud with in a lesson yesterday and she was like wait.. can we read more? So we read more with her! She is super excited about it.

Guys. Why am I on a mission? Happiness. Even when we just have a moment to teach and testify in the street for a moment and teach about how much God loves them, the plan of salvation, etc. people feel it! They feel the happiness that we carry. Life can be hard, the mission can be hard, but we are most happiest when we follow Jesus Christ! We follow Him. We try to be like Him. That's why I'm here. That's the message everyone needs to hear. The happiest, most important message in the world. 

Doviđenja, 

Sestra Richardson

pics: Bakar seaside, AnaMaria's baptism, running in the rain in the morning.

Jeremiah 16:16

Hola!

It was Croatian Independence Day this week. Tons of flags, everything gets cancelled, no one goes to work. That was cool to be here for that. 

We had two huge visiting families at church yesterday! I heard English, Italian, German and Croatian. Both from the states but living in Italy and Germany. It was testimony meeting and it was great to see all of them and still feel the spirit no matter what we speak. 

We taught a lesson to an investigator using family history on the church computer. HE WAS THRILLED. It's great to see the spirit of Elijah in the hearts of people here. He got to do some research and we helped him too. We both printed out of 4 line pedigree charts and he is working on getting his all filled out too.   We talked to a lot of Athiests this week. I always testify to them that I know God knows them, loves them, and has a plan for them. They always say thank you and never argue that when I say it. I just love getting to talk to so many people here. Even when I can't understand everything they say. 

We had another lesson with some of our Jehoviah Witness friends. They were really nice. Gave me one of their bibles in Croatian. We talked about the Book of Mormon and I testified about the restoration. It just strengthened my testimony of the restored gospel. It's the same one Jesus had on the earth and established! We talked about the authority of God, why we have twelve apostles and a prophet like just the church before. It was a good chat. It's not confusing, Jesus is the Christ, he died for us, we can follow him and have happiness! In His church!

We had EIGHT appointments fall through this week. That was hard for us, but we worked hard and talked to more people! Lots and lots of good contacts, one minister who offered to meet us at a cafe later and talk about the book! Mormonova Kniga. I'm super excited, he was really cool and really interested. Never heard anything about the gospel of Jesus Christ before.

Stopped a couple in the street, about 50's, asked them if we could share a message about happiness. He leaned in, kissed me on the cheek, and told me "that is happiness!" His wife punched him in the arm as we walked away. We had to laugh though. God knows when we need a little something in our day to lighten our spirits. 

Since everyone always asks me for things that are different about Croatia, here's one thing: scented toilet paper. Ours currently smells like oranges. I LOVE IT. And they don't have dryers, just washers. 

LOVE YOU ALL. Remember faith, love charity! Be safe over fall break! 

Sestra Richardson

fountain outside our house, view on the bus ride to a lesson, outside the gov building

greetings from Karlovac & GO AGGIES

Hello!

We have zone conference here today in Karlovac, so I'm writing you here from a very large, old computer Sister Durfee and I think we can time travel on.

For Pday we played soccer with Robi! An awesome member and he was really good, I am definitely a little rusty but we did great. We played on a nice turf with the Elders. After, we came home and made a smoothie and napped and we got a buzz at our gate.. which never ever happens unless we order food. So, it was a cop. I went barefoot in my sweats to the gate and let him in. We invited him in and he interviewed us to get our visas. Every day is an adventure, for real.

We waited to get our bus passes for a total of probably 10 hours this week. They got these new fancy city cards and so that was cool. I got asked this week about the assumption of Mary and lots of Catholic things I haven't studied before, I'm really getting deep into bible study lately and loving that. I taught a lesson over the phone this week too, for 50 minutes!

Our English class is SO GOOD. I love teaching English. We told them about conference for our spiritual thought at the end. We practiced "hello" and "please" and "nice to meet you" and "good job."

We taught a few of our new investigators this week. It has really grown (I'm sorry if my English is getting poor, I know) my testimony of the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth today, and how we have a living prophet! How lost would we be without modern day leaders to guide us.

We talked to some great people on the street this week. One nice woman asked us if we were trying to start a movement or something, I told her nope, but we're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! I made sister Durfee contact a lot this week. She is getting really good at the language.

CONFERENCE WAS SOOOO GOOD. OH MAN. I saw Aunt Nola and Mrs. Eggett in the choir and pointed them out to the whole branch. Our friend Petar, a Jehoviah's Witness showed up at the church right before conference started on Saturday and wanted to return the pamphlets I gave him and give me some more of his. I invited he and his wife to stay for conference. They said if we came again they'd make us more palačinke. Super nice. We also unclogged the women's bathroom toilet at the church and found a plastic cup in it, I donno. Also played go fish with pictures of the apostles and first presidency for Aktivnost.

ALSO. YESTERDAY WAS SO COOL BECAUSE after conference we were walking back to the bus station to go home and walked through a crowd and I heard, "Sisters!" So we looked back, a man walked up and introduced himself as also a Latter-Day Saint! He was Filipino, he was working on the ships here so was temporarily here and introduced me to his crew and we said hello and asked if we could help them and he wanted a picture together! He was so happy to see we have missionaries here and happy to see us and we were THRILLED to see him too. We talked for a little and went our bus stop. So, there is picture of us somewhere on the internet cause he took one with his iPhone. Is there some kind of new iPhone? That one looked different. Maybe I just forgot what they look like. Anyways I teared up at the bus station thinking literally anywhere you go in the whole world, there are members of the church, no matter what language, what country, what background. IT MADE ME SO HAPPY. I CANNOT EVEN EXPLAIN.

Wasn't conference amazing? We are truly blessed to be guided by a prophet today. That we do not have to be confused in a world with so much confusion, that we can have strength and guidance, that we can pray to our loving Father in Heaven in the name of our brother, Jesus Christ- the one who died because HE LOVES US. He loves us so much. 

Sorry this is short! By the way, GO AGGIESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I knew you'd get the Cougs. Svaka čast, stvarno. Aw man, some one keep that one on DVR for me. I'd be lying if I said I didn't keep them in my prayers this week. :)

LOVE YOU ALL
Sestra Richardson

pics: playing soccer, a member we met from the Philippines!, conference Sunday morning, fixing the toilet and setting up for conference, aunt nola