"So much PDF everywhere"

Dobar dan,

Well.. news. I am going to Beograd, Serbia! Transfers are tomorrow. 

I am really excited! We spent four hours this morning de-registereing me from Rijeka and paying fees. I leave tomorrow morning and am know it will be another great chance to serve. It was sad yesterday to say all my goodbyes to the branch here. I really love everywhere I have met and taught and there are some really cool people here.

One of our investigators, Josipa, has accepted a baptismal date! For Dec. 20, but I won't be in Rijeka anymore. She is really cool. She like marked up her Book of Mormon and says she just thinks it's really interesting and she could really focus when she read it unlike other things she has to read and study. She is 17 and studying nursing. She gave me a hug after our lesson Saturday. 

This week we took 8 boxes of Book of Mormons (or is is Books of Mormon?) onto Korzo on Wednesday and Friday and handed them out with cards talking about it. We had them in lots of languages. A group had done this about a month earlier with the Koran but they also handed out a rose with it, so. Hard to compete with that! But I talked to some great people! One 25 year old man I talked to said, "You know, I've always wondered why the bible just kind of stops. I think God would try to talk to us." Točno. I also stopped one man that said, "sorry, English only" and I said well, I speak that better than I do Croatian! So we proceeded to talk together for a while. He was from Florida. He was working on the ship ports here and flies planes and stuff. He said in Florida he let the mormon boys in to talk about John Smith all the time. I said well do you have any free time on that boat? He laughed and said of course! I gave him an english book of mormon. :) And three of his friends one. I also had three seperate people ask me if I had ceramic teeth.. I said no I don't smoke.

On my last day of English class we took a picture and one of the students, Jadranka, came by the book of mormon activiy on the street and hugged and kissed me and gave me a huge Milka bar. I told her we didn't have those in America and she said well good, eat it all up! I just love the people here so much. We sang and danced the hokey pokey in class when we learned body parts. They laughed really hard with/at us.

There is this old man we talk to every Sunday at our bus stop as we both go off to church. I wrapped up a Mormonova Knjiga for him and sticky-noted 3rd Nefi 11 when Christ comes to the Americas and told him I was leaving so is was his Christmas gift. He told me this Sunday a story about how he "went to communist meetings for 18 years but then I found Jesus." He says people from his meetings asked him why he stopped coming, he said "come and see!" So he had people come to church with him and they were like you're right, love and agency is so baš lijepa. He told me he found the Lord Jesus when he was praying, that he asked if he was there and the Lord made him feel peace. He was so humbled by that and says that time, many years ago, was when I found Jesus and started my life.

More news. I bought some chocolate to give as gifts and the next morning.. I came out and there were nibbles eaten out of the paper and chocolate bar I had bought! So, we put out the mouse trap with chocolate on it. I got really sick one night- I think I got food poisoning from a dinner appointment.. anyways so the next morning I am laying in bed and the alarm goes off so I am like Sister Durfee, please tell me there is a mouse cause I cannot get up I still feel like death. She is like.. uhhh... so I come out and there it was in the trap! Gross. I gave a talk in church about choosing the correct path and decisions and made an analogy to the mouse and I think I grossed out a lot of the members. Woops! They all got a look of terror as I told the story. So that was gross. We promptly scrubbed the house from head to toe after and took it out and threw it in the trash outside. Yummy.

Okay so. One thing about Europe-- sister Durfee and I were waiting at a crosswalk light and there was a couple across the street eating each other's faces (kissing very intensely, for anyone who didn't catch that) and we couldn't avoid looking near them because we had to wait to see when the light would change and we could go across. People, especially young high school kids are just kissing and hugging and they have no problem doing anything and everything in public. So we finally awkwardly pass them as the light changed and we crossed the street and Sister Durfee said, "so much PDF everywhere." I started wheezing I was laughing so hard and I said, "did you just say.. PDF? as in portable document format?" I laughed and laughed I had to stop walking and I cried I was laughing so hard. She had meant PDA.. as in public display of affection. So, that is something I will quote for the rest of my life.

"The harvest is truly great, but the laborers are few." Luke 10:2

"Fear not, from thence forth thou shalt catch men." Luke 5:10

I LOVE YOU ALL.
Sestra Richardson

me and English class students, the NASTY MOUSE, the book of mormon finding activity.

our alternative less painful? mouse trap, day two of finding, end of transfer dinner the senior couple treated us to