Halo?

Halo? (that is how I answer the phone) (pronounced like haaa-low)

We went tracting and someone actually knew who we were! We were ringing all the buzzers outside this apartment door and no one would let us in, so this guy walks up with his key so we go in with him. We get to the top and this lady is waiting at her door and she is like who let you in?! We are like we just walked in.. she yelled a little, slammed the door, and from the other side we hear "the mormon missionaries were here!" (but she said misionarke- the form that means female missionaries :) That was something that has only happened maybe twice my whole mission. But we have no success door to door, then awkwardly as we are leaving this guy is getting in the elevator and I am like do you want to hear our message?! I promise it will change your life! (Later and later in the day the bolder I get with people) He was like "which sect are you from?" I am still trying to figure out if this is a derogatory word here or not.. people use it like it is. But Joseph Smith asked "Which of the sects are right?" So.. Anyways we are like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He just stares.. I am like "the Mormons?" He laughs and I just put the Book of Mormon in his hand and he is like are you selling this or da li je poklon? And I tell him it's an offering/gift and he takes it and gets in the elevator. Sometimes that's all the 'success' you get in one day, but you take what you get, and it is worth it. 

We scraped the windows of the church for the new FH center and cleaned the whole church. Fun stuff. We got..

TRANSFER CALLS! 

I am staying in Beograd as sister training leader and Sister Kawaii (my MTC companion) is coming here. I am pumped!!! So it will be six months for me in Beograd at the end of next transfer. Sister Durfee and I sang at a very interesting relief society night this weekend and then in branch conference. The piano player for us didn't show up so we awkwardly sang acapella? I am so sorry I do not know how to spell English. President saw us on a random street waiting to walk with an investigator to church and pulled up in his van and whistled at us, it was really funny. I donno why. 

We are teaching this AWESOME guy named Dejan. He came to church yesterday and stayed for all 3 hours AND institute, which we taught. We are going to challenge him to baptism this week.  He LOVES the word of wisdom and painting and temples. He tells us how much better the Mormons are at building things and with architecture than all the other religions. Awkward. In Sunday school he was talking about the Holy Ghost and the word of Wisdom and one of the members said "you will be a mormon in a few weeks." People are so bold here I love it hahaha. Everyone kisses everyone, I donno if I've ever told you guys that before. Be prepared for three kisses each from me when I get off the plane. 

We have this other friend (inv) named Dragan and his wife Mira, he said I'll go to your church if you go to mine, so on Wednesday we went to his worship service. He is Episcopal Catholic I think? There was he playing guitar with amps, his wife singing, a guy on the drums, and two people in the crowd plus us- we played drums and at some point I was handed a tambourine. I also scrolled the words. And their priest, who would walk around and yell hallelujah and sometimes read from the Bible. It was a really good feeling, but just not the Holy Ghost. It was a memorable experience. I will try and get you all that video. He is going to come to church with us next week though. He sold me a Serbian bible, which are really hard to find.  They are really nice nice people, trying so hard.  We are teaching them the plan of salvation this week!!

OK I forget to tell you last week (I hope I am allowed to tell you this, I think I can?) We were sitting on a park bench and we see these two buses pull up and out jump tons of full-uniformed riot police with their helmets, sticks and like the clear shield things. We were like... um... so our friend we are teaching shows up and we like have this lesson casually on a bench and at the point where she is reading the first vision and we were all had this really good feeling, this HUGE protest of probably like 400 people comes walking down with flags and posters and all this stuff and the police on all sides of them down the street like 50m away from us (sorry I think in m now, not feet) and we just casually continued to have the lesson. Oh, mission life. Never a boring day, never. 

If anyone is still reading, will you send me a little add-in Gatorade mix (blue or purple or green kind) for a normal sized water bottle? Like the little tiny packets? They don't have Gatorade here, that is my latest craving. You can slip in it in a letter, nothing big. I would send you back something good I promise! :)

Alright, those are my thoughts and love from this week. I love you all. I hope you enjoy conference weekend! Go into it with questions you have and with prayer. Write it down!!!!! 

Love you.

Sestra Jill

For when we feel trapped..

Zdravo!

On a mission you just have a lot of time to think about a lot of things, keep this in mind as I turn every little thing that happens to me into a life metaphor. We were going door to door Monday night, like usual. We get in the elevator and get to the top floor of a building, open the two open-inwards small elevator doors with our hands, then turn the knob of the other metal door and it won't open! We were trapped. We pressed buttons to try and go to the other floors, tried the door again, nothing. I said a fast English prayer out loud, just really done with that night! We were both really tired and also terrified of elevators. Nothing happened. Pressed the buttons again, pressed the "stop" button, then the light went off. We said, "Upomoc!" not super loud, but wondering if anyone could hear. A man outside the door of the elevator told me to push the button for the 4th floor! I am sure he heard my prayer (in english) and was so confused why I was speaking in Serbian. It was a stressful 5 minutes in the elevator (I hate scary movies, so much, but the one I have seen in my whole life was staged completely in an elevator!)  As I pressed so many more buttons, tried the handle again, he just kept saying push the 4th floor button! So I paused, sent a silent prayer again, and pushed the button for the fourth floor. It went! So you can make this a metaphor for whatever you want, but one interesting thing for me was how obviously and instinctively I turned to our Father in Heaven in prayer.  For that situation- it was the obvious answer! I needed help! No one else could help! But, how for so many other things in my life prayer does not seem like the answer and I am hesitant to call for God. We need to remember Him always! He is always there when we yell, or whisper, "Upomoc!" The man outside the elevator door, if you will, is God. He was actually there the whole time (Sister Durfee told me later she had actually seem him through the small elevator window) but I was just trying to rely on my own thoughts and strengths. All we need to do is realize we need help, that we are trapped, and He will help us get out. He is the only one who knows how to help us out. Sometimes we think we know better, but it's always Him.

Alright, deep. We were walking out the door one day and I saw in our back courtyard an older man working and digging and doing the garden. We changed into pants and went out and helped him for an hour. We are trying to get through the people through service! Trying to be Christlike. 

We went to Cacak, the family there had 8 new baby goats and an adorable kitty. It is so fun to see their lives improve and how happy they are as they prepare and research their family history to go to the temple and be sealed as a family in a month. When we go there, they won't let us sit down or do anything until they can pay the district President (who we go with and his wife) their tithing money. 

We have been working with a lot of less active members. One has had some problems with how the branch is led, he said he wouldn't come to church because of some of the branch presidency. We have been doing family history and reading the Book of Mormon with him though, he is really turning to Christ. He came to church yesterday and I shed a few tears to myself. Then had to translate, sigh!! There was some kind of solar eclipse this week and everyone told us to stay inside?

Well, I love you all. The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints is God's church. God loves us, that is why He gave His Son, Jesus Christ. So we can be forgiven of our sins.

LOVE YOU

Sister Richardson

Ajde da trčamo..

Ćao!

Honestly, this week I forgot my planner, which holds my brain, so I can't remember all of what happened this week! But-- I did run a 5K while I am in the worst shape!

The story is as follows.. a former investigator (who they found at the last race Beograd had) texted us and was like hey there is another race! So Sister Allred and I extended our exchange so we could run together, cause Sister Durfee didn't really want to do it. We made bright green shirts that say #askthemormons on the front and "I am a mormon. Ask me why!" on the back. And we wore fanny packs with "choose the right" bracelets and had word of wisdom pamphlets and pass along cards and all kinds of stuff. We just like showed up that morning to the race looking really unprofessional but pumped, we talked to some cool people and some people that were like ohhh you guys are that one sect! There are just so many misconceptions about mormons here. It is crazy. But we made a friend named Slobodan who said he would talk to us the next race- in two months. It was cool. Lots of people would gossip at us out loud too as they ran past and we'd be like hi enjoy the race! Just being really nice. Sewing seeds! I am pretty sore even though it was a little more than a 5K and we ran it slowly.. 33min or something.

What else this week.. one of our investigators, Slavica, accepted a baptism date for March 28.  We are excited for that. We had another lesson this week and the member in on the lesson introduced our investigator to another member as "This is Jasmin, future member of our church!" So bold. That's Serbs for you. But it's actually nice sometimes. People tell you how it is! 

We had zone conference this week. Sister Durfee and I taught about resolving people's concerns through testimony. How when people want to argue or whatever, all we can do is bear our witness to invite the spirit. "No one can doubt a sincere testimony." (see PMG- teaching skills) Sister allred and I were on exchange and right after Zone conference went out contacting in the pouring rain. A lady we talked to was like I love to read- that brings me hope! So we gave her a Book of Mormon and were going to visit up with her, but she said she is not into this kind of thing when we called her?

The president or minister or something of Bulgaria was here. They stopped all foot and transportation for him to come through in a huge line of cars. Cops were all over.  The whole city was silent. We couldn't even cross the crosswalks- the police stopped us. Also, the city was in mourning yesterday because of a helicopter that crashed because of the fog. Really sad. Pray for this city, please.

This is an old video, but I thought you would like it. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6e4WzDHC-U7VE16ZnhYUk50SmM/view?usp=sharing

I love you! Stay true to the faith. This week I taught seminary- Doctrine and covenants 101:39-40. I made fake mission calls for each of the student and it said "Elder so and so, you have hereby called to be the salt of the earth, you will serve for a period of your whole life..." blah blah some stuff I changed. We talked about how salt does not change with age, only if it is mixed with other things and is no longer pure. We are the salt and dirt is sins. Let us become the purest salt we can! The earth needs as much "salt" as it can get!

I love you all, I pray for you. 

Sestra Richardson

"Ko je Bog?"

Dear svima,

This week was, like most weeks, a lot of contacting, tracting, working!

I have heard from a few letters you want more specific stories, izvolite:

We talked to this woman with 2 teeth on Monday night and she was like "oooooh Mormoni, Who is God?" So Sister Durfee said, "Our Heavenly Father" and the lady said "nope!" and we gave her more answers.. our Father.. our Ruler.. Someone who cares for us.. He hears and answers our prayers. She just kept saying no!  She told us how Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit are the same person. We talked about John in the new testament with her about Christ's baptism, and how God in the first vision says he is pleased with Christ,  his Son, and how we can pray to know they are separate beings, but united in purpose. We talked but always strive to teach, and if there is contention and the spirit is not there- we cannot teach! So we just listened and she ended her speech to us with "pokajati se! pokajati se! imate vremina, ali vrlo malo, vrlo malo!" (repent! repent! you have time, but very little!) and then about how we were going to hell... interesting street conversations uvek.

We taught some good first lessons this week and have been working to build up our investigator pool. Two girls we taught said "wow, this is something I actually really needed to hear and something that would be really good for the people here." Person by person... the gospel will go forth! We skyped President for mission leadership meeting thing.

We talked to another lady who tried to get us to marry her 32 year old nephew. We laughed and we're like haha we are on missions! She was like "my nephew is on a mission too!" (like a mission to get married) funny. She actually talked to "pretty girls like us with black name tags" when she lived in England for a few years, so. We are teaching her this week! 

I GOT MY VISA! It is good til the 8th month. We'll see how long I'll really be here though. Last time in Rijeka right when I got my visa I left. Transfers are at the end of this month.

There was a pizza on our door mat one night at 8:30 when we got home. We figured it was maybe the Elders or the members so we ate the whole thing- we were so so hungry and too tired to cook. It was soggy and cold and I got kind of sick. But I'm fine now! We have leadership council in Zagreb this weekend. This mission is going good places. Very very slowly, but it is going! I spent most of the meeting complaining how a lot of this work could be moved forward faster with iPads, and so did President! I read a letter this week "being digital disciples in a digital age."  and I love that. The technology is there, let's just use it for good!

It was "women's day" yesterday in all of Serbia. 8og martu. We got cards and chocolate and so much food and randomly got called up to the front to sing as sisters in Zion in sacrament meeting, in English. It was weird to sing in English.

I love you all! Have a safe, busy spring break. 

S ljubalvlju, 

Sestra Richardson

I have 20 years and so does Durfee

Hvala vama za sve!

I have 20! That's how you say it in Serbian.  And Sister's Durfee birthday was on the 26th as well. We celebrated by eating so much- we bought 120 dollars worth of groceries (on our tab) with a sister in our branch and she made a huge meal with all of it! And some cake later for ourselves.  IT WAS SO GOOD. Take any food you like, make it three times better and three times fresher, that is what serbian food tastes like. SO GOOD. I also got some..... pretty interesting.... gifts. We had the dinner with our district and that member's sons. Then we contacted (yay missionary work!) and played volleyball with some investigators and members and missionaries and cleaned the church.

Tracting this week a lady opens the door and it on the phone, I was like oh I am sorry we can come back and she's like! "VI STE SEKTASI!" (you are a sect!)  and lots of things, slams the door, and we are like oh have a nice day madam and move on and she opens the door AGAIN to yell at us! Never had that happen before. 2 times door slam from the same door! Two birds one stone?

We were in a sock store last p day and there was a man in there from England buying all kinds of underwear and had so many questions about it and asked the ladies running this tiny underground (literally, under main street there are tunnels with shops) had no idea what he was saying so I ended up translating all these questions (What size are these boxers? Where they made in China? Do they stretch? Do you have this one in pink? How much is 800dinar in euros? etc etc.) So awkward. NEVER A DULL MOMENT ON THE MISSION.

We visited a member to discuss a relief society activity for all the members in the country, they had 6 cats! I showed them a picture of my cat and we talked about cats for a solid 20 minutes. We were contacting and there was a little book vender and I stopped and we talked to him and I asked if he would sell me a bible (they are SO HARD to find here in Serbian language, I do not even know why) and he asked us of course where we were from (people always think I am from Poland or France) and we ended up talking to him about religion and he was like I am just waiting for revelation. And we were like WHAT we have it! Modern day religion. We gave him a book of Mormon, we are going back to him this week to see what he thought and if he prayed about it. Sometimes just stopped people on the street does not work for so long that you gotta change up your tactics a little! 

It has been another long but good week. Sister Durfee and I planned last night and got in our PJs and then I turned on some Mormon Tabernable and EFY music and we ended up dancing for a good 20 minutes. I had rolling pin I was playing like a guitar and she was singing into a balloon. ?

This week I have been studying Joseph Smith and the restoration. How important it is that we have the pravo authority on the earth and that we live by the gospel. We are so blessed to live in a dispensation where the gospel can be proclaimed unto every nation and lived by every person who is willing!

Love you!!

Sister Richardsnfkldg

that food picture WAS JUST THE FIRST COURSE! It was fast sunday the next day and when the fast was over I was still not hungry.. from what I had eaten Saturday! So much food