mi i josef smit na istoj stranici

Halo, 

On Monday we were like alright, we are going to pray and if our will aligns with God's we are going to give 3 church tours in one night. WE DID IT. #thosetendermercies

I forgot to tell you, that magazine came out and we were in it, twice! There is another huge picture and I am in the corner of it pretending to play the piano. I will send you one mom, dont worry. There was also porn on and in it--dang it Satan--so we in case you wonder why some pages are ripped out! I also got (mis)quoted in it. No article online about it, sorry :( Hope google translate can do it justice.

We really thought this picture would turn out so much worse considering we are sitting on a bed and that the caption would be like MORMON POLYGAMIST SISTERS IN THEIR LIVING CONFINEMENTS but they were actually decent. 

This week Sister Allred and I had THREE DAYS of training from this awesome awesome man from Germany about "country communcation pages" which just mean websites that each individual country use. Look at ours this week and feel free to screenshot how old and outdated they are and then hopefully by next week the new ones we worked on will be up! Unfortunately they are not letting us yet do for Bosnia or Montenegro, but soon the following sites will be lookin FLY

https://www.crkvaisusakrista.hr

www.cerkev-jezusa-kristusa.si/

www.crkva-isusa-hrista.rs/

So that is something that I am really excited for because we actually struggle with that missionwide- we get awesome people to teach and then they are like oh I read something CRAZY about you on the internet never talk to me again! So the new sites will help a lot. #metadata #SEO #ICE #spremnismozasve  So really that took up a lot of our week and a lot of my..not patience, but mental brainpower. Havent worked with computers that much in a long time! We have KFC with him and he loved that.  Us translating everything for the page was kind of sketchy, those are words I dont know well but we managed! And members are going to check it all. 

Look at us re-learning how to internet and make webpages.

Some guy literally sprinted up to us in his sandals, bowed to us, said RESPECT, RESPECT, ja vas RESPECT. We were like ah ah super, dobro, hvala i mi za vas! And said he goes to the other church but he respects all we do, and how we dont smoke or any of that, then he sprinted away and across the tram tracks. Just another day as a mormon nun

Cool-- last night, I decided I really really was going to give out a Book of Mormon to someone solid and not give one out bez veze and I just prayed in the bathroom like I was infamously known to do in college and we stopped this 65 year old lady on her way home from Catholic mass. She was like ah man just my luck running into the jehovahs witnesses! But she talked to us and I told her this is the best thing I could offer her. Another witness that JESUS IS OUR SAVIOR. She talked to us for a good 15 minutes and is going to come to church Sunday. Name is Mljenka. So so so nice lady.  She then gave us a bag of 9 figs she'd just picked off a tree on the way home and put them "in a bag she found on the side of the road" and I actually love figs so we exchanged info and she was like how much is your Jesus book? and we were like nothing, besplatno je. and she was like God bless you, take these figs! SO KIND. 

So I was starving, like missionaries are all the time, and ate a fig on the way home without washing it and felt ok but then we had no food at our house..okay not true but we had very little and so I ate 8 more figs and looked at sister Allred (who tried them and didnt like them) and told her I felt so so awful. So we planned and I laid on the floor in a ball and ate some noodles with ketchup and basil and was fine! Moral of the story, dont eat 9 figs in one sitting and on an empty stomach. 

us buying really greasy sandwiches
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Also a  baptism this week! For an 8 year old in our ward. His dad is AWESOME. From Paraguay, named Juan Pablo and his son Martin. So I played (read: sightread) some very, very hard songs out of the primary book and when they got in the font one of the little kids at the front yelled AJDE AJDE! 

Then we put on the Mormon helping hands vests and had a free car wash in the church parking lot and talked to a lot of people and gave them materials. Does anyone actually read my emails though? If yes, reply to this email either with a picture of you eating a cafe rio salad or the first scripture that comes to your mind. 

This morning we hiked Medvedgrad, it was pretty. 

LOVE YOU. Congrats Sister White on leaving for the field, and Sister Gousse--maybe you guys will meet in the MTC. Glad to hear all are well with my loved ones. 

Sestra richardson

us with our trainer from Germany! He told us SUCH good stories using powerpoint-- Grandpa Gary's long long cousin??? :) He also told me Schneider means tailor! my hair looks red i am not sure why

mini missionary from an island called Cres who is 14!

brza hrana brza smrt = pizza

Halo.

First// I have been studying parables more. Interesting how Christ told them and some people got it and others really really did not. The scriptures need DAILY STUDY, not just casual reading. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. The gospel is the treasure. It is worth more than everything we have. We need to take care of it and remember it, remember the Savior daily. Loved that parable. 

We went to the zoo for pday. We had 7 leftover pizzas in bags in our fridge from zone conference and I ate it with ketchup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for three days until my face started breaking out really bad so I stopped. Unfortunate. Sister Allred and I work out really hard but also eat the worst. 

I was on exchange with Sister Mahabier in Zadar this week- three hour one way drive. So many tourists. Gave out a lot of country page cards.  Cool to be with Sis Mahabier again- my MTC companion. We just did a lot of contacting as per usual. Talked to one guy who was making holes in the dirt in his yard with a pick axe (sp?) and he talked to us a lot time about brza hrana brza smrt and how missionaries used to live in his friends old apartment. Said he would come to church.  So many tourists. You just contact them anyway and awkwardly hand them a mormon.org card! We also did service at a members house who had mold all up in there because it is so humid in Zadar and then they repainted and we helped them move all that back in.  We ate lots of figs off her tree, so so good. 

 

This week a guest from Frankfurt is coming to train Sister Allred and I cause I am the web publisher for 3/5 pages in these countries!  Lots of learning! Just learned the word metadata. Intense. Lots of SEO stuff too.​

Met this guy on the lake this week who said he knew Kresimir Cosic. He said he and his wife would come to church and that when his son was little he wanted to be a mormon like Kreso. 

Every day my eyes are just kind of red and bloodshot. Not sure if its tiredness or heat or what. Well anyways I was taking toast out of the toaster it got stuck so I just like tried to get it out by stabbing the bread part but the knife touched the metal part and our power went out. Sooooo the Lord is looking out for us because my brain was/ still is really not  working. We flipped some switches and all was well... 

Magdelena came to church! She told a member that she is going to serve a mission, it was is interesting but awesome.  We talked to this lady Vesna last night who cried and told us everything happens for a reason and she was meant to learn about our church. The spirit was there in that moment on the street. That is hard to have in every conversation especially when people just yell at you all the time ha But, it was there and it was amazing.

Volimo vas i zelim vam sve srece i tako dalje! Have a safe return to school/ continuations of missions and work and life

Sestra Richardson

parables = Christlike

Postovanje, 

I told a parable of two soccer games in our presentation this week at zone conference and I decided to do another one. So here is the parable of the diesel car... 

Once upon a time, there were two young Mormon nuns in a far distant land. They had to go pick up two other sestre from the bus stop and but the car they were using had half a tank of gas. They, like the good missionaries they are, know you should not let the car get below half a tank in case of emergencies, so, they pull into a gas station and the older, sick sestra thinks diesel, diesel, diesel and pulls the green pump (because green means diesel in America), hands it to the other sister to fill up, and walks over to pay. Then the wiser, younger begins to fill the car for like 30 seconds, realizes that the pump is benzine, not diesel. Tells the pump attendant, tells the other sister, and they have to put the car in neutral, push it to the corner of the station, and wait for someone to come siphon it out. So this guy pulls up, they chat and help him for like an hour as he siphons the gas out of our car and casually leave him with our keys and go get cash from an ATM and come back, fill it up with DIESEL gas, he revved the engine for a bit, and we were on our way. When we called President he just laughed and laughed-- he had done the same thing on his own car when he first got to the mission. We were just grateful we realized it and never turned the engine on.  We picked up the sisters up at 9:40, Kawai and Mahabier- my two MTC companions. That was awesome to see them again.

Now for the parable- sometimes, we do something that we can't undo ourselves. Like put the wrong gas in our car. We can't just move on and act like nothing happened, because eventually it will catch up to us. We have to have faith that there is someone out there who can help us, and have enough courage to ask for help! We have to repent, tell our Father in Heaven and those there to assist us what we did and be sorry about it and not do it again. Even if we do it again, we must keep trying to be better!  When help does come, we must keep working.  We must trust that others know what they are doing and they can help us. We must trust God and Christ's atonement. There is always a solution. It may take time, patience, and sacrifice, but, it is worth it. Eventually we can, and will get back on the road.      I apologize now for how cheesy my emails are and how much worse they are probably going to get haha

I have been sick this week. Got a blessing this morning. I sound all raspy and growly and when I speak Croatian no one can understand me- it feels like week one in the field! But we have worked through it and I slept through a few lunches and should be fine in a few days.

Last night was a miracle- it was POURING rain but we talked to everyone still and were soaking. I just stopped this lady and was like here just take my umbrella! Cause she didnt have one. She stopped and asked us if ours was the Mormon church and is super super interested in talking to us. She wanted to meet us back here to come to church next week. Her name is Magdelena. 

We gave a church tour this week and as we are in the chapel explaining the sacrament to this cool lady named Vera and her kid she said wait.. this isnt a catholic church? We were like no.. she like starting walking backwards out of the chapel and was like oh, well I need to go then I thought this was a Catholic church! Then told us she actually wouldn't come Sunday, awkward. But then she said she would.  Someone asked about church tour: basically, this is one of two actual chapels (most other branches meet in part of an apartment building and such) and so we are in one of those areas and the church is in our proselyting area, so we literally stand outside the church during prime hours and hand out all kinds of materials and invite people *just not single men* in to take a 5 minute tour! You know the church is true because the pictures inside the church go in the order of the restoration lesson and so we literally just teach the first lesson and point out conveniently placed pictures as we go along.  

s ljubavlju, 

Sestra Richardson

pictures: biking last week on pday, the car fail, a bakery named "Holy Ghost"

Svetaca

Bokić, 

I will write this email in very very poor english I apologize now but I am so low on sleep and trying to whip this out on a croatian keyboard.

There was the JW congress here this weekend so in total I waved to 98 Jehovahs witnesses and talked to/accidentally contacted 17.  They were all super nice. I talked with one about Armageddon and the millennium and he had me read something in psalms, and he was so surprised that our Bible said Jehovah. #JST  When we contacted this week a lot we would be like we at the very start we are morrrmonnnsss because everyone was like hey you already invited us to your conference. Nope. 

Some guy stopped us on some steps leaving a parking garage and was like "HELLO BELIEVERS!" and we were like hello! He was when will Jesus come?! I was like soon! And he said call him and ask! I said I don't have his number, but you can call him yourself through prayer! Then he scurried away.  On the same day some man showed us his huge huge stomach scars in the middle of center.

Transfers were this week, we are staying together. We drove a lot of people places and moved luggage and switched cars and some people slept overnight at our house. I worked one night with a Slovene sister, Sister Erdmann. She was great. Are any other missions in the world that you like can't exchange with everyone because language differences? the gospel will go to all nations! So I did most of the talking that night because, slovenian. 

There was a huge..parade..this week. National holiday. Lots of streets were closed and people at the parade. We did have some good lessons though. Had dinner at a restaurant and the waitress lady dropped the glass pitcher and the glass and water got all up in my leg. nothing bad though. We just helped her mop it up!  We almost got eaten by a dog too in this little neighborhood and Sister Allred screamed like a 3 year old and I just took off sprinting. Whew! Also McDonalds got a new McFlurry, napalatonke chunks in it. We had one of those this week. 

We gave a church tour to our visa lawyer in Bosnia and with President and sister Grant. He and his wife and two kids. They are so super nice. We talked about the pillars of Islam and Joseph Smith and family history. 

2 lessons bailed this week, what can you do. Pray more! work harder! 

Then the weekend got crazy. Friday we had MLC. Since Croatia is one, not two, zones again there were less people but it was still, as always, good. We talked about miracles, having the faith to baptize, and prayer. Saturday morning we finished up MLC and went out and sweated and worked and went and back and slept at the mission home with the first member from Bosnia and the most recent convert from Bosnia, who said she wants to be the first sister missionary from Bosnia! They were so so so nice. So we slept over and took them to church that morning. Basically house sitting at the mission home. They loved going to church in a chapel! and talking to members there. then we ate and President Grant came back from being at church in a different city and brought a bunch of members back in the box aka big huge mission van. Then we worked, came back that night and ate and had a mini fireside with all the members and youth there.  I was asked to testify about the strength of youth pamphlet. All I can say is, the prophet is inspired and its those little, sometimes seemingly restricting rules that protect us and make us the happiest. THEN we got up at 1am and went up and picked a member from the bus stop from Banja Luka and brought her back. Explaining what a mission home was to her at 2am driving in a huge city in Croatian was fun. My brain does not do Croatian at 2am, but we made it. Then we got ourselves and other sistahs up at 5 and drove to the church where we met members who came from Serbia on this huge bus the mission rented. 150 from our mission going to the temple!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is for real a miracle. AND! The Z family!!!! THEY ARE GOING TO BE SEALED. I am so so so so happy for them. She ran up to me and grabbed me and I was so happy to see her again. I love them so much. She is so excited to be in the temple again. It was an INCREDIBLE morning. Talked to the Raic boys from Beograd too and so many cool members I have met!  All going! They should be in Frankfurt tonight and there all week. Lots of converts from this year going to do baptisms for their ancestors. Awesome. 

Anyways, then we went and showered and were back to be on a conference call and do some other admin. work for a few hours. happy p day! 

I hope that made sense. Temple trip turn up. I LOVE THESE PEOPLE. I am so happy they get to go to the temple.

BUT Doctrine and Covenants 64:33  Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great. 

A great week. 

Love you. Stay safe and pray hard. 

Sestra Richardson

PS I introduced myself as sister allred on accident this week.

​SAINTS temple bound! me with 4 hours of sleep last night. I LOVE THESE PEOPLE

after MLC. accidentally packed matching stuff and also wearing socks and sandals to get home in

We aint vampiri but we like vampiri

Draga obitelj (i tako dalje) moja, 

TRANSFERS are this week! But Sister Allred and I area staying together here in Zagreb for 9 more weeks and are sister trainer leaders now over the whole country! Ha. They combined Croatia NE and SW zones. So our responsibilities just tripled but it will be good!

We taught a member's sister, named Sadeta. We were dropping her off (the member) from a lesson once and saw her sister and basically invited ourselves over, she asked us to teach her how to make American pancakes. So we had "dinner" with them and taught the restoration. She came to church! Awesome. We are really excited to be talking with her. In Sunday school she told me that during sacrament she felt like she could she and feel something, like Jesus was sitting next to her. Like she saw the profile of his face, she said. She saw an evandelje pamphlet so we are going to teach that this week. Really cool lesson with them. Solid. 

Also, I am casually playing the prelude yesterday- and a member of the 70 walks in, Elder Jairo Mazzagardi from Brazil. He was on vacation in the area! So he took a few minutes of our sacrament meeting. Awesome man, powerful tesitmony, powerful booming voice. Told us how fast the Church in Brazil has grown and my mouth DROPPED.  Told us it was our turn. RM came home from serving in the Adriatic South mission and gave his testimony as well, told the members they need to say YES to the missionaries and need to help them, that we are in this together! I shed some tears during most of the meeting. True. If there are missionaries in your area, give them people they can serve, if you can- people to teach, feed them (they are hungry, I promise) and if nothing else, pray for them! Members and missionaries must work together.  Svaka clan misionar! To je zaista Bozji plan! I had to translate in Sundayschool and I haven't done that in a while and it was a deep New Testament lesson, whew. S Bogom mogu sve!

We talked to three Asains in English this week, gave them English mormon.org cards. So nice, soooo nice. Two from Taiwan, one from I think South Korea. One said he would come to church and call us.

Contacted this girl named Dora. She's 20 years old. She was like where are you guys walking to? I was like uh, the church! So we walked with her to the church and gave her a tour! She, like allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll of our investigators, is on the sea now though. And this other cool girl named Didi but we actually ended up teaching her at the church and then she was like let's go to a kafic! So we ended up teaching her a lesson at a cafe ha, but she agreed to take all the lessons at church after we talked with her. Bolestan.  She said she posted a pic of us on Facebook.  Everyone crosses themselves and puts on their jackets when they walk into the chapel. Every time.

Met with a less active this week who was on the team that just finished the updated translation of the Croatian Book of Mormon!! She is so cool. Told us how the gospel completely changed her life. Told me I had nice teeth and I told her they were expensive.. she thought they were fake! #braces #thanksmom

This week someone asked us if we can give blood or not. And I learned that vampires originated in Serbia! It makes sense. Jehovahs witnesses can't give or receive blood, we learned later. Also, we contacted a JW, she thought we were JWs when we approached her. They are having a stake conference type thing this weekend in Zagreb.

I bought these like knee length biking short things for 8 bucks. EVERYONE here especially where we live around the lake bikes and rollerblades. I fit in now with natives for morning workout!

This week I have been read Jesus the Christ. I marvel at what the Savior did and still does for us. It's a good read. Takes a lot of focus. He is our savior! I love Him!

& I LOVE YOU

Sestra Richardson