Waking up on the wrong side of the (room)

Bokić svima, 

Zone Conference went well last week. Sister Allred and I taught about the importance of teaching our friends to study, not just read the Book of Mormon. I read the Book of Mormon prije moje misije but I never studied it like I have learned to do.  If I read a recipe book every die for the rest of my life, it will not benefit me at all! I have to study it out, refer to it often, and act upon what I read! The same applies with the Book of Mormon. We also had the all sisters in the zone role play during our presentation. The Zadar sister slept over on our floor and couch.  Then we picked up a senior couple at the airport real quick in Presidents car and taught English and were on exchange // sister Vukorepa and I in Zagreb, Allred went to Rijeka. 

One of the weirdest things that has happened to me while Ive been inside my apartment...... I hope I can do this story justice because it was so, so strange. So I will begin telling it from sister Allreds point of view. The day after we exchange back- that night she wakes up on the couch with her pillow and her blanket, in our apartment, realizes she is on the couch, and goes in to our bedroom, puts her hands down on her bed to climb into it.. all of a sudden I am startled awake because someone is grabbing my ankles! 

So then I realize that the wall is on the left of me, not the right.. and that I am definitely laying in Sister Allred's bed?  So then she asks me why I am in her bed and I tell her I do not know! and then I exclaim "I do not feel well rested." which just seemed so correct at the time, and look at the phone, it is 1230am. I go to to the bathroom, come back, and we both BUST UP laughing and are so so so very confused about what just happened.. then I realize her blanket is in my bed and hold it really close to my face in the pitch black night to make sure it is hers and throw it on her bed. Really, really I do not know what happened. We did go to bed talking to each other a little bit, maybe Sis A just slept walked into the other room and I took her bed? I really do not know. She said she has woken up before and we are just both talking to each other in our sleep. 

In other strange events.. a member in Zagreb passed away and his dying wish was that the missionaries all sing "Praise to the Man" and "Abide with me" at his funeral, in English. He has not been to church for 15 years so we did not know him. So we ended up on Friday at a huge Croatian cemetery rock building thing (clarification: building, made of rock), singing with the Elders after very little practice as the casket was rolled in and as the family entered. We threw rose petals into the hole as the casket was lowered. It was interesting. That is actually the first funeral I have ever been to in my life so I have nothing to compare it to.  A member of the branch gave a talk about eternal life and we were the only people to say Amen at the end of it. Zanimljivo. 

Recent convert in Belgrade, Serbia, it was her birthday yesterday and she called and we got to talk for a few minutes. She told me I am like the daughter she never had. She told me of some miracles she has seen recently. I LOVE THE PEOPLE HERE SO MUCH.  I sent her a card and a ring of mine that was her favorite color. I love her so much really really.

This whole week was, as per usual, a lot. of. contacting. Last night I was very done. Very done. This guy Luka crossed the street and we contacted him and he actually asked us a lot about questions he wishes he could ask God. We testified of Joseph Smith. He agreed to a lesson Wednesday and we are very very pumped for it. Honestly our first sit down lesson in a while. But we keep pressing on!  There is a YSA conference in the mission home this weekend and if our lesson goes well Weds. we are totally going to invite him. Every inv. who has ever gone to that has been baptized. I ask for your prayers to add to my own.

We taught a jehovahs witness, in the church, last night. She asked if she could see the library in our church so we ended up talking to her about Joseph Smith.

We played ultimate frisbee for Pday last Monday and are doing it again today. Fora je bila. Also I am still sore from last week of it. My body has aged 10 years in 16 months.

This week I studied a lot about repentance. Why does God want us to repent?  What role does the sacrament, and our personal prayers have to do with repentance?  How often should we repent? What does "Godly sorrow" mean? How do we show God we want to repent?

Volim vas,

Sestra Richardson

Not sent from an iPad, but rather from a rusty time travel device known as the computer at the church

Svirala sam...klavir

Bok bok bok, 

Well you heard from me Wednesday, but here's an update of the last few wdays.  

We contacted this lady named Maja as she was out walking her dog and talked to her, of course, about the Book of Mormon. Explained it all, she asked a few questions, and she gave us her address so we could come over Monday night and teach her. Super nice lady. Seriously 20 minutes later we get a text saying it was her and not to come over and to delete her number.... satan is still around everybody but we are on God's team and nothing can stop the work from progressing! The truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independently til it has penetrated every continent, visited every Croat and climb! Swept every Balkan country, and sounded in every ear... 'til the Great Jehovah shall say "the work is done."

Sister Allred and I were talking about the second coming and about how the righteous be taken up in the clouds and then the wicked will remain on the earth and the earth will be burned..... we were talking about the process of the righteous all the sudden lifted up in the air and she said "it's kind of like when you are sitting on the couch and your mom comes to vacuum so you just lift up your feet for a second and your put them back down and everything is cleaner... .I hope this is not sacrilegious but we had a good chat about it.  

I still have a cold and maybe a sinus infection? from that time I squirted Serbian water up my nose with my filtered water bottle to try and get rid of my cold a few months ago. It's all good though, all good. The work moves on.

A miracle in my eyes---- we were cleaning out the family history center at the church and the office missionaries told me I could throw away this really old printer because we got a new one. Everyone said we could but as we walked out of the building I had this feeling DON'T THROW IT AWAY. So I put it in the back of the car instead and it just stayed there.....I wasn't sure what to do with it but just not trash it.  A few days ago the director of the family history center contacted us and they actually really really needed that printer for a few reasons or another and asked where it was. phew! So luckily we got it all back. Some missionaries have a miracle and 35 people get baptized, but you know what I saved a printer this week! Through small and simple things.. ha

We went tracting and written on someone's doorbell was "squeeze more" and Sister Allred and I, who have both not worn makeup like all week, just laughed so hard we cried. Squeeze more is how it literally translates but like press hard is what it really means.  Good ol' door to door. 

SATURDAY we had a car wash again. One out of two we have done this week. We gave 4 groups of people church tours and gave out lots of Book of Mormons and pamphlets. Now we are washing lots and lots of old crusty towels in our washer today. It was great. A good success. Lots of people crossing themselves in the chapel as they walk into it. They really respect the chapel.  THEN we got cleaned up a little bit and drove to the center of the city--- got to go to the Paul Cardall humanitarian concert!  For kids with heart defects, like Paul had. We could only go if we paid our way and brought an investigator. It was a great concert. We did the Facebook advertising for it. I thought it was a good turnout considering what they charged for tickets.  The concert was touching, one little girl played and it made me cry. That was great. 

SUNDAY was super funny to me- of course Brother Cardall attends church in Zagreb, where I casually play the piano. No pressure. I chose some hymns to play cause the branch presidency didn't so I chose some super easy ones. But they sing an intermediate hymn every week here so I get up at the time we are supposed to sing that and start walking up to the piano and the brother conducting the meeting motions me to sit down, very very awkward. So i stop in my tracks and turn around and he calls out Paul to come play something instead-- so he comes and wows everyone! then I played like sweet hour of prayer for the closing hymn. Bahaha. good journal moment. Then we went to the mission home for some public affairs stuff and had dinner with him and other important people. and worked and worked. misionarski rad. He said at dinner that he had played with Aunt Linda in Hyde Park, she on the violin! And showed me a picture of you all together. Awesome!

We are prepping for zone conference Tuesday, reading about the HOW of studying the book of Mormon. What is the difference between STUDYING and READING? 

Also been listening to a lot of conference talks. I am excited for general conference. It gives me a lot of peace. 

Love you,

Sestra richardson

bolesna sam ponovno woops

Cao svima, 

I will be honest with you, we have worked long and hard on the Slovenia, Serbia, and Croatia websites and they are LIVE baby LIVE. So take a look at those. I got sick again!  We spent Monday driving to Novi Sad, Serbia, having a meeting, then driving to Osijek *and our GPS broke so we drove so many sketchy back farmroads* and then I slept on the wood floor with a blanket at like 11pm in the Osijek sisters apartment, got up 630, drove back to Zagreb,  had an exchange with sister Deschler and then this morning another 6 hours of driving to exchange back! So since today is our "pday" we went to district meeting and then we are going to sleep the rest of the day.. 

We had mission leadership council. We talked about truly teaching our investigators to pray, and what a public prayer means in comparison to a kneeling, private prayer that we say. Read some passages from that good book by Clayton Christiansen about missionary work.  We presented about the sites, it was kind of scrappy?.. I will be honest it feels like finals week here for sister allred and I!  But I got a good 5 hours of contacting in yesterday!  I decided lately to use the Joseph Smith pamphlets more often, even though they have a pretty bad language mistake. and thats been great.  

Im sorry that is really all the energy I have for the day to put into an email. I LOVE YOU ALL. Christ leads this church. Remember that reverence invites revelation. 

Sister Richardson

OH and also we were in Slovenia at another meeting and went to Paul Cardall's concert after--- so that is us and our good Slovene sista friend Sister Nydegger at like the "after party" for the concert, if you want to call it that. His wife is a Slovene and she spoke and so did Pres Grant it was so gold.