Lep pes

Dobar dan brate in sestre (slovenian), 

This week we skyped Momcilo three times. He is in the Berlin mission boundaries, some branch there. I kid you not when I tell you he is the most solid person I have taught my whole mission. We taught him a lesson about prayer that was very simple, but he seemed to finally get it. Then we each, us 5 missionaries (two elders in Germany, us three sestra here) went around and each said a prayer to demonstrate. We talked about how just like if you were to call your earthly dad, you wouldn't just recite the same thing to him every week, you would tell him how you feel, you would tell him you love him, and ask for help! So he said this short, short, simple prayer and then as we were congratulating him and saying thanks he told us there was a weird warm energy in the room he was in! We were like ah, yes, that is the Holy Ghost and it confirms truth! Then he insisted on reciting a few other prayers. I am so pumped. His baptism is now scheduled for Dec. 6- my last Sunday in the mission. Hopefully I will be able to tune in via Skype. Really I would get yelled at for another 18 months just to have another investigator like him! He said that after he gets baptized he wants to use a nickname from the Book of Mormon, (this is a tradition taken from another religion..but I think its not blasphemous if he wants to do it), but he says he doesn't want it to be a prophet or anything because he is not that good yet, but he wants a name who was a follower of Christ. At the end of another lesson, he proceeded to told us that he had done all the homework in the "additional study" section at the back of the word of wisdom pamphlet and taught US for a good 20 minutes about all he had learned. He read us scriptures, made an analogy, all this stuff. He told us he could never thank us enough for even having Skyped him one time, let alone now like the 8 or 9 times. I cried! Ah. The spirit is enlightening. 

We have been "inducting" Sister Rhodes this week. Ate at our favorite restaurant, went running, ate at the Hallings apartment, watched seminary videos during dinner, she showered in the moldy shower, eating many many loaves of bread, handed off email addresses, passwords, websites, phone, etc. She will be great! I am excited. I think I am getting moved to Sarajevo next week but I am not sure.. they are trying to prep for next transfers, who will train the new missionaries.  She told me that it is bad to wash my hair every day so I tried to do it every other and a bee attacked me, indoors. So I yelled, "It smelled my hair!" and swatted it. Sister Allred has it on video.

The couch has been giving me crazy dreams and I wake up half on and half off of it. I think it might have to do with that I register for classes this week and I have noooo idea what I am doing. 

Yesterday I was Sister Grant's companion. She, President Grant, and I drove to Celje, Slovenia and gave the internet presentation there. There were a few side comments that I could not understand, language barrier is real again! It was cool though to talk to them for a while. I am so grateful for them!!!! We drove back a "faster way" but got lost. Got to see some Slovenian countryside!

From the AP's email: "The missionaries in Zadar met a man at church yesterday who has been studying about the church on the internet for a year now! He lives far away from the branch but chose to come this Sunday. It's no coincidence that the Zadar branch was having a Flood the Earth training/lesson this very day! The members felt a great desire to engage in online missionary work when they saw this fellow brother who, though far away, had come to love the church through the internet!"

We also had a lesson with a less active family from Venezuela. The dad doesn't want the 12 year old son to be baptized because he doesn't think he knows enough about the gospel. The dad never comes in on lessons with us. But--- this time we brought pictures of when we were each baptized as kids, pictures of us with our dads, and he stayed for the whole lesson even when he said he would not! 

Finished reading 3. Nefi 11 this week-- How grateful I am to have the correct knowledge of Christ, of God, of the Holy Ghost in my life. I know he is our brother. There have been some crazy events recently (from what people have told us on the streets?) But I know that if we look to Christ our hearts will not fail us! We will not sink in the water, as Peter did. 

I love you! 

Sister Richardson

​In Celje----- that city has old roman ruins under it and they uncovered this old baptismal font from 400! Apparently most the churches around here actuallyused to do baptism by immersion.

​View from the top of Zagreb-- we went to the Zagreb eye tower thing last pday.

Rhodes, Richardson, Allred. Sister Rhodes likes to cook and is good at is so we made a ton of food this week. Except I actually made the peppers. :)

Don't be stiffnecked!

Zivijo, 

This week brought all kinds of surprises. The fun never ends on a mission, really. The sad news is I have been demoted to the couch-bed in our kitchenroom/living room, where I have to sleep sideways because there is a big bump in the middle of the cushion! And the curtain thing is broken so the streetlight blinds my eyes all night, but, the good news is...

I am in a trio! President Grant called Sister Rhodes (strange that she, Sister Allred and I all have a friend in common- Claire Christiansen) from the Slovenia side of the mission to this side! So she has to learn Croatian now! On Saturday we went to a baptism in Maribor and then drove to Kranj and slept on the floor and went to sacrament meeting in Kranj, then Sister Duffy, a mini missionary and I drove to Ljubljana for third hour and did the internet "Flood the earth" presentation there! 

The members were actually very pumped about all the internet things in Slovenia! I had a mini missionary from Slovenia help me give the presentation, since Rhodes and Allred were in Kranj... but since there are a lot of older people in the Ljubljana branch I spoke Croatian and they understood me! So that was a bit of a miracle. Except when one lady said something back to me and I was like uh, I think yes, maybe..good.. and turns out she was baggin' on the whole concept of what we were trying to do. I am grateful I am not trying to learn Slovene! I threw in a couple phrases I knew in their language and they thought that was so funny. It was hard staying awake during sacrament meeting when I could not understand! 

So then we took Sister Rhodes back with us yesterday night and put all her stuff in. She is going to be taking my calling and working with Sister Allred. It will be nice to have someone that speaks Slovene instead of Allred and I trying to make stuff up and calling to ask people if it is correct. She will be great! So, we are training her this week and then President said I will be going somewhere else in the mission "sending you out to pasture" is the phrase he used! But I am going to put my shoulder to the wheel to the end! But this week we are going to be not sleeping AKA training Rhodes.

HAHAHAHAHAHA I should not be laughing at this, maybe I should, but there was this dead cat in the road by our apartment a few weeks ago, and people just kept running over and over it and we took a picture of it. Then this "missing cat" poster shows up on our building and surrounding buildings this week, WITH PICTURES. So we compared the two pictures and realized that it was the cat that died.. awkward... so Sister Allred decided to call them cause that seemed like the nice thing to do. So she calls and is like "Hello, so we are not sure but we think we saw your cat." and the lady is like yes... and sister allred says "It died." 

             Then there is this pause for a good 10 seconds and the lady is like... no, we found her? and sister allred is like oh, well good job! and hangs up. Language fail. Also someone must have bought them a similar looking cat and gotten the cash reward because that was for sureee the dead cat! 

A member this week showed us THE NEW/UPDATED BOOK OF MORMON TRANSLATION!!! She has the whole thing printed. That was so cool. Hopefully that actually comes out sometime in the next five years.

I hurt my neck and got a cold this week. I just took drugs and continued on, we had a lot to do! A few lessons bailed, but Sister Allred got the restoration video on the websites for our country! She just asked Frankfurt and after many emails they gave us the materials to do it! So we are the only countries in the world right now that have that! Hopefully all the rest will get them too.

My last zone conference this week. I helped Pres give the tech presentation and he teased me a lot about marriage and kissing boys. I bore my testimony. 

I testify that these are the last days. The days before Christ will come! It's not called the last years.. or the last century.... but the last days. 

I read this morning much about that. Let our hearts not fail us! Let us not fall by the wayside! Let us trust in God and trust in His plan for us! Do not get distracted!

Doctrine and Covenants 5and 8 Oh, this unbelieving and stiffnecked generation—mine anger is kindled against them. !!!!

Sister Richardson

​allred and I in Maribor

​DONT BE STIFFNECKED! I just put heat and icy hot we randomly found on it one morning and did not turn my head at all and it got better after taking some drugs and a few days 

​I was told these are the "alps"??

Svi sveti

Zdravo i Lp, 

Sestra Allred and I are teaching the most solid investigator of my whole mission, his name is Momcilo and he lives somewhere in the Germany, Berlin mission. We skype teach him. He speaks Serbian, it is awesome to teach him. He actually said "I want to be baptized" when we invited him, WHAT. It is scheduled for Nov. 21, but there is some political things that could maybe hold that up. But we will get to watch the bap over skype, that will be sweet. He asked us about the reformers who came before Joseph smith and why they were important, he talked about the authority of God and asked so many good questions. The Lord may be moving His people, but He is preparing a way.. a crazy way.. for scattered Israel to hear the Gospel! 

We the 30th anniversary broadcast of the dedication of former Yugoslavia. We filmed it and edited it and put the subtitles in three different languages all within 10 hours. There have been some long nights and some random assignments for us lately. It may not sound like it but I am going to cry when I leave the mission. We had the last MPAC (mission public affairs council) meeting last night and Pres Grant was saying his two cents about me leaving the council.. cause I am leaving, and our skype cut out. But I had a good 10 second cry this morning in the shower about how much I love where I am right now and all that is happening. AH

We biked last pday and got protein shakes, protein has hit the balkans ladies and gentleman! Today we cleaned out our apartment and slept, we are so creative. We ate so so so much candy for Halloween though, which we bought ourselves from Kaufland, livin the dream. Some sisters do "six months to sexy" where they diet the last six months of their mission, I am just trying to eat everything that is not in American, all the food that is dear to me! Ha!

Satan was rampant in these parts this week! He tried to get us down but we wouldnt let him!  We contacted people and they'd say nah, then people we didn't even contact would stop us and yell at us! Then, we tried to get these cards printed for our presentations and went to get the bid at a graphic design place, they said theyd be happy to work with us and email the bid to us. Then we got the email, they said because of their (religion) preferences they would not print our cards! So we had to scramble to find another place! Then we texted this member we had visited once before and she said, "NO! you cannot come over and share a message!" And many other, very, very weird and uncomfortable things. Contacting got all shades of weird this week. We had a Halloween party in the branch and we got told off by a member, everyone really loves us in this branch. 

We talked and walked with this Jewish guy for an hour. He was nice, we "scheduled a lesson" with him that we would walk back and talk to him later. We talked about the plan of salvation. How blessed we are to have such a specific knowledge!  

This weekend was great though- on Saturday morning we had a baptism at the mission office in the old font that they closed off because they have one at the chapel, so this was the first baptism here for 7 years! Here meaning at the mission office. It was of a guy who literally just walked into the church three weeks ago who used to be a Catholic priest. He is baptism number 26 for our mission this year! Each soul is precious! 

Then we watched the broadcast from Pres Grant about the 30 anniversary... the subtitles in the language were off but we did not have time to fix them but it was still good. Then did a service project, assembled hygiene kits for the refugees. Lots of them. 

Then Sat we went to Beograd, had dinner at the Raiceics! Then slept in the BEo apartment, went to church there, did our presentation. Tasa told me he knew I would be there, he prayed me there. He got baptized 40 years ago in Austria. He is the best. We did our presentations despite the projector not working, drove to Sremska and did it there, drove home. 

That's all I got for you this week. The Lord is aware of each and every one of us! 

Love you! 

As Sisters in Zagreb

Lp, 

First of all, WE GOT TO GO TO THE TEMPLE THIS MORNING FOR PDAY!!!!!

JK the temple I refer to is the bar next to our house called, "temple." But we like to make jokes about this. Those who have a real house of the Lord in their vicinity, make sure you take the opportunity to go and worship. I miss the temple a lot. I will be spending a lot of time there kad se vratim!  A member in the branch here gave me some names to do when I am back.
​

We cleaned the office out in prep for the 30th anniversary of the dedication of former Yugoslavia and because two seventies were coming. There were a lot of crusty ties and skirts from missionaries past. We found some weird things, a few translated epistles from Elder Shepard. 

This week I was on exchange in Karlovac with Sister VanWagoner- in the elevator we realized she was the one that mom or dad? met her aunt at Costco. She is from Centerville.  We did hours and hours of contacting. We went and visited a member to invite her to the open house and her friend was there and asked me if I knew how to shoot insulin into someone? I said yes, and she whipped out her needle and  handed it to me and I was like wait, wait, nah! She told us about how she went and visited NY when Tito reigned in these lands..and more interesting stories.. never a dull day truly.  Most of Karlovac was flooded! There has been so much rain and everyone has been very on the spritz? about it.  Sister VanWagoner taught me how to hula for morning workout, I thought about the "hookee lao?" Is that right, Grandpa Gary? We throw our nets out into the sea.. and all the ama ama come swimming to me? :)

​See those trees? They are now in the water!

Three people this week told me I look like Anne Hathaway. I think this is a sign that I am getting paler. #mormons

We gave this old old man a tour of the church. He was a doctor, he asked us a lot about infant baptism and said he would come to church.

For pday last week we had to run some errands then we ate hot chocoalte, then soup, then ice cream. We are getting creative lately. Today we are going running and biking then sitting in a cafe and drinking hot chocolate.  We got McDonalds twice in one day last week, fail. It smelled like throw-up outside and Sister Allred and I agreed that that was fitting for the situation. 

I GOT TASHA's WEDDING INVITE. And Grandma Fran's Halloween card! Exciting! 

Also this week. We spent a good eight hours at the mission home- me downloading illustrator and finishing our "Flood the earth" presentation, writing the scriptish for it, more. 

THEN we went to Osijek and presented on Sunday. Three hour car ride in the silver box both ways. We slept through most of it and showed it with red eyes and drool-covered cheeks. Nothing like it. But the presentation went well, we are trying to education people about Facebook and the new websites. We got a good response. So tired this week. SO MUCH TO DO. BUT IT IS ALL GOOD THINGS.

from the park next to the church in Osijek

We are teaching a man over skype! He lives in the Berlin, Germany mission somewhere and name is Momcilo. Our second lesson is tonight. He is so cool.

This week we had a really cool lesson where we got on our knees and demonstrated personal prayers, we prayed like a personal prayer and we taught her how to. We explained how when we pray in church and in public the prayers are different than what we would say in a private prayer. 

The highlights of the week-- we had the opportunity to have Elder Hamula of the 70 and his wife, and Reid Nielsen (who is actually from Bountiful) of the Church History Dept. come. They spoke in a fireside for the members on Thursday night. I liked Elder Hamula's talk- about how we must correctly understand our Heavenly Father in order to correctly follow Him. Many people say oh, I believe in God, it doesn't matter how you call him or what you think He is it is all the same. But it is not. When we correctly understand who God is, we understand that we will one day return and report to Him and we want to make Him proud! I got thinking about the connections between my Heavenly Father and my earthly father (and mother). How when I return, I want to be able to say I worked hard, I tried hard, I did good, I am tired, but I am ready for more! That is the feeling I want when I return to my Father in Heaven.

The next morning, us sestre, the Grants, two senior couples, the APs and the office elders got to meet with the Hamulas and Brother Nielsen again for a few hours in the mission office. We sat in a circle and had a really real chat. President Grant presented some data, which we discussed, and then each of them said some remarks.  Brother Nielsen started off and talked about his mission in Japan. He said that when he was a young missionary he got a letter of a friend who was somewhere in South America, and included in the letter was a picture of he and a big group of people all dressed in white, soon to be baptized, talked about how even more were scheduled to be baptized. He said he kneeled down and he prayed, he prayed that his service, the contacting and talking to people he was doing every day, the low numbers, the effort and the desire would be acceptable to the Lord. He said he never really felt completely at peace with his answer. Then many, many years later they announced in general conference a temple in Japan and he was at home, surrounded by all his kids, and he listened to the session, then between sessions he got in the shower and he wept. A lot. At this point in his telling the story I was also crying a lot and he said at that moment, he just felt that not only was all the effort he put into his mission worth it, but that the Lord was pleased with him. He told us that sometimes he would get up in the morning on his mission and say another day of going out on the streets, another day of maybe not numerical or even any very visible success, but he pushed forward and he did it. And he felt that the Lord was there for him and he learned to rely on Him.

I ruffled through my bag, through pekara wrappers and my planner and a huge to-do list and found tissues, wiped my makeup off my cheeks, blew my nose, and our QandA moved on. His short, five minutes of talking was spot-on to me, right in that time. They asked us some questions, we asked them some. We talked about the 30th anniversary of the dedication of former Yugoslavia, and some quotes from President Monson. Usually they dedicate countries outside, but because of the unique-ness of this area... they did it inside and just opened up all the windows! They told us some neat stuff.

Cujemo se i volim te,

Sestra Richardson