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.
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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