Search

Sunday, November 15, 2015

The Snow Tires are on the Corsa

Is it really half way through November!?  I will have to say the only thing that makes me believe that is the angle of the sun on the southern horizon.  The days are getting quite short, but the temperatures are still quite mild.  It has been hitting upwards of 18 degrees Centigrade during the sunny days.  That is about 65-70ish for you Fahrenheit people.  It is quite pleasant.  The thing I am enjoying most is the fact that the wind barely stirs here.  The weather is very calm.  We have been here six weeks now and have never seen anything that resembles a storm.  Just calmness and a lot of morning fog and rain on occasion.

What's wrong with the Corsa?
Most of the neighboring countries have laws that all cars must be running snow tires between November 15 and the end of March.  Even though Croatia hasn't climbed on that bandwagon yet, since the Corsa will most likely be needing to cross into some of these restrictive countries, we had to get snow tires installed.  In this part of the world, when the Church purchases a car they automatically get a set of snow tires mounted and have them stored at the dealership until they are needed.   Such was the case for us.  So, we made yet another trip to Zagreb to the Autowill Opel dealership to make the swap.  The timing was perfect as we had a headlight go out recently.  When I noticed that, we stopped in to have a service station attendant check on it he opened the hood and said, "complicated".  When I asked if he could change it he said, "take it to a dealer".   There is a certain amount of dis-assembly required and since i have no tools, we just had it taken care of at Autowill.  So far that is the only thing that has gone wrong with the Corsa.  I'm getting rather attached to the little darling.
How long does it take to install tires?

Autowill Showroon full of Opels.
Autowill is a nice dealership and it was here that it happened again--  the slip of the tongue.  The "volim" instead of "molim" when the receptionist was especially kind and patient with my improving Croatian.  This time I knew I did it.  Well, the receptionist smiled, I was embarrassed, and Sister Krehbiel laughed, of course.


Sharing the road with trains in Zagreb!!
 I am getting more comfortable driving in Zagreb.  Sharing the road with trains has become normal to me.  Most drivers are not overly aggressive and if I get by with fewer than 3 horns blown at me in a trip, I feel like I've done well.

Of course, all of this fun is surrounded by great opportunities to testify of the Savior, Jesus Christ.  We spend a lot of time with the the young Elders Williams and Mangeris and Sisters VanWagoner and Hertz.  As you can imagine, we have become quite attached to them.  They are very remarkable young people who inspire us with their desire to do good and share the great message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with all who will listen.  (In case their moms are following this blog) They are very well behaved and have good manners.  We have had a lot of fun and laughs with them!!  It goes without saying that they are keeping us feeling young!!      

We just accepted another assignment, and that is to teach an Institute class on Thursday Nights starting on the 26th of November.  This is a religion class designed for college-aged single members.  The curriculum is brand new this year with the course of study entitled, "Jesus the Christ, the Everlasting Gospel".  We are excited to team-teach a group of three or four students to start with but hopeful to grow it to 10 or so.  On the 14th we go for training.  You guessed it, another trip to Zagreb!!  Yippee!  Can't wait to play tag with the trains again!!

Next week it is off to Budapest, Hungary for training so stay tuned for that and another exciting adventures.  Thanks for following the blog.  Videmo se!


Dragi Unuci, here is the word of the week:  Zima.  Zima dolazi!!  Winter is coming!!

1 comment:

  1. Your Elder Williams is our nephew. Glad you've discovered what a great guy he is! We're rather fond of him :) Thanks for taking such good care of him. (Rod & Nancy Smith)

    ReplyDelete