Beograd

Beautiful Beograd

District meeting in Beograd

We have received a new assignment from President Grant.  We are moving to Beograd (Belgrade). We will never be able to replace the Petersons, but will do all we can to continue the work they were involved in.  We don't know who will replace us in Karlovac as of yet but I know they will love our quaint little town. We have enjoyed being in Croatia this past year and are grateful we were able to see it's beauty and meet many amazing people.  Now we are on to a new adventure in a new country. Beograd is the capital of Serbia with over one million people and is situated on the Danube River.  We were able to go there last week for a couple of days and check out our apartment.  It is very nice and comfortable.  While there we were able to squeeze in a district meeting (weekly meeting with the missionaries) with Beograd's missionaries and two visiting missionaries from Sarajevo.  We will move there permanently in another week. There are four church branches and one dependant group in Serbia that we will be visiting in the future.  They are Novi Sad, Sremska Mitrovica, Podgorica in Montenegro, Čačak, and Beograd.  We will also have to get used to using the cyrillic alphabet.  The two languages are similar but have distinctive differences.  I'm sure we will be confused for a while and use Croatian words when we mean to use Serbian ones.

We were in Zadar for a baptism and EK spoke for a few minutes.  He attempted to speak Hrvatski (Croatian) and did very well.  As what usually happens with us both, he ended up confusing words and it caused a few snickers in the audience.  An attendee behind me, leaned in and whispered in my ear, "he would make a great stand up comedian."  So, we try and many times end up entertaining the group.  EK is a great one to try and that is the only way to learn.  The people appreciate the attempts we make no matter how many mistakes are made.  We were happy to be able to visit with the Rotheys in Zadar, and to see Sisters Rusick and Elmore, along with Elders James and Palmer.  The longer we are out, the more familiar faces we meet throughout the mission.  We love seeing those smiling missionary faces and the warm welcomes we receive.

We attended a conference in Zagreb where all the missionaries gathered together to listen to General Authority church leaders Donald L. Hallstrom, and Paul V. Johnson visiting from the U.S.  There were 100 of us and we made quite an impressive group.  It was the first

time the entire mission gathered together since we arrived.  Imagine the difficulty in bringing together missionaries from all five countries in the mission.  We were attempting to take a group picture and had everyone in place awaiting our guests, but it started to rain and we had to scratch it.  I did get a quick shot before everyone went inside, which included the empty chairs for our guests.

Hot chocolate break

Banja Luka

We visited Banja Luka last week. EK had some training with Elder Bradford.  It was our first time there and we enjoyed the sights.  We stayed at a very nice hostel on the river.  The restaurant below ended up being one of our favorites.  The hotel receptionist was the sweetest and we were able to visit with her and tell her about the church.  She wasn't aware that LDS missionaries were serving in her city so we gave her a Book of Mormon and told her the missionaries would be in touch.  We have met many friendly and kind people throughout our mission.  This is a beautiful part of the world and we are grateful to be here.

Word of the week:   lijep (lee ep) which means beautiful