Baptism in Osijek

On the road again, this time to Osijek which is east of Zagreb.  It is about three and a half hours away from Karlovac, so we stayed overnight at the Strassmayer, our favorite Hostel in town.  There was a

Jovan and Radojka 

Sister Rhodes and Sister Allred

baptism scheduled for Jovan and Radojka Gojković, a sweet couple who were introduced to the church by their daughter who lives in Canada.  President and Sister Grant (Mission President) were there, along with President and Sister Anderson (Branch President), and other members and investigators.  Sister Rhodes and Sister Allred (sister missionaries from Zagreb) were also there, so I was able to get a shot with them.  Sister Allred will be going home soon and I asked her, "what will we do without you?"  She replied, "I think I'll lose my passport."  Funny girl...we love them both. While in Osijek we were able to see the Cathedral and stop for lunch.  I ordered a pizza, and I had to take a picture of it for our grandson Josh.  He loves bacon, and would have liked to try this!  On Sunday, EK and I both spoke in Sacrament meeting.  Danaja interpreted the first part of my talk (she was awesome) and the last part was in Hrvatski, which I attempted myself.  Don't be too impressed as Elder Mangeris translated what I wrote, and I read it.  Hopefully, I didn't murder the pronunciation too badly. But those sweet people smiled and nodded, all the while probably thinking, what in the world is this woman saying?

Josh's dream pizza

I went to an awesome bookstore last week in Zagreb. While I was there, I couldn't resist, The Very Hungry Caterpillar which the store clerk said had recently been translated into Hrvatski. I also found my favorite Croatian children's book author.  In November I bought Ne, ne, da, da for Oliver before Christmas.  I had it on the sofa table and Elder Poore found it and read it.  It is his favorite book and reads it to all the new missionaries coming to Karlovac.  Well, I found another one by the same author which is just as good called Moja tuta.  It's about potty training, and it will be perfect for Cora.  Elder Mangeris picked out a book called Ja, about a bear who loves life and read it to all of us. Everyday we see these missionaries working, serving, leading, learning and becoming men. Yet at times it is sweet to see the boy in them.

special dinner guests

We had some special guests over for dinner last week.  We invited the members who had attended the Singles Conference, to come over and see the pictures I took.  Snježana, Šmilka, Stefića, and Daniel showed up at exactly 6:00 p. m. and we had a great time eating and visiting, and viewing the pictures. While we were visiting, Kate Skyped us and she was able to meet our prijatelji.

On Saturday we went to visit Onto Ontolović with the Elders.  He lives about 15 kilometers outside of town and is unable to make it to church on  Sundays.  He does not have a car and the bus does not run on Sundays.  He used to live in town and served as Branch President for 9 years.  We see the problem of getting to church with a few of our members.  Owning a car here is very expensive, with the gas being 8.6 kuna per liter (about $4.80 a gallon).  You do not see many young people driving because getting your drivers license is extremely expensive, around a thousand dollars.

One morning last week the Elders came over told me an alarming tale.  I calmly went into the bathroom where EK was in the shower, told him what the Elders said, whereas he said, "What?  The car is missing?" Yes, they lost the car.  They used it for exchanges and parked it at their apartment

Pre-fine paying expression

for the night.  They got up the next morning, and it was gone.  It was locked and they had the keys so we knew it wasn't stolen.   So after some phone calls, they found out it had been towed away and they ended up having to go to the impound yard to pick it up.  Unfortunately, there was a fine involved.  Lesson learned:
Always return the car to it's designated parking spot in the senior missionaries parking lot...

We had District Conference on March 13th in Zagreb.  We took Sister Peterson, Sister Washburn, and Zarko Sikirića with us.  The attendance was around 80, but it was sent out via webcast, to the outlying areas.  We had 21 Karlovac members attend which was exciting.  We have an amazing Branch!  After the conference, there was a luncheon, time to visit, and then back to Karlovac.

We got our tickets for the Paul Cardall - David Archuleta concert in Ljubljana in May.  Well, we think we have our tickets.  It was difficult getting on the correct site, but after being moved around a bit, we were able to get on a site where we could choose seats and purchase tickets.  We will be staying overnight and will carpool with the Porters from Varaždin.  We are also excited for the Fireside with David.  It will be an amazing missionary opportunity for many, to meet this young man who put his career on hold to serve a two year mission in Chile.

The word of the week  for our unuci is:  krštenje (krsh ten yay) which means baptism 

Where There is Unity, There is Strength

Fun time at the dance!

A committee was formed to plan the first Singles Conference for the Adriatic North Mission.  People from five countries, and who spoke three languages participated.  Thanks to our amazing President and Sister Lotrič, we were able to translate all the necessary materials for the event.  The Lotrič's are from Slovenia and are a blessing to the mission.  President Loctrič  is First Counselor in the Mission Presidency. They work tirelessly for the mission and cheerfully participate wherever they are needed. They are an example to us all, especially to Church members in the ANM.

Our conference was last

The whole group

weekend from Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon.  It was a huge success.  We had 30 people attend, and many activities were planned for the two days.  We had spiritual firesides, devotionals, and a beautiful testimony meeting to close the conference.  We also had a dance on Friday night.

There were singles from the ages of 31 to 71 attending and they were all out on the floor.  We had a sister who showed us Bosnian Folk dances.

Those who came from a distance, stayed at the mission home Friday night, and the rest of us stayed up the road at the Vila Tina Hotel.

Our Karlovac members

We had amazing workshops on Saturday including team building activities, social networking, mountain climbing (yes, really), and a workshop on identifying body language. There were many involved in the planning and we were all blessed by the success of it.  Everyone was so appreciative, and we are planning another one in September.  I think the word may get around and we will have an even larger group attend.

We went to the MUP (again) last week, and we finally got our visa cards.  We are legal!  It only took five months.  It looks like a driver's license and when we leave we have to give it back.  I'd like to keep it as a souvenir but I don't think they will let me.

We had our monthly testimony meeting today at church.  The three sisters who attended the conference got up and spoke about it, and then I was surprised (and thrilled) when T got up to bear his testimony.  I think it was his first time.  I noticed that he seemed tired and he later told EK that he had gotten up in the middle of the night to write down some things because he knew he had to get up to speak on Sunday.  What a special young man he is, we really love him.  The time was coming to a close but people kept getting up to speak, and we actually went over.

Will we ever learn?

We were locked out of our apartment...again.  This time EK left his keys in the door as we left and shut the door.  I had my keys, but the problem was my key wouldn't go in with his keys in on the other side.  Elder Hillock came to the rescue, and with a credit card, was able to open the door.  Luckily it is usually not that easy to break in, as we have numerous dead bolts when we lock up for the night.

Local mailmen

We have gone to the Posta numerous times to mail things.  There is usually one person in the bunch who can understand English.  I make sure to say "avionska pošta" so it goes by plane and not on a slow boat to China, or in my case Wisconsin or Utah. We have never seen mailmen on the street until recently.  We wondered how they got around and we found a couple on duty riding their bikes with their pack of mail on the back.

EK had a meeting in Zagreb, so he dropped me off at the Avenue Mall and picked me up afterwards.  I found a few things for summer and then he picked me up to go a movie with some Zagreb Branch members.  We saw The Gods of Egypt and we thought it was pretty good.  It as our first movie in Croatia.  The movies are all in English with Croatian subtitles.   The theatre had plush seats and since it was Wednesday, it was only $3.50.  What a deal for our date night.

Word of the week:  avionska pošta which means:  airmail

A concert in Ljubljana!

We are excited at the news of Paul Cardall and David Archuleta performing in Slovenia on May 13th.    Paul Cardall visited the Adriatic North Mission last year in September of 2015, to share music, and raise awareness of congenital heart disease.  He had a heart transplant in 2009, and has performed numerous benefit concerts.  We are also fortunate to have David come and perform with him.  Everyone knows him from American Idol fame, but more importantly, the decision to put his career on hold to serve a mission for two years.  He served in Chile from 2012-2014.  We were happy to find out that he is willing to do a fireside in Zagreb. Which brings me to our "14 hour day".  This is not a common thing for us, but I know that other missionaries (senior and young) have many days such as these.  I will refer to EK's journal which is much more detailed than mine.  Last Thursday, we left the apartment early, to attend a planning meeting for "An Evening with David Archuleta Fireside" in Zagreb. The Grants were there along with two sister missionaries (media sisters), a recently returned missionary, the Bobić's, and us. The meeting was a success, and many ideas were shared.  President Grant conducted the meeting and afterwards turned the committee over to EK and said, "make it happen."  A little something else to keep us busy.  As I said before, the days are flying by.

Beautiful sky as we returned home

We then hopped in the Opel and drove to Varaždin for another meeting that EK had. Meanwhile Sister Porter and I went over to Metro (mini Costco) to price food for the upcoming Singles Conference in March.  We have met weekly to plan for it and the committee has worked very hard in providing interesting workshops and awesome speakers for the event.  This is the first one ever in the mission, and this one is the "kickoff".  Think of it... planning an event where people are coming from five different countries and speaking three different languages. It's a little different than planning an activity back home.  There are challenges, but we have amazing people on the committee.

We left Varaždin for home, and met the Ostergaards at church to talk about seminary.  We are trying to get one of the young men to join an online seminary class. We weren't able to meet with him, so Sister Ostergaard showed me the online presentation and hopefully I can show it to him another time.
Then it was time for English Class - full house again!  And at 7:30 it was time for Institute Class.  We got back to the apartment at 9:30 p.m. It was a full and productive day!

Sister Washburn, Sister Rusick and I did our weekly service for the Jak Kao Jakov Foundation.  We go on Wednesday nights for two hours and do a variety of things.  We make craft items for them to sell at bazaars with the proceeds benefiting families who have children with cancer.  The people are so nice and appreciative of us coming. We ended up going out to dinner beforehand at the restaurant down by the river.  Good food and good company.  It is another place where they make "big" hamburgers.  Sister Washburn ordered a sandwich that filled half of her plate.

My new slow cooker!

We had Branch Conference on Sunday, and later on went over to the Reich's house.  As we sat in the living room visiting, Julie said that someone gave her a SLOW COOKER (whaaat?) several years ago and she never used it. I spied it on top of her kitchen cupboard and tried to contain my excitement.   She wanted to give it to me, but I didn't want to take it, so after some haggling, we made a deal.  I will borrow it for a while, and then give it back to her.  She doesn't want it back, but I know some future senior missionaries will be thrilled to use it. I have looked all over this country for one.  I have no idea where this one came from, but it looks sweet on my kitchen counter!  Ahh, it's the little things
that make life good...

I have seen many street cleaners in the different cities.  I've never been quick enough to catch a shot of one until last week.  It has been rainy the last few days and on our way to church, we came across a diligent Karlovac street cleaner, being sheltered by his kišobran.  

 Street cleaner in the rain

The word of the week is: umoran (oo mor on) which means tired.  You can be sure that 14 hour days leave us umoran!

Tip in case you didn't know... click on any picture to enlarge...

A New District

Karlovac District

The announcement for transfers was this week and Sister Yardley has been transferred to Tuzla, Bosnia.  She will be training a new missionary, and we know she will be awesome.  Sister Washburn replaced Sister Hertz, and Sister Rusick replaces Sister Yardley.  Elder Poore and Elder Mangeris will stay in Karlovac.  It is a strong district and we are excited to serve with them.

We went to Zagreb last week.  EK had a Leadership Training Meeting and a bunch of us ladies went to IKEA. We didn't have much time, but were able to find some frames for our upcoming Singles Conference.  We buzzed through the store in 45 minutes, which is probably a record.

We took the hygiene kits we put together a few months ago, to the Red Cross on Thursday.  It took two trips in our little Opel, to deliver a total of 450 kits.  They were very happy to receive them.
They included kits for men, women, and children.

Helping hands

Elder Mangeris and Elder Poore taught grammar at English Class on Thursday evening.  It was a full house, and their lessons are always good.  It's amazing how we take the English language for granted. We use these rules everyday,  but we tend to forget why.  After English, we taught Institute Class and our regular two students attended.  The lessons center on Jesus Christ and this week it was entitled, "Come Follow Me".  It was a good lesson, and we had participation from both students.  One of our students, T, is normally quiet, but through the weeks has opened up.  When the question was asked, "When are we disciples of Christ?",  he took a moment to think about it and then replied, "When we take upon us His name and live as He lived."  A profoundly simple statement from a humble young man.  I felt the Spirit so strongly, and knew in my heart that T was loved by not only us, but by our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ, as we all are.  I love teaching these lessons that confirm that to me time and time again.

We had three baptisms to go to on Saturday!  One was in Varaždin, and the other two were in Zagreb.

Zoran's special day

President Grant told us that there were four baptisms in the mission that day.  There were three in Croatia, and one in Serbia.  It was a Spirit filled day!

Zoran, with Elders Osborne and Burnett

Serving a mission allows us to concentrate on things that matter most. We are privileged to serve with other remarkable missionaries, young and not so young, who are united in the same purpose,  "to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. " (Preach My Gospel)  We are to invite, teach, and serve.  It is a mission of love, and we love this mission.

The word of the week is:  vjera (vee-ye-ra) which means faith.   A tip for our unuci:  when pronouncing the r, let the tip of your tongue, touch the roof of your mouth.  Good job!

Crossing the border

Well, we tried to cross the border.  We attended Sacrament Meeting in Rijeka last weekend.  We ended up staying over an extra day for our P-day to explore.  There is so much to see in this beautiful city.  We stayed at the Hotel Jadran, which is now our favorite place.  On Monday we drove to Slovenia to see the Postojna Caves, a network of  passages  where you can see stalactites, and stalagmites in a variety of colors and shapes.  We also saw Predjama Castle which is built under a natural rocky arch in the side of a mountain, built in the 12th century.  Amazing and magnificient!  On our way home, we decided to take a different route in the mountains.  That should give you an indication of trouble to come.  It was dark, we were tired, and were ready to be home.  When we approached the border we noticed it only had one gate.  Two guards (not knowing English) came out and waved their hands to stop.  One of them told us that we could not cross because it was a small crossing.  We needed to turn back and go to a different border crossing.  It took a while to understand what they were saying, because we thought you could cross at any border, small or otherwise.  I'm sure there was a reason, we just didn't understand what they were trying to tell us.  We finally caught on and with much disappointment, turned around.  We drove about 10 miles and were able to cross at the next border and get home.

View from our balcony in Rijeka

All is well in Croatia.  We had a whopping twelve people in our English class on Thursday night.  That is a record!  We always end with a spiritual thought for those who want to stay.  Everyone  usually does.  It is a good time to answer any questions that may pop up.   We have made new friends in English class.  Nenad is one of them.  
I sometimes get the impression he thinks we will move here after our mission.  I asked him, “what about our family?”  He said we could go back and visit them every year.  On Thursday he invited us to a restaurant where they serve good hamburgers.  We met him and walked over to  the GP Grill.  The hamburgers were enormous, big enough for us to share.  Next time EK and I will make sure to split one.

We went to Zadar and stopped to visit a church member who lives two hours from Karlovac. 

Dušan and his wife Slacica  are Serbian refugees.  Dušan has been a member for 10 years.  He was thrilled to get visitors from the church.  We visited for about 1 1/2 hours.  He speaks very little English, but we were able to communicate quite well.  We felt the Spirit in his home and we were all sad when we had to leave.  He  will be traveling  to Karlovac in a few weeks  and will stay with us, since we are fortunate to have an extra bedroom.

Sister Hertz's mission is coming to an end and she is heading home on Thursday.  She has served well and we will miss her.  We took everyone out for a farewell lunch, and then had  District Meeting.  We were able to take a last picture of all of us, along with our two visiting missionaries serving a mini mission.

The word of the week is: doviđenja (doe vee jen ya) which means goodbye.  It is always difficult to say goodbye to our missionaries.  Love you, Sister Hertz!

On the road again...

Sea Organ

On Friday we packed our overnight bag, hopped in the little blue Opel, and headed out to Zadar.  We planned on meeting up with the Devers and going out to dinner, staying overnight at the Hotel Bastion, and attending church on Sunday.  Zadar is a beautiful city on  Croatia's coast on the Adriatic Sea.  Our hotel room overlooked the Zadar harbor and two marinas. My sailor companion loved to look at the boats. We walked a short way to see the the Greeting to the Sun which is a huge circular array of solar collectors situated on the main promenade facing the ocean and next door to the unique Sea Organ.  The energy collected in Sea Organ plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps overlooking the sea. It is amazing to hear.  You can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeGDjvCCkfk

View from our room

We walked into Old Town from the lovely waterfront promenade and found ourselves in the remains of an ancient Roman forum.  It was fascinating to see something so old.  It made me want to go back in time.  I would love to walk the streets, mingle with the people, and experience what life was like so long ago.  Wouldn't that be amazing?  Then I would come back to the present and enjoy all the conveniences I love and be back with my family.

We attended church and met the  members of the Zadar Branch.  It was good to see a large number of youth attending. It reminded us of how much we love the young adults.  Afterwards, we went over to the Devers for tacos and then headed back home to Karlovac.  It's always good to come home after a road trip. 

Church of Donata amid ruins

We had Nenad over for dinner this week.  He is one of our English Language students, and he is the greatest guy.  I made Italian Spaghetti and salad and we had a good discussion over dinner.  He is a smart and thoughtful young man.  He asked us questions about our Church and we discussed many things from Word of Wisdom to the Restoration of the Gospel.  We have a common interest in good movies and he promised us that he will select a good one for us to see the next time we meet.  

We had English class on Tuesday and we had a full house!  We have a family with a mother and her three children who come, along with four other people.  It makes for a fun class.  We usually start with a grammar lesson.  Then we do a reading or writing project, and if time, a game of some sort.  The missionaries always end it with a spiritual thought for those who want to stay.  There are two additional missionaries in Karlovoc for two weeks, serving a "mini" mission.  Elder Mangeris is paired with Nenad Rašović, and Elder Poore is paired with Elder Andrewsen.  We had everyone over for a dinner of taco's and fudge cake.  I think they liked it!  They are working hard and deserve a good dinner. 

We had the most beautiful snowfall last week in Karlovac. We took a stroll down by the river to take  some pictures of the snow on the trees, and of the river.  It was a winter wonderland.  It reminded us of Wisconsin, but without the below zero temperature.  The snow would gently fall off the branches, and glisten in the sunlight.  As the week progressed, the sun and warm temperature melted most of the snow, including  the snowman that the neighborhood children had made.  It was perfect because I love snow, but not the cold that sometimes comes with it. 

The word of the week is: sunce (soon-say), which means sun.  We have had many beautiful sunny days.

A Loud New Year's Eve

Never trust your GPS

People in Croatia love their fireworks.  They have been setting them off since Christmas.  But New Year's Eve was the night of all nights.  As we stood on our balcony, there were fireworks all around us.  During the day, kids will set off what appear to sound like M-80's.  They are not your typical firecrackers.  I'm surprised I haven't seen more missing fingers.

Go Packers!

We went to Varaždin during the day and decided to take a different route through the back woods, which took us up a mountain.  We had our GPS set with our destination and we ended up having to stop because the road appeared to have fallen off the edge of the mountain.  We were able to take a detour and avoid a serious accident. We met up with the Porter's at the church and EK helped them with their computer.  Afterwards we tried to find a place to eat, but everything seemed to be closed.  That surprised us, as New Year's Eve is usually a big night for restaurants back home.

A sweet reindeer sleigh

We did find one place open, and we had a nice dinner with the missionaries, the Porters, and President Bahin and his daughter.  Afterwards, we walked around  and found a sleigh with reindeer made out of white birch logs.  We also saw the cutest window display, with a snowman made out of paper cups.  Then as we left town, the Elders told us to drive by the soccer stadium and check out a little cafe/bar nearby.  We drove that way out of town and came across a Green Bay (Packers?) cafe.  We never expected that!

The grandkids will love this!

We are continuing to teach Institute (adult religion class) every week, and are learning so much ourselves.  We love all the opportunities we have to study and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We meet with our missionaries weekly for district meetings and they continue to amaze us with their ability (at 18, 19, and 20 years old) to plan, set goals, motivate, teach, and speak this challenging language so well.  It is a another confirmation to us that this is the Lord's work and He is in charge.  We are grateful to be a part of it.

And now they are four!

On December 29th, our eighth grandchild was born.  We welcomed Oliver William David Krehbiel into the world, and we are so grateful for his safe arrival.  We are also grateful for our healthy unici, and know that although we miss them very much, we will have plenty of memory making moments when we get home. We are grateful for the technology that allows us to keep in close contact with them. Thanks to Face Time and Skype, we can almost reach out and touch them!  We've even had them "kiss and hug" us on the screen.  They are so sweet, and we appreciate the support we receive from them.

And lastly, we got hit with 6" snow last night.  We woke up to this winter wonderland which made us feel right at home.  We haven't seen a snowblower anywhere,  just a lot of people shoveling.  We may be stuck for a while, as it is supposed to snow for three more days.

Speaking of unuci, it's time for the word of the week, which is:
snjegović  (snay-go-veech) which means snowman.