ZONE CONFERENCE AND VISAS

Monday bright and early (7am) we packed up and along with the Elders headed to Sarajevo for Zone Conference.  It was a beautiful drive.  The leaves reminded us of the canyons in Utah. 

Scenic drive to Sarajevo

 As always Zone Conference was uplifting.  President Rowe taught us about "Hastening the Gathering".  We also learn to love and serve the people we work with.   Everywhere you go you see people who look just the same as people you would see on the streets at home.  They look the same as we do.  Often people will come up to us and start talking to us because they think we are Bosnian.  That is where the language barrier comes in.  The only difference we notice is that most people are very tall. 

The best part of the conference was when I was helping clean up the dishes after lunch.  One of the other senior sisters shared with me that last week when she was at the NRT closing ceremony.  She shared that at the closing ceremony that she and the three young elders were standing by the wall during the program. One of the participants commented to her friend that "those young men came to my house and gave me a book to read which I did not read, but if they are with this organization (Latter-day Saints Charities'), I will read it". Isn't it wonderful what happens when we get the face of the church out there?

After the conference we drove back home arriving about 7:30pm.

Elders Mecham, Brown, Adams Radaković, Shillabeer, West

Sisters Trumbo, Giles, and Audrey McKinnon

 

   Elder DeFreitas, Susan, Gary, and Elder West

 

Wednesday we received word that the projects which we had submitted had been approved.  One of the projects was for a women's safe house for abused women in Banja Luka (Bon-ya Lu-ka).  We are helping them get some fuel (pellets) for their new furnace, some cabinets for their kitchen and some new couch/beds for women and their children.  Another project was some additional wordworking equipment for the sheltered workshop serving the physically disabled,  The last approved project is for a refrigerator for the Muslim soup kitchen. They serve over 3,000 meals per day to all needy people regardless of religion. 

 

Friday morning we received a phone call telling us that we could come to pick up our visas.  Our visas are now in our passports and they are in force until next October.  

 

        We are legal



We received word that Elder DeFreitas, one of our missionaries  is going to Zagreb, Croatia and we will be receiving Elder Kroff from Croatia.  We are going to miss Elder DeFreitas but we are sure that we will learn to get to know Elder Kroff. 

We have been searching online for recipes to make a Thanksgiving dinner this week.  It should be interesting.  Things they do not have:

     no sweet potatoes
     no turkey
     no cranberry sauce
     no olives for each of our fingers
     no canned pumpkin
     no pumpkin pie spice
     no frozen pie crust. 

They do have chickens, dried cranberries, potatoes, and whole pumpkins.    Thanksgiving is an American holiday.  Canada has one in September.  But there is no Thanksgiving in Bosnia.  We will actually celebrate it on Friday as the Elders scheduled sign ups for our first English Classes on Thursday from 6pm to 8pm.  We figured that Friday would be okay as we are 8 hours ahead here so that it will be Thanksgiving still when we wake up on Friday morning.  We feel that we have so much to be thankful for.  We are especially thankful for each of you who has remembered us in your thoughts and prayers and appreciate your notes and emails.  We hope each of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and we will tell you how the meal turned out after the fact.  We are crossing our fingers.