Merry Christmas

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. Just so you know, Santa was able to find us here in Bosnia.

Look what Santa left us

Christmas in Bosnia was different. First off it was warm and sunny, about 50 degrees. On Christmas Eve we had a roast beef dinner.  Christmas morning began early as Elder Kroff's family wanted to talk to him on their Christmas Eve as they had other things going in their morning.  At 7am the Elders came up and he was able to Skype them. While he Skyped Susan made pumpkin pancakes. We did not have an Aebleskiver pan, so the traditional breakfast of Quiche and Aebleskivers did not happen here.   After breakfast and the first Skype session was over, the Elders returned to their apartment for their morning routine. All the stores were open and it was just like any other day. Most people are either Muslim or Orthodox Christian so the big celebrations will be New Years Eve.  Orthodox Christmas will be celebrated on January 7th. They do have some decorations up in the stores now and the street lights are on.  Every street light has a decorative light. 

Street Lights

 

The Elders taught their beginning English classes at 4 and 5 pm. As soon as those classes were finished they came back to our apartment where Elder West Skyped his family.  All the English classes this week had a visitor come to their classes.  The classes sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and just as they began the second chorus, Santa came in,  Needless to say, the students loved it.  Elder West was certainly a good sport.

Santa Claus came to English

We first Skyped with Reachel and her family in Arizona and watched Coco and Levi opened their presents from us. Then we tried Lizzy and Sara but the boys were not up yet. We called Rebecca in Canada and talked to Mason and James while Thomas sat in his highchair and smiled at us.  As we were talking to them we got a message from Lizzy that said "we are up" and ready to open our presents.

 We are up and ready to Skype

 

We called Lizzy and Sara back and read the Christmas story from Luke 2 together and then watched Taylor, Landon and Dallin open their presents. Since the presents under our tree were from them we also opened ours. While we were talking we heard their door bell ring and figured it was someone for Lizzy and Blake. But no, it was Jesse and Gentry! We were able to see all of our children and grandchildren. It was a wonderful Christmas.

Wednesday was our grandson, Levi's, second birthday.  He is a boy through and through.  He loves playing with cars and trucks and is looking forward to the arrival of his little brother next month.  

Levi Sims Bagley, age 2 

 

We also went as close to Serbia as you can go without going there on Wednesday . The Drina river separates Bosnia and Serbia. We visited a village called Zvornik where we met with the principal of the primary school and talked to her about helping the school children receive clean water.  Now, the children have to bring drinking water from home.

Thursday we went to the village of Kalesija to sign the contacts for the water project that we visited back in September. When weather permits they will start work on it.

Signing Contracts
 

Friday we headed out for Zagreb, Croatia.   Elder West went home Saturday morning. We drove him up and brought Elder Genther from Springville, Utah, back with us to Tuzla.  

 

 Elder West and Elder Kroff

 

Three Elders and one Sister returned home Saturday. We are going to be getting 8 Elders and 1 Sister on January 22nd. We will also be getting two Senior Couples, one on February 5th and one on February 10th.  Rumor has it that will be getting several more Sister missionaries as well as Senior Couples in May.

On our way home from Zagreb we received a call that our new car was ready to be picked up in Sarajevo.  You wonder why a new car?  The car we have been driving is licensed in Slovenia and the new car is licensed in Bosnia.  Makes it a little easier to renew the licensing when the car is licensed in the same country you live in.  We would need to go through Bosnia and Croatia to get to Ljubljana, Slovenia so if someone who lives in Croatia has our old car it will be more convenient to renew the license in July. The drive to Sarajevo was interesting.  As we started out the weather was cloudy but warm with no snow on the ground. The higher in the mountains we went the colder it got. The roads were fine, it was like driving up the canyon to go skiing. There was snow in the mountain tops, but arriving in Sarajevo which is surrounded by mountains like the Salt Lake Valley it was again cloudy and warm with no snow on the ground.  

Just like a Christmas Card

 

That is it for the week.  We did receive word from Rebecca on Saturday morning that they had to put their dog, Zeus, down as he was having serious health problems.  Needless to say, Mason is taking it pretty hard.  He knows it was the right thing to do, but Zeus was his and he was a good dog. 

We want to wish everyone an enjoyable New Years Eve and wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.  May the Lord bless you and yours in the coming year. Till next year . . .