Activity and Zone Conference

Monday morning we traveled with our Mission President, his family, and our four elders to Sarajevo.  Once in Sarajevo we met with missionaries from Sarajevo and Banja Luka for an activity. We loaded into our cars and followed behind the elders from Sarajevo to the top of one of the mountains to the Skakavac Waterfall.  The weather was beautiful and a great time was had by all.  Most of the missionaries climbed to the top of the mountain to view the falls, but Susan chose to play it safe and stay back and guard the food.  (If you know Susan, then you know that if someone is going to get hurt it will be her.)  Upon their return, Gary confirmed that it was best that she stayed behind. 

 

After our activity we were on our own for dinner and the young elders and sisters went contacting.  For the month of June we have been challenged to invite people to church.  We (the Winters and the Ivins) met a group of young people who were celebrating the end of school by throwing their grades into the river.  We invited all 18 of them to church.  We gave them the address to the church in Sarajevo - do you think any of them came?  We also met a couple from Podgorica, Montenegro.  They were visiting in Sarajevo.  We got their contact information and forwarded it on the Elder Compton who was just transferred there last month.  

 

 

On Tuesday we had our Zone Conference.  We were privileged to have Sister Ann Madsen (widow of Truman G. Madsen) visit our conference.  Sister Madsen visits Croatia each year as she has roots to the church in Croatia. She was an adopted mother to Krešimir Ćosić.  Sister Madsen has been touring our mission attending the Zone Conferences and introducing the church's new "Come Follow Me" curriculum.  The Zone Conference was good, but next time the activity will follow the conference as everyone had a hard time staying awake.  President Rowe had an object lesson where he talked about the weight and burdens people carry with them.  He had Elder Kroff help in this demonstration as he had Elder Kroff put on every one's coat.  He then showed how we can help to remove the layers and help our investigators remove their burdens. 

 

 

Wednesday we met with Armin and his family.  He has his new glasses and is enjoying them.  We have been so thankful for the opportunity to be a part of this project. We also had the opportunity this week to meet with one of the doctors from UKC Hospital.  All the vision screening in the primary schools is completed and over 700 children have been referred to the hospital for further evaluation.  The outpatient clinic is now in the process of checking the vision of the kindergarten children.  They expect to have all the screening completed by the end of June.

 

Thursday we drove to Bijeljina (in eastern Bosnia) to visit a member who lives there.  Milka has been attending church in Belgrade.  Bijeljina is halfway between Belgrade and Tuzla.  Our member has to take the bus to whichever place she goes.  She has not been to Tuzla since we got our building.  We hope that she will visit us soon.  She just returned from Toronto, Canada where she spent several months visiting her son and family who live there. 

 

Elder Quinn will have his birthday on Friday (28th) of this week.  His birthday package arrived and was given to him in Sarajevo which he promptly opened and was excited to receive some new ties, slacks and a new camera. Today we had a birthday dinner.  Not real sure if the meal was that great, but we had fun getting ready for it.  We made a chocolate cake and even had a "singing candle".  We plan on celebrating his birthday all week long and will have another party next week.    

 

As we close our post today we want to express our sympathy to the family of Becky Smart who passed away unexpectedly on Friday night.  Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this time and know that she is once again with her father, Stan.