Senior missionaries conference in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

In the second week of October, we traveled from Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina to participate in the fall conference where all the senior couples in the mission come together to get instruction, share experiences and get to know each other better.

We started by driving to Tuzla, Bosnia where we spent the night.  On the way to Tuzla we dove past this Orthodox church which was just off the highway, so as we often do, we stopped to take a picture.  The "onion" dome is an amazing architectural detail we both like.

We did some walking around in Tuzla and came across this artistic graffiti.  If you are going to be a graffiti artist it certainly helps if you can demonstrate some creativity and skill which can make people smile.

This is the town square, complete with a cool fountain, in Tuzla.  We met up with the Elders in Tuzla to pick up some ties for Elder Rosenvall at the Kotton store.  They were a great price and nice looking so Merritt bought four.   No more old fashion wide "grandpa" ties for him!

The next day we drove from Tuzla to Sarajevo.  The countryside was beautiful.  The hotel that we stayed at was very nice, being with the other senior missionaries was even better.

Each of the couples shared something about themselves and their vision for their mission.  We put together a power point presentation to share our "vision" which you can see here.

As part of our conference we had some time to explore Sarajevo, following are some photos we liked.  This is the National Library which was bombed during the war.  We both read the book "The Cellist of Sarajevo" before our mission which centers on a musician who played his music in bombed out buildings as a way to show the power of art over the war.

Below is a photo of the National Library with him playing.  You can read more about him here

While we were walking around we happened upon some of our young missionaries.  Elder Daines (second from the right) is from Aloha, Oregon which is very close to Hillsboro.  In fact, his wrestling coach (who he loves) was in our ward.  It was a nice "small world" moment. These missionaries are fantastic young men.                                                           

Nikola Tesla is very famous in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia.  He is the father of Alternating Current (you could say he put the AC in AC/DC). Here he is memorialized again,  so Merritt stopped to have a chat.

We stopped at what we thought was a museum but actually turned out to be an art school.  Either way, the building was beautiful.

They were hanging a student art show and Merritt lent them a hand.

If you are like most people when you hear the word "Sarajevo" you think of the Bosnian/Serbian war, the 1984 Winter Olympics, and the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand which resulted in starting WW I.   Below is the bridge that the Arch Duke was crossing in his car when he was shot by the anarchist (some would say Freedom Fighter) Gavroli Princip.





















After touring the city we had a nice dinner at our hotel's rotating restaurant.  All three of the couples at our table happened to have served in Osijek. It was fun that we could each share our experiences with each other.   If you look in the background you can see several large condo towers.  Sarajevo has made an amazing recovery in the twenty-three years since the war came to an end.  The signing of the Dayton Agreement in 1995 put an end to 3 long years of death and destruction.

After the conference, we took an extra day to go see Mostar.  It is an amazing ancient city famous for its bridge which spans the Neretva River.

Here is a photo of the bridge which is creatively named "Old Bridge".  It was built in the 1500's when this region was under the control of the Ottoman empire.  The bridge was completely destroyed in the war but has since been restored to its original condition.

Merritt climbed up in the minaret of the local mosque which is no longer used for religious services.  This photo of beautiful Mostar was his reward.

On our way back to Serbia we saw a sign indicating a monastery was nearby.  We took a short detour and we were glad we did.

This is the Lovnica monastery.  A sign at the entrance said  we couldn't take photos but we helped the groundskeeper carry a lawnmower down a flight of steps and he indicated we could take all the photos we liked.  Here is a picture of the back of the chapel.

Here is a photo of the interior of the chapel.  Can you say "gilded"?  It was extremely detailed and very beautiful.

One of the best things about this monastery is that someone built an amazing restaurant just across the stream that flows by the chapel.  It has its own fish hatchery as well,  so after fumbling with the Bosnian menu a bit we just ordered fish. Two Fishes, to be exact.   Here is what we got.  It was one of the best meals we have had in the past year.  We will definitely look for an opportunity to go back.

Lastly, we have been enjoying keeping up with our wonderful grandchildren, via Marco Polo, so here they are: left to right, Holland-Mary-Lucy.

and Emma!

Vidimo Se! (see you later!)

Welcome to Sremska Mitrovica!

In early September (I know we are about 7 weeks behind here but trying to catch up) we were re-assigned to Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia.   It is a relatively small town with a population of 40,000.  I categorize it as small because there are only 2 main streets, 4 gas stations, 1 hotel, 4 grocery stores, and 5 gelato stands (and yes we have tried them all and they are all good).  We have a great branch of the church here with fantastic members and if we feel the need to go to a bigger city, the largest city in the mission, Belgrade, is only an hour drive away.

Mitrovica is on the banks of the Sava river and we have a nice pedestrian walkway along the river complete with a pedestrian bridge.  If the internet is to be believed this is the largest pedestrian bridge in all of Serbia.

There are some buildings from about the late 19th century that have interesting architectural styles. The building below is the main municipal building which houses the police station and where we also need to go to get our visa work done.





















Opposite the main town square is the library which also has a small art gallery and performance space.

Behind the library and completing the main buildings in the town center is the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The second main church in town is just down the street.

We meet in a nice rented commercial space very close to the town center.

We enjoy serving with Elder Rosenvall and Elder Shepherd.

After getting ourselves oriented Merritt, of course, had to check out the tennis courts.  He was very happy to find that Mitrovica is home to the Sermium Tenis Klub which has 3 very nicely maintained clay courts.  Even better he has made good friends with Dragan "Rocky" Rosic who frequently attends our branch meetings.   Rocky speaks excellent English having lived for some time in Canada. He and Merritt play regularly and Rocky has been a great resource in helping us get settled in. 

We are enjoying our service here in Mitrovica and reward ourselves frequently with some of the excellent of gelato that is readily available. 

We are doing great.  At the end of September, we organized a mission-wide YSA event in Zagreb.  We drafted three YSA's from different parts of the mission to work on our committee which met several times using video conferencing.   YSA's had to travel great distances to get to Zagreb (some required over 18 hours of travel time) but everyone who attended had a great time and is looking forward to our next mission-wide YSA event in the spring of 2019.   Click here for a link to a slideshow.   

Osijek: the people are the best part

This is a catch-up blog covering the month of August while we were still in Osijek, Croatia.  We moved to Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia on September 1st. 

We had Bro. and Sis. Gojkovic, Dario, Elder Valentine, Elder Lee, Susana, and her two daughters over for lunch.  They are all fantastic.  Dario is taking the photo. The Gojkovic's are great member missionaries, they are the ones that introduced Susana and her daughters to the gospel.  The girls are very sweet and insisted on helping to do the dishes.

Here we are with Alen and Lydia, two YSA's in the Osijek Branch.  Lydia has translated for us numerous times and we enjoyed doing institute with Alen.   Their mother, also named Lydia, is great as well.

This is our good friend, Dario.  He loves Canada.  He helped us with many things while we were there in Osijek.  He helps clean the church every week.

Zlako, who plays the piano in our branch, and one of the young English conversation students.

After Elder Valentine's farewell dinner we took this photo with President Kovacavic, his mom, Vesna, and the Gojkovic's.

Heather with some of her English conversation group.  They are amazing women.

Group photo from Elder Valentine's going home party and welcoming party for the Loveridges who took our place in Osijek.

Photo with Vesna.   She is a very outgoing person who we met on one of our morning walks.  She is very friendly.  After some effort. we figured out how to use google translate to communicate.  Technology is great!

We are very grateful for the short 10 weeks we were able to spend in Osijek.  It is amazing how fast you can get to know people when you are on a mission.

Border Crossings, Ant Bites and World Cup

Border Crossings is a "thing" in our mission.  After we dropped of Sarah and Samuel we had a four hour drive ahead of us to make it back to Osijek, unfortunately, we didn't account for significant backup at the border crossing into Croatia.  Croatia is working to become a full member of the EU but as of now they still have their own currency and they still have closed borders.   We spent about 90 minutes getting through and finally got home about 3 am Sunday morning.

They definitely need to get some extra men working these booths!

Recently we made a trip to Serbia and crossed the border on a secondary road.  We were elated when we saw there were only 2 or 3 cars ahead of us.  In just a few minutes we were handing over our passports, unfortunately, things didn't go so smoothly.   It turns out that our passports were flagged as showing we had some fine we needed to pay.  Long story short we did get a fine for leaving Croatia without telling the Osijek police when we went to Bern but we paid the fine (about $85 each) 4 days before our trip to Serbia.   He asked if we had proof we paid which of course we didn't have with us.  Finally, they had us move our car off to the side while they tried to figure out what to do with us.  I then recalled I actually took photos of our paid receipts and went into the office to provide the proof.  They had already been on the phone with the police in Osijek and knew we had paid the fine but it still took about 20 minutes for them to try to figure out how to update the computer system to recognize this fact.  On the way back to Croatia we again crossed the border on a secondary road and found that we were stuck on a single lane highway with about 1 kilometer of trucks ahead of us waiting to cross.   After seeing two cars just pull out and drive on the wrong side of the road we pulled out behind the 3rd one.  We drove a kilometer that way and fortunately didn't meet any oncoming traffic (maybe the people crossing from the other direction had some kind of fine they were clearing up!)   Once we got to the crossing itself there was an "Auto Only" lane we got in and crossed right away.  We have now learned it's best to build in an extra 60 to 90 minutes of travel time if we are crossing any borders. 

What do these look like?  Merritt woke up with this "rash" a few days after we got back.  The next day it was the same, but then a day later it got much, much worse.  At that point, he contacted the mission nurse and sent some photos who then forwarded those photos to the European medical expert.  In the meantime, he managed to locate a "dermatologist" here in Osijek and went to the office to see if it was a "real" dermatologist or one of those places where they specialize in making your skin look younger.   It turned out to be a real dermatologist who could also speak English (double bonus!).  He got an appointment for 2 days later.   In the meantime mission medical thought it might be an allergic reaction to the new laundry soap we were using so off we went to get new, hypoallergenic laundry soap.  We found a container with the words "sensitive skin" and a photo of a baby so we figured that must qualify.  We came back and washed all our bedding and clothes including extra rinse cycles.  Not easy to do when your washing machine is small and you don't have a dryer but we made it happen.  When Merritt did see the dermatologist she diagnosed it as "Ant Bites"  which didn't make any sense to Merritt but when he walked in the door he mentioned the diagnosis and Heather said, "Oh yeah, I did see 4 or 5 very small ants on our bedspread this morning".   We got some ant killer spray and a prescription for an insect bite skin creme. Both worked pretty well to solve our problem.  No ant bites since then and skin is back to situation normal.  We talked to the landlord about the ants and he replied,  "Yes they sprayed the whole building last week but since you were out of town we didn't spray your unit".   I guess it is possible for all the ants from the whole building to then zero in on our "Insecticide Free Zone".    The landlord is arranging to have our place sprayed professionally tomorrow.  Update: Spraying occurred and we found lots of dead ants and no survivors.

During the last 3 weeks of July Croatia was competing in the world cup which pits the top 32 national football (soccer) teams against each other.  Croatia won 6 matches to make it to the final.  Each game day was like a holiday here in Croatia and since they won each time each day after was also like a holiday. We texted updates to our family and they started to watch the games as well.   They had several close matches some decided by a shootout.  It was fun to see all the people celebrating in the streets.  Croatia has a population similar to Oregon so it would be as if a team from Oregon was taking on and coming out ahead of all the best football nations in the world.   They lost in the Finals to France but Croatia was still extremely proud of their team and they got a hero's welcome at the airport and a parade through the city of Zagreb that took most of a full day.    

This is a monument from the Homeland War is based on an event where a civilian

tried to stop a tank that was being driven down a street in Osijek with his Fiat. 

Needless to say, the tank won that battle but this monument shows that in the end 

the people of Croatia were able to overcome the Yugoslavian army.

During the World Cup, we happened to drive by and found that someone had added the Red and White check pattern which appears on the national flag and for which Croatia is famous.

The bicycle shop down on the corner near our apartment also got into the spirit of things with this creatively decorated bike which we thought was pretty cool.

By the way, we have had quite a few Croatians ask us why we have a sporting event called the World Series when only teams from two countries participate (USA and Canada).  It seems that they are pointing out that being runner-up in the World Cup, which is truly an international event, is far superior to whoever wins the "World" Series.  We'd have to agree with them on that.

Eastern Europe Young Single Adult Conference in the Czech Republic

July 10th through the 14th we along with two of the Young Single Adults from our mission attended the Eastern Europe Area Young Single Adult Conference in the Czech Republic at a small forest resort about 60 minutes outside of Prague.

We picked up a rental car (we are not allowed to transport them in our mission vehicle)  at the Ljubljana airport.  Next, we picked Sarah and Samuel up in Kranj about 30 minutes north of Ljubljana.  We enjoyed visiting with them during the 7 hour drive through Austria and into the Czech Republic.  

We arrived on time and we all got our assigned rooms.  Every morning the YSA's met in small scripture study groups and then after breakfast, there were 6 different classes being held from which you could choose 3 to attend.  After lunch, there was a group speaker followed by some organized service or outdoor activity.  

Here is a photo of the group that put together 1000 hygiene kits which were delivered by the humanitarian missionaries to a relief organization in Slovakia. 

While these kits were being assembled a second group went to a nearby elderly housing community and did grounds work and some painting.

Merritt, Samuel, and Sarah before getting dirty from working.

On another day the group divided up into 8 teams of 12 or so and played a capture the dragon eggs game.  It was a complicated version of capture the flag with each team trying to guard their own dragon eggs while also trying to steal as many dragon eggs as possible.

Some of our team picked up some minor scrapes and scratches but everyone came back alive and happy. 

Each night there was a keynote speaker.  They were marvelous, we took copious notes but will keep them to ourselves for now.  One of the more inspiring speakers talked about how she managed to find and join the church in Czechoslovakia while it was still part of the Soviet Union. 

The final activity of each day was a different themed dance and everyone stayed up late visiting except for us old folks who tried to go to bed at 10 pm.   (Due to the strong bass sound that permeated the whole building we were not successful)

Pajama Dance Night!

The last evening everyone said good-bye until next year.   We are hopeful that we can get a larger contingent from our mission to attend.   It really was a marvelous week of spiritual growth and making new friends.  We benefited greatly from being able to meet with other senior couples who work with YSA's from Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic/Slovakia. 

The next morning we got up early and made a quick trip to Prague.  It seemed a waste not to visit this amazing city with it being so close by. 

One of the evening speakers talked about Jon Hus, who was one of the primary initiators of the reform movement in Europe.  He was burned at the stake, in 1415,  for his unwillingness to recant his beliefs that Mass should be conducted in the local language and that additional reforms were needed within the Catholic Church.  His sacrifice is memorialized by a moving monument that dominates the main square in Prague.  The religious freedoms we enjoy today were paid for by men like him.  (Click here to learn more about him and the monument).

Here we are, with one of the main city gates of Prague in the background.  Beyond it lies the famous Charles Bridge.  

View of the castle across the Vltava River.

You can't go to Prague and not take some photos of the Charles Bridge with all of its monumental sculptures.

After the long walk across the bridge, it's very nice that we found this extra special gelato shop where they are known for their "gelato rose" creations.

We only had a few hours in Prague before we had to start on our 7-hour drive back to Slovenia.  We got back just in time to avoid an extra day charge on the rental car.  The conference and Prague were great, but we most valued the opportunity this provided to get to know Sarah and Samuel.  

They were great travel mates and proved to be up for anything!