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!  

Trip to Ljubljana, Slovenia

From, Bern, on July 6th, we drove to Northern Italy and slept in the small community of Brazzano, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy.  The Airbnb we stayed in was modest but still comfortable.  Since we plan to do some extended Airbnb stays after our mission Merritt asked me if this one would meet my expectations.  Since it was better than our mission housing in Osijek the answer was yes.  One of the positive results of serving a mission is that your priorities change. 

Beautiful entrance to a home close to our Airbnb.

Church in Brazzano, it was originally a fortress built on a hill overlooking the village.

We spent the morning taking photos in Udine then drove on to Ljubljana.

Udine, Italy

More Udine, Italy

From Udine, we decided to take the backroads to Ljubljana which took us through parts of the Italian Alps by way of Tarviso  (it turned out to be faster than the toll road had we not stopped so often to gawk a the jaw-dropping scenery).,

We saw some sincerely beautiful mountains and quaint little villages each with their local church.

Lake Bled is located about 30 Kilometers north-west of Ljubliana.  We were there on a beautifully sunny Saturday which was a bit unfortunate since everyone else also figured that would be a great day to go see Lake Bled.  It was packed and after driving around the entire lake we couldn't find a place to legally park.  (We did pass many cars with tickets affixed to the driver's window)  Finally, at one point we just double parked real quick and took this photo.   Needless to say, we will have to go back on a weekday sometime and canoe out to the island.

Some of the best architecture in Ljubljana are the bridges which cross the river. This is the famous triple bridge taken at night with the main square in the background. 

We took a funicular tram to the castle which is built on a bluff that overlooks the city.  The castle had been recently renovated and the self-guided tour was quite interesting.

The dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana owing to the legend of Jason and the Argonauts who escaped to the location of the current city only to find that the bend in the river where they stopped to hold out for the winter was also the hunting grounds of a fire-breathing dragon.   You can read more about it here.   Ljubljana is a miniature Prague and we will definitely plan a longer trip back here after our mission.

Video from the Bern Temple trip of our YSA's

This is a catch-up post with a video of the Adriatic North Mission Young Single Adult group.  They are amazing people.   Since we are assigned as the mission YSA senior missionary couple, it was a great way to get to meet many of them.  They come from Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.

Bern Temple Trip

June 29th to July 6th we traveled to Bern, Switzerland as part of the annual Adriantic North Mission temple trip.   We left a few days early so we could stop over in Venice.  Pres. Melonakos wants us to take advantage of the beautiful surrounding when possible and Venice was very beautiful.   See the photos below for proof!   It is easy to get lost so don't do like we did and find yourself lost in the dark with dead cell phones and no paper map.  We eventually found the Rialto Bridge and got back to the bus terminal to catch the last bus to our Airbnb in Mestre. 

We heard a podcast several months back about the first female gondolier in Venice.  We kept an eye out and actually found her.  She is on the right side of the photo in the red and white striped shirt.  We first recognized her by her noticeably higher pitched voice.

View this video for a better idea of what it is like to walk the streets of Venice.

No trip to Venice would be complete without Gelato.  We had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.   Melon became one of our favorites!

We attended church in Treviso on the mainland near Venice.

We arrived at the Bern Switzerland temple in the afternoon and then near sunset we took this wonderful photo.  Merritt's grandfather served a mission in Switzerland as an adult and was here during the temple construction in 1953. 

Our main responsibility was to help cook meals for the youth and young single adults and to organize evening time activities for the YSA's.  The first night we did a "Scripture Tournament" to have the YSA's determine our theme for the week.  We started with sixteen motivational scriptures and the winner was Isaiah 61:3   (click here read it)

The speaker for one of the evening firesides had to cancel at the last minute so being the new guy Merritt was asked to fill in and used this scripture as his theme.  Amazingly it went pretty well and several of the members connected with the topic of this powerful scripture. 

One of the nights the Senior Couples cooked 300 crepes for all the members.   It was quite a feat.  We cooked about 75 crepes at our station.  The members really appreciated the effort and of course the taste!

We took some photos of the YSA during some of our minute-to-win-it activities and made a quick video which you can view here.  They are a very interesting, varied and fun group.  They also did lots of temple work during our four days there. 

No trip to Switzerland is complete without a trip to the ancestral Durtchi home in Wimmis, it was a short detour on our drive back to Italy.