Trips to Belgrade, Ljubljana and Venice to see the Smiths (first 2 weeks in November)

Had a fun P-day outing in Belgrade taking a tour of one of its neighborhoods.  We enjoyed this creative building size "graffiti" art.  There is a lot of architectural detail in Belgrade which we love. 






This is one of only a handful of these iconic carvings of this type in the former Yugoslavia

We also connected with  Ivan Kovacevic in Pancevo outside of  Belgrade.  Ivan had tried to start up a Pickle Ball club without success.  We wanted to introduce the game to our YSA's but were not able to find any equipment for it until we hunted this man down on Facebook.  He sold us a ball, a net and some paddles that he had made and then gave us a tour of the town where he lived.  

We visited with Elder Jon and Sister Becky Rands in Celje, Slovenia.  We work with the YSA's and they are responsible for the Institute program in the mission so it was a good opportunity for us to get to know them better.  They gave us a nice tour of their town and we had dinner together (plus of course some tennis got slipped in there).



Tennis shot


We held a YSA event in Ljubljana, complete with Pickle Ball.  We had a great lunch provided by the Rands after which we presented about institute and self-reliance.  We focused on the Find a Better Job portion of self-reliance.  On of the attendees, Tim, who was baptized last year was very excited about the lessons he could take to actually be able to find employment.  Tim commented, 'we have an excellent educational system that teaches us about what we are studying but they don't have any instruction or assistance on how we are to actually go out and gain employment".   In the next couple of months, the missionaries will start a class in Ljubljana for Tim and other to attend.   It is always great to spend some time with the YSA's in the mission.  They have great testimonies and are true pioneers in their cities and countries. 




Pickle Ball with paddles made by Ivo (on the far right, one of the YSA's from Kranj)


We also enjoyed spending some time in Ljubljana as part of this trip.  It never disappoints. 






Visited Lake Bled, this time during winter and we had the whole lake almost to ourselves.








Met up with our good friends the Smiths in Venice (they were supposed to meet us in Ljubljana but Norwegian Air had other ideas)







It was great to see some great friends in this historic city.

Change of Season & Change of Young Missionaries plus Self Reliance

After our trip to Sarajevo in October 2018,  there was still some tennis weather which Merritt appreciated. 

Here's a picture from early fall with our landlord Dusan and Elders Rosenvall and Shepherd. 


We traded in Elders Rosenvall and Shepherd for Sisters Luthy and Henderson.


Played tennis with the Sisters and Milan Bozic.


Got some tennis lessons from Djordje.  He's a great instructor!



We started focusing on the self-reliance program for our branch.  We had taken a self reliance class before we left on our mission so we were already familiar with the process.   The class that is most applicable for our branch is "How to Find a Better Job" so we started by focusing on that.   

The materials provided are excellent and they begin by teaching the truth that Heavenly Father wants us all to become capable of providing for ourselves both spiritually and financially.   He provided us with a world full of natural resources and also provided most of us with the physical and mental capacity to work.  Learning to work is a key part of our development to become more like Him.   Being able to provide for ourselves is the first step in being able to help others which is another key way we can be more like Him.  

The materials teach that if we exercise faith through prayer and follow the spirit while putting in the effort to learn and apply the skills taught in the class that Heavenly Father will open doors that will lead to improved employment.    Click this link to get more information. 

We started teaching this to Nemanja, one of our branch members who recently returned from serving a mission in Southern Colorado.  Working with Nemanja has been an amazing experience for us.   He came completely prepared for each lesson and picked up the skills quickly.  Within two weeks he got a chance to interview for a job at a local Italian owned factory.  Two weeks later he got the job and he is now making a good salary. During this process, several doors were opened that made this possible  He had taken a resume to this factory before and had gotten no response, after taking an improved resume based on what he learned in the class he got a call for an interview the next day.    When he went to the interview he wore a suit (the class teaches to go dressed a step above normal attire).  The person who interviewed him commented, "Wow, you look so serious" to which Nemanja quickly replied, "Well, I am looking for serious employment!", which impressed her and set the tone for a good interview.  He made it to the second round of interviews and the manager conducting the interview just happened to do martial arts training with the same trainer as Nemanja.  Having martial arts in common helped make the interview a success.  One of the statements in the material is  ACT IN FAITH + WORK HARD + WORK SMART = SUCCESS.  It was great to see this statement proven out in real time over the period of about four weeks.  Now that he understands the process and has these skills he can apply them again to get even better employment in the future. 

Recently President Melanakos decided that using the young missionaries (who have skills in the local languages), to teach these lessons to local church members would be of great benefit.  The mission has developed a set of condensed lessons in Serbian that the young missionaries can use and we have been asked to be the Self Reliance Training Senior Couple in Serbia to train the young missionaries and to follow up with them and those they are teaching.  Our two sister missionaries, Sisters Luthy and Henderson, have begun teaching Ivana, another branch member in Sremska.  Eventually, the plan is to expand this to non-members as well.  We are pretty excited about this. 

One of our first classes with Nemanja.

Lunch after getting trained on using the condensed self-reliance lessons. 

Sisters Henderson and Luthy teaching the first self-reliance class to Ivana.  Ivana has had several classes now and is following up with the commitments.  

This is the Bozic family, we had them over for dinner and cards.  Tara who is about 7 years old won two out of the three games we played.  Fun evening.   

Traveled with the Sremska Mitrovica Branch to district conference in Belgrade on November 11th.  It's about an hour drive to Belgrade and it was great to see the members all visiting together on the bus and also visiting with other district members at the conference.

That's all for now.