Kicking off of 2019, trip to Cacak and Novi Sad plus a Baptism

We started off 2019 with a Serbian Christmas meal with the Ibraimovic family.  The Serbian Orthodox church marks the birth of Jesus Christ on Jan 7th, so we got to celebrate two Christmas's this year. The food was great and we played Spot it! afterwards, another great game that doesn't require language skills.

Sister Luthy and Henderson made up a game to review gospel principles taught to the Vajda family to help their 9-year-old son Nemanja understand what they were teaching. 

We had a nice visit with the Turnic family. Aleksandar is Miroslov's nephew and he helped present the message.  They live about 15 minutes away by car in the village of Mandjelos. 

We love having this neighborhood fruit stand about five minutes away from our home.  Even in wintertime, they have a great selection of high-quality fruits and vegetables.  We are some of their most regular customers and we get personal treatment when we stop in (which is about every other day)

We had the Ibraimovic family over for lunch and games but forgot to get a photo until we were in the stairwell outside our apartment door.

With the Vajda family attending our branch we have doubled the size of our primary.  The Sisters and Heather teach a primary class on the 1st and 3rd Sundays.

The Vajda family come over for dinner and we got to know them better, the father, Nenad speaks some English and then the Sisters help translate.  We enjoy playing a lot of Uno as it works without having to speak each other's language.  Nenad and Nemanja won most of the games.

We have been given another hat to wear as country specialists for Self Reliance.  We are responsible to train all the missionaries in Serbia on how to teach an abbreviated class in "How to Find a (Better) Job".  We made a trip to Cacak (about a 3-hour drive south) to meet and train Elder Bradshaw and Elder Hoisington.   While we were there we had a Palacinka party and met with the Zaric family from the branch.  On the way, we enjoyed stopping at this monastery (Manastir Nikolje in Darkotosic).  In the summer they have a regular stream of visitors, not so much in the winter.  We had the place all to ourselves.   The interiors of the chapel are amazing but we were not allowed to take any photos inside. 

The sign in the background spells our Cacak in Cyrillic characters. (upside down backward h makes a ch sound)

While in Cacak we had some pretty good Beef Goulash.  Merritt made a note of the restaurant so we can go there again next time we go back.  Where ever we go Merritt is always on the lookout for good goulash since it incorporates Merritt's favorite flavor: Gravy!

We took advantage of our trip to Cacak to look for our favorite granola cereal which recently we had not been able to find at any of the four main grocery stores here in Sremska Mitrovica.  We went to three stores in Cacak without any luck but then hit the jackpot at the forth store.  We bought about 30 packages of granola which should last us a while. (we mix the chocalate flavor and the nut flavor together)

We made a special trip to Novi Sad to train the missionaries there as well. Novi Sad is about an hour by car and is separated from Sremska Mitrovica by a small set of hills called the Fuska Gora.   We planned it on a P-day so we could take our sister missionaries with us.  Novi Sad sits on the banks of the Danube across from the Petrovardin Fortress that was built in the early 1700's.  Novi Sad has a population of about 300,000 and is the second largest city in Serbia.  Belgrade (aka Beograd) is the largest city with a population of about 1.5 million in the city proper and about 3 million in the surrounding area.  For comparison purposes, Serbia and the state of Virginia in the US have about the same population and have about the same land mass.   Here is a photo of the Fortress.

We hiked across a bridge and up to the fortress and took this photo.  You can just make out the bridge in the background.  Missionaries are not afraid of long walks.  They do a lot of it.   (Sister Gunnel and Sister Mantz joined us)

We visited the town square and spent some time inside the Orthodox Cathedral. 

The interior was stunning as well

We had a three hour training session.  We showed a power point presentation then worked on "Me in 30 seconds" and "Power Statements" for everyone.  (Dean and Louise Fitches are the Senior Couple in Novi Sad,  Elders Beck, and Youngs and Jovan  along with Sisters Gunnel and Mantz joined the training)

Sister Luthy and Sister Henderson were excited to get out the portable baptismal font and get it set up in foyer of our church building.  (too cold to do it outside this time of year)

On February 9th Nenad, Aleksandra and Nemanja Vajde were baptized.  They have made a great addition to our branch. Sister Luthy wrote up the story about how they were found and taught.  You can find it here as a google doc. 

 We had a good turn out from our branch and the branch in Novi Sad and Belgrade to see them baptized.

Afterwards, we emptied the font in "bucket brigade" fashion.  It went surprisingly fast. 

Big Nemanja and Little Nemanja doing some sparing.

Since we work with the YSA's we have been involved with getting a weekly video Institute class set up.  It is taught by Elder Peterson or Elder Rands in Slovenia and is taught in English.  The first class we had 3 YSA's attend.  We will look to grow this class in the future. 

Milan giving his little sister Tara a piggy back ride. 

President and Sister Melonakos stopped by Sremska Mitrovica to interview the Sisters.  Afterward, we took them on a tour of the Museum of Srem and the building that stores some of the Roman artifacts unearthed during recent archaeological digs here in Sremska Mitrovica.  We really appreciate everything they do.  

This is a double sarcophagus for burial purposes from the Roman era. 

This is one of the more interesting sculptures found reasonably intact.  This image is often replicated in various places in Sremska Mitrovica so it must be important.

Like here on the side of this building a block from our apartment.

We ordered 10 copies of the first triple combinations in Serbian to give to our branch members. This is the first time the complete Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price has been available in Serbian.   Two our branch members were involved with it's translation. 

That's all for now.  Time to go do other stuff. 

Thanksgiving and Christmas in Serbia Car towed in Belgrade and yes we had a white Christmas

We finished up the month of November with a Thanksgiving Dinner and activities in Belgrade complete with double elimination Ping-Pong tournament.  Heather did great.  We really enjoyed being with all the other missionaries who are serving in Serbia. 

  

December 7th we returned to Belgrade to attend a concert at the symphony with Elder John and Cathy Swendsen.  The music was fantastic!  We also enjoyed seeing the Christmas lights at Knez Mihailova (large pedestrian shopping area in Belgrade)











































After the concert was over we had a bit of an adventure finding our car.   Turns out you should never trust someone that says. "Oh, sure you can park here no problem".   We parked in the Austrian Embassy parking lot (after hours of course).  When we came back the car was gone and the towing service number said to call back in the morning.  We borrowed the Swendsen's car to make the one hour drive back to Sremska then drove back to Belgrade the next day.  Belgrade actually has a nice website where you can enter your license plate and you can find out which tow yard is holding your car.  After arriving and presenting my passport and showing the keys to the car it turns out there was a small problem.  Since the car is not registered in my name they weren't about to release the car to me just because I had the keys.  So about 8 hours later, armed with an official-looking document and $120 I was finally able to get the car and drive back home.   Here is a photo of the tow trucks they use.  It has a giant claw on it (which is why these trucks have the nickname "Spider") that go under your car and they pick it up and take it away.  Lesson learned, I am sticking to parking buildings from now on.

As part of the Church's "Light the World" campaign for service our branch organized a  project to paint the interior of one of our member's homes.  We managed to get most of the paint on the walls.  It was fun serving together. 

Every Christmas Heather puts together "12 days of Christmas" packages.  With the Sister's help, she assembled and distributed 7 of these for members of our branch.   It wouldn't have been possible without the translation help.   Sister Briana Luthy and Sister Emma Henderson are the best! 

On December 23rd, two days before Christmas we held the Sremska Mitrovica Branch Christmas Party.  It was great to see everyone having a good time together. 

Just before Christmas we got some real snow, so we indeed did have a White Christmas this year.   That's our mission car under there.  Coming from Albuquerque/Portland this is a bit new for us.

 The view out our apartment window.

Snow is not our favorite thing but we did enjoy watching some snowmen being made in the courtyard after church. 

It wasn't all fun and games. Merritt slipped on the ice and fell on this pipe.  Fortunately, it caught him in the ribs and not in the head.  Heather had to help him get his shirt on and off for several days.  After about 4 weeks he made a full recovery.  (We later learned that this fall actually cause a collapsed lung which re-occurred in February but more about that in a future post).

On Christmas day we traveled with our Sisters to Novi Sad for Christmas Dinner and activities with Dean and Louise Fitches.   They were great hosts and we enjoyed a Mexican Christmas dinner. 

On the 28th and 29th of December, we helped with the annual Winter Youth Conference in Zagreb.  The city center has an amazing ice rink (actually more of an ice loop that goes all the way around the central plaza).  The setting is made all the more stunning by the surrounding classical buildings.  

Click this link to see a slideshow from the Youth Conference. 

We drove a nine-passenger van to Zagreb and back, about eight hours round trip.  A couple of the youth came from Belgrade and stayed at our apartment for the evening.  The next day we took them to the Sremska Mitrovica train station (shown below) to finish their trip home.

Dunja and Suzana were great company for our trip.  They are outstanding! 





































Well, that wraps up 2018. December was a very busy month and it was also a very busy year with lots of changes for us.  We are enjoying our service here in Serbia and looking forward to what 2019 will bring our way.