Ljubljana, Branch BBQ, Tennis, Basketball more Soap

We finished up April with our Spring YSA event in Ljubljana, Slovenia. We had 17 YSA's attend this three-day event which included paintballing, a day at beautiful Lake Bled (where a surprising number of us braved the chilly water to go swimming), a marvelous Easter program put on by the Ljubljana branch, Karoeko (always fun with this group) and an evening in Ljubljana.  Easter Sunday morning together, a Testimony Meeting, and one last meal with the group.   Everyone that attended had a great time together.  The YSA's in the mission are spread out over a geographic area about the same size as the state of Utah.  There are often only one or two of them in each branch so the only chance they get to see each other is at events like this.  They are the future leaders of the church here in the Balkan Countries and we really enjoy getting to know them and helping them plan and execute these activities.   Click on this link to view a video slide show. 

Merritt's favorite Balkan food is Gulash.  Typically it is beef cubes in a gravy sauce served with potatoes.   Since gravy is his favorite flavor it's not surprising he likes it so much.   Merritt mentioned his love of Gulash to one of our branch members who then shared his secret award-winning recipe with him.  Here is Dragan cooking up a batch while Merritt took notes.

May 1st is labor day and is a very big Holiday in Serbia.   School is out for a couple of days so we organized a branch BBQ in Fruska Gora.  Unfortunately, it rained so we moved the activity to the branch building. The branch still enjoyed spending the day together cooking up some great food.   Serbians certainly love to eat meat and lots of it. 

While we were having our "cookout" our three daughters all happened to go on camping trips at the same time.   Madison & Evan took their family to Moab, Sloane made a trip to Argentina with her boyfriend Mike and Lochlan and Jon went camping in Maui.    

We certainly love them all and are happy that they all have a love for the outdoors and were all having as much fun as we were on this special "camp out" weekend.

We ordered some "loaf" soap molds which finally arrived so we had a chance to make another batch of soap.  We found an "Oatmeal and Cinnamon" soap recipe that looked interesting so we mixed up a batch.  Hopefully, it will turn out as nice as our prior batches. 

We took a P-day (preparation day) and went into Belgrade to make a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art which is located in a large park on the banks of the Sava river.    We love museums and this one did not disappoint, we also enjoyed the architecture of the building itself and Merritt was particularly taken with the design of the benches that were scattered around the grounds.

That same weekend was "Night at the Museum" throughout all of Serbia.  During this weekend all the museums in the country stay open late and offer free admission so that everyone can have an opportunity to enjoy art.  In Sremska we took advantage of this by going back to what we call the Roman Artifact museum.   Roman legions formerly marched the streets of our fair city when it was known as Sirmium.  Marcus Aurelius ruled from here during part of his time as Emporer of the Roman Empire,  from 170 to 180 A.D.  About 3 meters below the streets of Sremska Mitrovica lies the only known unexcavated Hippodrome in the world (think chariot racing like in the movie Ben-Hur).    Since it lies directly under the center of town and excavation would require relocating the whole of downtown to a separate location.   Below is an artistic conception of what it might have looked like. 

Heather posing with one of the Roman Legion.

The missionaries in Belgrade heard that Merritt enjoys organizing tennis outings and asked if he could come to Belgrade to give them all a lesson so they could have some fun playing tennis.  Novak Djokovic is the #1 ranked tennis player in the world and he has an amazing tennis complex in Belgrade on the banks of the Danube River.  Amazingly, even on a missionary budget, the court costs were quite affordable.  We reserved two clay courts for two hours for less than $20.  Serbia is a tennis players paradise (at least 6 months of the year).

Kresimir Cosic was a famous basketball player from the former Yugoslavia who played basketball for BYU and joined the church.  Later he became the Croatian deputy ambassador to the United States.  He was a great missionary and very instrumental in the establishment of the church here in the Balkans.   He passed away 24 years ago.   The Mission sponsors a basketball tournament in Zagreb to honor him.  Merritt was able to field a team from our Serbian/Bosnian members and friends and made the four-hour drive to Zagreb for the game.  If you are keeping track of points our team didn't fare too well but if you are keeping score with smiles we certainly won the tournament.  Basketball is a great sport and it was fun to play against the other teams from Croatia and Slovenia that were there.  Below is Nenad and his son Nemanja.  We did "draft" three missionaries who formerly served in Serbia to help round out our team.  We were fortunate
 to have Ljubica as our coach!

We continue to work with our local members to implement the principles of becoming spiritually, financially and socially self-reliant.  We have great testimonies of the principles of being able to take care of our own needs and having something extra in the tank so we can also help others in their time of need.   The materials provided by the church are amazing as they help us understand how we can combine our faith in Christ with hard work and working smart to achieve success in life.   You can have a better life and God will help you.   Below is a photo of Sister Garside and Sister Taylor helping Mira review the My Path to Self Reliance booklet. 

Sremska Mitrovica is located in a large agricultural area.  It is beautiful to see the crops growing in the fields.  We've have had lots of rain this spring so hopefully, this will make for a bumper harvest for the farmers this fall.  Here's a typical Serbian wheat field we drive past on our way to Belgrade. 

One last story.  We were visiting the Ivanovic family and Nada came in to show us the kitten she had adopted.  One of their cats had a litter of kittens and then disappeared for a few days.  Nada found the kittens and fed them milk from an eye dropper.  After the mother cat returned the kittens had already imprinted on Nada as their mother so she continues to feed them all their meals.  Nada is one of the first members of the church in the former Yugoslavia.  We are blessed to know her and her family.

We have now finished the first year of our mission.  We anticipate continuing to have great experiences over the next six months.

Spring arrives in Serbia and we get new Sisters.

We survived the winter and enjoyed welcoming in the spring weather and the re-opening of our five gelato stands.  We actually have one new gelato stand so now we have six to choose from. 

We started off March with a trip to Novi Sad for a baptism.  While there we met up with Tatiana and her daughter Jelena.  Rocky also went with us and we got this photo of us all together.

After the baptism, once again buckets were used to empty the baptismal font.  Here is Elder Fritches demonstrating that a branch presidents work is never done. 

The following Sunday Ada Vucenovic reported about her mission in The Ukraine.  Ada was a fantastic missionary and we are benefiting as a branch by having her back in Serbia.  

The young members in our branch enjoy visiting together.

On a Pday in March, we traveled to Belgrade where we had a chance to tour a movie set.   It is economical to film in Serbia and there are several large sound stages along with elaborate outdoor sets that have been built on the outskirts of the city.  One of the showrunners is a member of our church and arranged for us to get a special tour which was pretty cool.  It would be cooler if we could recall the name of the show, but unfortunately, we've forgotten.  It was a fun day with the missionaries. 

Heather got her check-up on her eyes at the vision center here in Sremska Mitrovica and her glaucoma looks OK but the doctor did recommend we also have it checked in Belgrade where they can do some more sophisticated measurements. 

We also had a visit by our dear mission president and his wife, David and Rebecca Melonakos.  Being responsible for missionaries in five countries keeps them on the road about 50% of the time, we appreciated them stopping by to check on our sisters and we were able to give them a short tour of the town and they were able to meet with some of our members.  Here they are with Sandra Vajda who was baptized back in February.

Well here is our first ice cream photo of the year.  We shared it with Sister Henderson who is transferring to Zagreb and two of the sisters from Novi Sad who came to pick her up.   We will certainly miss her and Sister Luthy who also went to Zagreb to work in the office over media. 

Sister Taylor and Sister Garside are the new replacements.  They are excellent missionaries with whom we enjoy serving.

We recently started a soap making project in the branch.  Here Miroslav is learning along with us.  It's amazing what you can learn on Youtube these days.  Our first batch was pretty generic soap using olive, palm and coconut oil along with some lavendar oil to make it smell good.  

Here is the final product.    It turned out OK for batch #1.   We packaged them up and gave them as gifts to all the senior missionary couples in the mission.   

Speaking of hobbies our landlord, Dusan, makes sausages.  Sremska is famous for its sausages.  We've been told there is a saying that translates loosely as:  "In Sremsak Mitrovica it's a pity there are not enough days to eat all the sausage."  Dusan invited us over and gave us a tour of his operation.  He has won numerous awards and sent us home with some samples that had us going back to buy more.  Merritt especially likes his spicy Sremska Sausage. 

In April we had some extra time in Belgrade and were able to spend the afternoon in the National Gallery.  They have some fantastic works there, this is one of Merritt's favorites.  We will probably go back again when we get the chance. 

In April we also had our mission-wide senior missionary conference which was held in our backyard in the Fruska Gora national park which is about a 20-minute drive away.  It is always great to hear what all the other senior missionaries are up to and share ways we can improve our service.  As part of the conference, we took a tour of some nearby monasteries that were built up in these hills hundreds of years ago.

After the senior conference, some of them came for a brief tour of Sremska Mitrovica.   It included checking out some of the artifacts from the Roman era and of course sampling some gelato.

Not surprisingly with the better weather and having made enough progress in his recovery from his collapsed lung, Merritt has gotten back on the tennis courts and has been giving lessons to Sister Taylor and Sister Garside.  They play as if they were born with racquets in their hands. 

Another highlight to this spring has been the opening of a new restaurant just around the corner from our apartment.  It's called Diana and they serve up a pretty delicious hamburger as well as many other good dishes.  We try to stop by every other week or so and splurge on a nice meal. 

On April 14th we had a district conference in Belgrade.  We chartered a small bus so all our members could attend.  They always like to get together with the members from Novi Sad and Belgrade.  It was a good day. 

As part of a district activity, the Serbian missionaries got together for a hike in Fruska Gora.   The weather forecast was for rain but we decided to do the hike anyway.   Fortunately, the sun was out the whole time we were hiking and only as we got into the cars did the first raindrops fall. It was a seven-mile loop hike that also included stops at two monasteries. (Sister Gunnell, Sister Icka, Elder Christiansen and Elder Woodhouse) (Merritt with Elder Rosenvall and Elder Corona)

We hope you are enjoying your "spring" wherever you are.  

Medical emergency, trip to Boznia, learning to make great desserts, trip to Belgrade and more fun with members.

Sparing you too many details,  Merritt had a medical emergency.  He thought he was having a heart attack but it turned out to be a collapsed lung.  He fell on a vertical pipe sticking out of the ground in early December and while he thought he just hurt some ribs he actually had a collapsed lung then, which healed on its own over a 6 week period. 

On Feb 16 he was at the gym lifting some weights he felt something change in his chest and could only get a shallow breath and had a sharp pain in his back shoulder and sternum.   He came home and said he thought he might be having a heart attack.  We called Rocky and he took us to the hospital where after originally confirming the heart attack and prepping him for ambulance transport to Novi Sad,  later correctly diagnosed it as a collapsed lung.   They canceled the ambulance and put in a chest tube and Merritt got to enjoy 5 days in the hospital here in Sremska Mitrovica.   We are glad it was just a collapsed lung and after about 10 weeks he fully recovered.

In the ER they hooked him up to take the first of several EKG measurements.

Rocky helping in the ER

On the first day, he was able to have visitors but afterward, the hospital canceled all visitors due to an H1N1 flu virus in town.   Heather was able to send food in daily via a nurse (and one time she snuck in when no one was looking).

Life in the hospital was pretty interesting.  Fortunately one of the patients in our 6 patient room spoke some English.  The other patients all took care to make sure Merritt was OK.  He bonded with the other patients over their mutual illnesses.  His was the most minor.  A Turkish truck driver survived a knife attack and was stabbed 6 times in the back when a gang hijacked his truck.   He had a very positive attitude. Here he is on his check out day.  He showed Merritt where he lived using google maps and using google translate invited him for a visit someday.  If face recognition capabilities continue to develop, someday it should be possible to connect with him just by using this photograph.

These photos make it appear that it was kind of a vacation to be in the hospital.  Anyone who has had a chest tube knows that is not the case.  The tube makes it painful anytime you need to get up and move around.   After five days in the hospital with numerous X rays and two surgery room visits  (to put in and remove the chest tube), the final bill came to less than $300.   Now that's a great value!  The same thing would have cost over $20,000 in the USA.   Here is Merritt on the day of his release, he was happy to have the tube out and to be able to walk under his own power out of the hospital.


































The next day we went to Belgrade to get a second opinion to make sure everything was OK and the doctors confirmed that the diagnosis and treatment were correct and asked that we come back in 4 weeks to have a follow-up visit.  On the follow-up visit, they confirmed everything looks good and Merritt has made a full recovery.  The biggest downside is that people who have had a collapsed lung are strongly advised not so scuba dive or climb mountains over 16,000 feet.  He will certainly miss the scuba diving and he can cross off visiting Mount Everest base camp from his bucket list.

On Feb 23rd we did a joint P-day with the missionaries in Tuzla, Bosnia.  They don't have a senior couple in that town and so we thought we would help break up their monotonous P-days by meeting them at what is called an Ethno Village Park.  These types of parks are all over Serbia and amount to a small resort with well-landscaped grounds where people can go for a short vacation in pleasant surroundings.

Here is our group.  It was pretty good weather for late February, we spent about 4 hours walking around the park and enjoying lunch together.  Our Sister missionaries were happy to be able to get the Bosnian stamp in their passports.

Duska Vucenovic is a member of our branch who is an excellent cook.  On March 1st Heather and the Sisters went to her home and she taught them how to make some of her favorite dishes.  They all had a good time.  Duska speaks excellent English (she is a translator for the church) and so it was fun for Heather as well.

Duska with her mother, Nada along with Sister Henderson and Luthy and some of there creations.

On Sunday, Mar 3rd we had 3 children in primary and the Sisters prepared a lesson on holding to the rod.  When we have primary Heather also attends due to the policy of missionaries needing to be chaperoned around children.  She enjoys the lessons.

March 4th was the first warm day of the year and the gelato stands opened for business.  We celebrated by each getting a double scoop.  As you can see it wasn't that warm as we are wearing jackets (except Heather who loves coolish weather) but still warm enough for a celebration.  So good and such a great value at $1.50 per double cone.  It's dangerous when something that good is so inexpensive.

While we were in Belgrade for my four week check up we took some extra time to see some of the sites.  This is St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral it is one of the largest church buildings in the world.  The exterior is finished but they are still working on the interior.  It is built on the same site where the Ottoman Turks burned the relics of St. Sava in 1595 in an attempt to suppress the Orthodox Christian faith.

The basement has been finished and it was pretty amazing with all it's guiding and fresco paintings.   It would be cool to come back when the main church is finished to check it out in ten years or so.

Right next door is the Belgrade Library. Since we love libraries we spent an hour poking around.  Libraries always make us feel at home.  The chairs and desks were of an interesting design and Heather tested them out and found them quite comfortable.   After the library, we went to the Nikola Tesla museum and found it very interesting as well.   It was difficult to get any good photos there but trust me there were lots of cool electrical gadgets that he invented. He is the father of alternating current.  (The AC in ACDC for all you "rockers" out there).

On March 5th Ada Vucenovic came home from her mission in the Ukraine and we went to the airport to greet her along with her family.   A missionary coming home is always a happy event.

We enjoy being involved in teaching self-reliant principles to the members here.  Since we don't speak Serbian we have trained the regular missionaries on this program and they teach the lessons along with the 12 My Foundation principles.  Milan Bozic has been taking this class and during it found a second part-time job so he now has "full time" employment.  He was very fortunate to be able to find a job that doesn't conflict with his current job.  We enjoy spending time with him.   He is a great guy.

Milan's little sister, Tara, is one of our most fun members.   We enjoy spending time with her as well.

We will end this blog with a photo from a recent musical performance.  In this case, the event was two singers singing Opera in lots of different languages (but not English...are there any English Operas?).  The sound they could produce and sustain was just amazing and we had excellent seats.  Again Sremska Mitrovica really impresses us with the monthly cultural events they put on for the public which are mostly free of charge.

Click on this link here to get a short fix for all you Opera lovers out there.    Until next time,  Vidimo Se! (see you later)















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