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 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.
So we'll written - very interesting! Can't believe it's been a whole year. You've done some amazing things while in this beautiful country. So fun you were all camping at the same time! Nice photos and message of service/self reliance - so important!
ReplyDeleteThanks Brenda, we do live in a beautiful country.
Delete