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Long Time No See

Man I have been slacking with these emails!  However, not that I am in quarantine I feel there isn't a better time to catch up.

So I'm sad because I'm probably going to have forgotten some stuff but I will write what I remember. First, we had Zone Conferences which were way fun as always. We weren't able to prepare our presentation because we were crazy busy building up to it. So basically, the morning of, we woke up at 5 AM and created our whole presentation and it worked out pretty well. We did it on the talk from general conference "One Percent." The idea behind it was from a guy named David Goggins (maybe you've heard of him...he's a motivational speaker dude who was a marine also). The reason being because we felt the mission kind of needed a wake up call. This David Goggins guy literally just yells at you the whole time during his videos and is all about work. So we didn't want to just yell at everyone but that's where the idea originated. We turned it into a more creative turn and put the analogy of an ice cube: how it doesn't melt at 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and it still doesn't melt if you raise the degrees from 1 to 2 even to 18. However, it begins to melt at 33 degrees. So we compared the mission to it saying we just got to 33 degrees, just started seeing results, then stopped being creative. So we wanted everyone to be creative and not be afraid to just do it. 

The conferences themselves were very fun, first we did Slovenia, still beautiful, then we went to Croatia where one of the elders at our apartment (Elder Thompson) ended up having Covid so we got to stay at the hotel for a few days. That was soo much fun, they had a sauna and a gym, both of which we used quite frequently. We then had Serbia Zone Conference which was great because we got to see Elders Christensen and Blake (both from my MTC) so it was me, Robbins, Blake, and Christensen which was soo much fun. Those guys are a hoot. 

We went golfing which was a TON of fun, I have missed it so much. once I knocked off the rust i wasn't the worst, still wanting to get better though for sure. Then Elder Christensen came to Zagreb with Elder Strickler and stayed with us at the hotel for a bit because he had to get this test in Zagreb. That was also a ton of fun, we had a good time together. Sad when they left

then we got to help Kristijan with the Russian missionaries so we got to go to this castle up close to Slovenia, very beautiful there with a lake (emptied unfortunately) nearby.

I made sushi for the first time. didn't turn out too bad actually, it was good, definitely room to improve but not too bad considering what we had to work with.

Next we finally had a cleaning service with the čisteći medvjedići  (cleaning bears) where we cleaned at this park. Cool part was, was there was news camera guy there interviewing two of the people in charge and when we showed up, the girl came up to me afterwards (the one getting interviewed) and was like hey have you heard of this new group? Do you want to do a little interview? So of course I was like yeah sure. So I got the fancy mike and such and did a fun interview with this guy (nothing too crazy) 

Here's the link to it if you want to watch it.

https://www.index.hr/magazin/clanak/od-18-igracaka-do-smeca-iz-juge-evo-cime-su-sve-zatrpane-hrvatske-sume/2330626.aspx

Anywho, we did that service and now we are planning on doing another service nearby the church that we will organize and then have a culture night with the missionaries from Kiribati, plus members from Iran, Africa, and Venezuela. So I am very stoked about that. 

In terms of teaching, I asked this one girl a language question on the tram and got to talking about how we were missionaries and she was so nice and wanted to learn more. She was literally like, "yeah I'd love to meet up with you guys and talk about the differences between faiths" without us even asking. So we met up and gave a tour of the church and had an awesome first lesson lesson. She even talked about how she felt the Holy Spirit. It was super cool, then afterwards we went to a Catholic Mass with her and met her boyfriend and such and they were both saying how they were going to come to church. Then we got a text from her saying, when she talked to her mom about the whole thing. The mom didn't feel comfortable with her going to a different church so she never came. Very sad but she was very very nice and awesome. She has her own Book of Mormon and said she would read it so hopefully that serves her well.

We took down one of the basketball hoops at the old mission home (destroyed in the earthquake) and took it to the church so now we have a hoop there now. We ballin' up, its been a ton of fun. I haven't really played basketball much at all the whole mission. 

We got to help Aslan again (our friend from Kosovo) move some wood from a construction site to a members home. He was speaking Albanian to another guy from Kosovo. Albanian sounded crazy.

We did some service at a members house to clean out her basement. She is blind and apparently there was a hoarder that kept stuff in her basement. I kid you not, the whole thing was filled to the top with junk. You couldn't walk in at all. We found a bunch of random stuff like an old Yugoslavian passport, Serbian dinar (money), math books and so on. 

This week, the main highlight is we did service at Krešimir Cosic's house and it was so fun! We are helping him build his house. He's in quite the pickle right now. Married recently, two kids under the age of 2, living in a very small room, building his house with his own two hand, broke his back, his wife cut her hand, and they all have Covid except for him. So its very nice we can help out. He is a very cool guy, definitely look up to him. We were lining the walls with insulation, not fun to get in your eyes and such. I am definitely learning a bunch of random stuff on how to build a house. 

Second thing is I have Covid. My companion Elder Robbins and I both have it. So we are in quarantine. I didn't get hit too hard, just got very tired and slept like an entire day and was fatigued another 2 or 3. But now I am doing better, just a little pain in my chest.

That is pretty much everything, sorry this is so long. Have a great week!

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