WEEK #14 - 3 Months Mark!!

 Welcome welcome welcome

I hope everyone had an absolutely wonderful Easter!! This week has gone by in a blur!! Yesterday I hit my 3 month mark which is crazy to me haha. It does not feel like I have been a missionary for 3 months. That is 1/6th of my mission. What the.

Monday 4/11:
Pdayy woooo!!! In the morning we went back to that Catholic school to help clean in. We mainly swept the floors, wiped down tables and chairs, and then swept the courtyard. It was really nice to do service and just have time to think while cleaning. I love cleaning - it is such a destressor. We went back home and then went shopping for groceries with the Barrus’. After groceries we went and got mcdonalds and saw that cat robot again! Then we went on an adventure to find out where this one stretch of tulips were in Celje. Someone had posted a picture of it and we wanted to find it so we could take a picture of it. We ended up finding it and it was smack right in the middle of a busy road. Well. We hopped right out, walked on the super thin stretch of grass with cars flying by next to us and took some cute pictures of the flowers haha so fun. 

The tulip patch we were looking for (there are so many tulips here - it is gorgeous)

More tulips :)

We then went back and unloaded groceries, wrote our emails, etc. Boring stuff essentially. BUT THEN we got a text from sister barrus asking if we wanted to come dye eggs with her. Of course we said yes because she told us we would be using all natural ingredients! We were going to make the dyes from blueberries, red onion peels, and cumin! We went on over and it was so fun. We got leaves and used those + a pantyhose to make plant designs. They turned out alright! especially for having no clue what we were doing. 

Easter eggs before dying them 

Results of the natural egg dye

We ended up having to leave to prepare for a lesson with Tina. Dora (one of our members), Sestra Voigt, and Sestra Hart were all on the lesson. It went pretty good.

Tuesday 4/12:
This day was a roller coaster. We did some nice studies and whatnot. We had another mentoring meeting with Lyndie which went really well. We were going to meet up with a member but she cancelled on us so we messaged Betty who then said yes we could go to Žalec and walked around a pretty lake. She picked us up in her car and she played some fun pop music for us which was hilarious to hear. It was weird hearing non-church music again. We walked all around this beautiful lake and we would all take a gazillion pictures together. When I tell you the air smelled so good here, it smelled so good. The air was so fresh and the water look SO green. Ugh, so nice. I love nature. It was just so nice to talk to her and get to know her more. 

On our walk with Betty (my eyes look cool in this picture hahaha)

Maribor river (beautiful green color)

She took us to another spot in Celje where we were getting eaten by gnats haha. We got back and had a meeting with Pres Fidler. The meeting was a little rough because the topic was on how few members there were and all of the struggles people are going through. Pretty discouraging. Sestra Williams and I had a big ole cry session afterwards. Pretty rough but now I feel more motivated and determined to make things work and help the members. 

Wednesday 4/13:
Dolg dan!!!! Long day!!!!
Today was so busy. The morning after lunch we went and took the biometric pictures (the same place I took pictures at last week but now the Barrus’ and Sestra Williams needed the picture) with the Barrus’. A new ice cream truck opened up right by our apartment (this is very dangerous for our bank accounts). The biometric pictures went fine - they didn’t take long at all - probably 10 minutes so we decided we had time for ice cream (I essentially forced everyone haha). The line was super long but we found out as we got to the front that the ice cream was FREE! Since it was their opening day, every cone was free - they were still accepting donations though. I got vanilla, Sestra Williams got raspberry, Sestra Barrus got mango, and Elder Barrus got chocolate. The vanilla ice cream was very very good. 10/10 would recommend again. 

Ice cream round 1 (ice cream round two is not featured sadly) 

We had plans to go to a member’s house after this. His name is Mirko and he is the sweetest person ever. He is pretty old and has no teeth so it is really hard to understand him. He loves the Book of Mormon and everything about the church. He lives pretty far from the church and doesn’t have a car so he isn’t able to come to keep very often which is sad. He also has three horses, one dog, and two cats. After the ice cream we walked to the Barrus’ house and got in the car to go but it was only 2 by that time which we said we would meet with mirko at 3 so we were definitely way too early. We decided to check out one of the churches up on the hill close to his house. It was a very beautiful church! We were still a good 30 minutes too early so we went and found another church that was minutes away (there are churches EVERYWHERE here)! This church was all boarded up and closed sadly but it had a beautiful view of the valley. It was finally time to go to Mirko’s house and it was so fun. He welcomed us right in, shook my hand a bunch of times and led us to his back steps to chat. One of his horses came over and hung out with us. 

Me with Mirko’ horse - Her name is Lučka

Mirko brought out some bread for us to feed the horse with. He kept asking me questions and I had to just guess what he was saying hahaha. We chilled outside for a bit and then went back inside to play chess. It was me against him and I had no clue what I was doing or what he was saying but it was so fun. I am not very experienced with chess so I was just doing whatever I could hahaha. Haha if I made a bad move he would shake his head, show me a different move and say ˝To je najboljše˝ (this is better) and have me change it hahaha. Whenever I would get one of his pieces he would say “nič hudega” which means no worries and laugh. So funny. I loved every moment of it. 

Mirko and I playing chess - I will say this was one of the highlights of my mission - such a special experience for me

Later in the afternoon Monika texted and asked us to come to the park and hangout with her and her kids. It was pretty fun! We walked them back to their house where she gave us some ice cream bars (yum) and talked about her mission. 

Thursday 4/14:

Pretty slow and weird day for us. We had a couple cancellations but we did get ice cream again. Sestra Williams got mango and I got strawberry. Once again it was heavenly. 

Ice cream round 3

Friday 4/15:

Nice day! The morning was kind of slow with a couple meetings and whatnot. It rained in the afternoon so people cancelled their plans haha rip. But then after it finished raining Daniel Ašler called and asked if we wanted to meet up with him, his son, Monika, and her kids at the park. We played with the kids and just chilled for a bit. Then we went out to dinner with them at hood burger. I got some chicken strips with their version of ranch (still not the real deal - I never thought I would miss ranch as much as I do now). Overall a pretty nice day. 

Dinner with Monika + kids and Daniel + kid haha

Saturday 4/16:

Big day today!!!! We had district counsel in the morning in Maribor. The Maribor river was so beautiful today. It was a really pretty green color. Dora invited us over for a nice Easter lunch so right after district counsel we headed over to her apartment. We got there and she had cooked an all out full course meal!! And everything was so good. It was delicious. 

The whole feast 

The first round we had pumpkin soup (bomb) with some nice bread (also bomb). 

Pumpkin soup yumm

Then she brought out the big meal of lamb, two different types of roast potatoes, cauliflower, peas, carrots, another bread like thing but it was also kind of like fried dough (idek how to describe it but it was bomb), gravy, and a mint sauce of some type. Everything tasted out of this world. While we ate Dora told us her conversion story about why she joined the church and it was so powerful. She has gone through some rough stuff but her dedication and testimony of Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father, and His church is inspiring. I may or may not have cried haha. 

Easter dinner on Sunday with Elder and Sister Barrus and the Maribor Elders

After that meal she brought out dessert which was an orange, chocolate, walnut cake and a traditional Slovene dessert called Baklava. I really liked the Baklava!! It was so yummy. 

Baklava 

On the cake Dora had spelled out Jesus in walnuts and then put a candle in it. She had us sing happy birthday to Jesus hahahaha. 

The Jesus cake 

I am not sure exactly why but hey if Dora says sing, you sing. We ate so much, I totally could not move. That was so much fun. Later that evening we had a lesson with Mario and that went very well. He is progressing which is really good to see. 

Sunday 4/17:

Happy Easter!!

Today was super nice! It was cold out which was not a vibe but we had so many people come to church in person! We had 5 people! It was so great to see so many people. For the first time since I have been here, we had the sacrament done all in Slovene which was such a cool experience. Later on in the day we had dinner with the Barrus’ and the Maribor elders. It was SO good!! I ate so much haha. These past two days have been amazing in the food category. 

Highlights:

- I saw the cutest car ever - it was a black bug with purple and white flower decals all over it 

- Mirko’s horse (the one that we fed) also tends to break into the house and so right when we were leaving the horse walked over to the door and slammed it open - it was hilarious 

Lučka breaking into the house 

- Sestra Williams and I had a big water fight that ended in both of us being completely soaked 

- we got ice cream two days in a row 

- when we went into the Catholic church and looked at their bulletin board, we saw that they had screenshotted a scene from one of our church videos and used it hahaha so fun 

- when we met up with Monika, she had me push the stroller and I felt like a total mom 

- Celje post rain is so beautiful 

Celje after rain 

- I saw a random four wheeler in the middle of our town center and it reminded me of my family (my family later said that it was almost the exact same one that my Uncle LeRoy had which was really cool)

The four-wheeler

I hope everyone has a wonderful week this week!! I love you all so much!!!