Hello everyone!!!! This week was stacked!! There was so much going on so let's get right into it haha. Also brief reminder: sometimes when I read missionary emails I completely forget where they are haha so for those of you that have no clue where I am, I am in Slovenia. I am serving in a small area called Celje and I am speaking Slovene. ;)
Book of Mormon ft. beautiful sunset
Monday 5/16:
Pdayyy woooooo! The morning started off pretty simply with going to the store to get food for our big hike today! Our plans were to hike Pohorje with the Maribor elders and one of our members. Pohorje is essentially straight uphill. It is pretty brutal. I will attach a picture of the starting point. If you zoom in you can see an arrow that shows where the top and end of the hike is.
The bottom of Pohorje (zoom in to see the red arrow with where we finished)
This hike took 6 hours and man was it hot. But the view was so worth it. And! I got a nice tan hahaha. This took up the vast majority of the day with the train rides there and back, the hike, and of course, an ice cream trip afterwards. So good.
Tuesday 5/17:
We had a workshop and mentoring session in the morning. During the workshop, we saw sister wendt and her companion sister olsen. That was so much fun because it was just us in the workshop with the teachers. We made plans to visit Betty in her house today so we went to the bus station to get to betty's house but lo and behold the bus never came so she had to come pick us up hahaha. It is always fun when Betty drives. When we got to her house, we looked through all of her photo albums which was really cool to get to know her more and build a connection. We also played Life, but the Slovene version. That was so fun. We also got the chance to read from the introduction to the Book of Mormon and pray with her. She said she would be willing to let us teach her the lessons which made me so happy.
The absolute most precious dog I have ever met
Wednesday 5/18:
ZONE CONFERENCE IN ZAGREB CROATIA WOOOO
The drive over was super chill and very scenic. It was right through the countryside. The Zagreb chapel is gorgeous. It was so fun to be able to see everyone in the zone (the zone consists of every missionary in Slovenia and Bosnia)! I finally got to meet the missionaries from Bosnia in person! After zone conference, we went to the famous American store haha. This was a really small store that was filled from floor to ceiling with random candies, cereals, and food from America. I got to buy some goods from home to enjoy.
Sestra Williams and I with our American spoils
We drove right back after this and the rest of the day was super chill and filled with our studies.
Thursday 5/19:
We had district council in Celje which was super nice. For those of you who forgot what district council is, we essentially meet together with our district (the two Elders in Maribor and the senior companions, the Barrus') and talk about our weeks, what we did, people we met with, etc. Kinda just a check-in. We went to Wok N' Roll and I actually got something new instead of my usual. It wasn't as good as my usual but still yummy. The rest of the day was studies and another mentoring session. We did
Friday 5/20:
This morning we went to visit with our Branch President's wife and help her in her garden. They live in one of the most beautiful places ever and I loved every second of it. Well not everything everything - I was dying from allergies the entire time. If anyone has any good tips for combating allergies, please send them my way. Regardless, gardening is very therapeutic. They have the most adorable dog I have ever met. They also had two horses who were so chill and fun. Overall this whole experience was a 10/10.
She even made us a bomb lunch afterwards. I love this woman. When we got home we met up with Betty and her son really quickly to play jenga at the church and talk a little bit about the Restoration. We had to leave to meet with some of our other friends at the park. It was good to catch up with them.
Saturday 5/21:
One of the members in Ljubljana planned a service project where we went to this place in Lož and cleaned up a castle. That was so cool. It was insanely hot but so good to serve. I've got the meanest farmer's tan and it cracks me up. Haha I love being a missionary. We spent several hours chopping trees, clearing bushes, and getting stung by a bunch of stinging nettle. For a little service reward, we went to a different castle about ten minutes away. We were told that this was one of the most beautiful castles in Slovenia. It was so cool. It had a moat around it and we toured the inside which was completely preserved with the original decorations and furniture. It was more of a modern castle but still super cool. When we were leaving, there was a wedding happening!! Sestra Williams and I accidentally became part of the bridal party when we were trying to catch up with everyone else. Overall a really good day filled with service and castles.
Sunday 5/22:
I gave a talk in church today! I was really scared but it went so well. I talked about my favorite word, nevertheless. There is a really cool pattern with this word in the Book of Mormon. I am pretty sure I have already talked about this word a little in past emails but I am going to talked about it again. A couple months ago, I decided to go through the Book of Mormon and highlight every “vendar”. In the entire Book of Mormon, there are 179 times it appears. 179 times!! Almost every time it is used in the scriptures it follows a specific pattern which is:
First, They explain what they are struggling with or a trial they are going throughSecond, They say - "vendar"
Third, They bear their testimony of how they still see God's influence in their lives.
I shared some of examples from the scriptures (Alma 57:25, 2 Nephi 10:2, 2 Nephi 2:1-2, 2 Nephi 10:20, and 2 Nephi 4:17-23 - shout out to Sestra Tuckett for jumpstarting my love for 2 Nephi chapter 4). My dad was so sweet and joined on zoom at 4am his time. Tears. I love my dad. Later on in the day we met with an old returning sister missionary. She was actually the sister missionary I replaced which was cool. We hung out with her for a minute and then went our separate ways. As always dinner with the Barrus' was great and I got to call my family later too.
Overall very very busy but so worth it.
Ice cream count: 2 :(
Highlights:
- we saw a paraglider launch off right in front of us
- on our hike on Monday, Elder Hughes and I somehow managed to convince everyone minus Sestra Williams (lame) to roll down the hill with us
- Betty wanted to take a picture with me and the Book of Mormon so SCORE
- when driving home from yone conference, we saw Sister Mefford and her companions walking so I got to scream hello from out of the window
- SOMEONE BROUGHT ME RANCH AT ZONE CONFERENCE - literally the best thing ever
- Sister Fidler gave us a bunch of fresh goodies from her garden! We got so many random herbs and fresh eggs.
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