Hello family and friends!! Welcome back to another email!! On Saturday I hit my 6 month mark of being a missionary. That means I have one year left. What the. That is just so crazy to me wow.
Monday 7/11:
Happy slushy day everyone!! Sadly I wasn't able to get one but it is okay. Next year haha. Today was another chill Monday. We went to a cafe for lunch and a girl that I met all the way back in March recognized me and said hi. That was really cool because that usually never happens but she said hi and we made plans to meet up another time for ice cream. That was a really cool miracle.
Family call <3
Tuesday 7/12:
Another absolute fire day. We had one of the biggest miracles of my mission happen today. Today was the one year anniversary of Milka's (the sweet Serbian grandma) sister's death. It was a really hard thing for the whole family to go through. We knew that today was going to be hard so we decided to bring her some chocolate, flowers, and a sweet little card. But when we knocked on her door, her daughter answered. And let me tell you. Milka's daughter was about to get baptised and she was really awesome and strong in her faith and then out of nowhere completely dropped off the face of the earth. No one was really able to get back into contact with her for over 7 months. But by God's divine timing, she was able to answer the door and be there at the exact time we decided to come over unannounced. She then proceeded to INVITE US OVER TO HER HOUSE THE NEXT DAY!!!! Are you kidding me. What an absolute miracle. She was just so happy to see us and wow everything about the interaction was just a miracle. After dropping everything off, the Barrus' picked us up and we went to Mirko's!!!! I love going to his house. He has the sweetest laugh and it is always such an adventure. It was really fun. We fed his horse some bread per usual and then had a great conversation about how he found our church and why he joined it in the first place.
Mirko's house with Lučka the horse
He also had a cat that I cuddled and then promptly forgot that I was allergic and rubbed my eyes. I was dying the whole time and then when I got home, I had to ice them hahahah rip. It also started downpouring out of NOWHERE. Like full on waterfall outside so Sestra Chandler and I ran outside and played in the rain for a bit. 10/10 experience
Wednesday 7/12:
Like last week, we had another english camp. It was the same group as last Wednesday's and was still pretty fun. Yes I still went by Lola because no one could pronounce Londyn haha. Rip. The Maribor elders came and did the camp with us which made it more fun. Sadly, the kids were a lot more shy this round so we mainly spoke in Slovene even though it was an english camp haha rip. It was still really fun and I enjoyed it. After the english camp, we then went back to Celje and did district council which was very interesting. As part of district council, we do it all in Slovene and then one person is in charge of translating it into english. Well. For the very first time, I was asked to translate and man it was hard. But it was so cool to see just how much I understood and could translate. I needed a lot of help BUT I am still proud of myself for trying.
After district council we met with Milka's daughter and it was so beautiful. We just went over to her house, sat on her cute little balcony outside, and had a wonderful conversation about life after death and how we can still feel the presence and influence of our loved ones who have passed away. Even her daughter joined which was so cool. Ugh, everything about this was a miracle. We want to meet up more and more and more and more. Please pray that everything will keep going well with her
Thursday 7/13:
Today we had exchanges!!! Sestra Hart was here in Celje with me while Sestra Chandler and Sestra Williams were together in Ljubljana. It was a pretty good day! The morning was mainly filled with our studies but later in the afternoon we met up with Marko to go eat some kebab together. He took us to this place I have never been to where supposedly the "best kebab in Celje is". Honestly, he was right. I am not crazy about kebab but man. This was good.
KEBAB WOOOO
We also had english class right after which was so fun because Metod and Filip came so we just talked all about funny and crazy stories from our life. I told them about the time that I ate pepper spray which was fun. After English we went back and got ready for a meeting that we had with the entire mission. But then we got a call from Sestra Williams and Sestra Chandler. They were trying to get into their apartment but soon discovered that Sestra Hart had the KEYS. So unless they wanted to sleep outside, we were going to have to drive down to Ljubljana and rescue them. So we did just that and a fun little sleepover with all of them! It was a really funny experience as a whole haha.
Friday 7/14:
We hung out in Ljubljana in the morning and then ate breakfast with a past missionary and all of the other sister missionaries here in Slovenia. That was really good. I had a granola bowl that was delicious and the restaurant was right by the river in Ljubljana.
My breakfast next to the river
Shortly after eating we had to start traveling back home. Now what usually takes around 45 minutes to an hour to travel back essentially to over 2 and a half hours. First we had to walk to the train station and then wait in the train station for the next bus to go which took probably an hour or so. The train tracks from Ljubljana to Skofija Loka are being fixed so we had to take a bus from Ljubljana to a small town in the countryside called Litija. That took about an hour. And then we had to take a train to Skofija Loka which took I think maybe 30 or 40 minutes and then finally another train to Celje which took another 30 or 40ish minutes. We had other plans for the day but because of the travel time, we planned to just finish our studies. To spice things up we went to the library to get out of the apartment and while there we saw one of our friends!! We ended up walking all around Celje and had good conversations. That was really cool with the timing of it all.
Saturday 7/15:
AMAZING DAY!!!
We had planned to go to Velenje to visit Luigi and walk around the really pretty lakes they have got but again the buses and trains are not working normally right now. We were ready to go but apparently the bus schedule that we were looking at was completely wrong rip. He ended up coming to Celje and we walked along the river to a cool metal swinging bridge. We had such a fire conversation on the way there about family history and wow just literally everything about what we believe. He is just amazing and it is so cool to see him understand more and more. After our visit with him we prepared for an activity that we had planned with the youth in our branch. We went to the park and just played a bunch of games. It was just really cool to see the youth become closer. We also had a really good conversation with one of our members. AND THEN we went to STARI PISKER AND HADS RIIIBBBSSSSSS WOOOOOOO!!! This was to celebrate me being a missionary for 6 months and was probably one of the best celebrations ever haha.
STARI PISKER RIBBSSSS
Spiritual thought:
God's timing is one of the coolest things to observe. Throughout this entire week, I have been able to witness time and time again where God has placed specific people in my life at specific times. Because we were in a certain place at a certain time, we were able to meet so many people. We were able to see that one girl who recognized me. We were able to get back into contact with Milka's daughter again. We were able to have a good conversation with our friend. And honestly so much more.
Highlights:
- I got to eat a lot of good food this week
- I got to impromply visit Ljubljana haha
- Right now the firefighter olympics is going on so there are a bunch of really cool fire trucks all over the place - there are fire trucks from every age like the 1960s and more - so cool
All of the fire trucks
- As a thank you gift from the english camp, they gave us cool bottles that were painted
- The weather has been amazing lately
Ice cream count: 1 :(
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