Well...here goes another email. We have had a good week this week!
Monday...for pday we went to Kopački Rit with the Prestons, I think I sent pictures last week. Monday night after pday we just went tracting.
Tuesday...We met with B. It was actually really good. Elder Preston had assigned him some chapters to read and then Elder Preston talked about them and why they are important rather than B saying the same thing to us over and over. He really is great and is very nice sometimes it just gets old. He has been coming to church for years and reads the Book of Mormon but thats about it. Sometimes we wonder how much he understands or if he understands it all and just doesnt want to admit it. Afterwards we had District Meeting. For District Meeting we take turns giving the thought. This time it was Elder Preston and he made us all handouts. We thought it was pretty funny. Tuesday night for English we did an activity and played games in English. President Rowe asked us to do that every so often so that they are just doing fun things and interacting with the missionaries. The students got really into it and really seemed to enjoy it so I think it was good.
Wednesday night we were out tracting and saw some little girls outside. We stopped and talked to them for a minute and gave them all a penny. We kept tracting that street and then we crossed and started doing the other side. After awhile the girls started running after us with some of their friends. They stopped us and gave us a little hat thing that their Grandma had made and then stood there starring at us. We looked at their friends and asked them if they wanted a penny too. They nodded so we gave them one. I wish we could get people other than little kids to chase us down because we cant really teach kids. On the way home that night we were on the tram and were talking to a girl. We didnt quite have to be home yet so we started walking with her when we got off the tram. She kept asking us where we were heading and we just said oh we are just walking. We were talking to her about the church and were having a really good discussion. Then she stopped looked at us and said Im going this was and then pointed another way and said you guys should go that way. Apparently she didnt want to talk to us anymore. Its a good thing we have people that dont want to talk to us often because when it happens we just move on and find someone else to talk to.
Thursday morning I woke up and felt like we should go visit the man that read half of the Book of Mormon. We got there and they were just leaving to go to the hospital because his wife has something and is going to have to be there for 2 months. They let us in and we talked to them for a few minutes before they left. He said he finished the Book of Mormon, told us everything that happened and said he really liked it. He also said that he read all of the pamphlets that we gave him and he wants more to read. Since they were leaving we didnt have time to teach them a lesson but we are going to go back and teach them and give him The Doctrine and Covenants to read.
After stopping by there we went to an apartment of an older lady that we met a few weeks ago that told us to come back. We went in and she had met with missionaries awhile ago. She told us that one of them was from America and the other one was from Utah. She was very nice...we read some scriptures with her and talked to her about the church but I think she more of wanted people to visit her because she is an old lady that lives by herself. We then had an appointment with E and J which went really well. I let Sister Frampton teach the lesson and I just sat and helped her when she needed help. She did great! It wasnt necessarily grammatically correct but I am still working on that. She was able to get across what she was trying to say for the most part and they seemed to understand. We asked them questions and they knew all the answers. Sometimes it is hard because they know everything we just still cant get J to come to church. At least this time when we asked her to come to church she straight up told us no rather than saying yes and not coming. We will get there sometime. We are still thinking that if we can get her son more excited about it maybe it will help her come back too.
We then met the Prestons and went to M's. We got there and he told us he had something prepared for us and asked us to sit at the table. He pulled out plates of fruit and said he had prepared a fruit party. He is really funny. When he is around the Prestons he speaks in English and even in English he is funny which takes talent since it isnt his native language. Anyway...all of the fruit was fresh from his yard and he had made juice from it too. It was delicious. We decided that we were going to teach him about temples because a few months ago when Sister Madsen was here she mentioned something to him about baptisms for the dead and he got really confused. I also feel like every time we either talk about baptism or the word of wisdom and I dont want to feel too pushy. So we started talking about temples and said something about baptisms for the dead. He looked at me and said I dont want to talk about Baptisms for the Dead I want to Talk about Baptism for the living. So we stopped talking about temples and talked about what we usually talk about. We talked about the Word of Wisdom which he still struggles with but he is doing better. We talked about Joseph Smith and we talked about Baptism. It was a great lesson. When we left he told us next time he wants to talk about the Sacrament and Baptism for the Living. So that is what we will do. He really has a desire to learn about the Gospel and he takes in everything we say and thinks about it and he loves learning! After M's we stopped somewhere with the Prestons and as we were walking in there was a man walking in front of us pushing a stroller. He was so busy focusing on us and staring at us that he walked straight into the curb...we were laughing about that for quite awhile.
Thursday we got to go to the red cross because people from the church humanitarian were here to donate wheelchairs and we got to go be a part of it which was really cool. They only handed out a couple wheelchairs while we were there because we had to go for an appointment. We left with the Prestons and drove to a town about a half an hour out of Osijek to visit one of the members, V. She is very nice but is a little naive. She belives anything that people tell her. Hence the reason she was baptized and used to come to church every Sunday until she moved to this village but she is a staunch Hare Krisna and wears a cross around her neck. Shes funny and she is very blunt. We had a good visit with her and then we drove a little bit farther to visit the B's who are some members that live right by the Hungarian border. They are raising chickens so on the way we picked up some chicken feed to take out there for them. They have like 30 chickens. We had a really good visit with them. We sang hymns and talked about the Book of Mormon and the importance of studying it daily and applying what we learn.
After we had a lesson with N and V. I love meeting with them even though sometimes it is hard because I dont know how much N is actually progressing. He loves reading the Book of Mormon with us but I dont know how much he does it when we arent there and we cant get him to come to church. Every time he says I cant this week but I will next week. So we are trying to get to the bottom of why he really wont come.
Saturday...We cleaned the church and then drove to a town about an hour outside of Osijek called Našice. A lady that we met while at the Red Cross invited us out there because they had something going on that the red cross was a part of. She was so nice. Her name was V. It was some sort of a cultural fair thing. She gave us first class treatment and took us around and introduced us to people and we got a lot of people talking to us and helping us. It was a really good way to put a good name out for the church and in a week or so we are going to go back and talk to some of the people that we met again. It was a really cool experience! When we got back we had an activity at the church because the Ivins who were the senior couple here before the Prestons had come back to Osijek with some of their family. So they had brought Pizza and we just sat and talked with them and members.
Sunday was a great day! I went to church with a much better attitude than last week and just decided that no matter what happened I was going to have a positive attitude about it. So right as I walked in the door and someone asked me to translate for them I did it. Funny story...the Prestons had asked one of the members, N to sing in sacrament meeting. So after I translated for someone he grabbed me and told me to come to the piano. He told me to sit down, told me the hymn number and told me to start playing. So I played the song and after he said all right that will do. He is very funny...he tells outrageous stories that sometimes we dont know if they are true or not but we just go along with it. We were talking to him and told him that we love it when he comes to church. He said that is fine as long as we dont kidnap him. Then he wouldnt sit by us because he didnt want us to kidnap him.
Anyway...Sacrament meeting was really good! E spoke first and she spoke about obedience. She did a great job and you could tell that she had really prepared for it. After her N sang and it was so good. I think it was good for the members to have a native doing it in their native language rather than one of the missionaries. While he was singing the room was silent. As we got to the end of the song his voice started cracking a bit and then he couldnt finish. I thought he just hadnt warmed up enough and so I just finished playing the song. As I finished I looked up at him and he had tears in his eyes and as I looked out in the audience several of the members did as well. As he finished all of the members started clapping...you dont see that in church very often. Sister Preston spoke after him. Sunday morning during Personal Study I was looking for something and saw my Patriarchial Blessing and decided to read it then that is what Sister Preston talked about. She did a great job! One of the senior missionaries is a patriarch and has gotten permission to give patriarchial blessings while he is here serving which is really a big deal for the members.
After church on Sunday we worked on some flyers and posters to hand out to people about the things that we have going on. Im not exactly sure what happened but we got laughing really hard and Sister F peed her pants. Like for reals. There are 2 bathrooms at the church and she couldnt get to either of them. It was really funny!
Sunday night we were out tracting. We have found that people arent very happy if we knock on their door after 8 pm so we try to avoid it. Anyway it was 8 o clock and we were almost done with a building so we decided to just finish it. We knocked on the door and an older lady answered. She looked at us and said you shouldnt be knocking on peoples doors this close to midnight. At 8 o clock. We didnt really know how to respond to that one. So apparently 8 o clock is really close to midnight...wont make that mistake again. On the way home we were walking through Centar and there were some little ballerinas out dancing with people playing instruments along with them which was kind of fun to see for a minute!
Today we spent our pday at the MUP getting my Visa stuff finalized. They called us and told us we had to come today to get it. So 3 hours and 1100 kuna later I finally have my Visa!
I think that is about all for the week! Things are still going well! We are staying healthy and working hard. We are trying really hard to find more people to teach because we really only have 2 investigators right now and the others are still in the phase of trying to get them to be investigators. But we will find more and we will find people who want to listen to us and want to learn about the Gospel for the right reasons. This week during my personal study for part of it I read the Book Our Heritage. Every once in awhile I need something different just to add some variety and I figure since I brought the missionary library books I should read them. Anyway...it was a really good book and I learned a lot about the History of the church that I didnt know before. The thing that stuck out to me the most was that Brigham Young was one of the last members of his family to join the church and it took him a few years before he joined because he really wanted to know first. And he later become prophet. So its ok if our investigators need to take time to get there as long as they do it for the right reasons. And we will find those people. I hope that you all have a great week! Remember that I love you lots!
Sestra Clark
Thanks for the emails from Jordan, Carrie, Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Zach, Ryan, Tyler, and Lex
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