09/05/2011

Hold on to your pants....you won't believe what happened. I'm just a little freaked out.

Okay, update number 50000. I definitely hope that you're not all totally bored with this correspondence at this point, but let's face it, it's all I've got. Well, we might as well have it over with - I'm in Serbia. We're currently in a little hamlet called Sremska Mitrovica. Here's the story - so on Thursday morning, after finally having slept a little bit and having eaten a wonderful breakfast of pancakes that Sestra Rowe made for us, we were sat down and listened to a presentation about the countries that we are serving in and then got to talk about the dedicatory prayer of Croatia - which you should all read.... by the way - then we were assigned our companions. President Rowe started out by flashing a picture of this S. Jacobsen guy and then said the city Sremska Mitrovica and then my name. I guess we were just playing some sort of game of matching the blue cards that all these names and places were written on and so there I was. The look on my face must have been priceless I'm sure because I'd kind of pegged myself in Rijeka or Zadar or something like that, but I ended up going basically as far away from the coast as I could. It took me a few minutes to compose myself and to give a Sveta Troica - kind of a Serbian pride - handshake to Ctaresina Defreitas, but now I'm really doing alright.
So for shock factor, here you go. My trainer doesn't speak the language - and if you think I can, with whatever these weird rules are... well, anyways -, we're opening up an area that hasn't been opened in nearly two years, I can't read a word written all over the walls whether its advertising or if it's grafiti, I had a total Other Side of Heaven moment in Church yesterday while bearing my testimony - or whatever that was - and had to teach in Sunday school as well. So basically what I'm saying is that this is the absolute best thing that has ever happened to me in my life. For real, actually. It's been kind of this nagging desire since I heard that there was a possibility to be transferred over here. I don't actually know what it is, but this place feels right and whenever I learn to just accept this place, this language, and the fact that I'm actually here serving the Lord, then maybe I'll do some good.
The President - he's everything that we thought. Probably more. We had interviews with him and dinner at his home on that first Wednesday after that e-mail that I sent you. He's got this great love for the people here and his missionaries in general. He's very hands-on and exactly what I need in order to be motivated always. In fact, he showed up in our Branch President's house yesterday for a brief - and freaking amazing - meal put on by Sestra Vucenovic and spoke but a few words to me but they're enough to keep me going for another 30 days or so until we go back up to Beograd for a little Zone conference. Aaah! I'm in the Serbian Zone! There are now six of us here. Two in Beograd, two in Novi Sad, and two in Sremska Mitrovica. We also have the two elders and two sisters in Osijek in our Zone which means that I'm with Sestra Black!! and here trainer Sestra .... I've forgotten. But she's really cool and I met her that first day in Zagreb. Should be really. It's hard because now my entire class - basically my support system - is spread across several cities. I'm so excited for them. Anyways, this paragraph is about President. His wife is really nice - just the kind of mother figure that we need here. Very loving, very straightforward no funny business boys type of a deal. They have five kids - I remember Conner -whose room I borrowed that first night - and David who are both High School Age. Cute kids. There's Colton who's actually around Colton Pritchett's age which I thought was funny. Then two twin girls around 7 years old. Jessica and...... oops. Forgot. Ah well, I'll figure it out sooner or later. They live in this cool house that has a decent view of Zagreb and up all these twisty windy streets. Very fun.
That first night we got to see a contact in action which was cool. We were on a walk - all of us dragging our feet because we were so jet-lagged - and the elders we were with just started talking to this guy and I understood most of it, surprisingly enough. Granted, that was back in the days of Croatian speaking, but whatever. So that was fun, I hope they did get to meet up with him. We'll see.
So, had a meeting with our new companions - Elder Jacobsen actually reminds me a lot of Elder Mulder except that he has been out here for like 18 months and can show me the ropes, or at least he could have if we'd have been in Croatia... Salim se.... :) - and then were thrown into a boxy type van and sent down to Serbia. Got into Sremska like at 5 and talked with Radomir Vucenovic our Branch President. We ran into his wife and two daughters - basically the coolest cats I will ever meet, js. Milica and Ada are their names. Best voices together e'er. - and they were all super excited to see 6 missionaries in their little town. Very excited. I'm sure mama Vucenovic would have started cooking us something straight away if we hadn't been in the street - seriously, mom, she's a woman after your own Italian-based heart. So funny. We met with our land lady whom my teacher - Brat Morris - called Mama from his stay here. I believe that her name is Jovanka Osterman, but quite honestly she speaks this whole Serbian thing so fast that I get about .0942 percent of what she says. She'll always kind of look at my face, then back to Jacobsen and say "On ne resume..." - He doesn't understand... And then he'll translate for me. It's getting better though? Idk.
Anyways, now we're here and trying to get our feet under us. Finally got our Area book YESTERDAY so now we can find all of these 58 members that apparently we're supposed to have excluding, of course, the 9 that were in our Branch yesterday. Of course, now we have to learn now to read cursive cyrillic characters because all the Serbian Elders before us thought it would be fun to show off their new skills in that arena. Of course, I plan on being just like that. Just give me a couple more days, and I'll be fluent. :P
Let me try to describe the city. It's very.... reminiscent of post communist Yugoslavia. How does that sound? There are crumbling brick buildings and dirty streets and gypsies wandering around at night and about 8 cathedrals. Okay, 2 but still. It's actually very beautiful in a way and you know how I am about dirt and grime - especially for pictures (my camera is itching) - so I'm absolutely loving it. There are a couple of really huge tall apartment complexes that I'm sure were conscripted by Tito himself where all the old Communist people are living and where we've been tracting for the last couple of days. Everybody and their dog smokes, people don't smile, I can't read a word of what's in the store that we're going to go back to today and there are always children wandering around alone. I mean like little ones. I don't know exactly what's up with that... Anyways.
First day here was great, we talked to a man who seemed incredibly interested in what we had to say - Branko was his name - and who has six kids I guess. We invited him to church, but he didn't come so we'll contact him soon. We've found some other people who have expressed mild interest in the Church, but have yet to have a lesson or get a referral, even from our members which is kind of sad. Area book, it is! We have given out two copies of the Book of Mormon, though and a few pass along cards. People are just busy. Summer summer summer. Yay.
I am absolutely loving this place, and hopefully we'll do some good work here. President Rowe keeps referencing this Rich Harvest deal that's in the Croatian Dedicatory Prayer and I'm banking on it. The members here are incredibly strong and great and we're hoping to build on that a lot. I really do need some ideas for some things though, because obviously what I'm doing isn't working yet - okay, maybe I should have patience, but I mean, come on! We haven't even had a baptism yet! - so maybe if you could like take Family Home Evening night and write out some quick little sentences that I could say while tracting at doors or while walking around on the street, and I'll translate them. That would be superb. Could definitely use all the help I can get. Other than that, Sunday School answers: Read your scriptures, go to the Temple, pray - kind of a lot - and all that jazz. I love you cats, so here we go. Love you.

CTAPEWNHA ADAMS