Week #16

Sunshine!!!

The rain has stopped! My Utah dry is coming back! The only problem now is humidity and it's super hot in the afternoon (and it's not even summer yet :( ). Ali sve uredu! But it's all right! It feels super nice in the mornings when we exercise and in the evenings when we tract :) The rain stopped and the sunshine sure came on! Drum roll...we had 10 lessons last week!!! And 3 of them came from tracting, 1 following up with a potential, and 1 person just walking in. Sestra L hasn't had a week like this before in her mission. It was a great week! So about the person just walking in. After English class, we ate dinner and were about to head to tract, but then this woman walked in. She asked if there was a class going on. We told her English class ended, and she was like, "No, I mean I want to find the Church of Christ." We were like oh ok. She didn't want to participate but just listen to a class. So we gave her a pamphlet and explained it at the same time (aka gave the first lesson). Her concerns were finding a church that follows the Bible of what the true church of Christ. So we tried to ask for her phone number or something, but she didn't want to give it to us for some reason. She travels a lot, so she said she would come back on the day of our seminar. After we prayed, she just had this huge smile on her face and was like that was very beautiful. The Spirit just hit me sooo strong! I just spoke up in my very best Croatian and testified to her that was the Holy Ghost. He was testifying that this prayer was good. She looked thoughtful and I think agreed. We weren't able to give her a Book of Mormon before because she said she just wanted to listen not really participate. But after the prayer, I just grabbed the book and said it was a gift for her and if she wants to find truth here it is. Hopefully we'll hear of her before our seminar next week, but if not, that will just give her more time to finish the Book of Mormon ;)

Funny story of the week: short but still funny to me. On Friday, we had an aktivnost (branch activity) where we sang hymns, learned how to conduct, and then played a game with the hymns. Well, we wanted to have a nummy snack, so I suggested white chocolate on popcorn! We bought some white chocolate and tried. Well...my first try I burned the whole bar! I know that if you put chocolate in a pot then put that pot in a pot of hot water it doesn't burn, but we didn't have time. So I just put it in the microwave. We were discussing how it was good we bought two bars. Then we just tried half of one and it worked out good. But then the second half went into the microwave and I forgot about it and got busy with other things. So you guessed it. I burned it again! I wasted 1 1/2 delicious chocolate bars :( So we ended up having a small bowl of white chocolate and plain popcorn (no butter and barely salt because we didn't have any with us...)

This last week I experienced the saddest thing I've encountered on my mission yet. We went to go see a less-active. We went on Friday, but her sister-in-law said she was out of town and would be back on Saturday. We could come back on Sunday. So we went excited to teach another lesson to someone who needs help finding the iron rod again. So we walked up the path and she came out with a very angry face. She told us she was very unhappy we were there. We were flabbergasted. We had no idea what was going on. She continued and explained she didn't want anything to do with Church. She thought after she got baptized that things would be easier/problems would be gone. She had some family pressure to not be active in the Church, and so she stopped. She lost faith. I just wanted to start crying. Not because we wouldn't be able to teach or because she wanted to be off the records so that's one less person to count in Rijeka. But because a daughter of God lost hope in His plan. It made me think about the people of Rijeka who I was influencing right now, and if they were ready to live in the path of Christ? Because life's not easy. Christ will lift our burdens, but the burdens will still be there. I wonder if this woman thought that her problems would be solved and she would have a care-free life. Then when she realized that she still had the same problems, she gave up on what could have helped. It was really hard on me. But Sestra L brought out a good point, we can only help and strengthen them. They have to choose which path they go on. So I will choose my path. I will be firm in my Savior. He is my foundation. Helaman 5:12 is the scripture of the week for me. We need to have Christ in the center of our lives for when the storms come (for they will still come), we can be strong in Christ. For we can't do this on our own. We need Christ. He knows. He is the One (EFY 2011, great song). Stay strong!!! Christ is there! God is there! They want us to succeed! They want us to win! Follow the prophet! Pray every moment! Read the scriptures every day! Only by doing the simple things can we get through the tough times. Volim vas puno! Doviđenja! (Good-bye!)

Week #15

This week we had more flake outs than I can count. For instance, one day we had planned 5 lessons with 2 back up lessons (stop by and see if their home). Ništa. Nothing. We did have a lesson but it was with someone that called us asking if we could meet. So it was a great tender mercy and usually this lesson is mostly to practice in English but this time she just wanted to talk about the Book of Mormon! We can feel that she's so close to being baptized. She has a testimony of everything and we invited her last week, but she wants to take it slow because she feels like she has a lot to change before getting baptized. So hopefully we can help her feel ready and not be afraid because everyone changes everyday. Yes, baptism is a big commitment, but at the same time it's not. It's hard for me to explain but we should be trying to become closer to God everyday. Baptism is just one of those steps. So I pray that we can help her feel ready. 

I forgot to announce this a few weeks ago, but this year is the 40th anniversary for the first baptism in Croatia! So there's going to be a big celebration in June and President R said all the missionaries in the mission can go if we have 40 baptism. This week we had more flake outs than I can count. For instance, one day we had planned 5 lessons with 2 back up lessons (stop by and see if their home). Ništa. Nothing. We did have a lesson but it was with someone that called us asking if we could meet. So it was a great tender mercy and usually this lesson is mostly to practice in English but this time she just wanted to talk about the Book of Mormon! We can feel that she's so close to being baptized. She has a testimony of everything and we invited her last week, but she wants to take it slow because she feels like she has a lot to change before getting baptized. So hopefully we can help her feel ready and not be afraid because everyone changes everyday. Yes, baptism is a big commitment, but at the same time it's not. It's hard for me to explain but we should be trying to become closer to God everyday. Baptism is just one of those steps. So I pray that we can help her feel ready.

Another tender mercy is that each visit counts. We stopped by a less-active member's home, and she told us that she didn't feel comfortable at church sometimes because she's not keeping the commandments all the time. We reassured her that that is one of the reasons why we go to church so we can gain strength and no one's perfect. And then she came on Sunday! Hopefully she'll find the strength throughout the week to do the things God wants her to do to become happier by then. We have about 12 now and about 21 with baptismal dates before then and 6 weeks left to find the rest! It's totally possible! All of us are so excited and are working really hard so the next 6 weeks are the most successful of the mission!

We went tracting yesterday, and we've been having a lot of ništa at the door and "yeah, come back later" half hearted with a closed door throughout the last week while we tract. But we kept going. My MTC branch president told us that this is what enduring to the end means. He was talking about our last week or two that we needed to keep working hard and stay focused, but tracting is the same thing. It's a type of enduring to the end. Everyday we try to go tracting because we've been told that if we do for at least 2 hours a night then we will find people and have success. Oh and by the ways, tracting has changed a little bit since probably most of you returned missionaries are used to. In January, I think, a member of the Area Presidency taught about "The Master Teaching Program" and this involves a lot of different things, but for tracting it means to teach on the door. Before, the statement started with "We are representatives from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...", but now we start with many different types of statements like "The Book of Mormon is scripture similar to the Bible. It teaches of Jesus Christ. It has helped me in my life and I know this book will help you in your life. How have scriptures helped you in your life?" We teach a little and then ask a question. This way if they shut the door, they are rejecting learning more, not rejecting talking to us. So we knocked at this door and talked to this young man at the door. He was truly interested and we just pretty much taught him the first lesson at the door. I could feel the Spirit so strong when we testified! The strongest I have felt at the door for sure. But it was a tender mercy to keep going and keep enduring!

Another thing we are working on is a seminar answering "Questions of the Soul". We'll advertise saying we will answer questions like "Does God Exist?", "How Can I Make the Home a Happier and Safer Place?", and much more! These questions are answered through the Book of Mormon, so we're hoping to make this a way to find people and specific people who are looking for answers in life. I hope this works great because we are already putting a lot of effort into it. We plan to have these seminars for 2 weeks twice a week just to see how it goes. It will start in May. I'll let you know how it goes!

Funny story of the week: We're looking for a less-active member, Viktorija something, and we called information for her address and Sestra L says sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. This time it worked! So we headed to this address right by the church. We headed over and noticed a restaurant up ahead named Viktorija. We joked how it would be funny if that was the address information misunderstood us and gave us the restaurant instead of the person's address. We got closer and started to look for 1A. We got to the restaurant and it was what we feared. 1A. We started just busting up laughing and took pictures of this restaurant that was closed. People looked at us like we were Americans or something ;) Oh boy did that give us such a laugh for the night!

I have a talk on Sunday and I'm going to talk about the Atonement and the main point I want to give is that Christ can comfort us of all pain. Sometimes we just focus a lot on the Atonement with sins which is a huge part so ima smisla (makes sense), but sometimes we forget that when the sins are cleansed, the pain and guilt we felt can leave too. Also, just whenever we feel pain, Christ felt it too. He's there for us to help us with whatever sicknesses physically or of the heart we have. I read the scripture Alma 36:19-21 about how Alma felt exceeding pain but felt exceeding joy after he repented. Christ atoned for us so we can feel that exceeding joy. Repentance is hard but worth it! Why suffer when there's a way to feel happiness? That's why I'm on a mission. I want to share this message with the people of Rijeka/Croatia and I am. Every day! The joy is worth the pain I have to go through to find those people who are ready to receive the gospel. Seeing the change they are making in their lives everyday and seeing the change I'm making in my life everyday is worth more than anything else I could be doing right now. Remember God wants us to be happy. Find that happiness in your life every day. God is showing you. He wants you to pray to him, to read the scriptures, to succeed! He's always there. He loves you. I love you! Thanks for always influencing throughout my life. Every single one of you. Even if I don't know you, you have influenced someone who has influenced someone and so on until it has influenced someone who has influenced me. I know there's a lot of influence, but everyday good or bad, there's a lot of influence. Choose the good! Choose the joy! Volim vas puno!!! Želim vam da birate dobro tako možemo se vratiti Bogu u Nebu i se osjećati njegov ljubav svaki dan. (I love you!!! I want you to choose good so we can return to God in Heaven and feel His love every day.) (I say this in the name of Jesus Christ my best friend. Amen.) I kažem ovo u ime Isusa Krista, moju najbolju prijatelj. Amen.

Week #14

Bok Bok!!!

So I'll just say it. Last week was a lot of...trying. Full of faith filled days but nothing coming of it. But that's ok because we will endure and continue on because that's what faith truly is!!! Keep going even when it seems like nothing is happening. So the woman who was going to have a baptismal date...wasn't home when we came by. So we think she's out of town now and will stop by tomorrow to see if she's back and keep her in our thoughts, prayers, and hearts. Then the rest of the week followed similarly. Set up an appointment, and then it didn't happen for whatever reason. Then we would talk to people on the bus and there would be no interest or not enough to let us have their number. But thank goodness for new weeks.

On Sunday, we were doing an extra hour of companion study because you have this training program for trainees (aka me). And we watched in District 1 (the video) that they found someone who was baptized later down the line from a potential investigator list. This list is of people we tract into or meet and think they could become investigators. Well after we watched it, I felt like I should look in our Area book. My first thought was the potential investigator list like in District 1, but then I found myself looking through former investigators sheet. I came across these two investigators that it seemed like things were going great but then nothing. So I asked Sestra L. to call them (because I'm still not the best at understanding what they're saying, malo po malo). She small chit chatted for a little bit and then asked them if we could come and see them on Wednesday. They said yes! After that call we called our zone leaders because one was the previous missionary teaching this couple and he said that the couple said that they were busy all the time. So they dropped them, but it's great they'll meet with us. So we'll go in and try to get them committed to reading and hopefully they'll feel the happiness we feel everyday in this gospel.

After that excitement we called a few more names that were not so well accepted. So we decided to go head for the family we taught two lessons with before Easter but haven't heard from them lately. When we got to the door and knocked, the door opened and the husband had a great smile on his face and welcomed us in. They were about to leave for a party, but he said we could come by later that week! We were so excited because this family, I just feel really good about them. I don't know what the future will bring, but I know that we're supposed to be teaching them right now.

After that we went tracting and after about five doors, we knocked at this woman's door who after about 10 seconds asked if we wanted something to drink. We said sure. She gave us water and a bowl full of apples and oranges. She said that her daughter was a Jehovah Witness and that her daughter said that if anyone came knocking with a message to let them in :) So we taught her and her husband the first lesson according to their needs. It was so great! I felt the Spirit prompting us what to say. They are Muslim, and we talked about Jerusalem a bit and how they prayer and what they believe. We then compared how our religion was similar and asked them questions (Sestra L. asked some great questions that made them think, I think I asked good questions if I said them correctly and if I understood their answers correctly). Alas, when it came down to it if they wanted to learn more or not, they just said that it's interesting but they'll stay Muslim. :( But that's ok! We taught a lesson that wasn't the typical, ¨God is our loving Heavenly Father...¨ I now truly know what a lesson meeting their needs is and how to recognize the Holy Ghost when that time comes again. I loved it! Even if they didn't want to meet again, I needed that lesson to get me going again!

Funny story now because the rest flows together. We went to McDonald's and Sestra L. asked me if I wanted to get a Happy Meal. Any need to ask? Ne! So we got Happy Meals with the How to Train Your Dragon toys. The toys were dragons that were like the cars that you move in reverse and then they go on their own. When we got home that night, we raced the dragons for at least 20 minutes. It was super fun!

Again, why I'm not writing on Monday is because we visited Plitvićka yesterday :) This huge lake with waterfalls throughout. They call it a veliki slap (big waterfall). Yesterday was perfect because since it's rainy season, there were like no tourists, but it was beautiful weather until the very end and then it poured. It was like Heavenly Father was telling us to get out and go to work! :) It was so beautiful and I realized how blessed I am. While we were walking, I felt very casual about the whole tour seeing and enjoying the hike. See in Jerusalem, every week we were hiking somewhere that had beauty either to the eye or beauty in what happened there. So going to see this amazing huge lake with bunch of waterfalls felt...normal. I'm very blessed to be able to have gone to Jerusalem. I have seen the blessings from it every day here on my mission. I meet someone who has either been there or wishes to go there all the time. Usually that's the topic subject sometimes to even start a conversation. I understand the Muslims here to more because I have lived in their culture for a while. I heard the call prayer like ten times. But more importantly, I understand Christ's life more. I'm reading Jesus the Christ right now, and every time I read, I have a connection to Jerusalem whether I've been to the pools of Bethesda where he healed a cripple or the Jews said something and I understand why they said it because of their belief. I can't believe how big of a blessing it has been for me to go to Jerusalem. I'm grateful all the time. It's even more crazy to me to see after my mission how my mission will impact my life. I've been saying these are the best two years of my life (EFY, Jerusalem, and mission) and each event only gets better and better. If EFY influenced my time in Jerusalem (being more social, know intro games and questions, etc.) and now Jerusalem is effecting my mission more. What will my mission do for my life? Neznam, ali nemogu čekati. (I don't know, but I can't wait.) In the meantime, I'll continue to add to my I am blessed pile and keep working hard to find those people who need and are ready for this gospel right now.

Which brings me to my scripture of the week: Helaman 15:7-8. I know what I'm doing is helping others come unto the Lord in faith and repentance especially me learning and knowing how to come unto God with faith and repentance. Whenever someone asks me why I'm on a mission now, I'll lead them to this scripture. Because this is the reason why I'm on a mission. I want them to come to a knowledge, change of heart, steadfast, and become free. For the truth can make all of us free. We will become free with the knowledge that our Heavenly Father loves us and will help us in any way he can to return to him by sending his son, Jesus Christ to make it possible. We just have to do our part: Come unto Him. I'm loving every single moment here even if I don't understand all the words all the time, but I know in time I will and I see now that one of the reasons why missionaries don't know the language instantly because they need to know how to speak the language of the heart and the Spirit. For even when I do know what the people are saying, only the Spirit knows what to say, so I need to learn to rely on the Spirit then the Spirit will tell me what to say. Speak the language of the heart and Spirit, have faith, repent, and continuously come unto Christ then you'll be made free!!! Volim vas puno!!!

Week #13

Rain, Rain, Rain then Dry So last week there was rainfall like crazy with finding people and literally!!! We found a bunch of people to teach and we set up appointments. We tracted into this woman about 2 weeks ago and finally were able to meet last week. While we were talking to her, she said she already had a Book of Mormon from missionaries last year, read half of it, and knows its a book from God and that Joseph Smith must be a prophet. I didn't understand this at the time, but for some reason we didn't ask her to be baptized! But we're meeting with her today, and we will invite her. You'll see next week what happened! After our excitement of getting all these appointments, we went through a dry spell with the weather and all the appointments either fell through or everyone we talked to wasn't interested :( But we're still holding strong! Our mission president gave us the goal to have 40 baptisms by June starting now! If we do, we can go to Zagreb to celebrate the 40th anniversary! So we'll get it done! All that we need to do is testify, testify, testify, and invite, invite, invite like thousands of times so we can get those 40 people who are ready :)

So the reason why I'm e-mailing on a Tuesday instead of a Monday is because of Easter! They celebrate Easter for two days, so pretty much everything was closed down. It was weird being down town on a Monday that looks like it's supposed to be Sunday. It reminds me of my dad's version of Easter. On Saturday, we have 'pagan' rituals (Easter egg hunts, gifts, etc) and on Sunday we celebrate the real reason we have Easter and talk about Christ. So that's kind of what they do but depending on the family depends on when they do Easter egg hunts and stuff. On Sunday, we went to Trsat for Catholic Mass. I gained a love from Jerusalem of Religious Envy where I love watching other people worship. This time it was interesting though, because I understood more of why I love how I worship. I feel more connected with my Lord and I kept watching others and saw the love God had for these people. I wanted to just go up to every single one of them and just express this love to them and tell them how they can feel this love all the time. They will...in time.

The funny story of this week happened one night during tracting. I don't know what I would do if I wasn't trying to learn a language. It seems like all my funny stories come from that. So while Sestra L. and I were tracting, we knocked on this door and this woman opened the door. But as soon as she opened the door she crossed herself and said something. Right after, Sestra L. said Žao mi je which means I'm sorry. So I thought someone had died because the lady seemed really sad. I was preparing myself to ask questions about the plan of salvation and how to quickly but effectively explain. But the conversation went elsewhere and so I just dropped it. I came to find out later that the woman just said that we scared her. Oh wow. I take things a little dramatically.

My scripture of the week is 3 Nephi 18:16. We make sure we are around people who lift us up a lot so we have the strength to keep going when others are not around. I see this strength every Sunday with members, new members, and investigators. It's hard being 1 of 20ish members in a city. Especially if you had smoked before and see EVERYONE else smoking or the butts on the ground. But Christ has showed us the way, and He keeps showing us the way. We're going to share this scripture with the woman I mentioned in the first paragraph and then ask her to follow Christ and be baptized. Bah! Pray for us :) I know you do, so keep it up! We need the strength to keep going and doing the right things! Volim vas puno!!!

Week #12

Pozdrav od Hrvatsku! (Greeting from Croatia!)This past week we started English classes! It was super fun, but still I need Sestra Lethco right next to me because when they ask for a word, I just smile and look for Sestra Lethco :) But I try and it will be good for me to learn simply how to explain things in Hrvatski (Croatian) and learn fun words along the way like grandchildren (unuka, for all the Bake-grandmas).

We have talked to some people who might be interested in the gospel so we're going to set up some lessons and see what happens! We focused a lot this past week to follow up on our potential investigators and investigators the Elders gave us. We didn't have much success. We either didn't find them, they said they weren't interested, they were busy, or no one answered the door. But hopefully this week will be better. We have 3 lessons for tomorrow and 1 pretty interested potential tonight, so the future is looking good! The funniest story of the week was we went to go meet with one of our investigators, and the door opened and we thought we had the wrong door. So we told the woman who answered the door that we had the wrong door. We called our investigator and he said he wasn't there but his wife was. We double checked the address and it was the right apartment we went to. We met his wife so we thought maybe it was her sister or something. So we went back and the investigator called back but we already knocked on the door so the same woman answered. Sestra Lethco was talking to our investigator and I tried to understand the woman at the door. I asked her if she was Ivana's (the investigator's wife) sister, and she was like I'm Ivana. She had cut and colored her hair this past week, so we didn't recognize her! Opa! (Oops!) We felt so bad, but since the investigator was super late and we needed to go to the branch activity we set up with him to meet the next day. The wife was nice and she didn't seem offended. Whew!The success we did have last week is that we visited 2 inactive members and then they came to church on Sunday. What a blessing! Sunday was definitely the highlight of the week in my opinion. We had fast and testimony meeting which two investigators with a baptismal date bearing their testimonies. I didn't understand a lot of what they were saying, but I understood the words of the heart. To me that was enough to know how blessed I am to be with these strong people. They've gone through so much heartache and hate. How great it is that I can show them this happiness! Teach them how they can rely on someone who will take away that pain and bring them happiness they can't even imagine-I can't imagine.

We watched General Conference and I loved the Sunday morning session because I loved knowing that there were millions of other members of the Church watching the same thing I am right then. It's so weird for this Utah girl who had a Laurel's class larger than the Sacrament meeting, but watching conference gave me this feeling of strength. There are people who are living this gospel and helping others be prepared to come closer to Christ. Another reason I loved watching General Conference was because I knew those who I am closest to are watching the apostles that instance. I miss everyone, but I know that we all need to do what the Lord wants us to do because He knows best. He's my coach. If I do my part and play the role he wants me to play perfectly, more people will come to the gospel. I will come closer to Him. I just need to listen to The Coach and do what he says and then we'll win. I know this so much. I can't think of any other way working out better. It just makes sense. (Ima smisla).

This goes along with the scripture of the week (I know I forgot to do that this last week, but here it is for this week). Alma 43:45-when I read this scripture, I just thought, "What am I fighting for?" Everyday is a battle. There are fights everyday and why am I fighting them? I know I'm fighting to find these people that are ready to accept the gospel and ready to find this happiness. I would like to extend this question, "What are you fighting for?" I've realized that as I find the purpose for each day, the day is worth so much more. Find what is of worth for you and fight for it! Don't give up! God has you here for this time for a reason! He is the coach and has a key role for you! Find that role and put your dukes up because Satan doesn't want you to get back up. Get up and get going! God and Christ are there to walk with you the entire way. Be like Nike and "just do it". Volim vas!!! Vidimo se!