Date
April 13, 2015
Area
Rijeka Croatia
Companion
Elder Fisher
Week 82 The Big Hill
Hi mom!
Another good week, things are just cruising along. I'm starting to get used to the big city. Walking around every is making my legs sore, the city is just one big hill. We have to go up tons and tons of stairs to get home everyday. It sure is a good work out! But I love it here, the city is absolutely beautiful. And Elder Fisher and I are doing a pretty good job talking to people. We're a good team, we get a lot done. We've had to do a ton of contacting and we're starting to see some fruits from it. We made a few return appointments. Some of them didn't actually happen, but we're still praying to get the work progressing here in Rijeka again. When we showed up in Rijeka, there wasn't really anything to start with. No investigators or anything. So we've pretty much had to start from scratch, but we're making progress.
We were calling members to try to get to know them since we're new to the area. We called a 19 year old member named Dejan who missionaries in the past have struggled to make contact with because he lived far away. But now he's going to school here in Rijeka, so he was able to meet with us. He was baptized when he was 11 with his mom (who is less active as well now), and doesn't really remember much about the church. But he's very willing to meet with us and start coming to church again. I'm really excited for him, I think he could be a great help to the Rijeka branch.
This week we had Mission Leadership Council in Zagreb. There are a lot of new zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders in the mission. I'm the longest running zone leader who's still a zone leader right now. The average time to be a zone leader is 6 months here, and I'm working on my 7th month. The longest I've ever heard anyone being a Zone Leader is 10 months. I might make that record. I'm ok with that, I really enjoy being a zone leader, I get to see and help a lot of missionaries. Its ton of fun! It was weird to be with so many new missionaries at MLC, it made me feel really old. But these new missionaries have some great ideas, and its easy to see why they're in leadership here. I didn't even say much this MLC, this is a good group. And Elder Miner was made the AP, he was my last companion in Zadar. I'm not surprised about that, I figured he would go AP. At the end of the first day of Mission Leadership Council, we went into a sauna that the Grant's have in the mission home downstairs where all the Elder sleep. We always knew it was there, but never knew how to work it. Well, we figured it out. It was fun! We took some pictures and once they get sent to me I'll send them to you. This MLC was really good, and pretty fun. I love being able to see my mission buddies from around the mission, and talk about how things are going everywhere.
There's not really too much else to write about. We're still working hard and trying to get things going here. This coming week we have our Zone Conference combined with the Croatian North East Zone in Zagreb. Not sure why it's combined, but I'm ok with it. It should be pretty good! Elder Fisher and I and the Sister Training Leaders here have planned a pretty good lesson for the Zone to try to get them motivated. We're going to split up the Zone Conference when we teach our individual zones, then we'll be back together again. Zone Conferences are always fun.
Hope everything is going well at home. I'm still having the time of my life out here!
Have an awesome day, I love you!
-Elder Lamb
Hey dad
White washing is going alright. Rijeka is a big city, but we're getting along pretty well I think. We have a good amount of members close to the church here, and some who are further away. There used to be a group in Pula, even missionaries there. But it was closed and most of the members there don't want contact unfortunately. Its hard for us to contact the family on Cres, and also the member named Eddie who I think lives on Mali Lošinj, or somewhere nearby. He was the member who was going to Los Angeles for a time, but I heard he returned. Did he ever make contact with you? Elder Fisher and I want to go to the family out on Cres and try to visit them, but we'd have to get permission for that of course. I'm not sure if President would allow it though. I guess there's no harm in asking. I know some members in Serbia skype in for sacrament meeting, that's what I heard at least. Maybe we can get something similar here. But you're right, a personal visit is always much more powerful.
Nathan Clark is back from his mission? That's pretty cool, I remember when he left. Cambodian is a pretty intense language to read I heard. Someone once described the language to me that it looked like this: uunnununununnnununnun maybe I heard wrong though. That's awesome that he saw the formation of 2 stakes while he was there. Do they have a temple there?
That's awesome that Brother Edmonds has a friend who's going to work for the church in Frankfurt. Is that a paid position I'm guessing, or will he be a missionary? Are people called to paid church positions? That's a pretty cool place to go. He'll probably get to see a lot of Europe in that calling. Don't worry, you'll get your time here I'm sure.
We actually used to have a senior couple here named the Babbles, and Elder Babble was an ordained Patriarch and he was the "Mission Patriarch" for a while. He was actually stationed here in Rijeka, but he left a long time ago. Now, members need to go to Frankfurt and they can get it while there on the temple trip. They have a Patriarch to do the blessings for members far away, and it is translated by a trusted person and mailed to the owner. I'm not sure exactly how the process works, but I'm pretty sure its something like that.
I loved General Conference this time around! As a missionary I have that much more of a desire to soak everything in that's said. I was able to hear Mišo and Ankica too, that's always fun. I really liked that talk about hearing the music. I liked how it started out, I feel like it could make a good Mormon Message. With a big native American walking in and when the doctor asks what needs, the Indian just responds "Do you know how to dance?". I was a bit confused at first thinking I missed part of the talk. I think that's a cool metaphor though. Relating living the gospel to dancing, it explains how weird it might look to someone who can't hear the music. And everyone loves to dance, so we want everyone to listen! I guess my job is to tell people about it.
The food here is generally the same. There's a place all over the city called "food city". Elder Fisher and I really like it because is cheap, and a lot of food. We mostly get sandwiches or wraps or something. There's a lot of options to choose from. Apart from that we mostly eat in. There's a really nice Chinese place called Peking Wok that we went to once. There's a lot of nice sit down-places here. I enjoy that. Today is really nice weather wise, I'm happy about it. I like wearing a short sleeve shirt more than anything else. And you're completely right, better weather causes people to be more receptive.
Mom sent me photos from the restaurant you ate at, it looks really nice up there. I'm excited to get to see Daniel Kolega again. He and his brother will come home from their Missions at the same time, and we're planning an exchange with Zadar at the end of April. So I should get to see them then. I'm happy Lovre is doing well, I have no idea what's going on with him. Slovenia is a bit cut off from the rest of the mission. The only news I hear from there is during Mission Leadership Council and I can talk to the Sloven Zone Leaders. I asked how Lovre was doing and they said he was doing good, so I was happy to hear that. I feel like they would have said good no matter how he really was doing though, so I'm still curious how he really is. I'm sure he's fine though. It'll be a great experience for him.
That's a good idea of the Anaheim Missionaries contacting friends of Missionaries who are serving right now. I'll start to try to think of some friends they can contact. Most of my friends have moved away now, but I can think of some. I have a friend who lives on Imperial named Christian. I forget his last name, or his exact address. But I do have his email, so I can send him one and ask him how things are and if he would want to know what I do on my mission a little better. I think he'd be receptive to it too. It'd be best to send Spanish speaking missionaries to his apartment though, I think his mom doesn't speak much English.
Volim te papa!
-Starješina Lamb