What a Week!

Well, this has been a busy week.  Alan had to speak (again) in church with a days notice.  He did a great job.  It is hard to talk by just giving a few sentences and then waiting for it to be interpreted.  You tend to lose your train of thought, so we have learned to type it out with spaces in-between so you can keep track of where you are.  I am talking (again) this week.  And Alan will be teaching the Sunday School class.  If we didn't know how to do this before, we are learning now.  We find that the manuals used here are years behind because newer ones have not yet been translated.  Two of our branch members, the branch Pres. and his sister (R.S. Pres.) do alot of translation for the church.  They are already translating April Conf. talks and have been sworn to secrecy.  They say that it is a stressful time because some talks they receive months in advance but many the last week or just days and even hours before conference airs.  When we ask the elders about listening to conference over here, they said it's not the same because you only hear the translators voice and miss the actual apostle's and Prophet's voice speaking with their emotion.

As for the actual week...we had dinner Monday night with the Pres. family.  Their home is very small but welcoming.  We know that they are not wealthy but we had a many course meal, starting with soup and ending with two desserts and another one to take home.  Oh my goodness, what am I going to do when I feed them.  Honestly, that is one of my biggest worries over here is feeding people using ingredients that I don't usually use.  Banana choc. chip cookies have become my signature treat that I take to members when we visit and they seem to like them....but a whole meal :o[....we'll soon see!

Tuesday we (the missionaries and us) went to Ruma, a town 10 miles away, to find an inactive member of the church.  An older woman who has been through the temple, wears garments, but she attends the Pentecostal church and feels a church is a church.  She said that we could home teach her monthly and we will see if we can bring her back to our church.  The hard thing for people in outlying areas is transportation into the church.  Well, after our visit, unbeknownst to us, she had made an appt. with a rest home so they could partition us for wheelchairs.  So as not to offend her, we went to the appt.  We couldn't believe it, they had prepared food, drink, and coffee for us.  We had to politely tell them that we don't drink coffee.  They took us on a tour...285 residents and a very nice place.  They gave us gifts, me a scarf and Alan a picture and all this in hopes of getting wheelchairs.  We promised them that we would refer their case to our humanitarian missionaries, which we did.  Tues night we also went with the missionaries to teach our investigating couple.

The tiny church and some of the workers at
the rest home.

Wed. we fed the missionaries and had an appt. canceled.  Thursday we picked up the missionaries from Novi Sad and drove them north to Subotica just on the Hungarian boarder to visit with some old members and meet with a young man that found the church on the internet and called wanting to be taught.  Subotica is a charming European town, the type of European town that you would imagine in your mind.  And one of the best things was that they have a McDonalds there.  Yes, I said McDonalds.  It's funny how things you don't like at home, all of a sudden, look wonderful here.  We ate lunch there with the missionaries and their fries never tasted so good.

The only arches that you see!

I hope you can read this menu...I couldn't!

The kids play area...

The building is just as beautiful as the doors

This McDonalds has two floors and this is taken from up stairs.

We visited with the members and much as the sister in Ruma, they have been going to another church and feel that as long as you are going to church that is good enough.  So many of the people here have not really developed a testimony, but then it is hard when there is not church and no weekly member support.  How many of us would stay faithful, I wonder?  The missionaries are going to try and visit them two times monthly in hopes of rebuilding their testimonies.

After lunch we met with the young investigator and he was so nice...we met at a German Hotel that is beautiful with a inner glass covered courtyard.  The courtyard is surrounded by shops including a groc. store.  They plan to meet with him 2x monthly as well as talk with him on the computer.

This is a beautiful building in Subotica that is all lit up at night

A street view from Subotica

After we returned the missionaries to Novi Sad, we went to a place called Mercutor that turned out to be a huge mall....a mall, who knew!  And of course this mall had a huge groc. store that was modern and up to date.  But, sadly they still don't carry most of the same items we haven't found in Sremska, i.e. sweet pickles, lettuce, etc.  It was a long day, but a good day.  (We found out today that one of those elders has been transferred to Slovenia--and we just had gotten to know him)

We are headed to Belgrade (not our favorite city, way to large) tomorrow for a combine RS birthday celebration.  We are taking two woman from here.  It has been a full week, but a good week.  Just another segment of our journey   :o}