Thanksgiving gift

Just as if the Lord gave us a special Thanksgiving gift, our Sunday fast and testimony meeting was wonderful.  Usually Alan and I have to get up to help fill the time, but Sunday one member after another stood to share their testimony.  Even though I can't understand the language, the spirit was very strong. I have realized that not being able to speak the language is like loosing one of our senses, like vision, and another sense becomes stronger.  And that, I feel, is what has happened; by not being able to speak the language the ability to feel the spirit has increased.  Maybe I just have learned how to listen better without the distraction of language. Anyway the meeting was so full of the spirit that even some of our investigators cried.  We had 23 people there (anything over 20 is great) and 4 of them were investigators

Monday morning Alan had to get up at 2 am to take our two newest members, Dragon and Nemanja, to the town of NIS.  It is three hours from here.  (They needed to be first in line to ensure that they would be served and get what they needed) They are refugees from Kosovo and records for refugees are kept in NIS.  We are trying to get them ID cards; first so Dragon can get financial help and second so Nemanja can leave the country at the end of Dec. to go to a youth New Years Eve dance in Slovenia.  (our youth would grumble if they had to travel that far to have a dance with other LDS youth)

Well, the Christmas music (app from internet) is playing 24/7 and our tree is decorated.  Not really a tree but a rather large house plant who doesn't understand what has happened to it.  But at night (and even in the day) looks quite pretty.

Sorta Christmas Tree like...

Daniel loaned me this sweet nativity to bring on our mission and
it's a good thing because we don't see nativities in the stores.

Desperate people do desperate things.

Christmas house plant all aglow!

And now for our last item our 'Only in Serbia' moment.  We took this picture Saturday... Cabbages are as plentiful this time of year as watermelons were in the summer.  They are a huge part of their diets.  We saw them planting cabbages in late Sept and early Oct.  There is a dish here that is called Sarva that is stuffed cabbage and everyone loves it.

And you know what cabbage does to some people, so you can imagine  what it smells like around here sometimes..enough said!