Service and Language

As Humanitarian missionaries, Elder and Sister Lamb ( our upstairs neighbors) organized the opportunity for us, Elder and Sister Schmidt from Osijek and the young missionaries serving in Sarajevo to go and spend the day volunteering at the Duje Center. The Duje Center is an amazing place (we highlighted it in the post dated 12 December 2026). 

In previous times, young missionaries traveled to the Duje center a couple of times a month to spend the day working in the greenhouses; preparing, planting or harvesting.This particular day, we met in the morning at the Duje center. There was a short tour for some, who had not previously visited. 

The young elders then went with the greenhouse foreman and spend a couple hours digging water diversion trenches. 

We (Elder and Sister Lambs, Elder and Sister Schmidt and Sisters Hunter and Ray and us) got in our cars and followed Mersiha Imamović in her van. We drove about 10 km to a field of crops that had been donated by the farmer, to the Duje Center. 

The told us we would be harvesting beets. When we arrived at the field, I looked at the root vegetable and thought to myself, "these are not the vegetable I expected". I then learned that in the Bosnian word, "repa" can be used/interchanged for both beet and turnip - LOL. So, we were really harvesting turnips. 

The field was a little bigger than an acre and there were already several women there working. Some people pulled the turnips from the ground and stacked them into piles. 

Others sat around the piles and with a knife, topped any greens and the root and placed them in 5 gallon buckets. 

Still others hauled the buckets to the edge of the field and filled large poly-bags. 

The weather was perfect! Sunny and not too warm. The field dirt was dry enough that the turnips pulled easily and the dirt fell away. It made me so happy to be digging in the dirt - to be outside in the sunshine. I loved the smell of the dirt and to be be soaking up the sun. 

Elder Lamb and the young sisters visited with some of the other workers (as they had language). I thought and thought about how I might verbally interact. I thought about words I knew and wondered what I could express to my fellow Bosnian volunteers. 

After a bit I said, "ja molim vrt". What I thought I was saying was, "I love gardening". But what I really said was "I pray dirt". (I had used molim/pray, instead of volim/love.) The women looked at me a little confused. Luckily, Elder Lamb, who is fluent in Bosnian, was within earshot and was able to explain my mistake and that I really did love gardening - lol. The women smiled at my mistake. He graciously translated a bit, as the women asked me about my garden at home in Idaho. LOL - adventures in language. Sometimes I feel like I have only enough language to be dangerous 🙃

We worked hard and got about 80% of the field harvested. The bags we filled would fill the transport truck they had and more. So after a bit, we just made a large pile of topped turnips that they would come and get the next day. 

When our time was done, our gracious hosts met us back at a restaurant run by the Duje Center, then we were their guest at a delicious lunch. 

After a late lunch, we got into our cars and headed back to Sarajevo. It was a great day!

Another wonderful experience we had this week was dinner with friends. We along wth Elder and Sister Lambs were invited to share a meal with Emir, Diana and their children. They were wonderful hosts and we were honored to be in their home - the food was delicious and the conversation lively - but the best thing was the love and friendship we felt. 

This whole week was grounding for me - dirt, sunshine, work, good food, family and friendship. The more experiences I have, the more I realize that things we have in common are so much greater than our differences. 

Unexpected joys of serving with other Senior missionaries

One thing we discovered on our first mission in Germany was the joy of working with other senior missionaries. 

Our Mission here  in the Adriatic countries is unique because of the large number of older people serving. Many Missions throughout the world may have 1-3 couples that serve in the mission. We are so blessed to have 54 senior missionaries to serve with here. 

ANM Senior Conference, October 2025

Our Mission Leaders, Brian and Angelika Cordray and are the world's greatest recruiters of seniors.

President and Sister Cordray

We serve in a variety of different areas of responsibility. Our missionary assignment is MLS, Member Leader Support. We work as support for young missionaries and the local members of our church. 

Some of the other areas of assignment are: our Mission medical advisor is Sister Ballou and Elder Ballou has several other administrative jobs.

Sister Ballou

Some are called to work in the office everyday to keep the mission running. The four serving in the office are currently all singles that are without a spouse. Sister Johnson is the Mission Secretary, Sister Draper is over finances, Sister Merrick and now Sister Jepson is over telephones and cars and Elder Newton is over legal and visas to keep us safe in the five different countries.

Sisters Merrick, Draper & Johnson

Elder Newton

One couple are over all the apartments for us all to live in. Their job is super hard.

Elder & Sister Hatch/former and Elder and Sister Hirschi/current Housing

We are so lucky to have a couple that provide meals for all of our trainings and conferences.

Elder and Sister Reed

We have others that work with young single adults.

Elder and Sister Thompson, Nielson, Blood & Steele 

with young adults at the Temple in Rome

 Others, like our neighbors the Lambs that work as Humanitarian Missionaries that work with NGOs to help people not of our faith to better themselves financially. Others with this assignment help with employment of locals, helping the church with providing medical equipment and training for local hospitals, helping refugees to learn English or the local language.

Elder and Sister Lamb

Elder and Sister Bates

Two couples, the Parkinsons and Goodriches work as councilors to the Mission Leaders to help in administrative affairs of the church in our five countries. 

Elder and Sister Parkinson

Elder and Sister Goodrich

I feel bad we don't have space to show all 54 of our Senior Missionaries that we are blessed to work with. They are all so committed to their work and in serving our Lord.

There are many other hats that we are asked to wear from time to time. The joke with us seniors is that we all wear multiple hats, I guess that makes time go fast and we feel a good sense of worth that we are helping people here and we are helping the work to move forward. The great things that we bring to our missions are our life time of experiences and knowledge that we have collected over the years. That really is the best talents we have to share. 

As I stated in the beginning of this post, the relationships we build with these other seniors that have left their homes and families and put their lives on hold to come out to serve our Lord and our fellow man is amazing to me. We build friendship that will last for the rest of our lives. A senior elder told us the other day that when we retire our world and circle of friends usually gets smaller. By serving on a mission our world and circle of friends has increased greatly.