This past week we had the wonderful blessing of visiting all 3 Mission Zone Conferences, prior to us leaving.
We drove to Belgrade, Serbia - leaving first thing in the morning, so that we could do the "walking tour of Belgrade with President Savić in the afternoon. We were happy to have the Smiths and Ensings join us. President Savić is a pioneer member of the church in Belgrade. He has seen the change and struggle within Serbia for many years. He has also seen the growth of the church and been there to faithfully support it. We took the public transport up towards the Kalemegdan Fortress & Park. We walked on Knez Mihailova, Belgrade’s pedestrian street through Old Town. I was amazed at vast knowledge of history and culture Brother Savić shared with us.
We visited two beautiful old Orthodox churches; Ružica Church and Saint Petka’s Chapel. Ružica Church or "Little Rose" was orginally a powerhouse in the fort and it's chandeliers are made of spent bullet casings, swords, and cannon parts from World War I. (quite interesting).
Saint Petka’s Chapel, also known as the women's church is much smaller and the frescos inside are very beautiful.
The Fortress sits beautifully at the top of a hill, overlooking the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the view is expansive.
It was also at the top of this hill that Brother Savić shared his experience with Jeffery R. Holland, when Brother Holland came to dedicate the country of Serbia for the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Serbia has been a land of much conflict and it was beautiful and hopeful to listen to the prayer that had been offered by an modern-day apostle.
Our Zone conference experiences in Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana were instructive and tender. We had the opportunity to say "good-bye to all the missionaries (both young and senior) with whom we had served over the past 18 months. Some we will see again, but there are many that we will probably never see again. It was particularly emotional with those young missionaries that we had come to love as they served in Sarajevo and now were serving in other parts of the mission. They are amazing young adults and we are inspired by their commitment and faith.
On Wednesday evening, after the ZC in Zagreb, we met President and Sister Cordray for dinner and a review our missionary service. It was a lovely evening of visitng and reminiscing. (as we have known them both since our last mission and shared many experiences). We are grateful for the opportunities we have had to serve both in Sarajevo supporting the members/missionaries and as the Senior Zone Leaders, with travel all across the mission.
Our Thursday ZC was in Ljubljana Slovenia and it was cool to visit that part of the mission. After ZC, we drove about a half an hour to iconic Lake Bled. (Images of beautiful Lake Bled appear requently on screen savers - it is lovely) On Friday, we met Elder and Sister Reed to visit the castle and take a boat ride to the island.
We also had one annoying and negative occurance while visiting Bled. We were waiting in traffic near a roung-about and a woman rear-ended our car. It was quite shocking and annoying, but because she was not traveling very fast, we were not injured. Lot was quite frustrated! In all the driving we've done for our whole 18 months, no accidents. Now, in our last 2 weeks, an accident. The police were called and she was cited, as her reaching for her ringing phone was the cause. Drat! All, in all - we were grateful that there were no injuries and that our car was still functional.
Like all of real life, even when you try to do everything right, sometimes there are bumps.
