We went into Zagreb yesterday to try to find a sewing store where Liz could get a few little parts for her sewing machine. The machine is a Pfaff that was discovered by the elders in one of the apartments. Nobody knows how or why it was there, but it is Liz's now. We found the place, but there was no parking there. We turned onto a side street and were going along slowly, looking for an empty spot, when, WHAM! I knew something had hit the car, but I couldn't see anything behind us. Liz was driving, and she pulled over into a driveway and got out. I fumbled around for a minute, and when I got out a guy was apologizing for hitting us. He said he was delivering hot food to somebody and he was looking at his GPS instead of the road. We looked around, and the mission car has no visible damage, but his car is dented in the front. The mission rule is that we are supposed to call the police, but he was anxious to deliver his hot food, and we were kind of rattled. I did get him to put his registration down so I could photograph it, but then he insisted on leaving. liz's head was hurting and my neck was a little tight, but she decided she still wanted to walk. So, we found a real parking spot and walked to the Centar (Center of town). The place we'd come to see carried only fabric, but we had noticed a SINGER store on another trip into Centar, so we walked 12 minutes to that store. It had been a Singer store four years ago, but now it is a book store. We gave up and went home. Liz was the one who hurt after the accident, but now I am the one who is feeling the effects. My head aches, and my back is stiff. My knee is also hurting quite a bit, but I think that is from going down into the steep orchard, again. I put up some containers with a hole in the side and some apple cider vinegar inside. I hung them in the apple trees to intercept coddling moths and drown them, hopefully before they lay eggs in the apples. But, there is a question. Do they have coddling moths in Europe? ??? ?????
WE came to the Adriatic North Mission with the understanding that we would be living in Osijek, but traveling around the mission for auditing. We did live in Osijek for a month. Then we came to Zagreb on an errand to help the new senior couple transition to their duties in the office. Then we got news that Croatia might close city to city movements, so we made a mad dash to retrieve our stuff, our food, the missionaries, and their food, from Osijek. We got back Saturday night. Sunday morning we had an earthquake. Monday morning Croatia closed city to city traffic and we have been in Zagreb for about six weeks. Lots of excitement. Lots of changes. BIG changes. Many, many, BIG changes.
A few days ago I told President M. that things would probably loosen up some day, and that Osijek might not be the best place to put us when that happens. I wanted him to know that we would go wherever made good sense. It seems that the best place is Maribor, up in the mountains of Slovenia, only 18 kilometers from Austria.
We still have stuff in Osijek, including some furniture, so we'll have to go retrieve that when the inter city borders open up - possibly as soon as May 11. Then we have to get that stuff, as well as the stuff we have here, up to Maribor. We will have a darling, little apartment overlooking the Drava River, right in the heart of beautiful, fought-over, old-town Maribor. Our kitchen window will look down onto a fountain and the Old Vine House, The Old Vine House used to be a winery, but is now more of a museum. One of the things they have is the oldest grape vine in the World. Every year there is a festival where they take cuttings and send them to cities all over the World where they will be propagated. It seems like it is a very good variety of grape, and its leaves have an opening in the center, shaped like a heart, which makes the wine even sweeter (?).
I always said this mission would be a GRAND Adventure. It is more than living up to the hype, and I love it!
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Missionary opportunities are where you find them
One day week before last, a woman came to the door and talked to President M. She lives in the neighborhood, and she has a 14-year old daughter who is a nationally ranked tennis player. With the COVID restrictions, the tennis courts where she practices were shut down. She had noticed the tennis court at the mission home and she wanted to know if her daughter and her professional coach could come do workouts here. Well, President M. is a gracious man and he gave his assent. It has been fun to see her working with her parents and the coach in the afternoons.
A few days later, it happened again, but with a nationally-ranked 15 year old boy. So we've had the boy here early afternoons, and the girl in the evenings.
This is a missionary opportunity, and while we haven't done any lessons or church discussions, we are planting seeds of friendship and cooperation that may (or may not) bear fruit at some future day.
Meanwhile, we have a missionary who is a power tennis player. The missionaries come here for P-Day almost every week to use the court. He is fairly good, and he spends his time on the court smashing balls back at the other missionaries who unintentionally send him lob after lob. Well, today he got a real game. The 14-year old girl agreed to play a practice match with him. She plays in perfect balance at all times, and while she doesn't have his power, she puts the ball where she wants it. He weaves and bobs and makes athletic moves to get in position to power the ball, although it might not be exactly where he intended. He won some of the time, but she absolutely crushed him in the match. It was a fun thing to watch.
A note on the 14-year old: like many of the people here, she is powerfully built. The young women are generally slender and beautiful like most young women, but they are also on the muscular side. At the end the missionary was chatting with the girl's father and Dad asked what he thought. The missionary said the girls he played before don't hit the ball so hard. The Dad laughed and said, "She plays to win!"
It was all very friendly.
A few days later, it happened again, but with a nationally-ranked 15 year old boy. So we've had the boy here early afternoons, and the girl in the evenings.
This is a missionary opportunity, and while we haven't done any lessons or church discussions, we are planting seeds of friendship and cooperation that may (or may not) bear fruit at some future day.
Meanwhile, we have a missionary who is a power tennis player. The missionaries come here for P-Day almost every week to use the court. He is fairly good, and he spends his time on the court smashing balls back at the other missionaries who unintentionally send him lob after lob. Well, today he got a real game. The 14-year old girl agreed to play a practice match with him. She plays in perfect balance at all times, and while she doesn't have his power, she puts the ball where she wants it. He weaves and bobs and makes athletic moves to get in position to power the ball, although it might not be exactly where he intended. He won some of the time, but she absolutely crushed him in the match. It was a fun thing to watch.
A note on the 14-year old: like many of the people here, she is powerfully built. The young women are generally slender and beautiful like most young women, but they are also on the muscular side. At the end the missionary was chatting with the girl's father and Dad asked what he thought. The missionary said the girls he played before don't hit the ball so hard. The Dad laughed and said, "She plays to win!"
It was all very friendly.
Another earthquake
This is getting to be old news, but we had a 3.5 earthquake day before yesterday. I was coming up the stairs from the basement of the house when I heard it rumble. It rumbled for about 3 seconds. Then it rumbled and shook for about 3 seconds. Weird! I think maybe I heard it more than usual because I was underground?
We have had the Croatia Zone conference for three days now. In the olden days (a month ago) we would have all traveled to be together for zone conference. But now the World is an isolated place, and we had the conference by Zoom. What a blessing that video conference App has been for us! We had nine or ten connections to the App, most of them with 2-4 missionaries watching from the location.
Day One, President Melonakos presented encouragement, news, and instructions on how to proceed as missionaries . We are actually in isolation, but we are virtually more involved in our community than ever.
Day Two, Sister Melonakos presented. One thing of interest, is that when they were training to become mission leaders, Elder Dallin H. Oaks told them that missionary work was about to change in dramatic ways. The number of new converts has been level, or even declining slightly, for many years and the senior leadership of the church have been talking about how to make the missionaries more effective. They, as leaders of the church, did not fully understand all the changes that would take place, but the new mission leaders would be the ones who would preside as the many changes took place. What a terrifying thing to say to a bunch of green, new leaders who were already nervous about their new callings! She said that they worried about it for a short time, then forgot it and moved forward. Who could possibly have foreseen the stupendous changes that have come about in missionary work in the last 2 months? It was late in 2018, less than two years ago, when the Adriatic North Mission first got smart phones for every missionary. Now they use them for all their contacting and proselyting. Many of the missionaries are teaching more lessons than they had before isolation began.
Today, Day Three, the sister teachers and zone leaders presented. It was all about motivation and how to be effective in their daily study, and work. Altogether, the conference was very good.
Each day, after the two-hour conference zoom session, we had wonderful meals delivered to the home, and we ate like royalty.
Just to keep things interesting, I approached President and Sister M. this morning. I told them that we have loved being here in the Mission Home with them, and they have been very gracious and kind to share their home with us. However, we do not feel like we should be living here when President and Sister Field come in July (or whenever they get here.) This is not a reflection on them, it just seems inappropriate to us to be living here when they come, especially since they will be bringing at least one of their children.
So, I told them that we would like to be back in Osijek. Or perhaps in a place where they will need us more than Osijek. We have a lot of empty apartments in the mission, and a fraction as many senior missionaries as a month ago, so Osijek might not be the place of greatest need as they ramp up again. I asked them to think about it.
Oh, what have I done? What if they decide they need us in Serbia? Or maybe even in primitive Montenegro? Answer, we will go there and do our best.
Life is still good. We are very well of here. Croatia has announced that they are loosening restrictions over the next three weeks, with each step being evaluated for how it affects new COVID cases. If it spikes again, the restrictions may go back on. But if it doesn't, we might be able to actually go wherever we are needed.
Liz and I took a walk a couple days ago. We walked along a path that goes behind the houses, so I took a panorama shot of the back of the mission home and its tennis court.
The lawn guy has been working hard to mow the hay in the orchard with his weed whacker. He got about half of it that day, and he finished it the next day. You can see the light cans above the tennis court, and the white walls of the home. This is where we live.
We have had the Croatia Zone conference for three days now. In the olden days (a month ago) we would have all traveled to be together for zone conference. But now the World is an isolated place, and we had the conference by Zoom. What a blessing that video conference App has been for us! We had nine or ten connections to the App, most of them with 2-4 missionaries watching from the location.
Day One, President Melonakos presented encouragement, news, and instructions on how to proceed as missionaries . We are actually in isolation, but we are virtually more involved in our community than ever.
Day Two, Sister Melonakos presented. One thing of interest, is that when they were training to become mission leaders, Elder Dallin H. Oaks told them that missionary work was about to change in dramatic ways. The number of new converts has been level, or even declining slightly, for many years and the senior leadership of the church have been talking about how to make the missionaries more effective. They, as leaders of the church, did not fully understand all the changes that would take place, but the new mission leaders would be the ones who would preside as the many changes took place. What a terrifying thing to say to a bunch of green, new leaders who were already nervous about their new callings! She said that they worried about it for a short time, then forgot it and moved forward. Who could possibly have foreseen the stupendous changes that have come about in missionary work in the last 2 months? It was late in 2018, less than two years ago, when the Adriatic North Mission first got smart phones for every missionary. Now they use them for all their contacting and proselyting. Many of the missionaries are teaching more lessons than they had before isolation began.
Today, Day Three, the sister teachers and zone leaders presented. It was all about motivation and how to be effective in their daily study, and work. Altogether, the conference was very good.
Each day, after the two-hour conference zoom session, we had wonderful meals delivered to the home, and we ate like royalty.
Just to keep things interesting, I approached President and Sister M. this morning. I told them that we have loved being here in the Mission Home with them, and they have been very gracious and kind to share their home with us. However, we do not feel like we should be living here when President and Sister Field come in July (or whenever they get here.) This is not a reflection on them, it just seems inappropriate to us to be living here when they come, especially since they will be bringing at least one of their children.
So, I told them that we would like to be back in Osijek. Or perhaps in a place where they will need us more than Osijek. We have a lot of empty apartments in the mission, and a fraction as many senior missionaries as a month ago, so Osijek might not be the place of greatest need as they ramp up again. I asked them to think about it.
Oh, what have I done? What if they decide they need us in Serbia? Or maybe even in primitive Montenegro? Answer, we will go there and do our best.
Life is still good. We are very well of here. Croatia has announced that they are loosening restrictions over the next three weeks, with each step being evaluated for how it affects new COVID cases. If it spikes again, the restrictions may go back on. But if it doesn't, we might be able to actually go wherever we are needed.
Liz and I took a walk a couple days ago. We walked along a path that goes behind the houses, so I took a panorama shot of the back of the mission home and its tennis court.
Monday, April 20, 2020
The orchard
We decided to wean the office missionaries from our help by not going into the office anymore. We are still here if they need us, but they'll have to ask.
So, that brings up the question of what are we going to do with ourselves? We have a certain amount of things to do. Auditing, chores, errands for President and Sister M., but there is more time in the day than that takes. Normally this time would be filled with Branch support: ministering, meetings, teaching English classes with the young elders, etc. Senior missionaries normally get to find something to do that interests them and contributes in some way to missionary work. Some teach language in schools, some work with handicapped people, or at hospitals. Some do genealogy or family histories, or something like that.
I've been thinking about the orchard at the Mission Home. The home is on a ridgetop. There is a small back yard that slopes down into the ravine, then below that is the tennis court, and below that is a fairly large slice of land with fruit trees. They have been there a long time, and the trees have not been pruned and maintained. They are overgrown, too tall in many cases, and the gophers are eating some of them to death. But some of them are still decent trees. In particular, there is a large plum tree just below the tennis court net that is very healthy looking. Most of the trees are still in blossom, but the plum has little plums already set. Lots of them! Too many of them. If they stay on the tree, it will be overburdened and the plums will all be small and hard. So, I've been thinking about thinning them out so they will be better plums when they ripen. It is too late to really prune the tree, though.
The problems with me adopting the orchard are:
So, that brings up the question of what are we going to do with ourselves? We have a certain amount of things to do. Auditing, chores, errands for President and Sister M., but there is more time in the day than that takes. Normally this time would be filled with Branch support: ministering, meetings, teaching English classes with the young elders, etc. Senior missionaries normally get to find something to do that interests them and contributes in some way to missionary work. Some teach language in schools, some work with handicapped people, or at hospitals. Some do genealogy or family histories, or something like that.
I've been thinking about the orchard at the Mission Home. The home is on a ridgetop. There is a small back yard that slopes down into the ravine, then below that is the tennis court, and below that is a fairly large slice of land with fruit trees. They have been there a long time, and the trees have not been pruned and maintained. They are overgrown, too tall in many cases, and the gophers are eating some of them to death. But some of them are still decent trees. In particular, there is a large plum tree just below the tennis court net that is very healthy looking. Most of the trees are still in blossom, but the plum has little plums already set. Lots of them! Too many of them. If they stay on the tree, it will be overburdened and the plums will all be small and hard. So, I've been thinking about thinning them out so they will be better plums when they ripen. It is too late to really prune the tree, though.
The problems with me adopting the orchard are:
- The area with the trees is very steep. I can barely move across it and in many places I can't go up or down. If I worked out there, I'd have to start by digging steps everywhere I'd need to go.
- The orchard hasn't been tended or harvested for a long time, so it isn't really needed, now. If I coaxed some nice fruit out of it, we would take it to the branch meetings (if they get going by harvest time) and give them to the members there.
- Taking old fruit trees and pruning and restoring them to productivity is a minimum three year project, and I will be here for a much shorter time than that. We are here for 23 months in total, and the plan is still to go back to Osijek as soon as the quarantine is lifted.
- Harvesting old, large trees requires using ladders, and that is out of the question on that steep hillside.
OK, so there is no way I can adopt the orchard. I get it. But it still haunts me. I've decided that what I CAN do is thin the plums out on the branches I can reach from the ground, so the tree will be less overburdened. Maybe I'll be able to harvest a few for the missionaries, President and Sister M., and myself. Maybe even enough to dry or can.
OK, so now what do I do? Answer: write volume two of my memoirs.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Missionaries during a Pandemic
I think this BLOG has drifted towards being a travel log. I don't really want it to be that, so I am going to tell you about how the mission works during the Novel COVID-19 pandemic.
When we arrived, we were posted immediately to Osijek, the city where we were going to spend our 23 months of service. We got a three-month tourist Visa from the officials in Osijek (after 3 months we are allowed to apply for a one-year visa,) and settled into our apartment, a nice two-bedroom flat on the top floor of a six-story building near the downtown area. In a previous post, I explained how we went to Zagreb, and ended up moving into the Mission Home just before the city of Zagreb was sealed off.
The same kinds of moves were taking place all over the mission. The senior missionaries had the option to return home honorably, if they desired to. Some were nearly done with their missions anyway, some feared to be away when the pandemic got worse, some received pressure from their families to return. Over a period of less than three weeks, ten senior couples and two senior single sisters returned home. We managed to get one new senior couple and one new senior single sister into Zagreb during this time, so the net loss was nine couples and one sister. We also sent fifteen young missionaries home early, again with honorable releases whether it was for health reasons, family desires, or because they were nearly done with their mission anyway.
President and Sister Melonakos were tremendously busy coping with all the change these early releases put upon them. Living in the same house, in spite of our efforts not to eaves-drop, we heard them up early, working non-stop all day with only a few short breaks for meals or to say hello to us. In the evenings they would say good night, but we could hear them on their phones talking to missionaries, government officials, church headquarters in Salt Lake City, our Area Authorities in Frankfurt, parents of missionaries, and who knows who else.
And, of course, we had a significant earthquake right in the middle of it all. That was fun!
Each time a missionary leaves, though, it forces the Mission President to move other missionaries around. No missionary, except senior single sisters are allowed to be alone in an apartment. So as missionaries leave, their companion has to be reassigned. So, now we have several companionships with three missionaries. As senior missionary couples left, their apartment became vacant. At the same time, we were getting more restricted with how much travel we could do, and even times of the day when we could be outside.
The Mission President made changes that resulted in all the missionaries being near each other in the larger cities. He moved companionships of 3 or 4 missionaries into the larger, vacated senior apartments in the cities so that while they were in quarantine they would have better internet service. We now have 20 vacant apartments in the mission, so he could pick and choose. One of the benefits of moving the missionaries into the larger cities is that they have had better social groups, which is a mental health benefit during confinement.
As the quarantine restrictions became tighter and tighter, the airports started shutting down, countries closed their borders, and it became difficult to get missionaries out of the mission to go home. Finally, the only airport in the five countries of the Adriatic North Mission was the one in Zagreb. We had a car for each senior couple, so cars were assigned to young missionaries, but the cars sometimes can't cross the border.
We had at least one instance where a young sister missionary had to get home and there was no car that could cross the border. It took several hours to work out a solution. President actually enlisted the help of a member of the church who works for the U. S. Embassy. One of the companionships who were staying in the country drove the departing sister to the border of Croatia. She got out of the car there, unloaded her luggage, and tugged it across the border, going through two customs stations along the way, where she met the member in the embassy car to get her ride to the Zagreb airport. This was necessary because the Croatian border is closed to ordinary traffic, and the city of Zagreb is also closed. So, for her to cross she had to have her airline tickets with her as the reason to cross the Croatian border, and she had to have a ride in a car that had permission to enter Zagreb.
We were fortunate that in the country of Montenegro, the U. S. State Department brought in a special plane to evacuate embassy personnel and empty seats were available to US citizens trying to get home. We were able to get three missionaries onto that plane. If they had not been able to get on that flight, they would not have been able to get home. It was the last flight out of Montenegro until the pandemic calms down, and the neighboring countries already had no operating airport.
As for me, I've been the odd man out. Liz has been an essential part of keeping the Mission Office running because so much of it is exactly what she was doing before she retired. So, she has to be there nearly every day. To me, fell the numerous, little errands that needed to be done. I took things to the Posta. I took cars to be serviced. I went to the grocery stores. I fixed the filing cabinets broken by the earthquake, and put the files back in them in some kind of order. I took photos of earthquake damage so the insurance people can assess the damage without being able to actually come see it.
Croatia has a law that requires every car to have winter tires during the winter season. That officially ended April 15. So now I can put highway tires on instead. The complication is that the cars moved around with the missionaries, and the seniors who used to be assigned to them are the only ones who know where the highway tires are located. And we can't move the cars back where they were because intercity travel is shut down within Croatia. For example, our car has highway tires in a storage place at the Hyundai dealership in Osijek. Good, at least I know where they are. But I can't get there. Once the quarantine is lifted, I'll be able to go get them changed. I think I know where the Mission President's car's tires are, but today's task is to make sure the ones I saw in the garage are the correct ones. And then I'll call to get an appointment to get them changed. Many of the other car tires are stored in senior missionary apartments, and nobody knows where the rest of them are located.
We've got two more cars here at the Mission Home, one from Slovenia, and one from Bosnia. They came here with missionaries going home, so we know where they came from, but we don't have a clue where their tires are located. And it's not technically legal for them to have been here as long as they've already been here.
The good news is that the law enforcement people are quarantined like everybody else, so they are not paying attention to minor things like parking tickets, foreign cars parked in out of the way places, and things like that. They are the ones monitoring the city borders, controlling traffic around the huge cranes at work in downtown Zagreb after the earthquake, and major crime. Not that we've seen any of that.
So, it's been an exciting time to be on a mission in Croatia. It's not ANYTHING like we expected, but it has been delightful. We are loving being here and can't imagine going home early. Our loving children are supporting us fully and nobody has even hinted that we should leave. Thank you all for that!
When we arrived, we were posted immediately to Osijek, the city where we were going to spend our 23 months of service. We got a three-month tourist Visa from the officials in Osijek (after 3 months we are allowed to apply for a one-year visa,) and settled into our apartment, a nice two-bedroom flat on the top floor of a six-story building near the downtown area. In a previous post, I explained how we went to Zagreb, and ended up moving into the Mission Home just before the city of Zagreb was sealed off.
The same kinds of moves were taking place all over the mission. The senior missionaries had the option to return home honorably, if they desired to. Some were nearly done with their missions anyway, some feared to be away when the pandemic got worse, some received pressure from their families to return. Over a period of less than three weeks, ten senior couples and two senior single sisters returned home. We managed to get one new senior couple and one new senior single sister into Zagreb during this time, so the net loss was nine couples and one sister. We also sent fifteen young missionaries home early, again with honorable releases whether it was for health reasons, family desires, or because they were nearly done with their mission anyway.
President and Sister Melonakos were tremendously busy coping with all the change these early releases put upon them. Living in the same house, in spite of our efforts not to eaves-drop, we heard them up early, working non-stop all day with only a few short breaks for meals or to say hello to us. In the evenings they would say good night, but we could hear them on their phones talking to missionaries, government officials, church headquarters in Salt Lake City, our Area Authorities in Frankfurt, parents of missionaries, and who knows who else.
And, of course, we had a significant earthquake right in the middle of it all. That was fun!
Each time a missionary leaves, though, it forces the Mission President to move other missionaries around. No missionary, except senior single sisters are allowed to be alone in an apartment. So as missionaries leave, their companion has to be reassigned. So, now we have several companionships with three missionaries. As senior missionary couples left, their apartment became vacant. At the same time, we were getting more restricted with how much travel we could do, and even times of the day when we could be outside.
The Mission President made changes that resulted in all the missionaries being near each other in the larger cities. He moved companionships of 3 or 4 missionaries into the larger, vacated senior apartments in the cities so that while they were in quarantine they would have better internet service. We now have 20 vacant apartments in the mission, so he could pick and choose. One of the benefits of moving the missionaries into the larger cities is that they have had better social groups, which is a mental health benefit during confinement.
As the quarantine restrictions became tighter and tighter, the airports started shutting down, countries closed their borders, and it became difficult to get missionaries out of the mission to go home. Finally, the only airport in the five countries of the Adriatic North Mission was the one in Zagreb. We had a car for each senior couple, so cars were assigned to young missionaries, but the cars sometimes can't cross the border.
We had at least one instance where a young sister missionary had to get home and there was no car that could cross the border. It took several hours to work out a solution. President actually enlisted the help of a member of the church who works for the U. S. Embassy. One of the companionships who were staying in the country drove the departing sister to the border of Croatia. She got out of the car there, unloaded her luggage, and tugged it across the border, going through two customs stations along the way, where she met the member in the embassy car to get her ride to the Zagreb airport. This was necessary because the Croatian border is closed to ordinary traffic, and the city of Zagreb is also closed. So, for her to cross she had to have her airline tickets with her as the reason to cross the Croatian border, and she had to have a ride in a car that had permission to enter Zagreb.
We were fortunate that in the country of Montenegro, the U. S. State Department brought in a special plane to evacuate embassy personnel and empty seats were available to US citizens trying to get home. We were able to get three missionaries onto that plane. If they had not been able to get on that flight, they would not have been able to get home. It was the last flight out of Montenegro until the pandemic calms down, and the neighboring countries already had no operating airport.
As for me, I've been the odd man out. Liz has been an essential part of keeping the Mission Office running because so much of it is exactly what she was doing before she retired. So, she has to be there nearly every day. To me, fell the numerous, little errands that needed to be done. I took things to the Posta. I took cars to be serviced. I went to the grocery stores. I fixed the filing cabinets broken by the earthquake, and put the files back in them in some kind of order. I took photos of earthquake damage so the insurance people can assess the damage without being able to actually come see it.
Croatia has a law that requires every car to have winter tires during the winter season. That officially ended April 15. So now I can put highway tires on instead. The complication is that the cars moved around with the missionaries, and the seniors who used to be assigned to them are the only ones who know where the highway tires are located. And we can't move the cars back where they were because intercity travel is shut down within Croatia. For example, our car has highway tires in a storage place at the Hyundai dealership in Osijek. Good, at least I know where they are. But I can't get there. Once the quarantine is lifted, I'll be able to go get them changed. I think I know where the Mission President's car's tires are, but today's task is to make sure the ones I saw in the garage are the correct ones. And then I'll call to get an appointment to get them changed. Many of the other car tires are stored in senior missionary apartments, and nobody knows where the rest of them are located.
We've got two more cars here at the Mission Home, one from Slovenia, and one from Bosnia. They came here with missionaries going home, so we know where they came from, but we don't have a clue where their tires are located. And it's not technically legal for them to have been here as long as they've already been here.
The good news is that the law enforcement people are quarantined like everybody else, so they are not paying attention to minor things like parking tickets, foreign cars parked in out of the way places, and things like that. They are the ones monitoring the city borders, controlling traffic around the huge cranes at work in downtown Zagreb after the earthquake, and major crime. Not that we've seen any of that.
So, it's been an exciting time to be on a mission in Croatia. It's not ANYTHING like we expected, but it has been delightful. We are loving being here and can't imagine going home early. Our loving children are supporting us fully and nobody has even hinted that we should leave. Thank you all for that!
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Harry Potter on tax day - April 15, 2020
When we came on our mission we were determined to learn the language. It isn't required, and in fact, we get along OK speaking only English. But we want to. Well, we have struggled to make it happen, so I was thinking about how could I get myself motivated to learn new words? Then we were walking in Osijek one day and we noticed a book store and went inside. It was small. The lady asked me what we were looking for, and on a whim, I said Harry Potter. It occurred to me that it would be a fun read, with simple wording. Perfect for learning the language. She went to her shelf and had one copy. A hardcover copy of book 6. So, I bought it.
The sad thing is that even that is too complex for the little I've learned so far. But it got me thinking about Harry Potter and I brought Book 1 up on my Kindle and started reading. It's been nice.
Well, the other day I discovered a genuine Harry Potter house.
Amazing!
Actually, what it is, is a failure of a panoramic shot. Here is what I was trying to capture:
This is an amazing building with some sort of government department in it. It goes the entire length of the block of buildings where the mission office is located. It looks like it is curved, but that's only because I'm not very good at taking panoramic shots.
We took this photo on the way to the Posta (Post Office) on official business. The other side of the street is a nice park full of flowers, trees, and benches. The park is at street level, but it is the roof of a shopping mall. The mall has two floors, plus a parking garage of two floors, all under the park. Very nice.
Over by the Posta I discovered an old train. Back when I was a young lad I'd have gone gaga over a train locomotive like this one. I'd have definitely been in it fiddling with all the levers and doors.
We are trying to maintain our social distancing, but our responsibilities do require us to get out sometimes to do things like going to the Posta. We do enjoy being outside on those occasions, and sometimes we also slip out for a little exercise. People here are pretty good about keeping their distance, even when there isn't a threat of COVID-19, so we feel OK with that. The other day we took a stroll around the block where the mission home is, and we stumbled across a little lilac bush. Liz, of course, loves lilacs, so she had to stop and give it a sniff.
Pretty flowers!
Then, on Easter Sunday we ventured to a big city park. It is an immense park on the scale of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Most of it is heavily wooded, but there are lots of trails, improved and rough, and there are open meadows, statues, and lakes. We walked all around a lake. The is no fishing, no swimming, disturbing the ducks, etc. and people must abide with the rules, because we found the wildlife amazingly tolerant of people. The lake is full of fish and turtles.
The tree branches in the water were covered with turtles. That's Liz's arm taking a photo and she got a better shot than me. There are turtles covering the tree branches in the water, packed tightly against each other. There are a few places where there is a log out in the lake and those spots had the biggest turtles. But along the banks like this, there were places where the turtles were within a foot or two of kids and they just weren't that alarmed. Their heads were up, so they were certainly aware of the people, but we didn't see a single one jump off its log to escape. In Texas, the turtles dive as soon as you get in sight of them, even if it's a long ways off.
It was very pleasant that day, and we thoroughly enjoyed our escape. as we strolled leisurely around the lake. On the far side from the turtle-mania, we got closer to the solitary swan. No wonder people love swans so much!
They are eye-candy if there ever was such a thing. What a beautiful day!
The last stop was a monument erected by the hawking society of Croatia. It is kind of a Rockie staircase going up to a statue of a hawk in flight. Too many steps for an olde man like me.
The sign said the center of the pyramid is filled with dirt from 137 locations, representing all the hawking zones in Croatia. Sounds like a lot of work for a symbolic thing, but I can't judge because I've never been a hawker.
And, finally, I took a photo from the top floor of the mission home, looking across the little valley behind it.
This was Monday morning, just after a snow flurry. Sunday it was nearly 80 degrees F., and Monday morning it snowed. Of course it didn't stick, because the ground was still warm. But it made things smell clean, the birds were singing, and it was just a delightful day.
The sad thing is that even that is too complex for the little I've learned so far. But it got me thinking about Harry Potter and I brought Book 1 up on my Kindle and started reading. It's been nice.
Well, the other day I discovered a genuine Harry Potter house.
Actually, what it is, is a failure of a panoramic shot. Here is what I was trying to capture:
We took this photo on the way to the Posta (Post Office) on official business. The other side of the street is a nice park full of flowers, trees, and benches. The park is at street level, but it is the roof of a shopping mall. The mall has two floors, plus a parking garage of two floors, all under the park. Very nice.
We are trying to maintain our social distancing, but our responsibilities do require us to get out sometimes to do things like going to the Posta. We do enjoy being outside on those occasions, and sometimes we also slip out for a little exercise. People here are pretty good about keeping their distance, even when there isn't a threat of COVID-19, so we feel OK with that. The other day we took a stroll around the block where the mission home is, and we stumbled across a little lilac bush. Liz, of course, loves lilacs, so she had to stop and give it a sniff.
Then, on Easter Sunday we ventured to a big city park. It is an immense park on the scale of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Most of it is heavily wooded, but there are lots of trails, improved and rough, and there are open meadows, statues, and lakes. We walked all around a lake. The is no fishing, no swimming, disturbing the ducks, etc. and people must abide with the rules, because we found the wildlife amazingly tolerant of people. The lake is full of fish and turtles.
It was very pleasant that day, and we thoroughly enjoyed our escape. as we strolled leisurely around the lake. On the far side from the turtle-mania, we got closer to the solitary swan. No wonder people love swans so much!
The last stop was a monument erected by the hawking society of Croatia. It is kind of a Rockie staircase going up to a statue of a hawk in flight. Too many steps for an olde man like me.
And, finally, I took a photo from the top floor of the mission home, looking across the little valley behind it.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Another aftershock
Yesterday as we were getting ready to go to work, we heard and felt another aftershock. I'd say a 2.5. But come to think of it, how long after an earthquake are more earthquakes called aftershocks? When do they become earthquakes in their own right? "Is there a geologist in the house?"
We remain in Zagreb, confined to our quarters, except that we can go to the office to work each day. Not having an officially assigned duty, I do whatever needs to be done, including making runs to the store, oiling stuck/squeeky doors, getting cars serviced, fixing toilets, etc. In other words, I mostly do the things I've always enjoyed doing.
Zagreb is doing a great job of getting things cleaned up after the earthquake. The huge cranes continue to operate throughout the downtown area, getting broken chimneys down and rubble cleaned up so roofing guys can get up there and repair the damage. Our missionaries continue to work in shifts to provide service by helping with the grunt-work of hauling the rubble down to the ground where it can be loaded into trucks.
The parking spots in front of the mission office have been filling up lately. A couple of days ago, the only spot we could find was right next to a big pile of dusty rubble, so we risked it. Just before lunch Liz walked by the window, gasped, and told me I needed to get down there NOW! When I did, I found a dump truck on the street immediately behind our car, another one just farther along, and a front-loader gathering up the rubble and dumping into the trucks amid clouds of dust. They had already pulled the rubble away from the car, and the car was fine, other than having so much dust on the windows that it was running down in little avalanches.
This photo was taken after we'd driven around town, letting the dust blow off, and returned to the mission home.
There are now just the five of us in the office, and we are all new to it. So Liz is helping the new finance guy learn how to pay the bills, and they are figuring it out together. I help the lady in charge of cars and apartments, and she constantly asks me things to which my only answer is, "I've have exactly one more day doing this than you have." But we generally figure it out together, too.
Yesterday we got a delivery. Two boxes labeled 3M on the tops. We opened them up and found 16 boxes of N95 masks, which are the really good ones that actually will help to prevent the spread of virus. However, they are considered a critically short-supply item, reserved for medical personnel. We started to pass them out, but I suddenly realized they were not for us. Where we will need them is when a missionary gets sick with Corona. They will wear them to protect their caregivers. We let Sister M. know they had arrived and at her instruction, sent a box to each of the three remote senior couples who are still in place in towns where there are also young missionaries.
Sadly, by the time I realized they were not for us we'd all tried them on, and it is forbidden to share masks. So, we took a walk in the park at lunch time, wearing our highly effective, very uncomfortable, N95 masks.
We all have cloth face masks. They are held on the face with elastic loops that hook over the ears. I find them horribly uncomfortable, too, and of course a cloth mask is not very effective. However, the government wants everybody wearing a mask when outside, so they are largely for show. We wash them at the end of each day. If we really needed them to be effective, we'd have to find some filter material to put inside the cloth, and I expect we will get there soon enough. I discovered the mission home has a large supply of furnace filters in the basement, and I think that will be our filter material, if we don't find something better before then.
Zagreb international airport is the last regularly operating airport in the mission. They now have flights only to Frankfurt Germany, and you have to check with the airline for the schedule within 48 to 72 hours of your hoped-for flight date. From Frankfurt, you can get a flight to London or a few airports to the east, Turkey, Iran, etc. It seems like this is as minimal as it will be possible to get, unless the whole World shuts down. The good news is that rate of growth of COVID-19 cases has slowed tremendously in the last week.
We remain in Zagreb, confined to our quarters, except that we can go to the office to work each day. Not having an officially assigned duty, I do whatever needs to be done, including making runs to the store, oiling stuck/squeeky doors, getting cars serviced, fixing toilets, etc. In other words, I mostly do the things I've always enjoyed doing.
Zagreb is doing a great job of getting things cleaned up after the earthquake. The huge cranes continue to operate throughout the downtown area, getting broken chimneys down and rubble cleaned up so roofing guys can get up there and repair the damage. Our missionaries continue to work in shifts to provide service by helping with the grunt-work of hauling the rubble down to the ground where it can be loaded into trucks.
The parking spots in front of the mission office have been filling up lately. A couple of days ago, the only spot we could find was right next to a big pile of dusty rubble, so we risked it. Just before lunch Liz walked by the window, gasped, and told me I needed to get down there NOW! When I did, I found a dump truck on the street immediately behind our car, another one just farther along, and a front-loader gathering up the rubble and dumping into the trucks amid clouds of dust. They had already pulled the rubble away from the car, and the car was fine, other than having so much dust on the windows that it was running down in little avalanches.
This photo was taken after we'd driven around town, letting the dust blow off, and returned to the mission home.
There are now just the five of us in the office, and we are all new to it. So Liz is helping the new finance guy learn how to pay the bills, and they are figuring it out together. I help the lady in charge of cars and apartments, and she constantly asks me things to which my only answer is, "I've have exactly one more day doing this than you have." But we generally figure it out together, too.
Yesterday we got a delivery. Two boxes labeled 3M on the tops. We opened them up and found 16 boxes of N95 masks, which are the really good ones that actually will help to prevent the spread of virus. However, they are considered a critically short-supply item, reserved for medical personnel. We started to pass them out, but I suddenly realized they were not for us. Where we will need them is when a missionary gets sick with Corona. They will wear them to protect their caregivers. We let Sister M. know they had arrived and at her instruction, sent a box to each of the three remote senior couples who are still in place in towns where there are also young missionaries.
Sadly, by the time I realized they were not for us we'd all tried them on, and it is forbidden to share masks. So, we took a walk in the park at lunch time, wearing our highly effective, very uncomfortable, N95 masks.
We all have cloth face masks. They are held on the face with elastic loops that hook over the ears. I find them horribly uncomfortable, too, and of course a cloth mask is not very effective. However, the government wants everybody wearing a mask when outside, so they are largely for show. We wash them at the end of each day. If we really needed them to be effective, we'd have to find some filter material to put inside the cloth, and I expect we will get there soon enough. I discovered the mission home has a large supply of furnace filters in the basement, and I think that will be our filter material, if we don't find something better before then.
Zagreb international airport is the last regularly operating airport in the mission. They now have flights only to Frankfurt Germany, and you have to check with the airline for the schedule within 48 to 72 hours of your hoped-for flight date. From Frankfurt, you can get a flight to London or a few airports to the east, Turkey, Iran, etc. It seems like this is as minimal as it will be possible to get, unless the whole World shuts down. The good news is that rate of growth of COVID-19 cases has slowed tremendously in the last week.
Monday, April 6, 2020
Conference weekend April 2020
This has been a fairly normal week, and when things are normal, it's harder to find things to post about. But a few things have happened.
We were at the Mission Home with President and Sister M. when they got a phone call from a local member, asking if the young elders could contribute time in service, working with the cleanup people to clear bricks and rubble from the earthquake. Yes, we normally do that kind of thing, so President gave them the go-ahead. We discussed whether they'd be working with the crane the church is paying for, but the two things are not related. So Monday morning, most of the elders started working on it. They worked with a crew of chimney repair guys who, instead of tossing broken bricks into the streets, tossed them through holes in the roof into the attics. The elders then gathered them into sacks and carried them down to the trucks to be hauled away or salvaged.
The sister missionaries asked, begged, and pleaded for permission to help, but the mission rules prohibit using sisters from doing that kind of thing.
Normally, when members of the church give aid, we wear yellow T-shirts or yellow vests with the church's "Helping Hands" logo on them. After a couple of days, I was cleaning out some of the cabinets in the mission office and found two sacks of yellow Helping Hands vests. Yeah! They have been distributed, and the elders will wear them when they return to work on Monday.
The old victorian buildings of downtown Zagreb were heavily damaged by the earthquake, and the work of restoring damaged roofs, chimneys, and collapsed walls will be continuing for a very long time.
The Mission Home has a nice kitchen, not quite industrial, but with a capacity for feeding large groups of people. In today's World, a microwave oven is essential in any kitchen larger than a log cabin. Friday evening we put something in the microwave but when we pressed the GO button, nothing happened. We tried different settings. We tried unplugging it and plugging it back in. The control panel lights up, but it won't GO.
The problem with this is that by government order, all non-essential businesses are closed until COVID-19 goes away. Saturday morning President M. greeted me when I came downstairs by saying, "Well, we know what you are going to be doing today." I said, "What." He said, "Get us a microwave. Do whatever you can, but get us one."
Businesses that sell consumer products like microwaves are closed by government order. So, my first thought is the Metro store. Metro is a restaurant supply store in Europe, and while they mainly sell food, they also sell all the chef equipment. When I mentioned that, Sister M. said to get enough mission food that if the stores close, we'd have enough when all the missionaries end up at the Mission Home.
So, Liz and I emptied out our car and put the seats down, and headed to the Metro store. When we got there a line had formed across the parking lot, but it wasn't really all that long because everybody was standing six feet or more from the next person. We had a shopping list, but number 1 was the microwave. We found them inside. Most things are smaller in Europe than in the US, but we really, truly wanted a big one. They had tons of small ones, and they had one big one on display, but none in a box, and they wouldn't sell us the display. Drat it!
We pushed a huge flat cart around the store and got ten cases of sealed milk (no refrigeration required), three cases of OJ, a case of beans, six boxes of spaghetti, a case of tomato sauce, a bunch of tuna, etc. The cart was so heavy I could barely move it and I was starting to get dirty looks from the other people there. I also scored three boxes of plastic glove in S, M and L. And biggest find of all - for the first time since I've been in Croatia I found alcohol-based hand cleaner in a store. I put two bottles in our cart, but when I checked out the lady took one of them out and said we can only get one. Then she put the M gloves out and said we could only get two boxes of gloves. So some things are still in short supply.
The whole process was exhausting, especially pushing that heavy cart up and down isles. Fortunately, when we got back, some of the young elders were there, so we had them haul the stuff inside and stack it near the unused indoor swimming pool.
Conference was great this time! We watched the Saturday morning session live at 6:00 pm. Sunday, Liz prepared a beef roast with onions, and mashed tators and gravy. Then, we watched the other two Saturday sessions and the Sunday morning session at 6:00 pm.
We watched the Sunday afternoon session this morning before heading in to the office. BTW, while at Metro, we bought several big bags of candy to resupply a bowl on the desk in the office. It is there for the young missionaries, but we all dip into it.
We are still here in Croatia, which makes us happy. Over the weekend, we heard of several people our people in the US know who have died from COVID-19. We don't know anybody who has it here, so we are still feeling really good about staying put when we had the option to go home. On the other hand, it seems clear that unless they invent a vaccine pretty soon, everybody will eventually get exposed to it. I am OK with whatever happens, because I feel good about my role in life, including passing on when it comes to that.
We were at the Mission Home with President and Sister M. when they got a phone call from a local member, asking if the young elders could contribute time in service, working with the cleanup people to clear bricks and rubble from the earthquake. Yes, we normally do that kind of thing, so President gave them the go-ahead. We discussed whether they'd be working with the crane the church is paying for, but the two things are not related. So Monday morning, most of the elders started working on it. They worked with a crew of chimney repair guys who, instead of tossing broken bricks into the streets, tossed them through holes in the roof into the attics. The elders then gathered them into sacks and carried them down to the trucks to be hauled away or salvaged.
The sister missionaries asked, begged, and pleaded for permission to help, but the mission rules prohibit using sisters from doing that kind of thing.
Normally, when members of the church give aid, we wear yellow T-shirts or yellow vests with the church's "Helping Hands" logo on them. After a couple of days, I was cleaning out some of the cabinets in the mission office and found two sacks of yellow Helping Hands vests. Yeah! They have been distributed, and the elders will wear them when they return to work on Monday.
The old victorian buildings of downtown Zagreb were heavily damaged by the earthquake, and the work of restoring damaged roofs, chimneys, and collapsed walls will be continuing for a very long time.
The Mission Home has a nice kitchen, not quite industrial, but with a capacity for feeding large groups of people. In today's World, a microwave oven is essential in any kitchen larger than a log cabin. Friday evening we put something in the microwave but when we pressed the GO button, nothing happened. We tried different settings. We tried unplugging it and plugging it back in. The control panel lights up, but it won't GO.
The problem with this is that by government order, all non-essential businesses are closed until COVID-19 goes away. Saturday morning President M. greeted me when I came downstairs by saying, "Well, we know what you are going to be doing today." I said, "What." He said, "Get us a microwave. Do whatever you can, but get us one."
Businesses that sell consumer products like microwaves are closed by government order. So, my first thought is the Metro store. Metro is a restaurant supply store in Europe, and while they mainly sell food, they also sell all the chef equipment. When I mentioned that, Sister M. said to get enough mission food that if the stores close, we'd have enough when all the missionaries end up at the Mission Home.
So, Liz and I emptied out our car and put the seats down, and headed to the Metro store. When we got there a line had formed across the parking lot, but it wasn't really all that long because everybody was standing six feet or more from the next person. We had a shopping list, but number 1 was the microwave. We found them inside. Most things are smaller in Europe than in the US, but we really, truly wanted a big one. They had tons of small ones, and they had one big one on display, but none in a box, and they wouldn't sell us the display. Drat it!
We pushed a huge flat cart around the store and got ten cases of sealed milk (no refrigeration required), three cases of OJ, a case of beans, six boxes of spaghetti, a case of tomato sauce, a bunch of tuna, etc. The cart was so heavy I could barely move it and I was starting to get dirty looks from the other people there. I also scored three boxes of plastic glove in S, M and L. And biggest find of all - for the first time since I've been in Croatia I found alcohol-based hand cleaner in a store. I put two bottles in our cart, but when I checked out the lady took one of them out and said we can only get one. Then she put the M gloves out and said we could only get two boxes of gloves. So some things are still in short supply.
The whole process was exhausting, especially pushing that heavy cart up and down isles. Fortunately, when we got back, some of the young elders were there, so we had them haul the stuff inside and stack it near the unused indoor swimming pool.
Conference was great this time! We watched the Saturday morning session live at 6:00 pm. Sunday, Liz prepared a beef roast with onions, and mashed tators and gravy. Then, we watched the other two Saturday sessions and the Sunday morning session at 6:00 pm.
We watched the Sunday afternoon session this morning before heading in to the office. BTW, while at Metro, we bought several big bags of candy to resupply a bowl on the desk in the office. It is there for the young missionaries, but we all dip into it.
We are still here in Croatia, which makes us happy. Over the weekend, we heard of several people our people in the US know who have died from COVID-19. We don't know anybody who has it here, so we are still feeling really good about staying put when we had the option to go home. On the other hand, it seems clear that unless they invent a vaccine pretty soon, everybody will eventually get exposed to it. I am OK with whatever happens, because I feel good about my role in life, including passing on when it comes to that.
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