A beautiful day

Yesterday was Fast Sunday.  From the start of social isolation, the District President in Croatia has held a Sunday service - like a Sacrament meeting, but not including the sacrament service, of course.  The first week, there was lots of confusion among the populace on how to connect to a Zoom meeting, but we had almost twenty connections, most of which had more than one person watching. 
We have announcements, a prayer, a hymn, two talks, another hymn, and closing prayer.  The president always ends by encouraged authorized priesthood holders to have the sacrament service at their home.
Each week, more people connect to the Sunday service.  Yesterday we had 63 connections, plus the missionaries have begun a campaign to call people without the technology in their home to connect to Zoom.  They can call up to five people on their smart phones, and set it so the people can listen in on the Zoom service as well.  People have been very, very positive about being able to join the service.
Yesterday's service was a Testimony meeting and many members gave short testimonies over the Zoom call.  It was fantastic.  I don't know about other areas, but it certainly appears here that the members have come together more than ever with this crisis.  Our missionaries are busier than ever with their teaching via social media such as Facebook, and they have baptism dates stacked up so that when we can get together again, they will have a list of people ready to go.

After the meetings, Liz whipped up another impressive meal of roast pork shoulder, mashed potatoes and gravy, and biscuits, which we shared with the Johansens, the senior office couple, who originally thought they were going to go to Maribor.  Then we had our Sunday evening Zoom meeting with our family.  It is so very precious for us to see our children each week with their families.  They have such a good time connecting and interacting.  We have a sacrament meeting sans sacrament, and when it ends, everybody hangs on and we just talk to each other and catch up on another week.

Today was P-day for most of the missionaries, and we had all the missionaries currently in Zagreb here at the mission home at one time or another today.  They come here to play tennis on the clay court out back.  They meet together and coordinate their activities, and they cook.  We have an impressive cook from Germany, and we have a hobbyist ice cream maker from Montana.
Today, we had a treat for them.  We are preparing to have a construction crew come tear down the most damaged wall's veneer so they can assess how much brick work they'll need to do.  I got to organize them to move furniture back and cover it with sheets.  Then each elder got to tear off a piece or two of plaster and drop it on the floor.  Sister M. took a movie of each removal, and a photo of them posing with their foot on the piece they'd removed.  Very symbolic.
We love these young elders and sisters!  They are truly, awesome young people.