Apartment Inspections + Zone Conference

What a busy few days!
We had Zone Conference on Thursday, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Since we are the only senior couple in Slovenia, now, we decided this was a great time to:  1. Meet all the missionaries in Celje and Ljubljana,  and,  2. Do apartment inspections, which are supposed to happen twice per year.  In addition, I've had trouble getting an international shipper to come pick up our fingerprint cards, which have to get to the FBI, then to the State Dept., and then back to the mission lawyer in Ljubljana so we can get a visa to stay here.  So I prepared everything and scheduled to drop it off at the Ljubljana airport (aerodrome according to the signs) UPS terminal.
    We started scheduling.  Zone Conference is almost all day on Thursday, so we scheduled apartment inspections and meet-n-greets with each companionship in Ljubjana for Friday, and the same for the companionship in Celje on Saturday.  We planned to go to the UPS center on Thursday afternoon (didn't work out) or Friday when we had a chance.  And then we decided to go ahead and stay long enough to go to church in Ljubljana on Sunday.
  That put a lot of stops on our trip.  The Zone Conference was Thursday, so we scheduled an inspection of the empty apartment in Maribor on Wednesday as a practice run.  Sisters have been staying there when they visited Maribor - appx. weekly.  We found that a busy schedule meant that the apartment was dusty, and unkempt.  The cupboards are full of crumbs, and nothing had been CLEANED.  But at least it is well-stocked, so if we get another companionship it will be ready for them.  We will have the junior missionaries in Maribor help with the cleaning, because the sisters have handed over all their Maribor contacts to the Elders and will no longer be coming.
    The vacant apartment in Maribor is right next to the police building where we got our fingerprints taken.  That is a good, long walk for two old codgers, but there were some absolutely stunning flowers along the way.

These hydrangeas are growing along the entire block.  Across the street is a large park that goes to the edge of town.  Very, very nice.
    The next question was where to stay.  When most of the senior missionaries went home to meet COVID-19 on their home turf, President M. had young missionaries move into the senior apartments because those apartments all have WIFI.  WIFI has enabled our missionaries to remain productive and do missionary work while confined in isolation.  All across the World, restrictions have been lifted because COVID appeared to be under control, and now new cases are spiking again.  Restrictions are coming back and we may very well end up in isolation once more.
  So, while a senior apartment would be our first choice, they are all occupied.  One of our tasks while in Ljubljana is to close down an apartment fondly referred to as "the dungeon."  So we thought of staying there during our stay, but then we learned that there are no mattresses left in that apartment.  They've been raided and carted away.  We've arranged to have the two oldest, rat-iest mattresses go back there.  So, the only vacant apartment left was in Celje, 45 minutes north of Ljubljana.
    Thursday, Zone Conference went long because it was the LAST zone conference for President and Sister Melonakos, who will go home next Monday (if travel-restrictions allow President and Sister Field to get here.)  Everyone was emotional, and lingered.
     We finally got ready to leave.  We took the Celje missionaries back with us so they could get the keys and show us how to get into the apartment.  The Assistants to the President were staying with them in Celje, so they drove the Celje car back to Celje.  It was nearly dark when we left.  A light rain was falling, but as we got on the freeway, it turned into heavy rain, and the drive was challenging.  We got to the apartment at about 8:30.  Every apartment is known for something, which might be good or bad.  Our Maribor apartment is known for being small, but having an outstanding location.  The Celje apartment is known for having a bad shower-head.  When I turned on the water, it came out in all the wrong places and went everywhere.  What a mess!  But, being the constant handy-man, I unscrewed the shower head and soaked it in vinegar for a couple of hours.  At the end of the soaking, all the hard-water deposits were gone and the shower head is nearly normal.  Now it only squirts water out the sides when it first gets turned on, then it settles down and is completely normal.
    Missionary apartments tend to accumulate junk.  Missionaries leave un-needed things behind when packing to move and the next missionaries don't throw anything away, because it didn't belong to them.  So, clothes, old books, grooming items, gadgets, knick-knacks, shopping bags, ancient feather pillows, and other things get tucked away to stay.  The Celje apartment was extra full of that kind of junk.  We are going to do some purging.
    Friday morning, we left the apartment and headed back to Ljubljana.  There was a little lingering rain, but it was lifting.  As we drove, we drove in and out of fog, and then had fog above us.  It made for some stunningly beautiful views, which the photo doesn't do justice.

Everything was clean and bright, and the mountains were beautiful, and the trees reminded us of Washington State.
    We did 4 apartment inspections, followed by buying a meal for the missionaries in 2 of them.  We had already bought a meal for the sisters who had been in Maribor, and one apartment (the dungeon) was vacant.  For the most part, the apartments were clean and neat, and for things we found wrong with the apartment, we encouraged the missionaries to notify their landlords.  It was a busy, and long day.  The dungeon was everything we had heard.  It is surprising only in that somebody actually approved it and signed a lease for it.  It is a horrible location in the basement of an old building.  We were surprised that the missionaries had organized and cleaned it.  They'd also hauled a lot of the extra stuff back to their apartments.  So we claimed a few little items, put the garbage into bags to be hauled off, and left the rest to go back to the landlord.
  Once again, it was getting late when we dropped off the final companionship at their apartment and headed home.  On the way back to the freeway we stopped at a stop sign across the street from this church.

What caught our eye was the bare stone on the square clock-tower.  It also has unusual clock hands.  The time was 7:12, as shown by two large, round pointers.
  Back at Celje, we dropped into bed, exhausted.