To Slovenia

We have a member of the church in Slovenia who guides all the missionaries through the process of getting visas and resident status.  He said we have to have a letter from our landlord saying that we can stay in the apartment if we are quarantined, and that there are people who can bring us food and supplies if needed while there.  He was working on getting the letter and it would be ready in the morning.  As a result, we spent one last night in the condemned mission home.
    On Wednesday, the young missionaries were quite excited to help us load up our car for the trip to Maribor.  One of them, Elder Chistiansen was also going to Maribor.  He was going to go with the Assistants to the President in their largeer-than-usual car, so we could meet the Brother and Sister Melonakos in Ljubljiana for a conference.  They also took some of our junk with them.
  Thursday, as we made one last stop at the mission office to pick up mail and miscellaneous to take with us, including new mission phones for Liz and I.  She got the "1 Maribor Seniors" phone, while I got a SIM card that used to be in the "1 Celje Seniors" phone, but is now in my personal phone.
    As we were about to leave, we got a message from Sister Melonakos.  It said, "The eagle has landed!  Elder Christiansen is in Slovenia."  This was very good news, because it meant that Slovenia had, indeed, loosened their travel restrictions on non-citizens.  We had high hopes as we drove towards Slovenia.  We came to the border check-point and the inspector scanned our passport and stamped it.  Yeah!
    But, wait.  We are so illiterate and out of place, it took us a couple of moments before we remembered that was the Croatia exit border check.  We still had to pass the Slovenia entry point.  So with our hearts in our throats we waited in the short line to get to the Slovenian border check.  When we got there, the officer was a very grim-looking man with a scowl on his face.  Liz handed over our passports.  He looked at each of us, then scanned the passports, then stamped them and handed them back.  He didn't say a single word.  We held back our shouts of triumph until we were out of his sight.  Elation!  We are in Slovenia!
    The  border between Croatia and Slovenia is not far outside Zagreb, but it was rather amazing that once across everything looked different.  We entered a woods area, with little towns scattered here and there, and fields on steep slopes.

The rain came in little patches, and most of the way it was good driving.

The other distinctive thing is the church steeples.  The Croatian churches had fancy steeples, too, but in Slovenia they are all on top of tall, square towers.

We saw lots of similar steeples, but off in the distance.  This one is behind the hill a bit, but at least it was close to the road.
  We drove to Ljubljiana where we were scheduled to meet President and Sister Melonakos, and all the young missionaries in Slovenia.  As we drove past the church to turn into the parking lot, they all came streaming out of the church building into the light rain.  Our first thought was that we had missed the meeting, but actually they had been watching for the famous blue car and had come running to greet us.  It was difficult to not shake hands and hug them.  Instead we waved at each other while packed close together on the sidewalk.  There were 5 sisters and 6 brothers, including Elders Christiansen and Elder Kunzler, who will be serving with us in Maribor, as well as President and Sister Melonakos.  What a nice thing for them to come out to greet us!
    We went inside the church building (one of two church-owned churches in the entire mission) where President Melonakos was interviewing the missionaries one-by-one.  Meanwhile the rest of us played games - foosball, table tennis, and round-robin table tennis where everybody lines up around the table and each player hits the ball and immediately drops the paddle so the next person in line can pick it up in time to return the ball.
   Pretty soon food was ready and we all sat down to eat hamburgers.  After we were all fed, we cleared the table and Brother and Sister Melonakos shared photos of a hike they took with some members to the highest mountain in the ANM.  They made it to the top of the mountain, but were caught in fog and rain and very nearly didn't make it back.  They used the adventure to give some advice on how to approach life.
   Then, finally, we drove on to Maribor.  I've been Google Earth lurking Maribor for a while and the actual street and our building looked familiar when we got there.  However, I had no idea where the front door could be found.  Turns out, it is around the corner on the side of the building in the alley.

This is the front of our apartment building.  There are six apartments in it.  Our kitchen window is the one just to the left of the vertical sun dial.  You can't tell what time it is in this photo because it is a cloudy day.  To the left of the kitchen window are two more windows to our living room, and our bedroom is around the back of the building.  Today, a class of school kids came walking in the rain.  They stopped briefly at the fountain and then stood gazing in amazement at the sun dial.  I was looking out the window eating my lunch.  It can be a bit disconcerting to look out the window and see herds of people watching.  OTOH, we have the lovliest view of the square and the river.
    And here is another church steeple, this one with a clock.

We are so happy to be here.