Transfers

We were fortunate to be able to get 8 new young missionaries into the Adriatic North Mission.   Three of them are now assigned to Slovenia.  Meanwhile four of our missionaries were going home.  We hated to see them go!  Of course, it is a good thing for them to return home, where they will become the leaders in their wards, and inspire another generation.  

    Sister Ashurst was especially certain that we should give them a send-off, and a welcome.  So, instead of letting the elders take our car down to Ljubljana for the transfers, we tagged along.  That caused some problem with luggage, but it let us host a policinka party at the Ljubljana church building.  Elder Miller is a good cook, and he actually cooked all the policinkas.  Everybody brought their favorite toppings, and we all ate more than we needed.  We gave M&Ms to the departing elders and sisters for airport snacks, and we got to know the new ones.

   Our plan had been to go down to Ljubljana for the party, then return to Maribor that night, but President Field thought that if we were going to go we should stay the night to ensure the car would be available when it was needed.  I found a  highly rated small guest house near the church, and we had the departing elders drop us off there.  Sister Perry loaned us her bus card so we could get to the meeting place on the morrow.

    The guest house was very unusual, but quite comfortable.

The sketch above the bed is of a Catholic priest who was born on this property.  The guest house is in what was the servants quarters and kitchens for the estate, while his birthplace is the large house next to it.  It is known as "VODNIK'S HOME"  We are not sure we got it quite right, because our hostess did not have great English.  But, apparently he a. wrote the first cookbook, or b. invented liver pate.    He is well known in the country, and he defined Slovenian cuisine.

In the morning we went down for breakfast, and there he was again.  The hostess said this woodwork is over 200 years old, but it has been wonderfully restored and polished.  The stones between the beams appear to be pumice, and she said they are from the river.  The reddish tiles are clearly custom-made.

   BTW, the food was amazing!  We have been eating the local cuisine since we arrived in the ANM, and have only one time been disappointed.  Forget France.  This is the place for fantastic food.

The pink wall behind Liz is done in colored stucco, including the white stucco that makes it look like a beams or trees.  The yellow wall that looks like stonework is also done only in stucco.  It is all wonderful workmanship.

This fireplace is next to the bar.  The upper entrance is a window into the kitchen, so the lower one must also be a construct.

The ceiling is inlaid with stones like cobblestone streets, but I am sure they are thin slabs glued in place.  But it is a wonderful effect.

I have been a little disappointed in the quality of the photos from my iphone, so I decided to get a good camera.  My good brother-in-law-in-law suggested that I get a Nikon D3500 like he has and I had been looking at sources and comparing prices for two weeks.   The best local price I could find was a store called Besenicar in Ljubljana, and they had some.  So, after breakfast we rode the bus downtown and found the store.  Sadly, they had just sold their last one.  Riding the bus was a little complicated because there was a basketball tournament going on in all the cities in the country (including Maribor) and they had closed a number of streets and set up temporary courts.  We were able to deal with it on the way to the store, but afterwards, we couldn't figure out where to catch our bus, because it had been diverted to an unspecified alternate route.  Finally, a friendly driver suggested we get on his bus and he'd drop us off at the right place.   That got us on track and we arrived safe and sound.

     BTW, we also talked to a police woman (quite handsome and very athletic-looking with broad shoulders) who was friendly and helpful, but didn't know even that the streets beyond us were closed.  Liz was quite taken with her, but I looked at the heavy pistol on her hip and thought, "That is not what anybody would call a girl gun!"   If I were a criminal, I think I'd go to somebody else's beat.  She exuded an air of competence.

   Through a strange combination of government agency confluence, the young Slovenian newbie missionaries were required to self-quarantine for two weeks by Slovenia, even though they had just completed two weeks of self-quarantine in Croatia.  All the companionships in Slovenia except in Celje have one newbie, which means that all their companions also have to self-quarantine because they have to remain within sight of each other.  And that means that Sister Ashurst and I have to support them by buying food for them.  They were able to visit a grocery store on their way to their apartments, and we plan to make a trip back to Ljubljana next weekend to buy whatever else they need and to give them some encouragement.  Meanwhile, they are working principally with Facebook to find people to teach, so they can be completely productive while isolated.

    Today, I located a Nikon camera like I want, in a store in the mall across the river and down-stream a ways from our apartment.  I am tired of waiting, so I decided to walk over there.  I got the last one at a store called Big Bang.  I paid 20 Euros more than I would have at Besenicar, but I have it in my hot little hands!  I took my backpack with me so I wouldn't have to carry a big box with bright advertisements all over that say, "I am a valuable camera and this old codger can barely hold me while hobbling along with his cane."  After I paid for it, while still in the store, I unboxed it and loaded all the pieces into my backpack.  

    I had walked over there on a pleasant, partly-cloudy day, but when I got to the exit door of the mall, it was pouring rain so hard I couldn't even see the river.  Fortunately, a mall is a nice place to wait out a storm, and I found a comfortable chair to sip a cold beverage and read emails.  After a while, the rain slacked off and I walked home on a pleasant, partly-cloudy day.  The hills surrounding Maribor conceal thunderstorms like that.  We just don't see them coming.

    The Nikon camera is a LOT more complicated than my iphone, but I am chipping away at it, with the help of a book I downloaded into my Kindle.  Here is a sample photo taken at extreme magnification through the bigger lense:

Taken at max magnification through my 300 mm lense from our apartment window.  I'm blaming the rainy window for any blurriness.  These swans were mid-river.