Snow!?!

 Last week I posted about spring.  It is true that trees are starting to bloom and the little daisies are out in full, but yesterday we saw snow.  We had been in Celje to meet with the young missionaries and do another apartment inspection, and we drove home as the sun was setting.  As we crossed the little mountain range between Celje and here it was raining, but the rain was hitting the windshield and not flattening out.  It was on the verge of being frozen.  And then we drove through a little snow flurry as we approached one of the tunnels through the mountains.  It was a short tunnel - about 200 meters - and on the other end there was no more snow.  We mentioned it and didn't think anything more about it.

This morning, it was sunny, although cold.  And this afternoon it has been snowing on and off, between periods of rain.

The grey crows stay here all year, but they don't come into town during the winter.  The pickings are better out in the farmland, I think.  In summer, it's better pickings in town.  They were in town yesterday, though.

Recently, we've started hearing rumbles that some of the members in Celje are angry at others in the branch.  I think we are finally hearing things because the members are comfortable with us.  Apparently, there was a trip to the temple 2 or 3 years ago and somebody said or did something that made some other people angry.  Yesterday we met with a member family who haven't been coming to church (not even via Zoom) for a while.  They were quite friendly and welcomed us in.  But something came up in our conversation that set them off on the big split.  It turns out the split is not against somebody in their branch, but against someone in another branch, and they, and others in their clique, won't even join a Zoom meeting because they don't want to see the people they are angry with, and they don't want to be seen.  We were undoubtedly squirming a bit, and we definitely were trying our best to avoid being on one side or the other, but we couldn't get them off it.  Whew!  It got hot in there!

Fortunately, Maribor and Celje are joining together and we expect to have Zoom only with our two branches soon, which should solve the "I don't want them to even see me" part of the trouble.  This could be part of being in a small branch where people can't hide in the crowd, or it could be the hot Balkan blood showing through, or maybe we just found the worst argument in the history of the mission.  Whatever, we are going to be focusing on "Love One Another", and Forgiveness, and Repentence, and such things for the foreseeable future.

We continue to be so very impressed by the love, and diligence, and hard work of the young missionaries.  They are wonderful!  It has been a real blessing to us to be working with them.  Of course, we feed them and encourage them, and basically treat them like our own grandchildren, and they seem to think we are grandparents, too.