DK hits a home run!

 You would think the end of a mission would be a time when you could back off and slow down a tiny bit.  I think most missionaries don't actually do that, but for us, it has been a tremendously busy time.  We are closing down the apartment where we have been for the last year and more.  The church won't need it, because they are putting our replacement couple in Celje.  Closing it down included showing it to new prospective renters.  We also had quite a few things that were passed to us from prior senior missionaries.  We try not to accumulate things we don't need, but it is overwhelming how much stuff we are moving to Celje and how much more is going into our suitcases, of which there are more than we brought with.

We also were busy arranging for the new apartment in Celje.  It was used by the last mission doctor we had, about 2 years ago, and has been vacant since then.  The family who own it, have had it going back into the late 1800s.  They love renting it to the church, because we pay on time, and take care of everything.

This is a corner of one of the two living rooms in the new apartment.  That is amazing woodwork on the coffee table, with rare and expensive woods.  The lamp is about 100 years old and is ready to crumble at the slightest touch.  But behind it is one of the amazing, old tile fireplaces they have here.  There are three in the apartment.  This one is about 7 feet tall.  You can see the grate at the bottom.  They are designed so you only put a few small pieces of wood into them and when they get hot the tiles radiate heat.  And they are gorgeous.

All the furniture is old, but it was hand made to order by the family.  It is far larger than any other senior missionary apartment in the mission, but the price must be good, because once we pointed it out to the office, they jumped all over it, and got a contract right over to the owners.

The elders were talking about what to call this apartment.  They kind of settled on "The Celje Mansion", but Sister Ashurst is campaigning for "The Villa".

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We have been saying goodbye to the young missionaries as we see them for the past week.  But today we said goodbye to the members of the Maribor Branch.  Some of them drove for more than an hour to be there and hear what we had to say.  I spoke about 1st Corinthians 13, and how much I love all of them.  Sister Ashurst told them of a dream she had about thousands of Slovenes joining the church.

The best part of it all was that DK will be called as a counselor in the Branch Presidency.  He has wanted more responsibility from the beginning and finally it is coming to him.  He is ecstatic about it.  The current branch president is also very excited, because he is hoping to train up someone who can take over for him.  He has been branch president of a bout 15 years, needs a break.

We have a special relationship with DK.  We were there for his very first lesson by the missionaries.  I was privileged to be able to baptise him.  And we have had him in our home almost every week since we first met him.  Sometimes we just visit, but he usually has a question or two that lead to discussions about how the church works.  He is still eager to learn more.  I am sure we will have an ongoing friendship with home:  HERE WE COME!!

White Christmas

 Thursday, Liz had an appointment to see the orthopedic surgeon in Zagreb to get her stitches removed, etc.  Fortunately, it was for 4:00 pm, because we woke up to about 4" of snow on the ground and more falling.  At about 10:30, the sisters called to ask me if I could help them get to the train station with their luggage - one is going to Zagreb in preparation for her return home, and the other is going to Ljubljana to form a trio with a companionship of sisters there.  When I got back, I noticed that a significant part of the snow had already melted on the roads, while at the same time the snow level had increased to more like 6".  Not true on the sidewalks - they are a mass of slush and ice.  However, we decided to make the trip to Zagreb.  I was nervous about it, especially when it started to snow again.

The snow on the trees is very heavy.

As we climbed onto the small range of mountains betwwen Slovenia and Croatia, the snow increased, but the roads were little more than wet.  At the very peak, there was a short stretch where I felt the tires slip a couple of times, but we had no trouble with it, to speak of.  After clearing customs and heading back downhill, the roads got better and there was a lot less snow.  By the time we got to Zagreb, it was just a powdering.

  We stopped at the church and dropped off some Christmas things for various missionaries and to watch some of the lip synching performances - we had missed it during our conference the week before.

The surgeon took out the stitches and told us everything was fine, except that he wanted Liz to keep the brace on for 6 weeks, but after 3 we could increase the range of motion to 60 degrees, instead of the current 30 degrees of motion.

We went prepared to stay the night in Zagreb, if we needed to.  But everything looked OK outside, so we took off for home.  I have admit that I was very stressed about the slush on the roads, and the worry about the temperature dropping below freezing  - but it never did.  We drove home without incident.

Friday, I had to run some errands, and we had to get serious about packing up all our junk.

This is the bridge next to our apartment.  I was trying to get a photo through the windshield to show the snow after 24 hours.  This one also shows how much Slovenes love to walk.  The packed snow was slippery and the air was frigid - near zero, but look how many people are out there.  The bridge leaves one exposed to the full force of any winds and the chill factor is large.

I went into Center to pick up a special bakery order Liz made.  It wasn't ready, but I did take some shots of Center.

Looking East at the little shelters in the Christmas Market, and the big tree in the center of the roundabout.

This is the City building with the infamous balcony where Hitler spoke.

And this is looking West, towards the Maribor Hotel with stripes where their huge skylights let out the heat.

Today, we did more packing and moved the last of the stuff that is staying with the mission to the new apartment in Celje.  We are debating whether to call that apartment "The Vila", or "The Celje Mansion".  It is an older building, furnished with marvelous antiques.  Despite that, it is quite nice and has modern appliances and other touches, including the largest refrigerator in the mission.

This coffee table in the living room is worth a fortune!  It is incredibly difficult to find wood like this!  And it was masterfully incorporated into the table.

This is the bedroom.  It has an oversized King bed in the middle of a room that is about 40' long, by 15 feet wide.

On the way home tonight, we joined a Zoom call with all Liz's siblings.  We do this every week, but tonight's  was the last one while on our mission.   In a few minutes, there is another Zoom call with all the senior missionaries.  This one is strictly social, and we all love it.   It, too, will be our last.

Tomorrow we will give our fairwell talks to the Maribor Branch.  

We have two more days.

More adventures as our departure nears

 

The castle in Varazdin.

Before we came, I surfed the internet to try to figure out what life on our mission would be like.  One of the people I talked to mentioned the white castle in Varazdin.  I found a photo of it looking up the main road in town with this white castle at the end.  Seeing that castle was high on my to-do list.  But, COVID changed everything and we never got a chance to go there until just the past few months.  We went there  in August because the main border crossings into Croatia had big delays, up to several hours, while the small crossing near Varazdin had wait times counted in minutes, although slightly out of our way.  When we drove through the flatlands into Varazdin, I finally got to see the castle, and found it to be unremarkable.  To begin with, we have seen hundreds of castles while here.  This one is attractive in itself, but the setting is not particularly enticing.  So, my reaction was, "Ngha."

Contrast that with the cathedral in Celje.  It is across the street from the LDS church, right next to the police headquarters.  It is part of a continuous row of large buildings, which makes it extremely inconspicous.  We enjoy seeing these old churches, partly because we both read a book centered around building cathedrals while we've been here - "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follet.  So, we were waiting for the young missionaries one day and decided to go inside the Celje Cathedral.

It is closed off, so you can't go all the way inside except when they are conducting services.  The remarkable chandeliers, and use of extensive, but focused, gold leaf are remarkable.  More subtle is the extensive carvings on the ends of the pews.  It was very difficult to see the art work, but I did not see anything about St. George, which is unusual.

MAJOR MEDICAL

Last week we were in our preparation for departure, which is making us frantic to get everything done.  We had a packed schedule, including giving our farewell reports to the missionaries on a mission-wide zoom call, and had a Christmas Conference in Zagreb on Thursday and Friday, which only made it more intense.  

Wednesday evening, Liz bent over to clean something off the floor and felt a pain in her knee - the one that hasn't been giving her trouble.  When she stood up, it hurt quite a lot, and as the evening passed the pain got worse.  She took both Tylenol and Advil and went to bed hoping it would feel better in the morning. 

It was not better in the morning, and she needed both my cane and my supporting arm to get down to the car for the trip to Zagreb.  That didn't do my bad knee any favors, but we managed it.  When we joined the conference in Zagreb, it was obvious Liz needed professional help.  She and Sister Field conferred and selected a private clininc, and we immediately drove there, after having the sisters unload the food we'd brought.

The clinic was awesome and we met an orthopedic specialist who examined Liz and had X-rays and MRIs taken.  He diagnosed it as a burst meniscus.  He said it will not get better, and if left untreated it would get much worse.  He recommended immediate arthroscopic surgery.  We agreed and he decided to stay a little longer at the hospital the next day so he could schedule her.  They gave her a pair of crutches, and we returned to the party to find most of the food already gone.  We got some ham and some salad, and  the senior sisters had saved us the last pieces of Liz's carrot cake.  Nice sisters.

We were going to stay in the Mission Home (the "palace"), but it has stairs of uneven height.  We made a reservation at a hotel after Sister Field told us to submit the receipt for reimbursement by the mission.  It was a nice hotel with elevators and we got a reasonably good night's sleep.

The next morning, we drove to the surgical hospital owned by the same private clinic where we had seen the doctor.  Strangely, that surgery is located in Krapinske Toplice, which is almost half way back to Maribor.  It is a tiny little town in an out-of-the-way corner of Croatia.

First thing, they gave me a phone number on a slip of paper.  Then they told me was to go away and call back after 2:00 to see if she was ready.

The yellow building across the car park is the Surgical hospital.

I got some breakfast and drove over to Krapina (pronounced CRAP-eena) to check out the Neanderthal museum there, only to find it closed for the season.  I was looking forward to seeing a cave where cave-men lived, but no luck.

By 2:00, I was sitting in the foyer of the surgery, and when I called the number on the slip of paper, the nurse told me to call Liz directly and she'd tell me all I needed to know.  That was rude, I thought.  Liz was getting physical therapy and had an hour to go.  It turned out to be more like 2 hours.  I saw the surgeon as he was leaving, and he told me the meniscus was oversize, so he cut off some before he sewed it back together.  Also there was a lot of damage to ligaments, which he repaird while he was in there.  Also, she had a stray tendon stretched across the knee cap, so he cut it out.  Wonderful.  In the US they probably would have scheduled another surgery for those other things.

Finally she came out with her leg bandaged and fitted to a brace whose purpose is to prevent her bending her leg too much.  She will have to wear it for at least 2 weeks, which puts her wearing it on the plane home.

We had to drive back to the Zagreb church to pick up the Maribor sisters, and load up dishes, gifts etc.  By the time we left it was dark.  After we left town I noticed the lights were pointed way too low.  I had noticed this before, but now with a full load, it was bad.  I could get by when there were other cars around, but once out in the country it was not enough light to go highway speed.  I slowed down a lot and still felt uncomfortable with how little I could see.  

SO,  here we are, closing the apartment (the next senior couple will be quartered in Celje) and finishing our packing, with Liz hobbling around.

Last Monday was P-Day, and the missionaries had permission to go to a movie, Sing 2.  The talking was all in Croatian, which the young missionaries thought was a great immersive language school.  Fortunately for me, I've seen Sing and the plot is similar.  And most of the movie is music, which was in English.

In the theater lobby they had this photo Op wall set up.  Sisters King and Chandler, and Elders Pollock and Kjeldsen were still excited from the movie.

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Too Old to learn new tricks?

Over the last week, I've been thinking about those low headlights.  It occurred to me that we had the whole front panel of the car replaced not too long ago.  So, yesterday I drove back to the service center to demand they adjust the lights.  When the service manager heard what I wanted he gave a big smile and said he could help me.  He took me out to the car, turned on the lights and showed me a little wheel-control in the dash above my left knee.  It is for adjusting the headlights when the car is loaded.  Who knew?  So, today we are returning to Zagreb for Liz's follow-up exam, and we will have fully functional headlights.  Hurray!

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

And, finally, I took a photo of another Sloveneian bee house along the way to the service center.

This bee house is on stilts, but the legs are not built into the beehouse.  The house is sitting on a frame.

I assume the whole house can be loaded onto a truck and moved.