January!!

Hey everyone! Jordan sounds like he is doing really, really well! His e-mails have sounded so happy and it sounds like he is having a lot of success :)

January 6th: Jordan is now with his new companion Elder Bennett and they live right in the Zagreb Center, very close to the mission home! They tried to talk to people on the streets on New Years Eve, but nobody wanted to listen so they just went home and did some planning and went to bed. He said it was really weird going to bed on New Years and listening to fireworks going off outside.

On January 13th Jordan reported that his week had been really great. He said " Elder Bennett and I are taking care of business!" They had a less active member named Goran who came to church with them. Goran calls them his "little angels". They talked to him about his smoking problem and told him that he really needs to work on quitting.

Here is a story from Jordan's email:
Ok so here is the best part of the week we have 3 investigators who are from Africa ha. One of them named Felix is from Nigeria and came to Zagreb to study for 3 years, and the crazy thing is he doesn't speak Croatian at all but he is going to a school that is completely in Croatian. We asked him how he does that and he said that he just has to google translate documents and things. I was pretty impressed because that would be so tough. He told us that he had an English textbook and that's about it. So we met with Felix on Tuesday night at the mission office and had a really good lesson with him. We talked about where the BOM came from and the history behind it. Sometimes it is difficult to understand what he is saying because he has a really thick African accent. But I think the gift of tongues came to both of us while we were teaching him because I felt like I could understand him perfectly. Elder Bennett asked him once he comes to find out what we are telling him is true if he will be baptized. He told us that he was baptized already when he was younger. But he told us that he has decided to come to church every week and he was so happy that we stopped him on the street. He told us something really cool that since he has been in Zagreb he hasn't really seen anyone practice there religion, but he said when he got stopped that he knew we were different. He said a great prayer at the end the spirit was so strong and he said that he was thankful that Heavenly Father put us in his path! Ok so that was Tuesday night so he texted us on Friday night and said sorry he has been busy because he found out that his older brother died. It was sad but he said he was still going to come to church. So Sunday morning he called us and told us he was waiting for us at the church, we were really excited and were on our way to church on the tram. He actually came and told us he had a great time. We showed him the baptismal font in the chapel and he thought it was really neat. After church we introduced him to President Rowe and President talked with him and asked him about baptism. He said again that he was already baptized but he was really feeling the spirit. We are going to meet with him this week I feel like he is going to get baptized soon! He also said he has been really sad these last couple of days, but at church he said he felt happy! This Church is TRUE! Znam da je ova crkva istinita. Kind of a long story but it was great!

January 20th: This week they taught 14 lessons! They taught one man named Stjepan who was excommunicated about 20 years ago. They have been having a lot of success with him and they have a baptismal date of March 31st! Felix is also still doing really well. They couldn't have a lesson with him because he had a lot of studying to do for his tests but he came to church and they had a really great and spiritual time! They also had a farewell on Sunday for one of the members of their ward who is going tot he Adriatic South Mission. Goran also came to church with them again and is working on his smoking problem still!

January 27th: "Well again I can''t believe it is Monday and I'm writing another email. I had a great week and miracles are happening. Some great things happened this week for Elder Bennett and I. We for sure saw the hand of the lord in the work here in Zagreb." 

I am just going to copy and paste most of Jordans e-mail from this day because it was so cool and I want you to read it in his own words! 

Zvonomir: So on Monday night we met up with this guy named Zvonomir. I guess he used to be an investigator but got dropped a couple months ago. He called us and told us that he really needed to talk with us and that he would like to meet up. We met up with him and he told us that he has been praying everyday and feels so close to Heavenly Father. He needed some help with a question about his job so he decided to call us. We talked with him about baptism and the importance of receiving the holy ghost. We invited him to be baptized but brought up the concern about how his parents are Catholic like everyone does here. He actually told us that his mom thinks that the Catholic church is the devils church but doesn't have desire to change. So we are working with him I hope he accepts a baptismal date soon.

Exchange students from America: Also on Monday night before meeting with Zvonomir we ate at this hamburger place called Rocket Burger. It is the only place in Zagreb that actually has American hamburgers ha. Once we were done eating there there were kids outside of the restaurant that said "look fellow Americans" We ended up talking to the group of kids and ended up getting three numbers out of it. Amilio, Jake, and Lauren. We called Jake on Wednesday and had a lesson with him he really enjoyed it and could feel the spirit. We tried to meet with Amilio, but he wasn't able to meet up this last week. We are planning on meeting with him tonight. They are sixteen and seventeen years old. I will let you know what ends up happening with them. Amilio is from somewhere in Mexico.

Stjepan: Stjepan is still doing good, but last lesson we had with him he talked for the whole hour and we didn't even have a chance to talk. He was talking about things that didn't matter. We need to figure out how to have a lesson with him where he doesn't talk the whole time. He is still progressing now and is really thinking about March first for his baptismal date.

Felix: Felix is on fire! He is a golden investigator and really loves the church a lot. We invited him to Daniels farewell party and told us he was going to try and come. He ended up coming like 40 minutes late but loved it. He loved the food we were having and everyone was so nice to him. During the party he asked me when we clean the church. I told him on Saturdays and he said "By gods grace I would like to come clean with you" I said of course you can! So on Saturday he helped us clean the church and had a great time.

Saturday night: On Saturday night the Assistants told us to start leaving an hour open in our schedules to call people and invite them to church. As a mission we are trying to get 500 people to attend church. So we called everyone we could think of to come to church and it sure payed off. On Sunday we had 5 investigators come to church! Felix, Tinasa, Dinko, Stjepan, and Petar. We as a companionship had the most investigators come to church so it was great. Calling people sure payed off. Also we are still going over to Goran Prsa s house every Saturday. He came to church and has only been smoking six to eight cigarettes a day, little improvement. Also Robert Perlog another less active member we are working with came to church also.

Friday it actually snowed here and we had some snow removal to do. We ended up helping a couple people shovel there driveways. And one more thing after church Sister Rowe told us to bring our investigators over to the mission home to have lunch. We brought Tinasa and Felix with us. Both of our African investigators ha. They both liked it some much and Felix said this church is great. We had a spiritual thought after lunch about prayer and they both gave their insights about it. Felix shared a very spiritual experience when God answered his prayer he is so great!

Well this is a long email I got a little carried away ha. But this week was really good and I hope you will pray for our investigators. Thanks for the emails

Love Starjesina Stuart      

Jordan also hit his 10 month mark today!!! Please continue to keep him in your prayers. 

November / December catch-up

Sorry that I am taking forever in updating Jordan's blog! I got married last week and it has been a crazy month!!

Jordan has been in Zagreb, Croatia since mid November and it looks like he will be staying there for awhile! He is companions with the AP's now so he has a car now and they do a lot of work on the computer. His companions are Elder Sheridan form Northern Utah and Elder Scirkovic from New Zealand. There are a lot more members in Zagreb (40) so Jordan really has a great time going to church there! They were able to get a less active member who hasn't been to church for a few years to come back and he really enjoyed being back to church. Also in Jordan's November 18th e-mail he reported that they got 8 new investigators! He had some really great lessons with them and they seem very receptive to the gospel.

In Jordan's November 25th email he said that planning had been tough that week because they were traveling so much. They traveled to Bosnia and Slovenia to help with exchanges and he said it was great to be back in Bosnia and that Slovenia was a very pretty country! He said there were a lot of forests and that it was a lot cleaner than the other countries. For Thanksgiving they were able to go to President Rowe's home for a few hours and he really had a great time. They had turkey and stuffing and a lot of pie! After they ate they went to the park and played football. President Rowe played football for BYU and Jordan loves playing football so he had a really great time doing that. Then that evening they invited the investigators over for dessert and they had a great time talking with them. Jordan and his companions also did a language fast that week where they ONLY spoke Croatian, no English. Jordan said he was a little worried about it but he thought it would be great practice for the language. They also have been meeting with Kresomir who is a less active member and is 21 but that week decided he was going to turn in his mission papers. His two brothers are also investigating the church!

On the first week in December, Jordan traveled to Rijeka, Croatia and REALLY loved it there. He got to see his old companion Elder Fausnaught and  he said the Adriatic Sea is really beautiful. Jordan also went to the Slovenian Conference that week and he said the spirit was very very strong there. Here is a little insert from Jord's email:


Yesterday for Church (crkva) we had a district meeting with all of the members and missionaries throughout all of Croatia. Total there was about 173 people there and some of them were investigators of other missionaries. President Rowe gave a great talk on building the stakes of Zion here. He told the members in 5 years if each of them invites one person to hear the gospel there will be a stake. It was really powerful and I think it made the members think a lot about that. We had lunch with everyone after and it was good seeing some members I knew from Karlovac. Great Sunday for Croatia. Also last night we taught Kresomir's older brother Luka, he said he will be baptized but he doesn't know when. He kept saying when he is a grandpa but we are trying to change that. Kresomir is also doing good we have a goal with him to pass the sacrament next week and then after to be ordained a priest. I will have a follow up on that next Sunday.

In Jordan's last email (December 16th) he said it has a been a long week but he had this story:

I have a pretty funny story to share with you. So Monday night we drove to Karlovac to do an exchange with the elders there. After we got back to Zagreb it was time to go out tracting. We were knocking on doors for about an hour or so. We decided to try and go to this neighborhood where we thought maybe someone would be interested. We were walking around there when all of a sudden two cop cars pulled up to us and about eight cops were surrounding us. They asked us if we were in the building that we just tracted. We said that we were in there, then they told us that someone called the cops and said we were burglars ha. We told them that we weren't and all would have been all right if we had registered in Zagreb when we got there. We kept putting that off. So they made us drive in the back of a cop car to the police station it was a pretty funny experience. We just spoke English and pretended like we didn't know what was going on. The outcome was 600 Kuna fines for each of us, but don't worry the next day we registered ha.

Also we found a really nice family that let us in on Saturday night. THe mom was an Architect and had a son and daughter who were both 19 years old. We talked a little about the Book of Mormon they were Catholic but were willing to listen to us. All in all it was great they told us we could come back. That same night we met a younger guy who we had a lesson with yesterday, but he is satisfied with his belief and is pretty firm about it.

They also got transfer calls and Jordan will be staying in the trio that he is in for now! They had their Christmas party this week so we can't wait to hear how that went and we can't wait to talk to him on WEDNESDAY!!!! :) :) Keep Jord in your prayers and have a great and merry Christmas :) 

October 26th & November 4th

In Jordan's October 26th e-mail, Jordan was able to report that Zahid had stopped drinking and was ready to get baptized but then came up to Jord and his companion yesterday at church and told them that he had slipped up and drank becasue his sister who he hasn't seen in a year came to town. Jordan said he felt really bad and was sincere but now they want to move his baptism up to the 16th and Jordan doesn't feel that that is the best decision. The zone leader is still trying to decide what to do about it but Jordan asked that you keep him in your prayers because he is a really great guy!

They don't really celebrate Halloween in Croatia, but they do celebrate the day of the dead and Jordan got to see some pretty cool stuff from it! Everyone takes red candles to the cemeteries and puts them on top of the graves so everything is lit up and looks really cool! Even though they don't celebrate Halloween in Croatia, the missionaries all do so they had a ward Halloween party on Thursday! They carved pumpkins, make snack and bobbed for apples! The members didn't  think that Jordan really would dip his entire face into the water to get an apple but he did! He sent some funny pictures. 

Here is a funny story from Jord about the day od the dead: 

"Something cool they do here on the first of November is celebrate day of the dead. I guess it is a Catholic holiday and everyone is Catholic here so it was a big deal. We tried to talk to people on the streets but no one was around. I told my companion he had to at least talk to one person before we had lunch it was tough but he did it. Anyways they buy all of these candles and set them on the graves at night. They were all red candles and it looked really cool when all you could see was red dots through out these huge graveyards. Elder Bursell bought a candle and we didnt know you are suppose to wait till after you are inside the graveyard to light it. So we looked like idiots I was holding the candle like the statue of liberty and we were getting weird looks. Once the sisters got there they told us that we arent suppose to do that so it was kind of funny." 

Jordan also got 4 new investigators this past week! They are a family that has talked to the missionaries before but they will be going back this week to talk to them more. They showed them a video of the restoration and talked about Joseph Smith and they want to hear more so pray for their hearts to be open to the gospel and hopefully the elders can teach them all about it!

10/14 & 10/ 21

Jordan seems to be having more success lately in Croatia! He was made district leader and was stressed about it and didn't think he would do a good job but we have received a few messages from different people telling us what a great missionary Jordan is and how well he is doing. He is just too hard on himself! In his e-mail on the 14th he was very happy to report that 21 people had signed up for their English class. He really likes these classes because not only does he get to teach people English and hopefully share the Gospel with them, but he can also practice his Croatian!

They got an investigator named Zahid who accepted a baptismal date for the 23rd, of November but he has to stop drinking by today (the 23rd of October) as of this past Monday the 21st, he hadn't stopped because his best friend was killed in a car accident so he had a drink. We are really excited to hear from Jordan next Monday to see if he was able to stop drinking! They had a really great lesson with him this past week about the Atonement and he got very emotional while they were watching a movie on the crucifixion. It sounds like he is really accepting the Gospel.

Jordan had an exchange with a missionary named Elder Mecham who is going home next month so he really helped Jordan out a lot and gave him some great advice. He told Jordan that is he just does his best, the Lord will make up for the rest. That really made Jordan think and helped him get through his week. Elder Mecham and Jordan got a referral from the sisters that they followed up on this past week. This man is in his 60's and his wife died last year. Elder Mecham knows the language very well so they were able to have a conversation with him about the plan of salvation. He said he would come to church on Sunday to see how it felt but he is also now a new investigator for them.

He did have one thing that discouraged him this week and it really upset me as well. They were at a members home and when it came time for the Elders to give a spiritual thought he struggled with the language to get his testimony out. The members weren't kind about it and kept telling him to try it in English and maybe they will understand it. He says the members there aren't super nice and they really aren't helpful with the language. This really made me mad! I wish they could understand that this young boy is thousands of miles from home trying to learn multiple foreign languages and is working very hard. It makes me mad but all I can do is pray for him and hope it gets better.

Jordan got to go to a national park and he took a lot of pictures so I will post them below! Please please please continue to pray for Jordan!! I know they are helping him and I know he would appreciate it.

Plitvica: Craotian National Park

Monday October 7th, 2013

Jordan is all settled in Croatia! He was immediately made district leader and is companions with Elder Bursell from Parker, Colorado. He is a little stressed out since he himself is so new and now he is with someone who is even newer than him! But he is excited to be in Croatia and get back to learning that language better. 

Jordan told us a cool story about his first week in Croatia, here it is: 

"We were looking through our area book this week and found a husband and a wife that were investigating in 2008. We decided to go and visit them. Once we finally found where he lived we asked this guy if he knew where Branko lived. He told us he was Branko and told us we could go in. He already had a book of mormon but ended up becoming a new investigator. Looking through the area book does work." 

We are super excited for Jordan to be in Croatia and we are hoping he is also! Here are some pictures he took in Bosnia before he was transferred: 

And here are some of his new area Karlovac Croatia: 

Transfer!

Jordan is going to Croatia! He left Bosnia today for a city called Karlovac, Croatia. He seems really excited... I know my family and I are excited as well! He originally learned Croatian in the MTC and it seemed to come more naturally to him than Bosnian, so we are hoping this lifts his spirits a little! He will be getting a new companion also. He said his companion will either have been in the field for 6 weeks or 9 weeks! He is a little stressed about that but I think he will be a great teacher. We are excited to hear more about his new area when we get our e-mails next Monday. Keep Jordan in your prayers as he travels to Croatia today!

September 16th, 2013

Jord had another hard week, but his e-mail seemed more upbeat then previous ones! They had a barbecue which he enjoyed very much because 43 people came and some were investigators. Also, he did an Elder exchange and he said that made him appreciate having Elder Fausnaught as a companion even more haha. He got to drive a car for the first time since he was been gone and he said it was really weird! Jordan and Elder Fausnaught are teaching a man named Dan who speaks English and believes in God, but does not like the pravoslav religion. He is confident they will be able to teach him the gospel and he successful!

There are some couple missionaries in Jordans last area (The Winters) who really look out for Jordan and send us pictures of him and cook him dinner. Last week, Sister Winters e-mail my mom the following:

" I keep getting the impression that I should write you to let you know how safe I feel in Bosnia. I know they had a horrible senseless war here, but the people are some of the best in the world. I go out for walks by myself  every morning when I can and everyone smiles and tells me "Jutro." Please know that Jordan is safe here and helping with the beginning of the church in this part of the world. The Lord only calls his best young men and young ladies to this mission. It is hard to let them. go for two years but it really does go quickly. He always has a smile on his face when we see him and is doing a great job :)"

We were so grateful to hear this from her! Bosnia is so far away and has such a history of war so we always worry about Jord! Since Jordan has been having such a hard week, my mom sent him some things hoping to build his confidence and make him a little more happy:

While I was sitting at church today, I was trying to think of something I should say that would help you have a good week and not be homesick and worry about us. The scripture we found for your mission plaque came to my mind...Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission is come; and your tongue shall be loosed, and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this generation. D&C 31:3. I really think that finding that scripture for your mission plaque was meant to be. It was what Heavenly Father had in mind for you. And as I was reading that scripture today, I noticed that the whole section 31 applies to you and your mission. I hope you will read it today and see what I mean. It is written for a man named Thomas B. Marsh who was called to serve a mission. He was worried about leaving his family and other things you have been worried about. I substituted your name for his name when I read it....it's only 13 verses, but I skipped a few parts..

1.Jordan, my son, blessed are you because of your faith in my work. 2. Behold you have had many afflictions because of your family; nevertheless, I will bless you and your family....3. Lift up your heart and rejoice for the hour of your mission is come; and your tongue shall be loosed, and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this generation...4. you shall begin to preach from this time forth..to reap in the field which is white already to be burned...5. therefore thrust in your sickle with all your soul, and your sins are forgiven you...wherefore your family shall live...6. go from them (your family) for a little time, and declare my word, and I will prepare a place for them..7. yea I will open  the hearts of the people (in Bosnia) and they will receive you. And I will establish a church by your hand; 8. And you shall strengthen them and prepare them against the time when they shall be gathered..9. Be patient in afflictions, revile not against those that revile...10. you shall be a physician unto the church..11. Go your way..and it shall be given you by the Comforter what you shall do and wither you shall go..12. Pray always, lest you enter into temptation and lose your reward 13. Be faithful unto the end (of your mission) and lo, I am with you...

Please keep Jordan in your prayers this week!