Jordan had a really good week while he was in Sarajevo! For their zone activity he got to hike to a really cool waterfall called Skakavac. Jord said that you can see a lot of signs of the war all over in Sarajevo. There are bullet holes in a lot of the buildings and when you are driving down the road to get to Sarajevo there are signs with skulls on them making sure you don't walk into the fields because of the land mines that Serbia planted when they invaded Bosnia. Jord also go to see his first companion Elder Fausnaught while in Sarajevo and he also saw a few sister missionaries from the MTC which he was very happy about. He also drove passed the Sarajevo Olympic Stadium and he did his first companion exchange for 2 days. His companions name was Elder Sherwood. While he as with Elder Sherwood they talked to an investigator named Faris who could speak English which Jordan was super pumped about! They talked to him about the Holy Ghost and the influence it has in our lives and while they were teaching President Rowe came in and also started teaching him. They invited him to be baptized after and this is Jord's story about it:
"Faris accepted but we aren't sure about a date yet. President told him to pray about his decision and then he left. We met with Faris the next daya nd he told us a great story the spirit was strong in the room! "Usually I am scared of the dark but when I started praying, I decided to turn off all the lights. I prayed for a while and when I opened my eyes I forgot where I was, but I wasn't scared of the dark because I knew God was there with me!" It was so neat, it was definitely a testimony builder. I met some great people in Sarajevo, maybe I will end up serving there.
Jasmina and Bakradina are still planning on getting baptized and have set their date for July 13th :) When Jordan and Elder Kroff were at her house this week giving them a lesson Jasmina told Jord she could tell he was trying his best with the language and that she could joke around and laugh with him and that she couldn't do that with other missionaries before and she said there was something different about Jordan. Jasmina asked Jordan to baptize her! So he will be baptizing them on July 13th in a lake and he is so excited about it!
Jordan didn't have a lot of time to e-mail today but he did mention that he was super excited that the Jazz made Jerry Sloan their Senior Adviser and that they are also getting a new jumbo tron! He also said he would be sending pictures next week :)
Monday, June 24, 2013
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Saturday June 15th
Jordan had to e-mail us early this week because on Monday he is going to Sarajevo for a zone activity and conference. He will also be staying there a little longer to work with an Elder in Sarajevo so he won't be back to his area until Thursday! This week, they didn't have any new investigators and they only had 3 members and 1 investigator at church but they are really trying to invite more people to come to church. He said the language is still hard for him but he is trying to learn 10 new words a day. He said that everything he learned in the MTC is completely different than what he is trying to learn now.
I was so happy to hear Jordan report that Jasmina stopped smoking! Here is his story:
"One success story from this week is that Jasmina stopped smoking. Elder Kroff asked her if he could see her box of cigarettes. He asked if he could buy the rest from her, that really made her think. Next thing you know she took all her cigarettes out of the box and ripped them up and threw them on the ground. We have been staying in contact with her a lot since then. We told her she can call us anytime she is stressed so hopefully all goes well with that."
Jord said that whenever they meet people they use their last names and since everyone there has seen Stuart Little they always laugh at him! Especially the little kids. He also said people there drive like crazy. As long as you have your hazards on, you can park anywhere so there are people parked all over the sidewalks haha.
I was so happy to hear Jordan report that Jasmina stopped smoking! Here is his story:
"One success story from this week is that Jasmina stopped smoking. Elder Kroff asked her if he could see her box of cigarettes. He asked if he could buy the rest from her, that really made her think. Next thing you know she took all her cigarettes out of the box and ripped them up and threw them on the ground. We have been staying in contact with her a lot since then. We told her she can call us anytime she is stressed so hopefully all goes well with that."
Jord said that whenever they meet people they use their last names and since everyone there has seen Stuart Little they always laugh at him! Especially the little kids. He also said people there drive like crazy. As long as you have your hazards on, you can park anywhere so there are people parked all over the sidewalks haha.
Monday, June 10, 2013
P-Day Monday June 10th
Jord had a great week in Bosnia and said he is really loving it there! His trainer, Elder Kroff from Montana has been helping him a ton with the language since he didn't study and Bosnian in the MTC. He said a lot of the words are really different so it has been hard! He said he is basically trying to memorize power statements so that when he goes door to door people think he knows what he's saying when he really doesn't haha. He said church for them is so different. Since it isn't even a year old there yet, there are only 7 members and only 4 attend church every week. They only have sacrament and they don't have a bishop since no one has the priesthood yet. He said the 4 members that come to church area all youth which is awesome because that is how the church got started in Bosnia was from a youth!
Jord's mission President, President Rowe, has challenged all the missionaries in the mission to get 10,000 church invites this month. Jord said that is about 10 invites a day from each companionship! He is excited to try and meet this goal. They have one investigator who is really close to being baptized, her name is Bakradina and she just graduated from high school. After graduation she got a job that requires her to travel to a lot of different cities so they will be baptizing her when she gets home. Her mother Jasmina is also really close to being baptized but is having a really hard time quitting smoking. He says pretty much everyone there smokes because it is so cheap, he has even seen little kids smoking! It is really hard for him to understand what Jasmina is saying because she has no teeth so his trainer will translate for him. One day after their lesson Jasmina said she had a question for Jordan. She asked him how much longer he had on his mission and when he said 22 months she asked if Jordan would come back for her daughter Bakradina when he was done! Bakradina was sitting right by Jordan and was so embarrassed she got up and left. Jasmina told Jordan that Bakradina had a huge crush on him and thought he was way cute. Jordan told Jasmina he would add Bakradina on Facebook when he got home :) Haha. I told Jordan he needs to use his good looks to convert a bunch of young girls!!
He said this past week they did a lot of tracting up in the villages of Tuzla and found some good potential there so they will go back this week and see what they can do. He said they do a lot of walking so he has a lot of time to look around and it is a huge culture shock for him! There are stray dogs everywhere and kids begging for money. People throw their trash everywhere and don't even care, everyone is smoking (young and old) and little kids are always walking around alone, even at night. Very different from Cache Valley, Utah!
This is a little story from Jord:
" A cool story from tracting was we met a lady and asked if she wanted a Book of Mormon and she said she didn't but we left our number with her. Her son calls us the next day speaking perfect English and says that his Mom actually wants a Book of Mormon now. He said he was going to come by and pick it up and we were really excited. We met him and gave him the book and he asked us if we wanted to talk and hangout sometime. A couple days later we went to breakfast with him and he bought us a palacinka which is pretty much a crepe, but they are a lot better over here ha. His name was Muhamar and we hope to stay in contact with him."
Jordan said the food is good there, especially the pastries and he has liked everything he has tried. He said he likes the Pizza but they cover it in ketchup so he usually asks to take that off. He also said everything is way cheap because there is no tax and you don't have to tip! It sounded like he had a great week and we can't wait to hear from him next week :)
Jord's mission President, President Rowe, has challenged all the missionaries in the mission to get 10,000 church invites this month. Jord said that is about 10 invites a day from each companionship! He is excited to try and meet this goal. They have one investigator who is really close to being baptized, her name is Bakradina and she just graduated from high school. After graduation she got a job that requires her to travel to a lot of different cities so they will be baptizing her when she gets home. Her mother Jasmina is also really close to being baptized but is having a really hard time quitting smoking. He says pretty much everyone there smokes because it is so cheap, he has even seen little kids smoking! It is really hard for him to understand what Jasmina is saying because she has no teeth so his trainer will translate for him. One day after their lesson Jasmina said she had a question for Jordan. She asked him how much longer he had on his mission and when he said 22 months she asked if Jordan would come back for her daughter Bakradina when he was done! Bakradina was sitting right by Jordan and was so embarrassed she got up and left. Jasmina told Jordan that Bakradina had a huge crush on him and thought he was way cute. Jordan told Jasmina he would add Bakradina on Facebook when he got home :) Haha. I told Jordan he needs to use his good looks to convert a bunch of young girls!!
He said this past week they did a lot of tracting up in the villages of Tuzla and found some good potential there so they will go back this week and see what they can do. He said they do a lot of walking so he has a lot of time to look around and it is a huge culture shock for him! There are stray dogs everywhere and kids begging for money. People throw their trash everywhere and don't even care, everyone is smoking (young and old) and little kids are always walking around alone, even at night. Very different from Cache Valley, Utah!
This is a little story from Jord:
" A cool story from tracting was we met a lady and asked if she wanted a Book of Mormon and she said she didn't but we left our number with her. Her son calls us the next day speaking perfect English and says that his Mom actually wants a Book of Mormon now. He said he was going to come by and pick it up and we were really excited. We met him and gave him the book and he asked us if we wanted to talk and hangout sometime. A couple days later we went to breakfast with him and he bought us a palacinka which is pretty much a crepe, but they are a lot better over here ha. His name was Muhamar and we hope to stay in contact with him."
Jordan said the food is good there, especially the pastries and he has liked everything he has tried. He said he likes the Pizza but they cover it in ketchup so he usually asks to take that off. He also said everything is way cheap because there is no tax and you don't have to tip! It sounded like he had a great week and we can't wait to hear from him next week :)
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| "Family Picture" Elder Stuart, Elder Kroff, Elder Bishop and Elder Fausnaught |
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| Their "Ward" |
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| Church |
Monday, June 3, 2013
Monday June 3rd
Jordan got sent to his first area! He is in Tulza, Bosnia-Herzegovina. I was super surprised to hear this because he studied Croatian in the MTC so I just figured he would be staying there. In his e-mail to me today he said that Tulza is a very Islamic place so there are Muslims and mosques everywhere! He also said you can constantly hear music playing and at one of the mosques there are big speakers and when this guy gets up and starts singing it means its time to pray. He seems really excited to be there but my family and I are a little nervous for him because of the past wars and issues they had there.
Here are some stats I got on the religions in Bosnia:
Faiths:
Christian 46%
Muslim 40%
Other 14%
Christians
Orthodox
Member: 1,430,158
Catholic
Members: 692,012
Jehovah's Witness
Members: 1,206
Congregations: 16
Seventh Day Adventists
Members: 661
Congregations: 23
Latter-Day Saints
Members: Less than 50
Congregations: 1
LDS Membership (2010):
Between December 1995 and September 1998 almost 900 Latter-day saint servicemen had been deployed to the "Adriatic North Region" for peacekeeping operations. In the late 2000's, missionaries in the Slovenia Ljubljana mission taught an interested Bosniak youth living in Bosnia who was interviewed by the mission president over Skype and then later baptized. The Bosniak convert had learned about the church over the internet! At least 2 others LDS couples resided in the country in 2010. The one branch they have was organized in 2011 and they meet in Sarajevo. About 35 members go to an evening devotional on Sundays held at Elder Nelsons home. The ACTIVE membership rate is about 30 people. All church meetings are held in rented spaces or member homes. The LDS church does not appear to face any legal obstacles in performing missionary work in the country. However, the church falls vastly short of the required 300 adult citizen members required to apply as a religious community to enjoy full religious freedom. The Church may face proselyting restrictions due to intolerance of religious minorities in regions with heavy predominance of Muslims or Orthodox. Basically the biggest thing the LDS church does for Bosnia is send humanitarian help! All LDS scripture is translated into Croatian only.
If you want a lot more information about this stuff then go to Cumorah.com and it has a ton of information.
Jordan has A LOT of work to do! He only has 7 people in his "ward" and one is close to being baptized. Everyone please send prayers his way!! If you would like to send him letters the address is:
Crka Isusa Krista spd
Svacicev Trg 3
Zagreb 10000
Hrvatska
Here are some stats I got on the religions in Bosnia:
Faiths:
Christian 46%
Muslim 40%
Other 14%
Christians
Orthodox
Member: 1,430,158
Catholic
Members: 692,012
Jehovah's Witness
Members: 1,206
Congregations: 16
Seventh Day Adventists
Members: 661
Congregations: 23
Latter-Day Saints
Members: Less than 50
Congregations: 1
LDS Membership (2010):
Between December 1995 and September 1998 almost 900 Latter-day saint servicemen had been deployed to the "Adriatic North Region" for peacekeeping operations. In the late 2000's, missionaries in the Slovenia Ljubljana mission taught an interested Bosniak youth living in Bosnia who was interviewed by the mission president over Skype and then later baptized. The Bosniak convert had learned about the church over the internet! At least 2 others LDS couples resided in the country in 2010. The one branch they have was organized in 2011 and they meet in Sarajevo. About 35 members go to an evening devotional on Sundays held at Elder Nelsons home. The ACTIVE membership rate is about 30 people. All church meetings are held in rented spaces or member homes. The LDS church does not appear to face any legal obstacles in performing missionary work in the country. However, the church falls vastly short of the required 300 adult citizen members required to apply as a religious community to enjoy full religious freedom. The Church may face proselyting restrictions due to intolerance of religious minorities in regions with heavy predominance of Muslims or Orthodox. Basically the biggest thing the LDS church does for Bosnia is send humanitarian help! All LDS scripture is translated into Croatian only.
If you want a lot more information about this stuff then go to Cumorah.com and it has a ton of information.
Jordan has A LOT of work to do! He only has 7 people in his "ward" and one is close to being baptized. Everyone please send prayers his way!! If you would like to send him letters the address is:
Crka Isusa Krista spd
Svacicev Trg 3
Zagreb 10000
Hrvatska
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