For a little branch, 7-10 active members, we have a beautiful building!  It is tucked away on a one way street not far from the city center. Since parking is extremely difficult in the town center area, we feel very blessed to have free parking in front of the church for up to 3-5 cars.  However, hardly anyone has a car.  We have one set of missionaries for the whole city.  Elder Crnich is teaching English Conversation Group and I'm working with one 9 year old for primary.  We are on several committees; (1) working with "Phrase a week", sending by email to all the senior missionaries a word or phrases in the language where they serve, i.e. Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Sylvania, Croatia...three different languages spoken in this mission.  (2) Senior Single Conferences; twice a year in charge of a two day conference (like youth conference) for singles in the 45+ age bracket.  They come from all over the mission to mingle and be strengthened. (3) Assistant auditing (we've not started that yet), and of course (4) member and missionary support, which covers a variety of responsibilities.

Our Chapel

                               Branch President's Office

                                   


  Relief Society Room

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Common Area

             Hallway

Finally we are settled in enough that we could walk around Varazdin a bit.  It is an old town, first mentioned in printed form in 1100 AD and now a city of nearly 50,000 people. At the center of town is the Varazdin Castle, which now houses a museum and tours are conducted within the castle.  We haven't found time to take the tour yet.





Surrounding the castle, along with it's abandoned moat, are small cobblestone streets lined with little shops housed in old rock and brick buildings. There are quite a range of shops, something for everyone and "Yes", Sestre Crnich HAD to buy some new shoes in one of them!
















Many beautiful and unique doorways remain closed to mysterious areas hiding behind them.
Usually these give space to parking the home occupant's cars or small gardens by their homes.

Along the northern side of the city runs the Drava River/Canal.

Our apartment is within walkable distance to the canal and we are beginning to enjoy the occasional walk, watching the "patka"..ducks!

Varazdin was once the capitol of Croatia but changes came along with the war and the established government was moved to Zagreb.


There is a beautiful story regarding the castle.

"One of the most beautiful love stories from Croatian literature"- The love of Lieutenant Milic, is set in early 19th Century Varazdin.  Lieut. Milic was living in Varazdin while attending school, and saw a young girl, fourteen year old Anastazija fall into the water of the moat around the castle. Lieutenant Milic rescued her.

From that moment on the Lieut. was welcomed every day at the family home.  When he was about to be sent to the front, Anastazija gave him an old family locket to protect him from mortal danger during the war.

Like all these fabled love stories, it does not have a happy ending.

On her birthday and what would have been their wedding day, 20 September 1819, Anastazija dies and the distraught Lieutenant foregoes his military service and twice a day for the next 50 years visits her grave, and walks around the castle moat looking at the window on which he always sees the silhouette of Anastazija.  His death years later reunite them.

Near the castle on a side street is "This Love Crinoline", a symbol of unbreakable love, and by placing a padlock on it, you will become a co-creator of the sculpture.  To make the ceremony complete the keys for the locket padlocks must be thrown down the well in the Old Town and like the love story of Lieutenant Milic and Anastazija, it seals the power of unbreakable love.

Arriving in Zagreb, Croatia

Monday 13th March, 6:00 am, We left Bountiful headed to the airport.  Our son Andy and family dropped us off with a few tears and separation sadness.  We will all try to stay busy so that the time will be well spent.


We went through security where I lost a few items that I had forgotten were in my carryon but other than that it went well.  Heading down to our plane we came upon a group of missionaries headed to Texas and another one headed to Colorado.

Our MTC Croatia Seniors soon arrived and we shared excitement and concern about the long plane rides ahead.
Three and half hours to Chicago, change planes, 8 hours to Frankfurt, Germany and 1 1/2 hours to Zagreb.

Arriving in Zagreb we were met by our Mission President and his wife and the office staff.  Brother & Sister Grant and Brother and Sister Randall.  Loading up 6 people and all our luggage was no easy task.  The mission van was loaded and the president's car was bulging.  Off to the mission office and a tour of it and the city.  They wanted to keep us awake until 8pm so that the jet lag wouldn't be to difficult for us to adjust.  A fun tour of the city and a beautiful Catholic Church.

Visiting town center where we viewed monuments, more historic buildings and learned a brief history of Croatia and it's turbulent years.

 We visit a beautiful cemetery at the top of the hill and wandered around looking for Crnic headstones.  None found in this cemetery.  We will need to go to Mirkopalj...Common practice is to place all the families together under one headstone.  This is the cemetery where Kresimir Cosic, native of Croatia and famous BYU student is now buried. He joined the LDS Church while living in Utah and is credited for bringing it back to Croatia.
















 Finally we headed to the mission home and a wonderful dinner prepared by Sister Grant, and then bedtime.  We couldn't get there fast enough.
Next morning we were given a breakfast feast and prepared ourselves for training.  We received our assignments, cars, cell phones and words of encouragement.  Later that afternoon we all loaded into our
cars and headed to our different directions.  The Mayberry's heading to Osjik, Croatia, the Decker's to Serbia and Chris and I to Varazdin, Croatia.
At least we are driving on the right side of the road but everything else seems strange.  There is a toll road but we weren't sure which lane to go in and which button to push.  Everything is in the Croatian language.

We gave the Elders a call when we were nearly there and thankfully they met us at the front door of our apartment building.   It was a gated parking lot, locked front doors and hall ways that required you turning on the automatic lights to find you way down them.  We would never have found our apartment without the young missionaries guiding us.
The apartment seemed bleak but it's nice now we are in and our stuff is scattered about.  Small fridge, stove, washing machine (in the bathroom), and a tiny oven, which I have yet to figure out how to turn on.
The LDS Branch is very small with 7 active members here.  The Branch president has been a member for 18 years and works very hard trying to keep everything and everyone going with only one set of Elder's to help and do the proselyting. We will be pretty involved in helping the branch function and offer encouragement to the brothers and sisters who go there.
Shopping for food is another matter.  Since we don't speak much of the language, the labels on the foods are all foreign too.  Different brands and types of food....NO General Mills Honeynut Cereal!!! AND WORST of all NO CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!  We are learning but it's pretty intimidating.  Not every clerk is happy to wait on us and maybe it's because they can't speak English that they are not so happy to listen to us struggle with Croatian questions.
We've been told it will take us 3 months to adjust...Hope it isn't that long!!!


Until next time...

Monday morning, March 6th, we drove to Provo and checked into the MTC along with 118 other senior missionaries.  What a morning....day!  There were helpful sisters and elders all along the way to direct us to our room where we dropped off our bags, which were not seen again until 7pm that night.  We were directed to the check in line, and received our missionary name tags, and our schedule for the next five days. Then to the "gathering" room where all the senior missionaries introduced themselves, where they were from and where they were going.  There were a lot of missionaries headed to Nauvoo and Chris was excited because most of the elders were going as teamsters to drive the wagons loaded with visitors.  If they didn't have to participate in the singing and dancing performance, that's where he would have wanted to go.

We also met the other two couples who are going to Croatia with us!  Fun travel days ahead.