Auditing Begins in Ljubjana

Monday morning, July 17th, we headed out to Ljubljana, Slovenia with Elder & Sister Mayberry to conduct our first audit.  A beautiful day for a drive and fun friends to spend time with.













Just over the Slovenia border we stopped at an old castle that has not been restored, Castle Borl. It was used in years past as home to royalty and during world wars as a prison. It has been taken over by the Slovenia preservation committee and will one day be restored.


It was fascinating to think, that if we had been teenagers, one evening, we would probably be crawling under the fence and peaking through all the rooms.

Arriving at Ljubljana, we found parking and did a walking tour of the city.  The whole city is watched over by a large hill hosting an old castle on top.  

The Ljubljanica River travels through the center of town with multiple walking bridges crossing over. The streets are lined with unique small shops, tourist carts, ice cream shops, and cafes and restaurants. 

Small water taxis or cruise ships travel up and down the river giving tourists a guided tour of the city. 

We met up with senior missionaries, Elder & Sister Monson and the six of us had dinner at a little restaurant overlooking one of the bridges.

The city was well kept and preserved with it's natural old buildings with their hundreds of years of history.









I'm afraid we are done in!

Bern, Switzerland Temple Trip

The week of July 2-8, was the mission wide annual temple trip. This year to Bern, Switzerland.

Now don't get too excited for us...we weren't on the temple trip committee, so we couldn't go.

However, we had a wonderful time supporting the members of Varaždin.  This included helping them prepare their family history records, printing their temple ordinance cards, giving them a ride to Zagreb the evening they left and picking them up a week later, at 5:30 am.



After an eighteen hour bus trip they arrived back in Zagreb full of excitement, humility, gratitude and exhaustion.

A week of wonderful memories made with other members from Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia.  They are already talking about the next trip!!

Varazđin Branch Happenings

A few updates from the Varazđin Branch...

The Church has a special music program in certain places of the world where music skills are lacking and opportunities to learn are few.  If anyone is willing to commit to learning to play the keyboard, they are given one to practice on.

Our member, 16 year old Denis was excited last year to give it a try.  He has been teaching himself for a year now and this week he played the music during sacrament meeting for the first time.  We couldn't have been more proud of him.  Hopefully, he will continue to learn new pieces of music to add to his developing skills to share with the members in Varazđin Branch.



Elder Crnich & I were brave one day and decided to take a loaf of banana bread to Seka and her family. She was the inactive member, that the Elders and Crnich's helped haul and stack her wood for her. She doesn't speak ANY English at all but we decided to give the visit a try. After meeting the challenge of the closed gate and dog, we found Seka and her husband working in the back yard.  She was excited and very surprised to see us but accepted our banana bread gift with a smile.

She immediately went into the house and returned with the traditional drink made, like-lemonade, from various tree and plant flowers in the area; they even use the leaves of stinging nettle to make one of their juices!!

We were then treated to a tour of the small garden and together tried to understand what kind of plant it was comparing the Croatian name with the English name that we were familiar with.  She uses EVERYTHING and does a lot of drying of the plants to use later on in the year.

Our task complete, and our head full of hrvaski (Croatian language), we started our exit plans to the front gate.  Seka stopped us no less than five times to give us another package of dried plants, fresh basil, chives, lavender, some leaf that smelled like vegetable soup, and several packages of the dried tree/weed blossoms to make our own juices.  All this wonderful generosity ended at the roadside, as just before she let us get into the car, she snipped off her only blossoming rose and gave it to me. What sweet people these Balkans are!

New Mission President arrives in Adriatic North Mission

July 1st brings a new era to the Adriatic North Mission.  We said goodbye to our loved President and Sister Grant.  After three years, they were excited to return to their family in Utah and have the knowledge that they gave their all.  They will be greatly missed!







Arriving from North Carolina are President and Sister Melonakos. They have large shoes to fill but come with humility, a friendly smile and a desire to serve the Lord.

We all look forward to their vision and the changes that may come as we welcome new leadership.

Maribor LDS Branch Visit

Friday June 23rd, we had the opportunity to travel to Maribor, Slovenia to participate in the baptism of a new member for their branch.
"Jana" is 18 years old and has been playing the violin for 12 years, Yes, he started at age 5.  He played a beautiful piece during his baptism program and again afterwards as a special request of our mission president. Great support from the branch membership and fun refreshments afterwards.


Maribor is the 2nd largest city in Slovenia. The town is situated on both sides of the river Drava.



A bit of history:  On 26 April 1941 Adolf Hitler, visited Maribor and a grand reception was organized in the city castle.  This picture is of the castle, where his famous speech was made, standing on the balcony overlooking the troops. (The definition of a castle is a large house where a royal family lived). This particular castle isn't typical, with grand turrets, courtyard, moat and battlements, but definitely historic.

Slovenia is know for it's wonderful ice cream and of course we had to check it out and this is a beautiful building across the street.

Day trip to the coast - Rijeka, Croatia

Our plans for today changed with a phone call last night requesting our company with the Elders in our area, on a roadtrip to Rijeka, 2 1/2 hours away.

One of the new elders in our area was transferred from there and had to return today for processing of his visa.  This is the first time we've seen the Adriatic Ocean!





Rijeka is a principal seaport and the third largest city in Croatia, built on the ocean side of a steep mountain. Streets are crowded and busy, ocean liners, and cruise ships as well as freight hauling ships dock at her port.  

This is the beginning of the tourist season so soon the streets will be packed with sightseers!

















I am loving all the beautiful unique buildings though, and especially the flowerpots hanging over the edges of their balconies; true European flavor!

Our LDS Church is just off the main center of town, down a narrow street and like nearly every street there, it's uphill!

Today must have been the hottest day of the year so far. We found ourselves dragging along the hot pavement, climbing the hills, while trying to see everything there is to see in one afternoon.

On a site which was used in Roman days for being an easy place to control access to the sea along the Rječina River, sits the Castle Tsart.  

It was built by the Frankopan family in 1288, and has a magnificent view of the city of Rijeka. Some of it's parts have been restored.

We took care of business at the local MUP, visited with the other Elders in Rijeka, toured the city, had pizza under a shady roof next to the ocean and enjoyed the cheerful company and cool ocean breezes!

Another memorable day in the Adriatic North Mission.  

BTW...we are in great need of more senior missionaries in the ANM!!!!  Any takers??? PLEASE!

44th Wedding Anniversary!!

Ok!.... so we aren't very good at "selfies"!!!!

We celebrated our 44th wedding anniversary by going to the new Wonder Women movie. American movies play here in English, dubbed in Croatian.

Popcorn, a great movie and spending time with your best friend, doesn't get much better!!

We loved the movie...Good wins again!