Today was one of the best P-days ever. We finally went to see the castle here in Skopje. I've never walked around on it in all my time here. I looked it up and apparently it was built in the year 500?? Guess people back then knew how to build. It has been so, so foggy these past few days in the city but the view from up top was still pretty decent. Two stray dogs followed us around, which is pretty normal, and didn't part until we crossed the river later that day. Around the base of the castle were two tiny doors which Sister Hassell pointed out. I told her they led to Narnia and with that she disappeared behind them and I didn't see her for another twenty minutes (which for her I'm sure was about six months.) The castle was beautiful and artful up close and I appreciated all the arches, heavy doors and lookout points, and the slope of the castle in general, which definitely isn't the style in architecture today. So impressive was how sturdy it was and the fact that it's built out of a bunch of stones. I said to Elder Prince that tall buildings like that must have been the bomb for people who weren't used to being in planes or seeing pictures or movies from aerial views. Kind of strange for me to see a city I thought I knew so well from another vantage point, so I can't imagine how they must have felt.
Then on our way down we stopped at the mosque that I've been to before, only last time we got there right when it opened so it was empty. At the mosque it's nametags off to show respect, then shoes off before entering or even placing your feet on the rug outside as a rule, and once inside this time a worker asked me to cover my hair and pointed to a rack full of headcoverings. He said it very respectfully. Another worker informed us that the call to prayer would be in about two minutes and had us stand to the side. I had never seen the actual prayer before so I was excited. The song came on as usual in Arabic and I realized that a man standing to the side was singing it into a microphone. People, all men, kept coming in late and knelt at the front of the room. There were about thirty of them, including the workers. The prayer lasted about fifteen minutes and was silent. I know that it's a memorized prayer though, and together they all knelt, bowed, moved their heads, and did everything else in unison. One guy who came in the latest I noticed had wet arms and legs, and once we went back outside I saw a huge fountain with soap around it that I guess they use to wash before entering to pray. Which is pretty notable considering how cold it is right now. The one worker who had told us about the call to prayer wanted to take a picture with all of us once we were outside. We stood around and talked to him about Islam for a few minutes and I heard him say, "What religion teaches people to kill? That is not a religion. A life is not ours to take. I see this on the tv, people who say they are Muslim and I think it's horrible. I don't know what it is." He told us he owned a restaurant in Tetovo and if we ever came he'd give us a free coffee. He told us to add him on Facebook and then we headed back out of Old Town; cobblestone and cigarette butts everywhere, and what Elder Gierisch calls "Balkan Spanish" music playing.
All of the missionaries went over to the Swinefords on Sunday to watch the Christmas devotional and they gave us each a bag of American candy as an early present to all of us. Sweet!
Haha, that's funny what you said about the Schofields giving you that ornament because in our apartment right now we have a little Christmas tree that includes some tiny lights that Sister Hassell got at the MTC and a bunch of Book of Mormon ornaments. I looked at it one day and said to Sister Schofield, "Ugh. We are such sister missionaries."
We have a big "He is the Gift" sign in Macedonian that we take contacting now, which is great! It makes us look so much more professional. But it also makes us look a lot more like Jehovah's Witnesses because they always have little setups like that. The first night we had it, I talked to a woman for a long time and tried to get her to come to church. She said she didn't want to until she was sure we weren't a cult. "You guys don't, like, do sacrifices and stuff like that?" I told her no but she didn't seem to believe me.
Sister Schofield has had fun wrapping Book of Mormons at this time of year. She's doing a 12 days of Christmas thing for all of our elders, which is really nice of her, and we're taking out our portable DVD player when we go contacting to show people the He is the Gift video. President Weidmann says he'll get more cards to us, and we're planning a few more cool things for the season. Among the missionaries we're all doing a secret gift exchange. It's lots of fun.
Psalms 31:1-3, "In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me. For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me."
Love,
Sister Riddle
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