January 19, 2014

Dear Mom,

The past week or so has been one of my most successful in the mission field, ever. I don't know why things have changed so much for the better.
 

Even though we spend so much time contacting, on average I get a phone number or two every few weeks, and usually those phone numbers don't turn out to be anything. Last night while updating the area book with Sister Hassell I counted and realized I had gotten about ten phone numbers in the past two days. All working phone numbers as well.
 

Sister Barch got here on the 14th. We drove Sister Schofield to the Kosovo border the night before and the Sister Training Leaders picked her up (there are now two cities open to sisters in Kosovo; Prishtina and Gjakova, where the STLs are now.) The next day they drove to Albania to pick Sister Barch up from the airport there. She flew into Tirana and because we weren't sure when her Macedonian visa was going to be ready and were going to have her work in Albania until it was, but it ended up being ready then. Sister Schofield is now her trainer and Sister Hassell is my now my only companion. Thus marks the end of an 11 month and 1 week companionship with Sister Schofield.
 

We're all in the same apartment though which is fun. Originally the STLs drove back with them and did exchanges with us in Skopje for a day. I hated having so many people in my house at first but quickly got over it. I worked with Sister Boettinger, who's from Canada and was in the MTC at the same time as me. With all of our investigators split between three companionships, we only had one lesson planned for the whole day which ended up cancelling on us. In the morning for companionship study I told Sister Boettinger that so often when contacting people, I froze up and couldn't think of what to say so I wanted to spend our study hour coming up with short prepared messages. Among our other ideas, we decided to take our gospel art book with us to help us explain the first vision, etc. (Helpful since to a lot of people here, the idea that God has a body is new.) I told her that I wanted to try an idea another sister had of showing people a picture of a baptism and asking if they wanted to be baptized. We had very long hours of straight contacting that day, but it turned out being SO much more fun than I had anticipated. In the morning once we were out in Center, we decided to pray about where to go. We both thought the bridge, which was cool. Something very strange happened. During that time on the bridge, not just one but two different people came up to me and asked what I was doing. One was a man named Lypcho who was with his wife Elitsa. Never before in missionary work have I felt the Spirit so strongly directing me what to say than when I talked to Lypcho. At the end when I asked for their phone number and his wife started politely declining like usual, he thought for a minute and then gave it to me. A while later a Roma man selling towels came up to me and started having a discussion with me and he told me his beliefs about marriage and chastity. I gave him a law of chastity pamphlet, which we don't usually use on a first contact, but it went exactly with what he had been saying to me. Sister Boettinger wanted to try traditional Macedonian food, so I took her to a little restaurant in Old Town. I think the cook was the waiter's mom or something, because I got something different than what I ordered and he just asked me if it was ok to have that instead, and when the cook went outside he came back over and apologized. We went and picked up my new Macedonian ID card, then I had probably the least-frustrating hour of language study since being here. We continued contacting and talked to a man on a park bench drinking a can of Скопско (the local beer) and showed him the picture of baptism. He more or less ran away. We went in for our dinner hour before all the other sisters and Sister Boettinger made me some Albanian hot chocolate. I'll have to make you some when I get back.
 

I just thought it was so cool (a word I apparently overuse according to President Weidmann) that the previous night I had been so disheartened looking at my planner and seeing the large blocks squared away for contacting time and saying to Sister Boettinger "I'm glad you're enthusiastic" and then the next day being rewarded for acting in faith, I suppose. Maybe God is trying to teach me not to have a bad attitude. Sister Boettinger was beneficial to have on the bridge because a lot of people in that area speak Albanian.
 

The day after the STLs left we had language class with Zoki rescheduled at the last minute which totally messed up everyone's schedule. To make things easier, me and Sister Schofield got back together to cover all the lessons that were going to take place while the other two sisters went to class. One of our investigators dropped us. It was sad, but I was glad Sister Schofield could be there with me since we had found and taught him together. The lesson right after that we had to take a taxi to get to on time (I told the driver we were in a hurry and he really stepped on it-- it was fun) which was with Atesh, the Roma I had met the day before on the bridge. He committed to read the Book of Mormon. Sister Schofield said it was probably one of our top five best first lessons.
 

On Sunday we had a new record--46 people in church (including babies, missionaries, and members). Our most recent convert Prend gave a talk on prayer and invited a lot of his family to come hear him speak. I sat next to one of his family members and she said she was interested in meeting up with us. 

Sunday morning I put both a Serbian and English Book of Mormon in my bag because we had a lesson planned with a man who spoke English as well and I wanted to give him the choice of which language he wanted to read in. After church while contacting, Sister Hassell ran into a guy that had come to church and was able to fellowship him a bit more. Have I mentioned before that there are Mother Teresa quotes all over the city? We both like to stop and read them even though I've read them all before. I stopped a guy on the street who said he had heard of the church because he'd talked to Elder Krajnc before. He said he wanted all of our materials to read and I had pretty much every pamphlet to give him since I had just recently been hard-core contacting. I also gave him the Serbian Book of Mormon, which was also one Sister Boettinger had had me write my testimony in and that I had highlighted some of my favorite verses in. I started talking to an old man who introduced us to his son who was with his American friend. Can I just say that Americans are not hard to spot? He had on an Under Armour hoodie and baggy jeans and was taking a picture with his iPhone, with a non-European style hat on and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Turns out not only was he American but he was a soldier visiting from Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo! "Well, y'all ain't strangers or nothin'!" he said once he found out we had friends there and visited the base occasionally. He was from Indianapolis and was celebrating his 49th birthday in Skopje. I told him he didn't look that old. "It's called not havin' a lotta stress. And relyin' on that Man you're talkin' to everybody about," he pointed to a pamphlet I had in my hand about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sister Hassell talked a little more to him while I talked to the old man who only spoke Macedonian. He gave me his phone number and we planned to meet later that week. Once we were about to part the American guy, named Shelton by the way, said, "Well, why don't you give me one of your books?" I opened my bag to find something in English. 

"Do you have a Book of Mormon?"

"No, I have a Bible that I keep on my nightstand and like to read, but I wouldn't mind having a Book of Mormon." I handed him the Book of Mormon I had brought for our lesson. He looked at it interestedly. "I'll read this," he said. The lesson rescheduled on us anyway. It worked out perfectly. 

This morning was a holiday. Every year the Orthodox church has a tradition where the priest throws a cross into the Vardar river and a bunch of guys try to be the first one to grab it. We walked over to a bridge this morning and heard something going on over the loudspeaker. Whoever was speaking was saying something about the baptism of Christ in the River Jordan and just kind of the life and mission of Him in general. So many people were gathered but I couldn't for the life of me see over so many heads into the water where the action would happen. If only I were five inches taller. There were a bunch of medics and ambulances in and around the water, I guess in case of the worst. The voice over the loudspeaker turned into a song and the crowd pressed in excitedly, so I figured the cross had been thrown. Once it was all over and people started to leave, I watched a recording of it on Elder Prince's camera. A guy in a black shirt came out of the water with an elaborate brass-looking cross in his hand, while the other competitors took turns kissing it. Apparently whoever kisses it gets the priesthood. The winner receives a cash prize. A random onlooker was also watching the recording with us. Kinda funny. I had wondered whether the singing/speaking had been a prayer or not, and apparently it was because he ended it with an "amen." We went to eat with the Elders at Irish Pub. Apparently while they were watching the cross being thrown an American baptist was trying to get into an argument with them. Zoki was there too, and since he used to be some type of missionary for the Baptist church in Germany (I think) he gave the elders pointers on how to work with Baptists. I forgot to mention that Zoki took a trip to Holland a few weeks ago and while there did baptisms for the dead in the temple there. He loved it. At lunch Elder Krajnc told me that back when he used to be Catholic, he wasn't allowed to advance in the priesthood because there were a couple of songs he didn't want to memorize. I told him I am glad that this church accepts Catholic rejects.
 

And actually it turns out that the thing about knives being approved was a rumor.
 

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say here is, if you ever think God isn't real, you're wrong. I feel so blessed that he called me as a missionary here in Macedonia. One night while reading in the New Testament I came across some verses that talk about Macedonia and I told Sister Hassell, "Likening the scriptures has never been more real." Here are the specific ones I was talking about:

2 Corinthians 7: 5-6, "For, when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears. Nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus." (Replace the word Titus with "new missionaries" or "STLs" or "new investigaors" or "new potentials" or "new hope" or "rewarded faith" or "answers to prayers" or "His Spirit" or "His love".)

2 Corinthians 8: 1-5, "Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia; How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves; Praying us with much entreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God."

 

I love you. Heavenly Father loves you.

Sister Riddle