May 4, 2015

Hey Mom,

 

Guess who came to visit Skopje this week? Sister Kokol (she served here for 3 weeks training Sister Schofield, and we did exchanges and stuff with her). She's been home since October but came to Albania and Kosovo again to help do research for BYU. She was able to come to the NEW CHURCH BUILDING on the first Sunday we used it. Afterwards she and Zoki came contacting with us.

Elder Krajnc leaves in a little over a week! I'm going to miss him so much! He got his flight plans and it only takes him an hour to get back to Slovenia, ha ha.  Susana loves him and so we're going to have a lesson with the elders at her house this week.

Sascho got confirmed on Sunday so now we really do have eighteen members.

Well, I can't really think of anything else to tell you about.

Love,

Sister Riddle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyxXGdG3-Io

April 27, 2015

Hey Mom,

Today for P-day we went and played laser tag again. Guess who got overall 2nd MVP? Yours truly!!! I don't know how that happened because I usually lose every game I play (just games in general). The first round I hid behind a tree and got more points than anyone. By the end of the third round Elder Chingas told me he hated me. High praise. I told him my trigger finger hurt from shooting him so much.  The place where we play laser tag is in city park, about ten minutes walking from the main entrance. There is a big field with boards to hide behind and a two-story shack made of brick and wood. It would be so illegal in America. Making it all the more fun. I was hiding behind a large glass window waiting for a round to begin and realized that the corner I was squatting in had a lot of old cobwebs and rusty nails sticking out. 

Also today I got to hold a little tiny baby puppy. One of the little Roma kids that we talk to a lot was holding one and let me pick him up for a minute.

On Saturday Susana got baptized, along with the elders' investigator, Sascho. We took her and her boyfriend out to lunch afterwards. Susana is so nice; she is the equivalent of my Macedonian grandma. We usually have lessons at her house since she lives right by us and she always feeds us SO MUCH. Yesterday when we went to see her she asked if we'd had lunch already and we told her yes, so then when we were about to leave she said she wanted to give us dinner since we'd already had lunch. And this was after she'd already given us homemade doughnuts and lemonade. On Sunday she was confirmed but Sascho didn't come. So, Macedonia now has seventeen and a half members.

Elder Barber update: apparently he's working at a bakery where he has to get up at like 4am, which is pretty funny because he hated getting up at 6:30 every day as a missionary. It's also ironic that now he spends his days making sandwiches for women. He emailed me today and said he misses Skopje.

Elder Krajnc had been serving in Kosovo for the past few weeks, but he came back on Saturday just in time for the baptism.

Helaman 5:5-8, "For they remembered the words which their father Helaman spake unto them. And these are the words which he spake:

Behold, my sons, I desire that ye should remember to keep the commandments of God; and I would that ye should declare unto the people these words. Behold, I have given unto you the names of our first parents who came out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I have done that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good.

Therefore, my sons, I would that ye should do that which is good, that it may be said of you, and also written, even as it has been said and written of them.

And now my sons, behold I have somewhat more to desire of you, which desire is, that ye may not do these things that ye may boast, but that ye may do these things to lay up for yourselves a treasure in heaven, yea, which is eternal, and which fadeth not away; yea, that ye may have that precious gift of eternal life, which we have reason to suppose hath been given to our fathers."

Love,

Sister Riddle

 

"He was a million miles from a million dollars, but you could never spend his wealth." Preacher, OneRepublic. Did you know they're coming to Skopje on June 1? There have been posters all over town for the past few months. When we got back from Sister's Conference in Tirana the elders had posted one on the outside of our door. I wish I could go ;)

 

April 20, 2015

Yello Mama,

So there are some things I forgot to tell you about the last few times. About a week or so ago we showed our dropped investigator Deon (we run into him everywhere) the Because of Him video in Macedonian. He really liked it. A few days later he called and asked where he could find it online because he wanted to post it to his facebook. That is so awesome!!! Now people, IN MACEDONIA, will see the video and the church's name and realize we aren't a bunch of weirdos!!! So awesome. 

One day we were headed to teach the Roma kids at the Red Cross and we ran into a group of American girls. They were from some christian organization and were in Macedonia to look for service opportunities. We were able to help them out finding contacts because we've been here for so long. Then another day we ran into them again along with some christian people from Holland who were raising awareness for something. So it was kind of funny having three different groups of christians all coincidentally in one place at the same time.

A few days before sister's conference in Tirana I decided I needed a haircut and didn't want to spend money or time on a p-day. So I cut my hair myself in the bathroom one night. It looked pretty good. I don't know how that happened.

Susana is getting baptized in about a week. We also started teaching her boyfriend. He's read the entire Book of Mormon already.

I made pumpkin bread for Ana and Gordana and Susana this week. It was fun trying to find the spices by their Macedonian names. Haha. 

Last night while contacting I met a guy from Connecticut. I introduced myself as "a mormon missionary" and he said, "You guys are all over!" and that he'd "never met a woman missionary" before. He was really nice and interested in spiritual things and I talked to him for several hours. I would've been exhausted talking about church in Macedonian for that long. Makes me grateful I didn't serve English-speaking. I think it's harder.  

Hope you had time to watch General Conference.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/answers-received?cid=HP_TH_4-16-2015_dPTH_fGC_xLIDyL1-B_&lang=eng

Love,

Sister Riddle

April 13, 2015

Hey Mom,

We drove by the new church building last week on our way home from Kosovo (zone training again). It's pretty much a house/apartment type thing that they've rented out and are turning into a meetinghouse. It's in a beautiful neighborhood, though. Not that far from where our apartment is. I had no idea it was there. And I didn't know Macedonia did cute. 

Macedonian Easter was yesterday so we did some Easter-themed tabling in Center with the elders. Elder Prince dyed some eggs and put them in a basket along with some cards. Elder Rigby set out some pamphlets in a more artistic way that we hadn't done before. I got a couple of phone numbers.

They sell eggs pre-dyed here, but usually when people do them by themselves they mostly dye them red. We went over to Susana's place the other day and she was using beet juice to dye the eggs, and then shining them with vegetable oil. 

This morning I actually did shine my shoes and shop at the store. But I'm supposed to do that on Saturday right?

I saw Nergus again, the Jehovah's Witness lady who works by Bit Pazar. I had stopped by and given her stuff to read about Joseph Smith and she asked me if she could have a copy of the King James Bible in English. (She understands English pretty well.) So the other day we went to her work again and I gave her the Bible. I think that's going to be the end of the road though, because we both just keep trying to convert each other.

President Weidmann came to church on Sunday for announcing the new branch presidency. Elmaz is president, Zoki is first counselor, Negat is second counselor, and Elder Nelson is the clerk. President Weidmann also gave me my travel plans printed off. Skopje, Vienna, Chicago, Salt Lake.

It was nice weather this week and I bought a little Roma boy some ice cream. Some of the fountains have turned back on but the big Alexander the Great one has construction going on around it, so I probably won't see it working again before I leave. 

Sister Hassell likes to blow bubbles during companion study. And weekly planning. And daily planning. I don't know when she got them. 

My apologies for the dry letter.

http://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/obedience-to-the-ten-commandments

Love,

Sister Riddle

 

April 6, 2015

Hey Mom,

It's not every day you run into a Spanish-speaking Icelandic man in Macedonia. But that happened this week. We were in Ramstore doing language study and a guy came up to us and said he talks to Mormon missionaries all the time on the bus in Iceland. "You guys are everywhere," he said. I think he said he lives close to a church there. "It's so weird to have some pretty girl come up to you, flip her hair back, and say, 'Do you know Jesus?'"

So this week was pretty good. Yesterday was Fast Sunday AND General Conference AND Easter AND we got to go to the Nelson's to watch conference with the members and investigators. It was really fun. We had one room for watching it in English and upstairs it was streaming in Croatian (the closest thing to Serbian, which is the closest thing to Macedonian). The night before I had been in the Croatian room and one of the interpreter's accent was so bad people were leaning forward trying to understand him. He sounded like some American guy who had just barely gotten off a mission without learning the language too well. The interpreter last night was a lot better. I came to trade places with Sister Hassell halfway through in the Croatian room. Ana, Gordana, and our investigator Susana and her friend Bogdan were sitting in there. At one part during Elder Uchtdorf's talk we heard everyone downstairs laughing. "It must be funnier in English," said Bogdan.

"I think they're ahead," I told him.

"So soon we'll be entertained."

 Turns out it was just that the computer kept freezing during Elder Holland's talk when his face was making interesting expressions. Susana brought some type of burek that I ate and then Ana asked me if I knew what the green stuff was in it. "Spinach?" No, nettles. Which is like poison ivy. I looked it up on her phone and apparently it's ok to eat after it's been blanched. Ironically it works as an anti-inflammatory.

Earlier on Sunday we were waiting outside of Hotel Arka for Kone and some guy walked up to us and started talking to us. He said the elders had given him a card while contacting in Center about two or three months before. His name was Ilitsa and I sat next to him during church. He had a lot of questions and we started talking about grace, so I opened up to 2 Nephi 25:23. "You know the book by memory!" he exclaimed, really impressed. I've always wanted to get to a point where I knew the scriptures well enough that I could have references memorized, like some people do. I guess I'm like them now. Well, kind of. I don't have that many memorized. 

Thanks so much for your Easter package! I put Sister Hassell and Sister Barch's baggies on their beds yesterday when they were studying, not even trying to be cutesy about it, and then later when Sister Hassell went into her room she yelled, "Easter bunny came!" Ha ha.

This week I finally got around to making a poster I have been wanting to make for when we table. It's the same picture on the front of Preach My Gospel, of Christ's baptism, and below it has the baptismal invite in Macedonian. Now I just have to get some sort of stand for it for when we use it. I figure it's pretty to-the-point. It helps people understand a little better what we do without having to come up and talk to us. I'm pretty proud of it.

Have I ever mentioned the anti-Mormon Romanian guy? Well I ran into him again and asked him how long he would be working that day and then ran home to get him a Romanian Book of Mormon. When I came back he was gone. Maybe he was playing the how-to-waste-a-missionary's-time game. A lot of people here love that game. 

We taught this guy named Zlatko in a Best Western cafe and showed him the Because of Him clip in Macedonian. We taught him the Restoration and he asked, "So in between the death of Christ and His apostles and the time of Joseph Smith, none of the churches were true?" 

"Right."

"Oh, wow," he shook his head. Later he asked him what he thought about all that we had been telling him. "It holds water," he said thoughtfully.

We've been finding a lot of promising people lately, which makes me excited. I'm just not very good at contacting. Still I never know what to say to people. But while outside the post office one day I went up to a girl sitting on a curb and started talking to her. "Do you maybe know English?" she asked. She said she was from Hungary. I'm so used to people here being from all these different places and yet speaking perfect English, so I didn't question her lack of an accent until she asked where I was from. I asked if she knew where Maryland was and she said yes because she was from Pennsylvania. She had a job teaching and living in Hungary. Cool! Probably one of the least awkward conversations I've had as a missionary followed. 

Well, I can't think of what else to tell you.

Love, 

Sister Riddle
 

http://www.mormon.org/easter?cid=HP_SA_4-4-2015_dMIS_fMRMN_xLIDyMSTHD1_

 

March 30, 2015

Hey Mom,

 

So I didn't write last week about going to sister's conference in Tirana. We actually found a bus that goes straight from Skopje to Tirana. Usually we have to stay in Prishtina overnight. It was really cool doing exchanges in Albania; I was companions with Sister Braha who is a native Albanian and was serving there for a few more days until she got her visa to England. She's called to Leeds. I actually have a friend from the MTC who'll still be serving there when she gets there. She told us that pretty much every Albanian gets called to England. We asked her why and she said one of her best friends who served there said, "We're like the pioneers of Albania, most of us being converts, so it's easy for us to relate to them and have them be the pioneers in England." On the bus in Tirana, guess what played on the tv? The Because of Him video!!! So cool. With all the words in Albanian of course. Sister Braha told us, "We have this one investigator who found us through the commercial, and she said she got on three different buses waiting for the video to play again so she could copy down the phone number." 

One day this week we got locked inside our apartment. We were all standing by the door with our coats and everything and when we unlocked it the door just wouldn't open. I called the landlord and he said he was on the other side of the city and would be there in half an hour. He came and tried to unlock it from the other side, but it still wouldn't work and he left to go and find a repairman. We hung out and cleaned the apartment. I guess it needed it. It was nice to get a break. By the time we finally got out it was about 4:30pm. 

Yesterday it was Brother Davis' birthday so I made him pumpkin bread using the canned pumpkin you sent me.

I can't think of what else happened this week. Sorry for the short email again!

John 6

Happy Easter

Love,

Sister Riddle

March 23, 2015

Hey mom,

This week was good. We now have 4 people on baptismal date. And Blagoy was going to be among them for this week but unfortunately his wife moved back in and, again, he can't get baptized.

Sister Hassell pointed out to me, "Everyone we meet, even if we only have a first lesson with them, mentions something about how they've been searching or thinking about God recently. Like Naim who had been going to the mosque for the past five months. Or Halim who said he'd been questioning his beliefs lately. Or Sloboden who said he'd started reading the Bible again about a month ago." She listed more examples and I realized she was right. How great. Heavenly Father is so anxious for His children to learn the truth. 

Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." 

3 Nephi 12:6, "And blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost."

 

The girl I met in the MTC from Vanuatu emailed me the other day. This is what she said, 

"I'm glad to serve my Heavenly Father to build his kingdom with my

voice. I know that Heavenly Father loves all of us and he gave us
dalent to build his kingdom in this last dispensation. I know that we
all are preciouse to our Heavenly Father. We must share our dalents
with others to help them know that they have  dalents and they have to
share with everyone. We all have awesome dalent but we must not hide
them or ignore them because is a gift from our Heavenly Father to us.
I know that we can do missionary work by singing too. Me and my
companion when we went to our appointments i sang to all of them and i
see how they touch by the spirit and want to change they're live to
better. I'm glad to have a wonderful voice that my Heavenly Father
bless me with. I don't want to hide my dalent because i love everyone.
I'm glad to learn how to love others and that's a huge thing to me. In
Moroni 7 :45 it talks about charity. Is something that we should have
in our lives. If we don't have that charity we are nothing. We don't
want to have that to us. This is a video that we have in our young
women's conference in Highland area in Utah. I'm glad to be part of it
and to know the importance of why we must share our dalents with
other's. Hope y'all have a great day:)"

That's all I have time for right now. I love you.

Sister Riddle