It is sunny today. It is so wonderful. This week has been an incredibly strange week. Largely cloudy, cold and drizzly up until yesterday. Then the sun pierced through the fog and the weather turned absolutely amazing. We'll see how long this will last.
So I feel like we have been all over this week. We have had something strange every single day of the week. It all started on Monday. Last week we all went to Ljubljana to have some fun and spend time with the missionaries there. It was great. Then on Tuesday Elder Lyman and I had to go back to Ljubljana to do visa things for him. It was a relatively smooth process. We then, on the way back to Celje stopped in a little town called Zagorje to find (more try to find) someone who was referred to us through Mormon.org (yes! It does work believe it or not! I was amazed too!). None the less, a relatively smooth day. We found someone ( woman with a nice little family) to teach that night too. Then Wednesday, guess what, BACK TO LJUBLJANA! For zone conference. Zone conference with all of Slovenia was fine, but not nearly as inspiring as the time before. Then Thursday and Friday we hosted an open house in Celje where we opened the church doors and gave a handful of tours of the church and invited some people to learn more. It was actually quite successful. The sisters found someone new to teach through that as well. then came Saturday, where we went to Maribor!! As general conference was a week or two ago, we are just now getting around to watching it. I'm just grateful we had the opportunity to go and see it in English, mostly. We were there in at the senior couple's place watch conference for a majority of the day. It was amazing, inspiring, and gave direction to my life and answered questions of specific things I need to do and things I need to focus on to be even better than before. Then Sunday came around, and we went back to Ljubljana!!!... But in this was the real success of the week.
Instead of having regular church in Celje this week, we had it in Ljubljana to give people a chance to go down and view general conference in Slovene (the translations were actually done by Slovenes for the first time and were absolutely wonderful. Not the dreadful former missionaries translations). None the less, it was us four missionaries, and then only 2 Celjeians. But, these two Celjeians were one, the sister's investigator who is awesome, aaaaand a less active sister we've been working with who hasn't been to church in some 3 months or so (longer, a year or so, if you go back to the time when she came every single Sunday)!!! It was a wonderful conference and I feel she really received the counsel she really needed. We will keep working with her to help her become even more strong and cemented in the gospel. All the members were amazed to hear that she had actually come to the conference in Ljubljana. It is quite ironic too, that the Sunday she would come back was in a way (by train), place (100 km from home), time commitment (10 hours total after travel time and conference), and monetary cost (price of a train ticket to Ljubljana and back) above and beyond the normal commitments of going to church. Goes to show one someone wants something and is inspired and driven to do it, nothing is too difficult. Especially with the Lord.
Beyond that, everything is well in Celje. We have something really really really really really really exciting coming up soon. This week a senior missionary couple is coming to Slovenia, and is coming to Celje!!! We are planning something big for them this Friday, and things for them to do in the country.
Great things are happening, and more are still to come.
Well wishes home-
-Starešina Benson
Here are some pics I've been meaning to send you. The one in front of the Celje church is of me and Elder Baldwin back last month. Then we have a modern district picture of the Celjski misijonari in Ljubljana, and a picture of me and Elder Lyman in Ljubljana at the dragon bridge.
:-)
-Starešina Benson
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