Warm winter and a fiery New Year

Hello all family and friends, lep pozdrav.

I heard that in America it is brutally cold and 40 of the continental 48 have tons of snow. Well, what is the weather here in Slovenija while you all are freezing under layers of snow? Rain. And clouds, and more rain. It is just too stinking warm to snow. Sorry America. We gave you all of our cold this year it looks like. Nothing like two strange winters on my mission. Last year it was the year of the never ending snow. This year it is the outrageously warm year where it can't snow. Exciting times.

This week has been an interesting week. It has also felt like one oN the longest weeks in a long time. I can't believe New Years was this week. It feels like decades ago.

This week we had a lot of progress with the mother who has been investigating the church for a bit with us that I had the prompting to go visit some two months ago. She has been reading now, and praying (sporadically, but still it is something and she will benefit from it all), but the big progress she made is she came to church yesterday!! We didn't even have to invite her, she just asked us on her own when it starts and where it is. When we offered if she needed any help, if we wanted to go together she said, of no, it's not necessary, and she came. It was in the end, a great testimony meeting, and she had a great experience.

New Years was a good day as well. We had a New Years activity at the church which was punctuated by excitement, but ultimately a good experience. New Years here is crazy. The fireworks start going off around Dec 21st there abouts, and are at least a few fireworks every day for the next moth practically. Then on New Years eve it is practically a war zone with people launching fireworks out of their windows on the 8th floor of an apartment tower, or just in every free parking lot in Celje, or just a street, doesn't matter where. There are no laws about that.

But it isn't over yet. Tomorrow is Serbian Christmas, then 7 days later will be Serbian new years, so it will all happen again. It is exciting though. The grand finale woke me up this year unlike last year, so I sleepily shuffled over to the window to watch the fireworks for a few minutes before going back to sleep. Now I can say I saw New Years on my mission!!

Well, it's unlikely that this letter will change the weather much, but my wishes are warm through this week. Much care-

-Starešina Benson