Assignment: Croatia

The last week of February found Elder G and me accompanying our Director, Gabi Sirtl , and two associates, Dinis Adriano and Rita Somfai, to the mission headquarters of the Adriatic North Mission in Zagreb, Croatia.  President and Sister Grant met us at the airport before noon and kept us on the road until almost 10 p.m. that night!  They wanted us to get a "feel" for the beautiful countryside of Croatia, one of five countries making up their mission.  The five countries are Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.

 We drove for almost two hours while Sister Grant passed up the makings of a yummy lunch from the back third seat of the mission SUV.  We arrived at the seacoast town of Pula and were thrilled to see one of the world's 6th best-preserved Roman coliseums!
It was begun around 27 BC  and finished about 46 A.D.

The smoothness of these stone pavers gave us a good idea of how old and worn things were.

 It was so amazingly well-preserved for being 2,000 years old!

We wondered if these stone bleachers were the only seating

 or whether there had also been wooden benches long ago deteriorated.

  We ran into a couple from Turkey who agreed to take our picture.

Possible lion's entrance?

And one bad lion!

 I loved the weathered look of the stones!

And underneath--in the "basement"--were these awesome jugs.

They looked too heavy to lift, let alone carry when full of water!

 The President had wanted to take us on a boat ride, but they were closed for the day.  This is a picture of a picture so I can appreciate what the area looked like on a good day from above.  

Note the coliseum at the bottom of the picture.  Croatia is said to have over 11,000 islands!

We left Pula and headed back towards the Mission Home.  

On the way we passed beautiful Opatija, a seaside resort city. 

President Grant did his best to find us a restaurant there on the water!

  

 This particular restaurant featured a buffet at 6 p.m., so we willingly visited a half hour in anticipation of a most wonderful dinner, including fresh fish from the Adriatic Sea!
Afterwards, we drove to Zagreb, arriving around 9:30 p.m.

  

Saturday found Gabi presenting training to President Grant, his five Public Affairs council members, two young sister missionaries, and three sets of senior missionaries.  It was pretty much a non-stop day with training going from morning to night.  Gabi was amazing, and everyone participated so well.  One of our main discussions was on encouraging the membership to be more pro-active on the Internet so that positive stories about the Church will eventually replace the negative ones, which have been known to scare away potential investigators.
President Grant, too, demonstrated his great skills as a mission president when he shared a lot of success the mission has been experiencing lately.  One project is that he currently has two young sister missionaries assigned to populating the Internet with positive articles.  Since doing so the past three months, the mission's baptism rate has been increasing!.

We had a lovely dinner right across the street at a wonderful steak house.  Afterwards, Gabi and we returned for a two-hour Webex regarding another assignment, the Freiberg Temple Rededication coming up in August.  And Dinis and Rita did an in-depth two-hour training on the
Internet with the two young sister missionaries.

Sunday morning we went to the Zagreb branch for church.  It is a beautiful building and houses the 40 or so members very well!  It was built in 2009, I believe.  Gabi spoke in Sacrament meeting and encouraged the members to be good missionaries via the Internet.  Church membership in the whole mission is about 1200 with average Sunday attendance of 250 in the 18 branches! There are about 70 missionaries and 17 senior couples serving in the five countries.

After the three-hour block, we had one final meeting with most of our group and shared our thoughts about the training.  Sister Grant had prepared one more wonderful meal for us all--awesome soups and bread--and we were then ready to head back to the airport.

On the way, we stopped by the mission office.  Actually, before 2009 it was also the Zagreb chapel.  Back in 1985 Kresimir Cosic bought the second floor of this building for the Church.  It was then that the Church was able to apply to Yugoslavia to be officially recognized as a church. (You had to own property first in order to do so!)  Years later Yugoslavia would be divided into many countries, with this property now being in Zagreb, Croatia.

 

It's in this very room where President Monson dedicated the land of Yugoslavia to the preaching of the gospel in 1985.  Since this could not be done outside in public in Communist-controlled Yugoslavia, they opened all the windows wide, feeling a nice cool breeze and hearing the chirping of the birds in the park across the street.  They said it was as close as they could get to 

"high on a mountain top..."

Sister Grant took us through the various rooms, 

pointing out what used to be the chapel and various other rooms.

Here was the library of books and pamphlets printed in five different languages!

I just love these old "furnaces."  

Although these are still found in almost every room, they are no longer used.

The biggest surprise was going into the cleaning supplies room containing brooms, mops, a sink, and a door with a coat hanging on it.  Upon opening that door I was totally surprised to find a baptismal font! Apparently, in the early days of the Church there, baptisms were rather discrete!

I thought it was very touching--to see the level of workmanship that went into this
beautiful, sacred font.  No longer in use, drywall now covers the viewing area.

From there we headed to the airport, arriving back in Frankfurt around 7:30 p.m.  It is amazing to reflect upon all training, knowledge, skills, and friendships that were shared in just those three days.  Croatia, the Adriatic North Mission, and President and Sister Grant

 will certainly be dear to our hearts from now on.