Called to serve in the Adriatic North Mission.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016




Katarina has not written a post for her blog in awhile (must be pretty busy), so here are some excerpts from her last couple of letters to us:

Last Monday:

As far as Easter dinner goes, for lunch we had some pasta mixed with eggs, cooking cream, and Russian salad from the freezer that I made. It was actually really good. And dinner was a carrot and some Easter Milka chocolate, I think, because we were still full from lunch. Our senior couple left after church to take some members to the temple in Bern, Switzerland to do endowments (one of them for the first time! Hallelujah!), otherwise they would have fed us something nicer. But the temple is a great excuse! P.S. teaching temple prep in Serbian is something I never would have expected to end up doing, but it happened! Cool.

Oh yeah. Serbs celebrate Easter on May 1st this year, so it was just us and the Catholics celebrating. Actually, I wasn't even thinking to celebrate, and just do what we did for Christmas and celebrate it when the general population does. Then yesterday morning I realized... I won't actually be here for their Easter. But I'll celebrate with Sunny! Funny story: yesterday (Sunday) morning, I was ready for the day early (as is my habit on Sundays since we don't exercise), so I was reading the new Liahona. I had the Lamb of God on in the background (I listen to it more than anything else-- it is the best religious music ever), and I came to the last page, where there is an excerpt from a talk about the Resurrection. In the midst of reading it, I realized that the song "I am the Resurrection" had come on, and so I laughed and decided it was a sign from God that resurrection should be my theme of study and pondering for the day. Fast forward to halfway through personal study, I am immersed in all the scriptures I can find concerning resurrection, and it FINALLY hits me that today (yesterday) is EASTER! I had COMPLETELY forgotten! I cannot explain to you how hilarious and amazingly significant that revelation was. I guess Heavenly Father was trying to remind me all morning, but I was too dense to realize it. 

#Hallelujah ! Love you both.

March 21:

 I had a dream that I showed up at the airport and only you, dad, and Clayton were there to meet me, and you weren't even excited. And then you told me Jens "tested 125% positive for insanity" (direct quote from dream-you). And then we went home and I sat on Facebook all day. Needless to say, I don't really feel like coming home very much. Life is hard here, but it's a much easier kind of hard. Much less dramatic and worldly.

This week was a great one! I'm glad to be a missionary regardless of what happens, though. I have felt such a love for my mission recently, stronger than ever. 

We got to bear some serious testimony to a woman the other day whose husband recently died. It was not an experience I've gotten very many times on my mission where we're in a contact on the street and the Spirit testifies so strongly and the 3rd party listens so intently. At the end she said, "I wish that what you're telling me is true" and we said it is! And we read from the Book of Mormon and asked her to pray about it. We did all we could for her, and then left it up to her agency. She said she would do what she asked, but she couldn't meet with us at this point in her life. She's too busy. But we're praying for her! 

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Just a short one this week because I haven't written in forever. 

Our hearts were broken last Wednesday when our investigator on date to be baptized last Saturday, the 27th, texted and said she wouldn't be joining our church. Her parents apparently reacted very strongly against her becoming Mormon, and she doesn't want to go against their will. We've done a lot of mourning and praying, trying to figure out why this happened. All I know is that Heavenly Father's love is real and He lets us choose what we want in life so that we can learn and grow. While I'm not ready to say that I'm grateful for this experience, we've learned a lot from it. I so hope and pray that she comes back. If anyone was ready to be baptized, it was she. 

We've seen a lot of blessings this week, too. People have been more open to our message. We work hard. We're still happy, even though for right now we're also a little bit sad. The church is still true and the Book is still blue! 

Love,
Sestra Watts