Dear wonderful, amazing parents,

We had an amazing week this week, Sister Berrett and I. We started teaching a man named Goran who actually lives in Pirot, which is southern Serbia, 4 hours away by bus, but he found us online and referred himself, so we're doing over the phone lessons! He is an hour away from a city called Nis, which has a few members in it who watch our Beograd sacrament meeting via broadcast and bless the sacrament themselves, so we're going to try to get him down there for church. He is honestly the most sincere investigator I've ever known. On our first phone call he asked what he needs to do to get baptized, and yesterday he told us all these times when he felt the Spirit (i.e. at our church in Sofia, Bulgaria, or when he read about us online) and RECOGNIZED it! He is so cool. We are praying that the Lord clears a way for him to get baptized and attend church regularly. We have been very open with him from the start by letting him know that it will be hard because he needs to commit to coming to church. He's willing! I'll update you on that.

We ALSO met this really cool woman named Gordana who agreed to meet with us on Saturday. We invited our member Sister Raicevic to come on the lesson, but she didn't get there till we had already finished! It was the best lesson though. Gordana agreed to keep on taking the lessons, too! And she invited us to her pilates class. We might not be able to resist.

So yeah, we're pretty happy. I was happy when we weren't teaching people, too, for the most part (it was an acquired feeling), but life is just so much better when people actually want to hear what you have to say. Thank you for your prayers, and I love you both so much. 

I promise I read both of your emails and printed them off so I could fully appreciate them. SO cool mom got to go to MN. Weird about the Torontos. Weird. Now we have to go celebrate Sister Berrett's birthday (which is tomorrow) by stuffing our faces at the Raicevic's house. Of course. 

P.S. I am so sorry I haven't been sending pictures this transfer. The internet place we go to and the computer at the church don't let me upload pictures! Ugh. I want you guys to see the Raicevic family so bad. They are the best.

LOVE YOU,

Vasa cerka

I am going to be a little bit coarse here and start out with the announcement that a middle aged crazy man almost relieved his "waters" all over Sister Berrett the other day. We were talking to this woman on the street, and all of the sudden this man walks between us and starts... yeah. Long story short I whisked Sister Berrett right out of that situation (the other woman had just told us she wasn't interested anyway) and let's hope the man was very drunk and very ashamed of himself. Good times.

The weather was an absolute delight this past week, with mid 60s temps in midday, and delicious rainfall after dinner and all throughout the night basically every single day. We pretty much ran to get out the door every day and soak in the cool before the 90 degree weather comes back as forecast for this week. We talked to a lot of really cool people. There was this one small family that we talked to for a really long time, and I really thought they had a lot of potential, but then it turns out they're from a village 200 km away and we don't have the church out there. We gave them information though, and who knows, one day they might be our first baptisms in that small town of southern Serbia --you know, when the Mormons take over the world and everyone starts converting :) Get ready, nonbelievers! It's hard to resist the true church.

I was also on the B.E.S.T. exchange with my MTC companion Sister Washburn last week! I can't even TELL you how much both of us have grown since those first 9 weeks of our mission. Her -- and hopefully my-- Serbian has skyrocketed in the last several months. It was the most surreal experience to be together again, but this time doing real missionary work in real, live Serbia. Unforgettable. I love that woman.

Alright, I think that's it from me. Live it up out there. Life is good, the church is true (promise!), your family is essential to your happiness, and you are more loved than you think.

Zbogom!

Dobar dan!

I'm going to start this one off with a fun little thing that happened this week that I probably think is a lot funnier than Sister Berrett does.

Background: We buy bottled water here. It's just a precaution, and it barely makes a dent in our budget because you can buy a big old 6 liter thing of water for about 80 cents and that will last us about 2 days. Typically we buy a few of those on pday and they last us the week.

This week, we happened to be running out of water on Saturday, and seeing as we couldn't purchase water on Sunday and we definitely wouldn't make it without, we ran to the shop up the street and quick grabbed a jug that wasn't our normal brand, but we were in a hurry so we took it. Come Sunday morning, I open up the bottle and start pouring myself a glass of what we THOUGHT was nice, NON-carbonated water--- then I saw the bubbles. Turns out, we had accidentally bought carbonated water. I'm okay with that since I was blessed to acquire a taste for the stuff; however, Sister Berrett absolutely LOATHES it. So poor her had to drink milk all day in the heat and fill up her tiny bottle at the church whenever she had the chance. The end.

Friday was the best zone conference I've ever had. I probably say that every time we have a zone conference, but I'm SERIOUS this time. Top 2 highlights: at the end of the meeting, President opened the time up for us to share our testimonies. The Spirit was so strong strong in that room as both people I knew well and some I barely knew got up and shared what they believe and what brings them hope. Then at the very end, we sang a song from the LDS Children's Songbook simply entitled, "Baptism." We had to sing it twice because some of us (I won't mention names...) were crying too hard to get through it the first time (Note: it is a tendency for some people to cry when they feel the Holy Spirit very strongly; it's a joyful cry, not a sad one, like seeing a baby born or something). It was a very sweet moment.

The other day we met the best couple while we were in a park. We talked to them about prophets and the Book of Mormon and they basically accepted everything. They are the most hipster Serbs I've ever met, too, which I absolutely loved. Plus, the woman had curly blond hair, so I couldn't NOT love them. I am excited for them and hope we get to teach them more!

Okay that's enough of me. You all keep living your lives.

Ooh! Let's get a fraza dana up in here today:

Haos (house [but the h is harsh sounding, don't know how to describe it]) -- Literally, "chaos," but the kids use it fairly often as a kind of filler type word, like we say "crazy" or when somebody says/does something cool/legitimately crazy.

Bye!

Sestra Watts

And in her email to mom in response to the arrival of our Serbian exchange student:

Wow, you guys look like you're already having a blast with Suncica. Good! She's the coolest. Tell her I say hi too. But don't let her teach you any Serbian. I want to come home and talk to her and have you guys not know a thing we're saying. 

Okay, this title seems pretty intense, but it's just that with every companion I have, we eat completely different things. With Sister Kawai, it was a lot of rice. Sister Berrett and I are now in the process of figuring out what our go-to will be when it comes to lunch and dinner breaks, so stay tuned for any updates.

Hey! I am now with my new, beautiful companion, Sister Berrett. She is fresh out of Rijeka, Croatia, and ready to tear up Belgrade with her love of missionary work and all things gospel. I am really excited about this transfer, and you all can expect at least a few baptisms to come from these next two months.

This past week was another Mission Leader Council, and we focused a lot on finding faith in our goals to find people ready to accept the gospel and enter the waters of baptism. We talked a lot about how we go about developing faith in our ability to succeed as part of that. One of the things that I decided I want is to hear more stories from others who have served missions or participated in missionary work.

That being said, will anyone reading this who has served a mission/ been a member missionary in any way send me a story of success, or when you've seen the promises of the Lord fulfilled in your life? Thank you. Send them directly to me at katarina.watts@myldsmail.net

I want you all to know of my love for Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. After everything else in the world falls apart, they will be there with open arms to welcome us into their rest.

Have a wonderful week.

(And here portions of a couple of emails from the past few weeks when she only had time to write to her parents)

Aug. 3

Just so you know, I'm in Zagreb right now (naturally) and I potentially don't have a lot of time to email (of course).

We found out about transfers last week, and I am thankfully staying in Belgrade. My new companion is Sister Berrett! We're already friends because I saw her at MLC a lot, but I don't know her very well. From what I hear though she is an excellent missionary and she works hard and talks to everyone. I am really excited to serve with her. Sister Kawai got sent off to Zadar again. I'm in Zagreb as part of the transfer travels, I actually drove up here with Sister Chauncey, the sister from my district who's going home TOMORROW. We've been together since last night (Sunday), and it has been really cool to talk to her about her mission and everything that she has learned. I was afraid that all her talking would get me thinking about going home, but she's actually inspired me to work harder while I'm here instead. But yeah we had a long time to talk because the drive to Zagreb is about 4 hours. 

I'll hopefully have time to email you all in a few hours when things settle down for the day, but I thought I'd fill y'all in really quick just in case. 

July 13

First of all, DON'T FREAK OUT. I know that it is past curfew and it's not even p-day anymore technically. It's been an insane day. Even more so than normal.

So on Friday we get a call and find out that Sister Hertz, who's serving in Novi Sad, is getting kicked out of the country because of visa problems. So President had to rearrange the companionship situations a little bit in the mission. Sister Kawai and I did not get moved, but we were asked to be a taxi for the entire day today for moving sisters. So last night we drove down to Novi Sad, stayed the night there with Sister Hertz and Washburn, then took both of them and headed to Sremska Mitrovica (2 hour drive). There, we met Sisters Deschler and Kropushek, took Sister Kropushek and left Sister Washburn in Sremska with Sister Deschler. Then we crossed the border into Croatia and went to Osijek (2 hours), where we left Sister Hertz to be in a trio with Sister Derenthal (my old companion-- it was SO good to see her again) and Sister Lee. So now it is just me, Sister Kawai, and Sister Kropushek in the car. We drive all the way through northern Croatia and cross the border into SLOVENIA, and land in Ljubljana (4 hours). There had been a trio splitting their time between Ljubljana and Kranj because they were short a Slovene sister, so Sister Kropushek got moved allll the way up there to even out the companionships. The crazy thing is, Sister Kropushek has 3 weeks left of the mission and doesn't know a bit of Slovene. What's wonderful about it though is that her grandfather is originally from Slovenia, so she has the chance to look up tons of relatives, living and dead, while she's there. It was especially nice for Sister Kawai and me as well, seeing as we'd never set foot in Slovenia, and it is the most beautiful country in southern Europe. We honestly felt like we were driving into Narnia on that border cross.

At this point it's almost 8 pm, so President, having foreseen the insanity of asking us to drive back to Beograd tonight (probably 6 or 7 hours from Lake Bled) invited us to stay at his home in Zagreb (2 hours) and email y'all, sleep, and then drive back in the morning.

Hello!

Most of what I want to say to y'all is about yesterday (Sunday) because it was the coolest day of the week.

But first, I had an amazing exchange with one of my favorite sisters (I'm allowed to pick favorites, right?), Sister Chauncey, who goes home in a WEEK and you wouldn't even know it she's so dedicated to working hard. She's one of the nicest, smartest, funniest, beautifulest (I KNOW that's not a real word) people I've ever met. So attention, all of my friends that go to BYU-Idaho, please date her. She'll die if she knows I wrote this, but that's okay. I don't lie. So anyway, I missed Sister Kawai, but exchanges are fun because you get to work with someone that you're not typically with, and you get new ideas for how to teach/ find people to teach.

Alright. Yesterday, first of all, was a blast because we went to church. I know people typically don't describe church as a blast, but I truly have realized that Sundays are the best day of the week, strictly because going to church is so good. It's good for the soul. It also doesn't hurt that we were in charge of the primary yesterday ("primary" means Sunday School for children under 12) and we probably have the cutest kids ever in Beograd. It was weird, too, though, because all the native children were gone on vacation, so everyone there was English-speaking, whether they were here because their parent(s) work at the American embassy or they were just passing through. So we sang English songs and taught an English lesson about Jesus and -- wait for it--- how to be a missionary! I don't know how much they got out of the lesson (I'm not used to teaching people besides adults O.o), but Sister Kawai and I sure had a grand old time.

We also had a successful day outside of church. We decided to focus on talking to couples and families, and the first couple we stopped on the street agreed to come have a tour of our church while we told them about what we believe! They asked a lot of questions. They were foreign, too, so we did the whole thing in English. WEIRD. I spoke English way too much yesterday.

Also, we got to teach a lot about how our church came about and what we believe to yet another couple that we stopped on the street. We tend to try to do that kind of thing a lot, but this conversation was just so good and so inspiring for everyone involved. I don't know how to describe it. We have high hopes for those two.

Alright you all. Have a great week.

Hi friends.

I would like to formally apologize for not having written a mass email in approximately forever. We finally have a day to relax! The past few Mondays have been pretty insane. Two weeks ago we were in Zagreb for another MLC, and last week, Sister Kawai and I were responsible for driving a ton of people around 3 different countries because SOMEONE had to get kicked out of Serbia (cough cough sister hertz), so things had to get rearranged a bit. It was a ton of fun. Not a lot of people can say they spent quality time in 3 different countries in one day, I don't think.

But yeah. As for big news, I got a nice blister on the back of my foot again. These things tend to happen fairly often, since we seem to find ourselves walking a lot, to make a vast understatement. My goal is to come home with dark brown skin and the ugliest, knobbliest feet you'll ever see.

There's only two more weeks till we find out about transfers. Time just gets faster the longer I'm here. I'd like someone to explain the science behind that. And then tell me how I can counteract it, thanks.

Peace and blessings!

Your Sestra


An excerpt from a letter to mom:

Throughout my entire mission, I have found myself thinking about Mummi (Finnish grandmother) a lot more than I ever have. These past two weeks I have especially felt that she is more present in my life. At MLC President told us something that Elder Eyring said at the funeral for President's mother (how neat that President Eyring spoke there-- it's okay though, Elder Nielsen at Pappa's funeral was amazing too) directed towards the grandchildren of the deceased. He said that now that their grandmother has passed, she has the chance to check up on her grandkids even more so than she did in mortality. I never knew, or rather realized, that Mummi and Pappa could be so involved from the other side. I find that I wonder a lot more now about what Mummi experienced on her mission and in her life in general, since she is my closest related convert to the church, and my life has now become entirely focused on the conversion of myself and others. I also recognize that I am the only granddaughter to this point who has served a mission. I hope that what I am doing is making her happy. Even more so, I hope that what I am doing is making the Lord happy. I have to constantly remind myself that even though it's hard, it is not the hardest. I don't remember which, but one apostle said that we did not come here to fail, but to succeed gloriously, or something like that. 

Sorry I missed writing last week! I happened to be... busy...of course...

No, but seriously, these past two weeks have been haos (that means "chaos" in Serbian. Neat, huh?). Two weeks ago Sister Hertz and I had a jolly good time together in Novi Sad for two days. I was with her till Wednesday morning, which also happened to be her birthday, so I cleverly schemed with the elders in her district and made her a cool picture collage thing of our friendship (which consists of the MTC and our random exchanges together-- our friendship has been short, but altogether magical). She loved it, of course. Then when our real companions came to pick us up we had a delightful lunch of homemade tacos with random, year-old Taco Bell taco seasoning that we found in their pantry. Hence our domestic photo-op. What a day.

Other big event of the fortnight; our two day zone conference in Zagreb was a raging success. I don't know if I mentioned that in my last. President brought all the zones to Zagreb (at different times, naturally) for zone conference this month as a rare treat. It followed a similar format to MLC, in which the first day was p-day, so we were allowed to come up early and do all sorts of activities, like volleyball, basketball, tennis, and your general assortment of card/board games. We enjoyed ourselves and partied immensely, and then had a wonderful, spiritual party during the meetings. And by party, I mean that we talked and shared and laughed and cried and learned a lot, but we didn't scream or yell or dance, or whatever else you do at real parties. Everyone had good things to say, and we all came out of there with renewed energy and desire to work harder and more effectively. At least, I'm assuming everyone else felt that way. I sure did.

Did you know that last Wednesday, June 24th was exactly 9 months to the day that I entered the Missionary Training Center? That means I am basically halfway through this miraculous journey that they call a mission, but which I'm more inclined to call "intensive life skills training" because I have learned more in the past 9 months about what and who I want to be than at any other time in my life.

Alright. That's enough from me. Uzivajte (enjoy)!

Sestra Watts

(Here is an excerpt from Rina's email to her family. It has some interesting information about her actual mission work. Having served a mission in Finland, I can totally relate to the slowness of the work and the lack of people to teach. In some countries people get baptized every week or every month, but in some you might have one or two of the people you are teaching get baptized your whole mission, or maybe even no one. But you still are serving people and teaching them good things and learning a lot yourself.  --Tiina)

It has been a good few days since I last emailed you all. Zone conference, as you might have already heard from my mass email, was fantastic. I don't know if I told you this, but we are not teaching anyone here in Beograd right now, at least not seriously. It was like that when I came, so we have been working really hard to try to build up a teaching pool, but so far our efforts haven't yielded much fruit. I am used to coming into areas with no investigators (it's what I've done in both of the other cities, too), but still, the first little while before things pick up are extremely difficult, and for some reason, this time the empty period has lasted longer than I'm used to. It has really been a growth experience and continues to be. I have never contacted so much in a single day. There were a few days this week where our entire day was filled with finding, be it tracting, contacting, or a few other attempts to shake things up in our search for the elect. At one point we went and read the Serbian Book of Mormon by the river out loud and then waited to see if anyone would stare at us, with the idea that when they did, we would invite them to learn more. There weren't many people out that day. Another time we took off our watches and called it our "tract till we drop" time, with the idea that we could tract for hours on end since we had so much time to fill. It was a good time of the day, but for some reason no one was home. So we contacted instead. 

The strange thing about all of this is that even though I've never spent this much time doing the nitty gritty, I don't hate it. I've come to enjoy contacting, and I've come to realize that the more people I talk to and have a good conversation with about the gospel, the happier I am. And I am learning more about the worth of souls, too. It's easy in a mission like this to make excuses for not having baptisms by saying things like, "the people are colder here" or "tradition is so deep that no one will listen to us," but in reality, I have never met kinder people than the ones I have met on my mission. Balkan people look out and care for each other in a way that I still don't fully comprehend. There is an endless amount of love beneath their battle-worn skin. What could be stopping me from finding the ones who will listen is that I don't rely on the Lord enough to help me get through, past the cultural boundaries and into their hearts. In reality, all humanity is the same in that we all seek happiness and love. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the epitome of both of those things. So I am really working to develop that Christ-like love for all of God's children and figuring out how to share that with others. It requires a lot of prayer and focus on my studies. I am thankful and happy, despite the fact that sometimes I am also really sad and disappointed. 

Tell the family that I love them, and it was good to see everyone last week! Thank you for your prayers.

I love you! Bog s tobom!