Hello!

First off, I'm sincerely sorry that I don't have the capacity to attach pictures to my emails today, because I would love for you all to see what Sister Berrett and I did today:

For the last few weeks it has been continually impressed upon the minds of Sister Berrett and I that we are in desperate need of haircuts. Today we finally succumbed to the impression and, as a result, I got a haircut after ten months of avoiding the scissor. What made this even so fantastic, however, was that we were accompanied by our favorite member/Serbian mother, Sister Raicevic. It's a known fact that anything done with Sister Raicevic turns into a party. So we got the full treatment, with shampoos, cuts, blowdries, and a whole lot of styling. You will see pictures later. The cool thing about Serbia is that there is a hair salon on every corner and the average price of a haircut is about 4 to 5 American dollars. And they are not bad cuts, either. So we treated ourselves and had the time of our lives. Don't worry though, I only got a trim.

Also, one of our investigators agreed to get baptized! I told you all about him last week, I think, the one who lives really far away. He is the most spiritually prepared person I've met here. He teaches himself more than we teach him. It's been a really cool experience to teach him, albeit over the phone. Hopefully (fingers crossed) missionaries will be down there to meet him this week, and then things will really get moving!

We find out about transfers on Thursday, and then everybody moves starting next Monday. The last week of the transfer is always chaotic. We'll see what happens! I've already been in Belgrade 4 months (two transfers), which is the typically amount a missionary stays in a city here. I could get the boot! Stay tuned.

Read your scriptures!

I am so sorry that it's been a while since I've written! I am not even going to try to summarize everything that's happened to me in the past few weeks, nor will I probably even hit all the highlights. 

First of all, if you love me, you will go to crkva-isusa-hrista.rs and make it the homepage of your web browser. Yes, I know it is in Serbian. We are trying to get the good name of the church out there in these countries because our web presence is not so redeeming and mostly false. Just a suggestion.

Okay... let's see. We have been teaching this really, really cool man who is actually like 3 hours from Beograd and we teach over the phone. We didn't really ask for it, he found us and asked if he could get baptized. So we'll see where that goes. He is so, incredibly sincere. And not too far from Sofia, Bulgaria, so he could go to church there.

We're also teaching the coolest lady who is a pilates instructor up the street. She's awesome and when we contacted her on the street she told us it must be God's will that she learn from us because she normally never, ever walks down that street but just felt like she should that night. Cool stuff! The church is true.

We've celebrated 3 birthdays in the past two-ish weeks (mine, Sister Berrett's, and our Serbian mom Sister Raicevic's) which has involved a lot of home-cooked Serbian specialties from Sister Raicevic. I had lost some weight at the beginning of the transfer but now I have probably gained it all back. Life is good!

We had a cool zone conference last week... I don't really know what else to say about that. But it was really, really cool.

I noticed something cool in the Bible the other day. John 11:39 says that when Jesus was raising Lazarus from the dead, He commanded those who were there to move the stone from the place of Lazarus' burial. Isn't it interesting that when He was about to raise the dead He did not simply exert His power to move the stone without asking others to do so? This shows me that, although God is a god of miracles, He also requires us to put in some effort to do what we can first. He will not do anything that is unnecessary. We must first trust in Him and be His tool by doing what we can to help others (aka removing that stone) and then He will step in and do the real miracle.

Have a wonderful week.

Sestra Watts

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