Sunshine in our Soul Today

Norm: Prompted by a visa glitch, we took advantage today to visit the Pécs sister city of Osijek just to the south of us in Croatia. Before WW l, the countryside of what is now Croatia was actually a part of Hungary, but was lost  as part of a treaty negotiation as a result of the war.

It was a cold and rainy day. Our dear friend Gabriela came with us for the trip. She speaks very good English and a little Croatian. She proved to be great company and a real asset when it came time for our border crossings.

We found the local LDS branch with no trouble, thanks to our (sometimes trusty) GPS. This photo is taken in front of the Branch House. We were amazed after a brief tour of the city to see the  reminders of the Serbian/Croatt conflict of just over a decade ago. Buildings are riddled with bullet holes. As you can see the Branch House building was no exception.

We were delighted to meet four wonderful state-side Elders serving here. Elder Jones is the Branch President and backed up by Elders Warren, West and Knighton. It was a rather unique Sunday for the Branch. With the rain and cold, the entire Branch membership failed to show. We were pleased to be there as support of the Elders for the two older delightful investigator gentlemen who did come. One of whom walks 60 kms round trip to attend. Interesting too was that the investigators also speak and understand English. So for probably the first time in the history of the Branch, the entire Sacrament meeting was held in English. This was not  something we were expecting of our visit but was a bit of a treat. We spent a little time with the Elders after the meeting and they expressed their appreciation for our support that day and that they wished they had a senior couple to serve there with them. That made our day and we hope we helped their day as we know they felt a little isolated from their families on this Mothers day.