Elder Joshua Winfield August 2015 - August 2017: 3rd

This week was a wonderful week, it was full of success finally! a lot of random crazy things too so that was great. I'll kick it off and go by day.

Tuesday: so on Sunday we got a call from Zika saying that he wants us to come over again and do some more service so we went over in the morning (he is a gypsy) so we went over and he was in the middle of killing his turkey's he had 3 and 2 were already killed and the other one was just chilling out the front of his house. He got us two seats to sit and watch what was going on! So we were like what is going on?! We soon realized and he grabbed the last turkey and tied its legs and body so I couldn't, move then his wife came and sat on the basket so only its neck was exposed then he chopped its head off with about 4 hits! poor thing, he comes over with the turkey head in his hand and with his funny smile he says "gotovo je" which means it is done. Later he was telling us it is hard to do that but I guess they need to so they can survive! anyway they have about 50kg of turkey in their freezer! Apart from that we contacted a bit and that was okay but we didn't find anyone.

Wednesday: It was just a normal day so we contacted a lot and then went to english class, nothing special really it was normal! The zone leaders were doing an exchange with the elders in Mitrovica so they had some other people down here which was cool we had some food after as well which was nice sister reacavic cooked some burek and yumm food!

Thursday: We were going to have a normal day, we had to pay some more bills and get a few things done around the house when all of a sudden during lunch the other elders needed 25000rsd which is like $250 from us because his card wasn't working and they needed it so Sister Racavic can cook us food for the zone conference which is tomorrow! so we got the money and went to sister Racavic's and when ever you go there you have to eat and she made us punina paprikas which is stuffed capsicum and it was yum! a little spicy but great I need to get the recipe off her we ended up spending the rest of the night there translating for the senior couple who was there.

Friday: Had a pretty normal day we called our referrals that we got and went to a place in our area which was really nice and we hadn't been there before. In the park there are places you can play bowls so there were these 70 year old men all playing bochie it was really funny I wanted to go join in but it would of been weird! We organized our first lesson for Saturday with a muslim named mahmud! He was found at the book fair.

Saturday: We had our first lesson with Mahmud and it went well, I didn't say much but I could understand pretty much everything he was saying, he taught Australians in Kuwait and when I said I was from Australia he said I looked like one, I have had a few people say that since I have been here :/ strange! We challenged him to real and pray about the Book of Mormon so he is going to do that he has the next 2 weeks off of work so he is spending that time with his family so we will see him in two weeks I guess, he didn't seem so interested in joining as he was pretty into the muslim faith so we just went through the restoration with him. You never know though! After that we had to rush as the lesson went longer then expected as we had a dinner appointment with a family who was converted around 1 year ago the dads name is nana and he is from ghana! crazy right! so once we eventually got there he taught us how to make peanut butter soup.... of all things ask tom apparently it is a very popular dish in Ghana so yeah we made that it wasn't too bad and the family is funny they have 2 kids and his wife is from Serbia she is funny two at the end of the night they were arguing about gay marriage it was a little strange but ehh hahah so that was a good experience we are hoping to go there again some time, the branch president really wants us to get to know the members and get them excited about missionary work and teach them the lessons! they haven't had a baptism in Beograd for 1 year now so we are hoping to get on this month.

Sunday: So we contacted another referral, his name is Daniel and he is friends with Dusan who is 18 years old and a member here, he invited his friend to church and he is interested, he also is friends with a girl called Ada from Sremska Mitrovica. So he has been to church twice now but this was his first time in Beograd! We had sacrament meeting and he came up to us and said you guys are the guys I'm meant to talk to right and we said yep! They tasa the 1st member ever in Serbia took all of us up for Sunday school and taught the restoration really well and in depth so that was good as there were a few other investigators the other missionaries had as well so he enjoyed that! Seeing as he already had a big lesson we asked him what his expectations were and asked if he had any questions so he expectations were to join when he finds out it is true and he wanted to know our rules so we taught him the law of chastity and the word of wisdom and he was fine with that and understood why and all so that was amazing! We challenged him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and soft committed him to baptism when he knows that its true! We then asked him to say the closing prayer and it was so good, better then mine! He is definitely ready its just a matter of him finding out and then teaching him all the lessons! very exciting our plan is to get him baptised by the end of this month before we get transferred! It is very exciting so it just shows how when you put in you get out and with faith things will come.

This week we have zone conference and then RNR which is where all the greenies and there trainers get together and have interviews and kind of review the whole first 6 weeks, we then have to teach one of the 4 lessons in our language in less then 5 minutes... In front of everyone! a lot of pressure! I'm extremely nervous for that as I feel I'm struggling with it a little so keep me in your prayers hopefully I do well I guess you will find out next week!

Tonight we have booked out an indoor soccer field were we will play soccer with our investigator Daniel and a few in actives and members and other missionaries! I'm looking forward to that, hopefully it will all go well! I'm looking forward to the next few weeks, they should fly by as we have a lot of things to do! and hopefully when we find out where we are going for transfers which is on my birthday I hope I can stay here! and that I get a good companion!

Well thanks for reading I know it's long but yeah it has been a great week hopefully everything goes well with our investigators and this week with RNR and zone conference!

love Elder Winfield