Elder Joshua Winfield August 2015 - August 2017: 1st

Okay so this week was massive a lot of things going on so I will try and make it as exciting as possible! so yeah to go straight to the point I'm getting transferred to Croatia, Zadar which is a city on the coast! but yes I will explain more about that later.

So first we started off the week pretty normally, we didn't have much to do on P-day so we just relaxed with the zone leaders and ate food, it was a great day and we got a lot of things done so that was fun.

The rest of the week just involved contacting and and teaching some lessons to our investigators, 3 of them are really close to baptism and it is why I'm a little angry that I have to leave Serbia, Beograd but I guess that is where the lord wants me so I will go there.

So yeah on Thursday it was my birthday and I would like to thank everyone for all the birthday wishes, they were so good to see when I checked my email! So in the morning we went to the chapel to see whether we were going or staying and where we were going and yeah, I saw my little face in Zadar being companions with Elder Hillock who was in my MTC group so between us we have 4 months of experience on the field! I feel like this is going to be a very hard transfer but if I can get through it doing well I feel like the rest of my mission will be a lot easier. So back to my birthday, the senior couple here Elder and Sister Peterson took out our district to Vappianos and said they would pay for it all, it was so nice! then we went contacting and while I was doing that we got told we had to pick up something from a family here in Beograd and then they surprised me with a surprise birthday dinner! sister Reacavic made me punina paprika (Capsicons filled with rice and other fancy thing) and my favorite thing! Burek, we then ate and enjoyed the rest of the night, my birthday was great :)

Then on Friday and the weekend it was just normal working ect.. saying goodbye to some families! it's quite hard to leave an area you love its like leaving home again! I hope I can come back here to Beograd.

And today I have just went around and bought things I wanted to buy before I leave to Croatia! it will be a good 8 or so hours of traveling, first by car then bus so I'm really not looking forward to that.

So I leave tomorrow in the afternoon, I'm excited, I'm angry that I have to leave and a little nervous mainly about having to speak Croatian, I don't want to accidentally start speaking Serbian and then people getting offended because of that! I love the Serbian language I find that it suits the way I speak better but I guess I will have to get adjusted to it.

So like I said me and my soon to be companion will have next to no experience in the language at all so it will be interesting how I will go, I feel like I will grow the most in the language this transfer, but it will be the toughest 2 months of my life at the same time. I'm looking forward to the challenge and hope that everything will go well when I travel!

Next weeks email should be good as I will have new photos and new things to talk about! Thanks again for the birthday wishes and presents! I only have 1 more birthday before I come back! ;) doesn't sound to bad when you say it like that.

Love Elder Winfield!