19th - 25th January 2016

Just another week here in the Balkans!!

We had a pretty normal week this week just doing a lot of contacting people on the street, when you do that you realise that you meet all the crazy people too, we were about to got home then I contacted this guy and said we are here just talking a bit about Christ with everyone and then he said "I am Jesus" and yeah it was pretty strange! That was the only conversation we had that day literally everyone else says "I'm in a rush" or "I don't have time" or just put there hand up and keep walking, it's sometimes frustrating but you can sometimes understand when you hear stories of the war and what they have been through and if they change faiths it means that whole war was in vain. One old man had a good analogy, he said "Us old people are like big trees, hard to push over because they are so rooted in there faith, he then said the young people are still little trees and you can push them over so go talk to them" It actually made a bit of sense, it is also true, we always have better conversations and more "openness" with younger people.

We had a big worldwide missionary conference and the big topic was teach repentance, baptise converts. They had a lot of apostles talk and I learnt a lot about how we should really use the spirit in conversion, I'm looking to use what I learnt in lessons ect... I'm trying to get better at teaching repentance as a lot of people here have the thought of repentance as you pay a priest money and do 30 hail Mary's or whatever but it really isn't anything like that.

I am really looking forward to the next couple of weeks, with our big finding efforts we have gotten a bit of interest and a few numbers so we are going to hopefully meet up with them all this week! One of the things that you definitely learn about coming on a mission is getting into good habits! Once you get a good habit it makes life a lot easier and things seem to go smoother. Good habits are always hard to start but once you get them its easy!

I might only have another 2 weeks here in Zadar depending on whether I get transferred or not! I hope I stay here in Zadar, I feel like my work has only just begun! I have a feeling I will but I guess you never know.

I hope everyone at home has a great Australia day and doesn't have too much fun without me! Sorry that this weeks email was pretty boring and short, there really wasn't too much special that happened just a lot of finding and rejection! I'm sure the weeks to come will be good it is all about keeping that faith about that light around the corner.

--

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission 

12th - 18th January 2016

So this week was actually pretty quick, I think mainly because we had zone conference. So it started off pretty normal, we had a pretty boring P day and just hung around inside, but this weeks and next weeks P days will be much better I'm sure! 

To be honest though it was probably one of the hardest weeks so far in this transfer, no one was listening and I think a big reason was because "Bura" is here and that's this big wind that comes from the mountains is it really cold, people here say its healthy for you but I disagree! No one had been outside because of this crazy wind and no one wants to talk, but its still okay the work continues on, we taught 4 people street lessons and only 1 of them would probably meet up to talk again, but only to talk about the catholic faith and try and convert us back.

So on Thursday was zone conference and we had to take the 4 hour bus to Zagreb and it left at 5 and it takes about 45 minutes to walk there, so we ended up getting up at 2:45 in the morning, it was rough, but we got there eventually and it was really fun, I learnt a lot about how to teach the Plan of Salvation better so I really enjoyed that. Also being able to catch up with all my mates I've made out here was great too! 

So only 20 days and I'll find out where and who my next adventure will be with, transfers is like getting another mission call, there is like 5 countries that you could go and then the areas are all completely different within the country too! 

We have got a lot of peoples numbers and taught a lot of lessons this month, on average we teach a street lesson (which counts as an investigator) once a day so it's not terrible, I figure as long as I'm working hard and trying to improve that's all that matters. I'm hoping we can meet up with a lot of them this week, we have organised a few appointments, let's just hope that they turn up!

We had nearly more investigators at church then members this week it was crazy! A couple of them were the sisters and the rest were ours, they seemed to all enjoy church, it's so hard though, there is about 20 odd people that come every week and seeing as a quarter of them are investigators the singing is 90% of the time horrible! (from everyone, me included!) its quite fun though.

I'm really starting to enjoy the Zadar Branch and getting a tie with a lot of the members here, I hope I will stay when transfers come, and I get a good feeling that I will be so I guess we will see! 

So on the whole this week has been pretty good! We got a lot done and had a lot of things on, I also got all my visa papers done so I should get my visa finished in a few weeks, by murphies law it will get finished then I'll get shipped off to Bosnia or Montenegro!  

This week we also introduced the 90 day Book of Mormon challenge with the members to just read a few chapters a day, we feel like a lot of members don't have a great knowledge of the Book of Mormon, partly because the translation is very old and the language is really hard to understand in it, but I'm looking forward to the new Croatian translation which should come out this year, although they say that ever year, they will also be getting a proper hymn book! get excited.

--

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission 

5th - 11th January 2016

So this week was pretty long and gloomy as it rained all week! But it is okay at least it's not snowing like in every other area of the mission! 

We kicked it off with a pretty boring Pday although we ended up going to the second hand store and buying some pretty cool ties which was fun, we then had a dinner appointment at a half members house where we cooked Punina Paprika which is Stuffed Capsicum and that was really nice! I enjoyed cooking that and now I have the recipe which is great, the husband of that family is someone we are trying to teach and unfortunately he is going to India for a month so we wont be able to teach him for a while, but we will get him when he gets back.

The rest of the week mainly included contacting in the rain which was fun! We are slowly starting to expand our investigator pool it's all about getting them progressing and closer to baptism. Its hard though, I feel like a few of our investigators know but they just don't want to commit, they come to church more then the members and they participate more in the activities such as institute ect... more then the members but they just wont progress. We are hoping to get there friends to give them more of a push so that they will take that next step! 

Everything is going well on the whole though,I'm really enjoying the work out here in Zadar and things are only getting better and better! Its just a matter of time and effort. This week in the emails from the president they really focused on smart working not necessarily hard working! I really thought that was quite interesting and I will try and use it this week because I feel like I'm working hard but maybe not as smart as what I thought?

I'm looking forward to this week though as we have Zone Conference which means I get to catch up with all my old mates again! With only 4 weeks left in this transfer we still have to opportunity to get a baptism and that is our goal, it really all comes down to this week and I feel like we can through "Smart working" and diligence! I hope everyone had a good week!

​Love Elder Winfield​

--

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission 

29th December 2015 - 4th January 2016

Well this week was pretty chaotic with new years and post Christmas celebrations there were a lot of people out, not all sober which made it pretty hard for us to do our job but we taught a lot of lessons on the street which went pretty well, got a few numbers and I'm hoping things will go well with that as we call them later in the week.

This week was kind of just another week in the mission though just doing the same things everyday, contacting and talking with randoms, you get to see all the personalities here in Zadar. You have to be careful and try not to talk to old guys sometimes they will talk to you for an hour straight about random things such as the war and all, they love to talk..

So on New Years Eve we just did our normal route and there was a lot of people with there friends getting drunk ect.. but we did end up finding someone that night which made it all worth it. We had fire crackers thrown at our feet from the roof tops and someone even spat from the top of there apartment and it landed right next to me...

We had to go to bed on normal time so we didn't get to celebrate any New Years which kind of sucked but that's fine, the thing is here in Croatia you can buy fireworks and crackers anywhere, big or small because its not illegal and that meant that there were fire crackers going off every half second literally I felt like I was in some sort of war zone. It was all pretty cool though until one big one goes off right next to you and then you can't hear for like 5 minutes! 

The rest of the week just included our normal routine, nothing changes too much around here and I get the feeling that I will be staying here for the next transfer, it's just the vibe I get! It isn't a bad thing though the people here are very nice, it's just a little different being in a small branch and not being able to speak the language the best, I had to conduct business which was fun in front of everyone! they all got to hear my bad Croatian. I then got told later that night by someone on the street that I sound like a Serb :/ it's quite hard to adjust to the different dialects.

This week we also gave the Priesthood to one of our recent converts, he was baptised literally the day before I came, his story is cool, he found out about Mormons through someones you tube channel and saw how happy the were he investigated the church online for about a year and talked with people online then he finally got the guts to come to church and did, then the missionaries before me taught him the lessons as quick as possible as he wanted to get baptised and then he was! His family was against it and kicked him out of the house, so he now lives in an apartment in Split which is 2 hours drive from Zadar so he drives every week 2 Hours to church he is truly an inspiration! I'm looking forward to seeing him bless the sacrament for the first time next week. He is 23 years old.

I don't know what else to add really, things are going well here its just a daily grind to find people to teach, I feel like this week will be good as people will be back to thee normal schedule and out of party mode and usually the new years calls for change and those people who are looking for change are out there we just have to find them and I know we will!

I hope everyone had a great new years and hope they have a great week,

Love Elder Winfield

--

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission