Elder Joshua Winfield August 2015 - August 2017: 19th

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.