3rd - 9th November 2015

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

--

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission 

27th October - 2nd November 2015

So this week was the most successful week on the mission which is great! I have really enjoyed it, we had the book fair in Beograd which we had a stall for so we spent a lot of time there! It was really nice because we got to know the members better and we sold 50 book of mormon's for 100rsd each which is $1usd so around $1.40aud because we couldn't give them out for free as it was against the book fair rules.

We went on splits this week with the zone leaders so I was still in Belgrade as the zone leaders are in Belgrade, I was with elder Morgan and he is from Salt Lake City, he was trained and Belgrade like me so it was cool to see, he has been out 1 year.  When me and elder Morgan were preparing for English class we got a call from this lady in Kosovo and she said that she wanted to be converted very sheepishly over the phone and we were like what!? We had to go to English class so we said add Beograd Missionary on Skype and we talked later, she said it was a really long story but long story short she wanted to be baptised! As I said before she lives in Kosovo so it's not our mission it's actually the Adriatic south mission but some how she got our number. So there is a lot of problems with Serbia and Kosovo and this lady is from Serbia and her dad lives in Belgrade so she wants to get baptized when she comes to Belgrade for Serbian Christmas which is January but she doesn't want any of her family to find out because they will disown her, it is also not safe for her to go to church in Kosovo because she is Serbian. Very complicated which sucks! The sisters are teaching her over Skype so hopefully that goes well!

This week elder Pantelakis and I received some referrals 3 to be exact so we are really hoping one of them will be baptized as elder Panelakis has 9 months left and still hasn't had a baptism so I'm excited to get him one.

​the top photo is at the book fair, this was at night so not as packed but during the day it was like you were on the train on the way home from footy on a friday night! the bottom picture is some weird fruit im not sure what its called  but it was nice!

This picture was from the balcony of my zone leaders pace, we went on transfers so it was cool to stay in the other apartment it  has a crazy good view~

-- 

Apart from going to the book fair and contacting that has pretty much been our week! tomorrow we are going to do some service for Zika (pronounced zshika) so I'm excited for that, he is a gypsy and lives of not much really so we are helping him cut wood for the winter.

This week has been hard because we ran out of hot water so cold showers are not fun whatsoever! We are going to pay our bills this week so hopefully they turn them back on soon! Today officially marks me being out on my mission for 3 months! It has been a very big learning curve but its been good for me, I'm excited for the next 3 months to come hopefully I can stay here in Beograd but I will find that out on my birthday!

Next week is RnR (return and report) which is pretty much something all the trainers and trainees go to where we have to teach of the lessons (Plan of salvation, the restorations, the gospel of Jesus Christ or the book of Mormon) for 5 minutes in Serbian so I'm really nervous for that because I'm still struggling a little with that.

This week I got the finger which is where you go to stop someone on the street and they just wiggle there index finger side to side and keep walking! it's quite funny you just have to laugh all of that stuff off or you will get yourself down so much, I know there will be someone soon that we will be able to baptise just have to keep going! the member work this week has been great so I'm excited for the weeks to come.

Hope everyone at home is doing well always thinking of you guys and you are in my prayers! have a good week love elder Winfield :)

here was a big traffic jam because the lights were not working so cars were just everywhere, everyone was just sitting there beeping there horns it was quite funny!​

-- 

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission 

20th - 26th October 2015

Hello mum and dad, it has been a pretty productive week, pretty busy as well with the book fair going on we have to man the stall from 4:30 till 9 tonight so that should be fun. It isn't an LDS store it's just a little store where we sell Book of Mormon's for 100 dinar which is $1 because we cant give them out for free its against the rules of the fair, we are just using it as a way of talking to people about our beliefs ect.. we have sold 8 so far of one day of it being open, it will be going till next Saturday!

We live in an apartment, there are no flats in Beograd city its all just communist apartments.  We live in an apartment building, I can send you a photo of it but they all look the same, just concrete, you can't even really see our room from it. My comp has 10 months left on his mission and is from Utah :) By any chances can you send me dad's omelette recipe because I think it would be nice to have! Sounds like life is going well back at home, I finished everything for my visa, it should be in my next month so that will be good :) my temporary white card lasts me 90 days in Serbia anyway, if that runs out they do a border run where they take you out the country and then back again then you can do it all again!

Refugees aren't effecting anything I haven't seen many at all, we still have no investigators which really sucks I'm hoping we can find someone during the book fair, it's rough trying to find people but I'm sure we will eventually, my comp has only had a couple of investigators his whole mission so he says this mission is a contacting and tracting mission because that's pretty much all you do.
It's not too much different then the city of Melbourne anything that looks out of the usual is not really accepted, a lot of gypsies and homeless people around and yeah its kind of hard to explain the culture.
It is quite cold in the mornings! that's okay I still have lost any weight so I might actually have to start working and running a bit more.
The basketball didn't end up happening, instead we played table tennis and foosball at the church and that was really successful!

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission 

]

Bottom photo is me on the roof of the church eating something I don't know what it is and the other photo is us doing humanitarian work for the refugees . I'll be on in about an hour or 2 so don't stress

The photo with the food is something called burek, its amazing. The other one is the big book fair which we have a stall for.

13th - 19th October 2015

​This week has been a very busy, I have met two 70's with Elder Charles coming on Tuesday I was very lucky and got to have an interview with him he was telling me a lot about how the mission is just 1 step in life and that he felt like my purpose as a missionary is maybe not to baptize but to either strengthen members, companions or maybe just be a shining light in someones life which gave me a lot of hope as this week we still don't have any investigators, we contacted a lot of people and got 4 numbers and that is it. All I know is I'm working hard so if I do that the rest is on the Lord's errand.

About 30 minutes ago I got out of a meeting with another 70 and someone high up in taking care of church history as there is a lot of church history around here and the 70 that visited was Elder Hamula who used to be in charge of our area and he knows stake president and a lot about our stake as I think he said he called President Valdez as our Stake President, well he was saying he a lot to do with Gippsland Stake and will be having dinner with stake president's wife and daughter back in America soon, so that was really cool he had a lot of good thoughts about missionary work here and how people are many interested in our Plan of Salvation and the Joseph Smith story.

Well I cannot believe it has already been 2 weeks out here!  It has gone pretty quick, but at the same time 22 months seems like forever away! I finally had normal church on Sunday so that was nice, I'm slowly understanding little bit by bit more with the language. It is fun contacting people when you have a line that you can say, I'm going to try my best to come up with different things to say to people but it takes time, it's so hard to get good language study in when you cant really hold many conversations with people because they get rid of you after you say 2 words, it's fine though I try to speak as much as I can with my companion.

I don't know what else to really say except that I am enjoying it out here although it's hard you can always find ways to have fun, I'm looking forward to this week I really hope we can find an investigator. The food is here is actually really nice, especially the bakeries, they have this thing called a burek which is amazing if you google it you will see what it looks like but yeah I am loving all the food here.

On Thursday night we went to a members house for dinner and his name is Zoran, he has been a member for 15 years and is a gypsy so he lives in a gypsy village and is quite poor, all the houses around where he lived were just little shanties and yeah so we went there shared a message and the word around the mission is you don't eat at Zoran's house but yeah he served us up some rice pudding which looked disgusting, just mushy rice and that was it but yeah I just downed it at quick as possible, it wasn't too bad really but I wouldn't have it again that is for sure. 

So some strange things about the Balkans so far...

- The light switch for rooms are all on the outside

- the traffic lights are a little different 

- They love tomato sauce on everything

- No one smiles in photos

- Stray dogs and cats everywhere

- Cant walk 5 minutes without seeing a bakery

- They don't have dryers at all

- They drive on the wrong side of the road

- EVERYONE takes the bus

That is just a few but there is more I'm just struggling to think of them.

On the bright side it has been really good hanging out with the members, we have been working with a guy who is an inactive named Vladan so we went to KFC and chilled with him and talked with him for a bit, he can speak pretty good english so that was nice to hear from him. This week we will try and set up a basketball game with David, Andrea and Vladan as they are all our age and like basketball, so that should be good.

That is about all that has happened this week, it has been pretty busy and crazy and I promise I will send some photos as soon as I get to the church as they wont let me send anything here at the internet cafe.

so yeah some of the photos are of where I live the ones with the castle is a place in Belgrade where Thomas S Monson dedicated the land of Yugoslavia some of them are the communist building which are just everywhere, one is of my favorite bakery ! :) I will get some more photos with me in it later, my comp has some and I will get them to fwd them to me next week, do you think you could send these photos to like Asher and Teagan and Richard and Abby Llerena :) thanks! love you's
--

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission 

8th - 12th October 2015

Hello family :) Yes I am in Beograd (Belgrad) and it is crazy here, it has the biggest membership of people in the Adriatic north mission with around 70 people coming weekly, this week it was a bit a special meeting so there were boosted numbers. It has been a crazy past few days, there are a lot of things that I have to get used to, I will have to make a list.

The language is fun, its so hard but I'm enjoying it, I can't understand a lot of things so lucky my comp is really good at the language. We have whitewashed an area so it's a new area that no one has been in for about 6 months, we have no investigators and we just spend our time contacting all day, my legs have never been so sore... Everyone here uses the buses so we just bus and walk everywhere, everyone gives you the weirdest looks and just stares at you, they also think that everyone here who isn't pravoslav (protestant) is a sect so they will walk past you and say sect, they also sometimes walk past and cross themselves it's quite funny! 

I had dinner at a family's house who are so nice, the have 3 sons who are all around 20-25 and then there is the mum who just fed us so much food, first we had like a broth thing with like wet bread cut of things it was a little weird but nice, then we had this tomato soup type thing which looks like a curry and had chicken and potatoes, I have about 3 or 4 bowls of it! I would finish a bowl and then she would be like JOS (pronounced yosh) meaning more and she would just serve up more and more! Their sons and the father all got the Melchizedek Priesthood this week which was awesome! One of there son's, David plays cs go and went to the big cs go tournament where all the big teams played and watched it! he loved it so I talked about that with him for a bit.

It has rained non stop every day and been wet and cold just like in a winter's day in Melbourne, I don't mind it though :) I got a cold by the second day I got there which sucked but that's okay. I didn't expect to be in Serbia first up but I guess that is where the Lord wants me. I can still serve in Croatia, I guess we will see next transfer which will be a couple of days after my birthday! 

My card works fine now I took about $70 today which was good so me and my comp elder Pantalakis are going to go to block 70 which is a big building which a bunch of Chinese people bought and it has so many cheap things there. Everyone here smokes so it is taking a bit of getting used to smelling smoke 24/7, there is 6 people in my district with 2 sisters and another 2 elders who are the zone and district leaders.

So far we have not had any success but I think this week will be good, I love everyone here they are all so nice, also the members here are just so faithful and will do anything for you it is amazing.

All the food here is cheap, I got about a week's worth of good food for around $30 which is sweet, we have a basketball court right near our house and there is a shopping centre about a 2 minute walk away, our bus stop is also right in front of our apartment. I tried to get some good photos, I hope they will do for you, I'm sure I will get a lot more throughout each week. I am currently in a gaming cafe for emailing, that the only place to go really so everyone in here is playing dota 2 and cs go and all, I could play if I wanted :P but I wouldn't do that hahahah I might log on to steam one day and surprise Liam!

All the buildings are very old and communist like because of there history so pretty much every place looks dodgy. At the end of the transfer I could get shipped out somewhere else or I might even stay in Beograd for another transfer so you just never know, apparently pres Grant is pretty random with his transfers! 

I feel like everyone is pretty full on here and there hearts are hard as not many people will listen when contacting and you get a lot of hate but it's fine I am sure there will have to be a family on Beograd out there who has been prepared by the Lord you just have to have faith and continue to push forward! I don't know how I am going to learn this language though, there are a fair few differences when it comes to Serbian and Croatian, the main one is the alphabet but there are a lot of words and small things that are different and they are the ekavian dialect meaning a word such as gdje (where) which is said like gdye is now gde and pronounced as is, and excuse me is not oprostite it is not isvinite but its okay I'm sure I will pick it up!

I haven't received any dear elders yet, I wouldn't bother with it too much I get mail once a month at zone conference which will be this Wednesday, you just have to send it to the mission home in Zagreb where they will distribute it off.

A good amount of people will speak english and try to speak english with you but I really try not to because I want to learn. This week we had a few missionaries down who lived in Cak Cak and one of them was from the family that we went to have dinner at earlier in the week his name is Andrea and is doing a mini mission for around 5 weeks where they go and yeah pretty much be a missionary for 5 weeks :) he can't speak English at all so I practiced talking with him a bit and that was a really good experience.

I hope everyone is doing well at home it was nice talking on the phone, it kind of sucked though because it was late for you and I was very jet lagged and tired from everything and a little down because I sucked at contacting, but I'm looking forward to speaking to you guys at Christmas, I will be skyping you with video so you can use your laptop I'm sure it has a camera. 

I am not to sure what else to add, it has been a very good week! It is about 12pm here so that is when I will usually email from around 11am till around 5pm will be the times but yeah usually around this time, we just went to our favorite bakery which is amazing and better then any bakery in Australia! apparently they are better in Bosnia though so I guess we will see. This Wednesday english class will start so that will be interesting, we will be teaching the advanced class so that is pretty much full immersion in english so I won't need too speak much serbski!

Our apartment is really nice apart from the fact that there are cockroaches so we just sprayed raid around the whole place so there shouldn't be any more! hopefully.... 

I'll send you some photos!

Love you guys.

--

Elder Winfield

Starješina Winfield

Старешина Винфилд 

Adriatic North Mission 

3rd - 7th October 2015

3RD OCTOBER - hahah yes I had a feeling this might happen so since I have a little spare time I thought I would check just incase :) I also got my money on my mission card too I get $246 a month :) so yeah :) talk to you on tuesday~!

6TH OCTOBER

Dear Parents,

Your missionary has arrived in the Adriatic North Mission.  We will send out an email on Wednesday once assignments are made with the name of his new companion and the area he will be serving in.

Thank you for sharing your son with us.

Elder and Sister Halling

Adriatic North Mission Office Staff

7TH OCTOBER - Hey mum sorry I didn't call. the calling card wouldn't work in Frankfurt and my bank card too so I couldn't take any money out. If you could send me my customer ID from one of my bank statements that would be great

26th September - 2nd October 2015

Seeing as I have a little bit of time while I'm waiting for elder Matthews to finish his folding his clothes I thought I would email you and see how everything is going. I hope you like the pictures, I will have a lot more when I get to Croatia because I will be taking a lot at the airport, on the way and when I get to Croatia so look forward to them! I hope everyone is doing well! happy birthday mum :) hope you had a great day, it looks like you have. I'm  interested to see the haircut that you have! ​you should be up in about 10 minutes so I guess I will talk to you then

It will be a pay phone I'm pretty sure, I will be in Frankfurt Germany when its 5pm in Australia on Tuesday 6th October.

Love you guys! I have to go get changed into my suit for dinner and my last Croatian class then tomorrow I have some training on how to look after to yourself when you are out there on the mission and travel tips when you are going on the plane ect... then on Saturday it is general conference all day and the same on Sunday then I will be out of here!​ take care I will talk to you when I get to Frankfurt! I will check my emails tonight at 9pm my time so if you have anything to send, do it before then :) love yous! xox