Wed 6/20/07 2:27 AM

Dear Family,
It seems like I write every week but when I check to see the last time I wrote it is always longer than one week. Time truly does fly on wings of lightning and we can not call it back. Just like the Hymn says. On June the 7th we had a member of the Central Europe Area's Real Estate Team visit with us at our home. He came and checked out a possible new location for the Mission Office. We saw it a few days later and it is great. It is closer to the airport and has everything needed. We can also unload all of the shipments of books directly into a storage room. It would be nice to not have to lift so many boxes of literature including the Book of Mormon in three languages. And pallets of literature. Now we have to carry them down stairs. I have injured my back multiple times from doing this. I also have torn something in the front right below my rib cage. But it is ok. Life goes on. Mom always said old age is not for wimps. On the 8 June we received two new couples that are assigned to Croatia. But I kept one of them in Slovenia for a time as we are not getting replacement couples yet for any of the ones serving in Slovenia. I don't know how we will survive without them but with faith the work will continue to go forward. We took the new couples to church in Ljubljana on sunday. Then on monday we held orientation for the new couples in the morning and had lunch. Then in the late afternoon we started a senior missionary conference by going out to dinner and then holding a short get to know you meeting at our home. We had 32 guests. Four of them were Senior Sister Missionaries.
The next morning we did a tour of Ljubljana and the Ljubljana Castle. We left from the center of town after lunch at the open market and drove to Lipica to see the world famous Slovene Horses and show. We then had dinner in the Hotel there and returned to our home for another brief social and strawberry short cake. We held a meeting the next morning at our home which included some instruction and testimonies and then we BBQ Hamburgers and they left. It was good to have a couple of days so I could get caught up on reading emails and Missionary Weekly Presidents letters that were sent to me on monday the 11th. I got to read them on the 14th. We then left for Zagreb on the late afternoon of friday the 15th June. I had a meeting with local Croatia District Presidency and District High Council and Branch Presidency for Zagreb Branch on saturday morning. I taught them about supporting local leaders and working in harmony and unity. We do have a problem in all of these areas. I used the scriptures and ask them to make a change so we can achieve success and establish a stake here and eventually have a temple. They are the ones who will make that happen or they are the ones that will keep it from happening. I did other interviews for the temple and interviews for mission calls and just plain interviews. We stayed over for church and then drove home sunday afternoon. We brought with us Senior Sister Thomssen from Finland. We took her to the airport as she decided to leave her mission after only two months. She really struggled. Now I have a Senior Sister with a young sister temporarily. It will be a challenge for both of them. On monday the 18 June I met with a Councilman at the city offices in Ljubljana. I took with me the two Zone Leaders from Slovenia, the Branch President from Ljubljana President Kralj, and the former District President President Lotric. I thanked him for the permit to build the chapel here and then presented to him our beliefs regarding families and gave him a copy of the Proclamation, also a brief introduction on our beliefs of having values and supporting laws of the land and gave him a Strength of Youth Pamplet. Then I taught him about the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy of that. He then recieved all of this graciously and presented to me a book about Ljubljana with beautiful photos of the city. I invited him to the Open House we will hold and told him that we would hold a special tour for local dignitaries and officials when the chapel is completed. I then showed him the last copy of the Liahona with pictures of the ground breaking in it and two local officials picture is included in one of the photos. I told him that I wanted to take a picture of him and maybe we could be included in the issue next year. He consented. It was a fun experience. Especially when he commited to read the materials that I gave him. Yesterday Roylene and I drove to Celje and I interviewed a young man for going on a full time mission. This is one of the goals we have. That is to get full time missionaries serving from this area. We are seeing miracles in this. We have two serving and we have one othery one that has a call. I have turned in papers on one more. And I have papers being filled out by three others. One of them is a Sister who is currently serving a mini mission in Croatia. We are working on two other youngmen in Slovenia and hoping that they will go. One of the ones that has the application is from Serbia. We have also been promoting YSA activities and have had eight marriages and there is one more scheduled for September. We also have one more Serbian Couple that will be engaged really soon. This will really bless the future of the church here. The Chapels being built and these marriages and the missionaries and Family History and transalations of the scriptures are all making a great difference. New rental facilities and cleaning up old ones also help. But the adversary is also fighting back. We have our challenges too. I love the opportunity to do this work and am thankful for the opportunity to witness the hand of the Lord in it. He is the one that makes it happen but we get the joy of seeing it unfold before our eyes. We love each of you and wish you well. Keep praying for us.
Love Dad