Neil, Nathan

Bok! We had the great privilege to spend this week as a trio with Elder Seve from Samoa!! He served in Uganda and got stuck here on his way home so he got to serve with us while they got him and the other Samoan missionaries flights to Samoa! It was an absolute blast!! (He left this morning and elder hazel leaves next week! Crazy this transfer has gone by way too fast) We also had exchanges this week and I was with Elder Sua (one of the samoan missionaries) and Elder Atwood (who just got here from Canada)! We didn't have too much Croatian knowledge between us but we put ourselves out there and ended up teaching and contacting a few different people in Karlovac. Both of them are great missionaries and I am super grateful I got to learn from them. Thanks to Elder Seve's basketball skills, we ended up meeting a bunch of kids and an older guy at a court nearby. Elder Seve crossed them all up and got their respect and now we get to go play with them every week. They're super coo...

Ej svima!  Well lots of stuff this week, but my highlights were: -volunteering for this organization called DIP thinking we would be helping kids with special needs. (We did) but in addition we ended up being asked to break into an old safe they had, remove the 200 pounds of concrete from inside, and remove the safe using only hammers, screwdrivers, and a hatchet. We managed to break it open somehow, but couldn't get the concrete out and ended up breaking both our hammers, along with Elder Hazels phone -teaching some new people this week found through our members and Facebook! Some really spirit-filled lessons and great relationships built -exchanges with the zone leaders! -lots of people tracting US on the road when we are walking from our place to the church. Lots of funny moments as well as some genuinely interested people! *Almost everyone we taught or randomly met up on the street had something to say about their family history or wanting to know more! Tender mercies and answe...

Bok svima! Lots of traveling this week! We (us and Barrus') went to Labin on Tuesday and even though a lesson fell through, we had some great family history opportunities! Last week I met lady named Kristina on a Croatian genealogy Facebook group who has family from Croatia. And we were able to find the street in Labin that Kristina's family lived on, as well as graves for a few of her ancestors! Love seeing success come from family history work. We also did a trip to Buzet (another small town about an hour away) to visit a member and there was a super fun festival going on with great live music and entertainers (see pictures). And a trip to Pula today to contact some members that moved here!  We also had a couple of miraculous opportunities that led to us finding a few new people that are interested in the gospel this week! Our (and your) prayers have been answered :)  I loved the words of Sister Bednar from the face to face event: "A testimony us a belief in what we know...

Pozdrav!  It was a good one this week, with service, teaching, Zone Conference, and insightful studies!  I spent a lot of time this week doing family history (which is something I always struggled with getting motivated to do) based on a prompting I had a couple weeks ago. And it has been really rewarding. Besides learning about my own family, I have had opportunities to help others whose families come from Croatia. In particular, I am helping a lady from the states find records, translate documents, and locate grave sites for her great great grandparents, who lived near Rijeka! We are going to go to try and find the site next week! I love how family history and technology can connect people from across the world and through time! Elder Alliud talked about a lot of things at the conference, but my favorite thing he said was about Nephi. Too often, when we read 1 Nephi 3:7, we focus on the "I will go and do" part and forget the words "for I know" which come after. I ...