Neil, Nathan

We had a lot of adventures this week haha. Started off driving a van a couple hours up into the mountains to "visit" (more like "track down") our Relief Society President, Milja. She may just be the most self-reliant person I've ever met. Milja lives by herself in a stone cottage 8 months of the year, where she tends her goats, pigs and massive garden. We did some service and helped plant some potatoes, and then WE got served a huge feast of homemade prosciutto (literally cut off the animal hanging from the rafters), goat cheese, cake, fried bread, Kajmak, and this huge potato dish. I'm still recovering. I've learned so many lessons from Milja, but the biggest one has been that when we have faith, God provides a way. Even with her busy life, Milja relies on the Lord and faithfully serves Him each day. We had a mini transfer before real transfers coming up in a couple of weeks! Elder Jones headed off to Belgrade and my new companion arrived, Elder Strickl...

Most of our experiences this week will be summed up in the pictures! I wanted to share a quick spiritual thought based on the Bible story of the loaves and the fishes. In the story, Jesus asks the disciples to bring what food there was to give to the multitude of people. They are only to bring him 5 loaves and 2 fishes. Pause. Even if each of the 12 disciples brought an item of food, that still leaves 5 of them empty handed, right? Now, I would probably be feeling pretty sheepish having nothing in my hands while my friends handed over their food. But Jesus just takes the bread and breaks it and tells them to give to the people. And in the end, "they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up the fragments that remained 12 baskets full." 12 baskets?! Meaning that each of those disciples, whether they had offered a loaf or a fish or nothing at all, went home with a full basket. Moral of the story: it's not all about the "loaves and fishes" we bring to the Savi...

This week a new Russian member family moved into the branch! A young father, mother, and their 3-year old daughter! They came to church and it was so nice having them in the branch. They've already started their missionary work here, sharing their beliefs with their new landlord! We're excited to go meet him this coming week:) We also had a lot of success through social media, which was a big comfort to me. Typing messages, making posts, and calling referalls from our ads can get pretty exhausting sometimes when there are few results. But this week we had a few really meaningful discussions with some great people prepared to hear the gospel! So grateful to see some fruits from our efforts.  I loved the thought this week from a talk from Sister Kraven: she said, "It's not about doing life perfectly-it's about finding joy while doing our best to live the covenants we have made with the Lord." There's a lot of people, myself included, who can beat themselves ...

My favorite experience from this week was hiking this trail that overlooked Kotor Bay with 20 or so people from 7 different countries. We found them on a Facebook group, met up, and made lots of friends with a bunch of people. It was an amazing hike, the people were great, and we all got insanely sunburnt (so all in all a great day). Elder Sanderson and Jones had a great discussion with a Canadian family on their way back. And sitting on rocks at the top of the mountain overlooking the sea, Elder Hanson and I had a "sermon on the mount" moment as we taught a group of Russian friends the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There were many little miracles all throughout that day, and I'm grateful I got to be there and serve with these other great missionaries. Spiritual thought: I've always loved the quote, "The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives." So what is it that we shoul...