6/13/11

Hey Everyone!
Wow what a week! This week was another one that feels like one day was a whole week! Guess what! I got to go up to Maribor on an exchange with Sister Hagemeister! It is absolutely beautiful up there! I almost felt like I was on vacation!....ok not really, but walking up the river every day to get to the church space was amazing with swans and ducks and old buildings on a pretty day. And then walking through a park to get to a lesson that we had. It was amazing! Sister Hagemeister is great as well. She is so good at the language already and I learned a lot from her. Some highlights of the exchange:

* Picking Cherries at Rdenko's with the Elders (he is the elder's English class student)
* Lesson with Jelka Fidler (mother of Pres. Fidler who is isn't a member but comes to church, institute, activities etc...but won't join the church...it was a good lesson)
* We had a TON of cherries from Rdenko's so we asked our English class students if they had any recipes for cherry pie etc. and Rosika invited us to her house because she had just made a cherry pie/cake thing and gave us the recipe! Way awseome lady:)
* So the cherries that we picked? yeah almost every single one of them had worms in them...we found that out when we tried to make the cake...I don't even want to think about how many I ate while I was picking them...
* Apricot cake/pie thing! It was way yummy!

It was so great to get back to Ljubljana though. I never thought I would feel like this, but I seriously felt like I was coming home. I didn't realize how much I have grown to love Ljubljana and the members and people here until I had to leave and then come back. It was amazing and something I have wanted to feel for awhile now. Sometimes we can't see growth because it is so gradual but I know I have grown to love these people and this city a lot!

We had a baptism on Saturday in Ljub! Alež is a 17-18 year old kid and he is amazing! I felt the spirit so strongly when he was baptized. and what added to that was the fact that we had 3 investigators come to the baptism and also all three of them came to church the next day as well! We also got a new investigator this week! She is one of our English class students and she is amazing! Her name is Urša and she is in a wheel chair. We think she might have a mild form of Cerebral palsy? or something like that. She is such a sweet girl and we are way excited to start teaching her!
This week ended on a sad note though. We went to visit Lucija who put herself in a psychiatric hospital to overcome her addiction with alcohol? Well when we got there her face was bright red and she was smoking outside, when she saw us she started crying. She had left the hospital to go get some of her things and she broke down. She was completely drunk when we got to the hospital and we think drugs might have been a part of it as well. We were all devastated because she had made it so far!
...ok I ended on a sad note... but I have to go! We are going to Vintgar with the Robinson's today!
Love you all!
Love,
Sestra Powell