Sretan Božić, Mutlu Noeller, Vesel Božić! (Merry Christmas in Croatian, Turkish, and Slovenian)

We have had the busiest month of our mission by far.  We have loved it!  

We've been back and forth between Croatia, Slovenia, and Türkiye several times.  We also went to Italy. Lots of time spent in airports this month.

Here's the highlights:

Baptism of Berhan in the hotel swimming pool.  Elder Bates memorized it in Turkish.  Later when Berhan was confirmed, Reid spoke in English.  When it ended, first thing Berhan said in shock was, "I understood everything!"  It was a true gift of tongues miracle!

Training in Rome, Italy

These are the amazing people we are blessed to work with. 

We also went to the Temple and did a little sightseeing 

On Thanksgiving Day in Türkiye, we went to the "Theater"! 

The theater was actually the Termessos theater.  We hiked to the ruins. 

They date back to before the birth of Christ and they are still in good condition!  

The sound quality (carrying of your voice) was so amazing.  

They aren't sure what these many individual little caves were used for. They think they were baths.

We weren't expecting this, but when we drove around a corner 

we saw Turkey's "Mount Rushmore".  This is Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Founding father of the Republic of Türkiye

The Busiest part of our month was the Humanitarian Hygiene Kits we provided for 3,200 individuals in a variety of vulnerable situations, from women and children escaping abuse, to forgotten senior citizens, to refugees just arriving in an unknown country.  It was such a blessing for us to participate in. 

This is Ivan Majc, the Area Communications Director from Slovenia.  

Elder Hladky from Austria, helping Davide from Italy. People from all over helped with this project!

Don't be fooled by this picture of me.  Reid moved all the heavy items!

We were lucky to be a part of this Church News article:

https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2024/12/23/adriatic-north-mission-hygiene-kits-service-project-light-the-world/

Our Branch is doing really well and we love each person.  We always have guests who are sincere seekers of gospel truths.  Here is where we hold church for now - in a hotel conference room where we usually have between 15 and 20 people in-person plus another 5 to 7 joining us on Zoom. 27 is our all-time high.  We are searching for a building to hold church.

We had the first Antalya Branch Christmas party!

Here are some of the members and friends at the Christmas Party.  

Many said, "This is our very first Christmas party!"

It was rainy and cold.  Most of the women stayed warm by the fire, while most of the men cooked outside.

    A long time member, Yuce, (above) and a friend, Kemal, being baptized soon (below)

We are so thankful for these amazing missionaries!

Sister Krum, Sister Teran, Elder Olivera, Kemal, Elder Cheney, and us

The feast.  We all got stuffed with Turkish food!

In early December while we were in Croatia, we went to the Christmas market in the center of Zagreb.  

It brought us some Christmas cheer! 

We also delivered Christmas gifts to 4 NGO's and we were warmly greeted.

These are the nice people we work with at the Zagreb Red Cross.

Back in Turkey though, they don't celebrate Christmas.  

We decided to spend Dec 24 & 25th staying busy so we wouldn't miss our family so much.

On Christmas Eve we enjoyed going to the Antalya Museum.  We loved it!

The pot below is dated as being 5,000-7,000 years old!

They have excavated all of these statues near Antalya.  There were several rooms filled with them.

Most of them are larger than life-size and in amazing condition! 

We like thinking about the ancient history that's taken place right where we live.

The most common missing feature on the statue's is the nose!

Then we went in search of St. Nicholas' church in the Old Town section. We found it, and some Christmas lights, too! Everyone here says that the real St. Nicholas is from this area  From Wikipedia:  "Saint Nicholas, known throughout the world as Santa Claus, was born in the ancient Lycian city of Patara, an important city on the Mediterranean coast of Türkiye." 

Then we stopped for hot chocolate and pomegranate cheese cake!

On Christmas Day (and week) we delivered some goodies... 

.

...and had a traditional Turkish dinner with friends. 

Our friends have to be our family for now.  

Speaking of family, the hotel staff here calls us their family; that's how long we've been here!  

They even left us a beautiful tray of fruit because they knew we were celebrating Christmas.

Our work is not about sight seeing.  We blog about that, but it's not what we do much of.  It is about serving our Savior.  We love Him and we love being in His service.  We loved the peaceful joy we felt thinking of His humble birth.  We loved the joy of sharing Christmas with people in Türkiye who have not experienced it before.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is real and powerful and changes people's hearts all over the world.  It is changing us.  We hope it is changing you.  We wish you a Happy New Year ahead, with spiritual growth in 2025, a closeness to your family, and a loving and forgiving heart.