While you eat Turkey, we'll be in Turkey!

We are still living in a hotel here in Turkey.  Before you start thinking, "Wow, what a mission living in a hotel!" let me say, it's pretty nice most days.  We have become good friends with the hotel employees, we feel safe, and we don't have to make our bed, cook, or clean!  We also are still living out of suitcases, doing all our laundry in the bathroom sink, and we don't feel settled. Still, not so bad, but we are hopeful an apartment is in our near future.

Overall we like Turkey and have found it fascinating.  The people are all very nice!  

                       Our room is small and narrow. We maneuver around suitcases

We rented a car a couple of times and that's been a nice break from taxi's.  

When we rented this car, the back tire kept leaking air!  

Here's some of what has happened this month.

1.  Senior Conference in Slovenia.  We joined with 19 other couples and were wonderfully taught, plus we enjoyed some sight seeing and social life.  A boost to our souls!

Fall colors!

Lake Bled in Slovenia. This is a church on an island in the middle of the lake.

In front of the Julian Alps, Slovenia

We hiked near the top of this waterfall and walked behind it.  

Can you see how small Reid is?

The view from a castle we toured.

2.  Food box Humanitarian project.  We were able to purchase supplies and fill 140 food boxes that have been delivered to the poorer villagers outside of Zagreb by the Seventh Day Adventists.  We love collaborating with hard working NGO's.

Organizing the project.

Some of the items provided were oil, flour, lentils, pasta, TP, rice, & corn meal.

Here are some of the recipients! 

 "Now we can survive the winter!"

3.  Halloween was non existent in Turkey.  We did wear orange and black that day though, and we had fun seeing pictures of the kids and grandkids in their costumes!

Fiona and Shrek!

4. Sickness.  We both got sick! Reid never ran a fever, but I ran a fever for 4 days. We had to miss a conference in Frankfurt and most disappointing, we missed attending the Temple there.  We zoomed in for the last day of training.  This is us zooming with the Canfield's (serving in Romania) and the Willard's (serving in Rome).  Both of them are on their 5th missions!

5. Visiting!  We have been in several homes now. They are so welcoming!  They serve you so much food and then watch you as you eat...they don't eat along with you.  

All shoes are left at the front door. No shoes worn inside.

The Havalak Family

6.  Hair cuts.  Getting a hair cut here is unlike anything in the US.  It is an experience!  And as you'll see, it isn't all about your hair!  

7.  We visited the Düden Falls during the day and again in the evening, when they are lit up.

8. Branch President. Reid is the new Branch President of the Antalya Branch!  This means that he is the leader of the congregation we meet with each Sunday. The congregation is mainly men.  There are 4 female members, including me. Reid currently has no counselors. He arranges talks, chooses hymns, conducts interviews, and serves the branch in every way.  He is beloved.  He prepares, blesses, and passes the sacrament. That will change with THREE brand new Aaronic Priesthood holders ordained last week! Good things are happening.

Reid with President Peter Huber, the District President.  He lives in Switzerland but flies to Turkey every weekend. Our District includes 7 branches in Turkey, and all of Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, which currently have no branches.

Reid, Mert, Ramish, Kamish, and Semih

The 3 in the middle got the Aaronic Priesthood last Sunday.  

Mert is wearing his first suit!

The man on the far right is our wonderful Branch Clerk. 

We love these people!

Sadly, the Shoukat brothers are being deported.  Their Mom came over to Turkey first, four years ago, then these two brothers came in August, while their older brother and father are still in Pakistan.  They find life in Pakistan very difficult being Christian. They have been great friends to us and they speak English!  We will really miss them!  So will their Mom. We hope they can get back into Turkey at some point!

Rubina (mom) with Ramish & Kamish (brothers)

9.  We have some exciting Humanitarian projects in the queue!  Too many to mention!  We are working as hard and smart as we can to get as much help to those suffering as quickly as possible.  The church is so generous yet careful about spending sacred funds.  It has really impressed us.

We usually work outside since our room is hard to work in. It may look luxurious, and it is, 

but it can also be hard, especially when the internet is down.

We work every day!  

Humanitarian projects, Employment, English Connect, and serving the Branch.

We are giving all we can in the little time we have to serve.

10.  We are working with some amazing Job Seekers via zoom in Italy!  We have loved getting to know them and helping them with not only their employment needs, but also their spiritual needs.  Talking about life has been fulfilling to us all.

Israel, our new friend.

Now for the biggest and best news!  

Welcome to baby ZACK born to Marie and Jeff! Isn't he just the cutest??

I was looking at this moon over the Mediterranean Sea 

at the same time they were looking at this sunset!

Lots of hair!

Meeting 2 of his brothers

And a few more pictures just for fun!

Some beautiful mosque's.  We love hearing the call to prayer.

Cats everywhere!  

FYI, we have never been in the pool; we're allowed to but we truly haven't had time! 

"Sidewalks" have two lanes:  Right for walkers, left for bikes, 

with a small curb in-between.  

We really like it!

Antalya is built on some very steep cliffs

Ha, ha

We haven't ordered any of these soups yet.

This is Hadrian's Gate.   

"In 1959 the pavement was stripped away to reveal the original Roman era walkway.  

Visitors can look down and see incredibly deep grooves where the pavement was 

worn away by countless carts passing in and out of the city."  

(The ruts are amazing to see!)

It is said that the Queen of Sheba passed through these gates.

Pomegranate tree

Pomegranates everywhere!

We laugh because "Pomegranate" is such a long English word. 

In Turkey, they are called "Nar."  A much simpler word!

Reid's birthday breakfast.  So much food!  Lots of bread and jams. 

 In turkey you eat lots of olives, yogurt, tomatoes, breads, meat and cheese.

Reid's favorite is the honey served on the comb.

A street selling Turkish rugs on the left.

This is taken from the top floor of an outside mall food court.  Malls are very popular!

Wild dogs that are everywhere.  We've strangely already gotten used to seeing them!  They don't come up to you, follow you, or beg for food.

Can you see the two sleeping in front of this store?

Or these four sleeping in the road?

This one could use a bath and some grooming.

As interesting as all this is to experience, here is the true reason we are here.  

We love our Savior, Jesus Christ! 

All are loved by Him. 

Glory be to God!

That's all until next month.  

We're going to try to eat turkey in Turkey on turkey day!  

Happy thanksgiving and enjoy your family and feast!  We are all so blessed.

With love,

Reid and Kathy

Isn't October too early for Turkey??

I'm writing today from Antalya, Turkey.  "What? I thought you were in Croatia" you say? Well so did we until just days ago when we got an interesting phone call asking us to be Humanitarian volunteers in Antalya and Isparta, Turkey (Republic of Türkiye). We were shocked but excited!  We will fly back and forth from Croatia to Turkey.  We've been in Turkey a few days now and we already love it! And btw, Turkish Airlines is the best!  

We got to meet President Camille N. Johnson and Sister Tracy Y. Browning.  (General Relief Society President and General Primary 2nd Counselor respectively, for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.) We arranged for them to tour the Zagreb Refugee Center and their laundry facility installed by the church.  Those 5 washing machines have done over 80,000 loads!  They shared with the leaders of the Center the approval of our first project: a kitchen remodel for the center.  You can read about their visit here: https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders/2024/09/23/president-camille-n-johnson-sister-tracy-y-browning-central-europe-ministry/

Here in Turkey, the church has been very benevolent after the earthquake in 2023.  At the end of this month, the church will open 3 elementary schools they built in the quake zone!  That is only the tip of the iceberg for what they have done here.

Last Thursday we made it official! The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is providing therapy sessions which will include art therapy, group therapy, and one-on-one counseling for teen refugees in Croatia. We are so thrilled about this project to support these young people, some who still have family members in Ukraine!

 Inspecting the apartment of these great elders.  

They passed, AND they got homemade cookies!

Meeting my cousins' grandson, Elder White!   Welcome to the mission!

  

Between General Conference sessions we had 9 missionaries over for lunch!  That window behind them is just wide open...no screens here!  Surprisingly we rarely have bugs (or birds) fly in!

We need to do a better job of capturing some pictures of Zagreb.  In the meantime, here is a typical blue tram sharing the streets with cars, pedestrians and bicycles!  Sometimes a bit scary!

We have had a few meetings in Ljubljana, Slovenia and absolutely love this place, too!  It is beautiful and quaint.  That is a castle on the hill behind us.

Reid has been fascinated by the variety of doors he has spotted on his mission and often will stop to take a picture of a random door.  This one is hardly random and certainly unique.  The door is only 30 years old but it is on the 300-year old Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Ljubljana.  

We got to watch general conference at the church building.  It was in English with Croatian sub titles.  We watched Saturday morning session at 6 PM on Saturday.  We got to see all 4 sessions, although the last one ended at midnight Sunday night!

With our mission leaders and some of the most wonderful young missionaries and Senior missionaries!  We love them all!

Here are some pictures of our few days in Türkiye!

Our second night in Antalya, Türkiye and we were treated to a Turkish dinner overlooking the old Roman Harbor with a wonderful young church member who has been so kind in providing Turkish hospitality.  It was a delicious and beautiful evening.

We went back a few nights later to the old Roman Harbor to see it from sea-level.  This is a very cool place!

We love seeing the cats everywhere in Turkiye!  It is fun to see them peeking around a corner.  Last night while we were preparing for the next day of meetings and sitting on the hotel patio, we noticed this little feline staring at us across the table.  Can you see her?

We have a new language to learn with our new assignment.  So far we only know a few Turkish words.  We long to communicate so here we go, studying a new language again!  Can anybody say Merhaba, tanistigimiza memnon oldum?  Neither can I.....yet!  It means "Hello, nice to meet you!"

I'll end with a joke meant for our grandkids:  

Grandpa (Reid):  We have learned to speak Turkish!

Grandkids:  Really? What can you say, Grandpa?

Grandpa (Reid):  Gobble, gobble!  See?  I can talk turkey!

Until next month, remember to be grateful for all you have....food, shelter, water, and friends!  We are rich indeed!

We made it to Zagreb, Croatia!

 Welcome to Croatia!  We arrived on August 17, 2024.  Jet lag was not too bad and we jumped in to our assignment.  It didn’t take long for us to realize that many people were on holiday!  The month of August is vacation time in Europe.  We settled into our nice apartment and got to know our new friends, the fellow Senior couples here.  We are surrounded with outstanding young missionaries as well.  The language is a challenge but we try to say our few, simple phrases, and the Croatians seem to appreciate it.  

We started knocking on doors of any NGO’s we could find. Cold calling was not something I’ve done much of and the first few were a bit scary.  It’s one thing to do so when you speak the language and another when you aren’t sure if the person on the other side of the door will understand why you are even standing there.  To our joy, we were warmly received at almost every place.  Some have memories of working with LDS Charities in the past.  They would always praise the church with gratitude for past projects.  Now we have to add on to those good feelings they have!

We are having so much fun exploring, trying new foods, and falling in love with Croatia. I am very impressed with Reid's amazing driving skills!  We have our desks next to each other in our office (the spare bedroom in our two bedroom apartment) and we love working side by side on the paperwork, emails, calls, research, and all that goes into our role.  Reid and I have also been asked to help with the Central Europe Employment team and are doing that on Thursdays.  We have started with our first two job seekers; one in Spain and the other in Italy and they are great candidates!  We attend a small branch and we are in a District with 6 young sisters and elders. District Council is always a weekly highlight.  They ask us to teach a "Life Tip" each week and it is just great to meet with them and feel their great spirit and enthusiasm!

So far, so good!  We stay busy!

The Larson's are here working with Young Single Adults.  They took us out and showed us around (because they got here 3 weeks earlier!), showed us how to use the tram system, and we had our first gelato.  In fact, 3 of us enjoyed a second gelato that same night from a different place!  

A beautiful church in Osijek.  Even more beautiful inside.  (See below) We saw a wedding party here.  The bride and groom drove off in a Ford Mustang limo!  It was very unique!

This is the famous water tower in Vukavar.  The war in 1991-1995 just destroyed this city.  We saw signs of the war all around.  This water tower took over 600 hits but never crumbled.  A boy climbed this tower and hung the Croatian flag as often as he could and the enemy would shoot it down, so up he'd go the next night with another flag.  The flag gave hope to the soldiers defending their city.  Today you can climb it or ride an elevator.  They have an interactive museum near the top explaining what happened there.  We left feeling very somber. The videos of civilians fleeing their homes, taking so little with them, was very emotional.  Some came back but many went to other European countries and stayed there.

We took a drive on a Sunday afternoon.  You don't have to drive far out of Zagreb before you are in the country and see beautiful sights like this one!  Each little village has a beautiful Catholic church, and lots of red roofs.  They are so quaint and lovely.

We took this picture to show a typical walking street ( no cars allowed) but we noticed after taking it, that McDonald's is in the background!  Ha, ha, yes McD's is in Rijeka as well as Burger King and KFC.  

Our Mission Leaders took us out for lunch.  We ate a wonderful Croatian food called Cepati.  It's different meats rolled into sort of a sausage then grilled and is very delicious!  All the food we have had has been very good.  

We have a cute bread shop near our apartment.  The sweet ladies who work there have given us free pastries.  We're not sure why; maybe it's the missionary tag; maybe because they feel sorry for us Americans who can't understand what we are ordering?  Either way it's sure been fun!

We have been busy every day forging relationships with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) like the Croatia Red Cross, Jesuit Refugee Services, ADRA (the Seventh Day Adventists relief organization), and others.  These organizations have some of the best people on the planet!  The Church has funded a lot of worthwhile projects over many years and it has been fun to go evaluate them and discuss with the NGO's what more we can be doing together in 2024.  We have some great new projects in the works!  

A lady in Turkey staying in one of the Refugee centers we visited made these slippers I'm wearing on the left.  On the right is a wonderful couple who gave us some cheese she made from her cow.  It's delicious!

On the left - After a hike with 4 of our 6 District members. Below - We climbed the watch tower of this castle. Below left - with our friends, the Stoker's in Rijeka. The Stoker's serve in Frankfurt, Germany, but came to train us for a few days.  When we'd had enough training, we went sightseeing!  Or as a person in Croatia said to us, "See-sighting!"

We are on our way to Slovenia for the first time tomorrow!  

We've been invited to the home of the Rotary District Governor for lunch.  

We are both hoping to do a project together.

See you next month!

Missionary Training Center (MTC), Provo, UT

The Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah was the best, most sacred experience. We were taught by amazing teachers and had an evening with Elder Carl B. Cook and Elder David A. Bednar as well. The energy there, mixed with the spirit, was a highlight of our life. It truly felt like sacred ground.

I have waited my whole life to "wear the badge" and I put mine on the second I saw it.  I even wore it to bed.  I didn't want to take it off.  It is an honor and privilege to represent my Savior 24/7, and to know that anyone who sees your badge, knows you are a follower of Jesus Christ.  It adds some responsibility to all you do and say!

We had one week of Preach My Gospel (missionary training) which also included workshops on getting along with your companion (our spouse!), Social Media use, and Safety.

The second week was Humanitarian Service, Welfare and Self Reliance, and Emergency Response training. We learned so much! My appreciation for the Self Reliance program skyrocketed. The church provides for all people regardless of religion, gender, or age. The work is all about relieving suffering "in the Lord's way." The Lord's way is to not just give handouts but to help people become Self Reliant so that they can have the dignity of caring for themselves and the blessing of helping others.

We are humbled to be entrusted with bringing the Church's Humanitarian work back to the countries of Croatia and Slovenia, and to represent our church. We have great respect for the sacred funds entrusted to us, given generously from all church members including the poorest widow.

Kathy holding a Croatian Book of Mormon and Reid holding a Slovenian Book of Mormon

Other Humanitarian Senior couples in training with us going to Pakistan, Samoa, England, Puerto Rico, Kenya, Germany and Little Rock, AR.  One of the couples is going to be the Emergency Response couple for 32 countries in Europe.

It was special to overlap with my sister, Becky, and her husband for 2 days!  They are now in Nairobi, Kenya!  They got their call months before us.  We never dreamed we would be in the MTC together so that was a special bonus!  While in the MTC we were just a few doors down from them.  We stayed up talking way too late both nights, but the rules for Senior missionaries are pretty accommodating.

And away we go!  Salt Lake City to Chicago to Munich to Zagreb!