What's Up With The White's In Zadar, Croatia:                 

                        July 22- Aug 7                                               

I keep thinking there won't be much to blog about! Well, as you can see we keep having more experiences of love, serving, sharing and fun! 

We said goodbye to our sweet Sister Sundell (from Las Vegas) , I just love her, we have a lot of enthusiastic energy together and it makes me sad to see her leave Zadar! 

But, with that comes a fun "welcome to Zadar" to Sister Hunter from Arizona. 

We now do our district council with Split (2 hours away along to Dalmatian coast) so this is how we do it, all of us in Zadar sit on our couch and then zoom in with the Split Elders (Warner, Powell) and the Ivanich Seniors. 

Russell and I have been doing some work finding an affordable place along the coast for our Senior Conference in October. (58 people, 27 couples 4 singles) We finally landed on one that works great, This is right next to our hotel, it is in Biograd, Croatia a coastal city about 40 minutes away from us in Zadar. 5 countries will be joining us, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro, Such a fun bi-yearly conference. I will be presenting on staying mentally healthy on a mission. For me a walk along this beautiful coast does it!!!

We love all the people who show up at church on Sunday. Left is Orijana Juresko a strong long time member of our branch. Then some visitors from the Slovenia branch the Sambunjak family, they are amazing! 

This is Melinka Vovodić. She has been a friend of the church for 5 years. Last Sunday she just announced she was ready to be baptized, so many have worked with her and loved and supported her, then suddenly she knew it was time. We were all so happy for her feeling peace and sure about it. 

This is Freddy (our RS president's husband) and Kezia their daughter who is about to leave us to go to college in Slovenia. We will really miss her and her contributions to our branch! She helps teach primary in the Croatian language. 

This is Anna Louise Matolovic-Mahoney our service missionary painting at the red cross for service. She went to a Young Single Adult activity in Hungary with over 300 people. 

We visited the museum of ancient glass for prep day! I love glass art. 

So old and amazing they were able to preserve them. 

Glass blowing and some amazing artistic ability in ancient days. 

A constant: Cleaning the church, getting ready for the baptism. Always work to be done!

Our friends the Thompson's that are a senior missionary couple up in Karlovac came to visit us on an errand to Zadar. They are from Blackfoot, ID.

Sister Porter, our new member Milenka, and Sister Hunter. 

                               We explored until we found the Zadar Sphinx!                                

Our Beautiful Madison, (our first granddaughter is getting ready to get married Aug. 9th) She sent us some photos. Sooo very hard to miss this, my heart hurts... but we will be on facetime for the celebrating! 

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 The baptism day! Aug. 2 It was a day of love and joy!

                             

                           

 Zveki our Relief Society President gives her a hug.

Treats and celebration afterward

This is Robert, he came to visit us in Zadar on Sunday. He is a great new convert in Rijeka our grandson Teige was able to be a part of. He bore a beautiful testimony. He found the church by listening to the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square singing a Christmas song. He kept listening so many times he knew he needed to find the church that was singing. He is such a good man!

This is a sweet family who came to our branch Sunday from Prague. The Vojtova family. Converts from 10 years ago. 

  Our Grandson Elder Teige White and his companion from Finland Elder Koskialho. 

Elder White was able to do a baptism in Belgrade Serbia to a sweet lady.  She has only 1 leg and is amazing.  

Croatia Aug. 5 celebrates their War of Independence 

These are our friends another Senior couple the Hatch's they are in charge of the housing for all of the many missionaries and senior missionaries over the 5 countries. So it was fun to get a visit from them! 

This is a sad goodbye to President and Sister Ellison (From Hurricane, UT) He was the 1st counselor in the Mission presidency and she was the do everything mission secretary. I told her loosing her was like loosing my safety strap. They gave us their pickleball net so we can have some fun times with our missionaries and on our early mornings! 

The Parkinson's (2nd counselor of the mission presidency) and the Ellison's just happened to meet at the airport in Amsterdam. Ellison's are leaving, Parkinson's returning they had a daughter get married in the states. Parkinson's are from Michigan. 

If you look you can see the lady swimming on her back in the Adriatic sea, and a sailboat. This is our view while we walk along the path in the morning. Almost no one around 

Then we go down to see the  sunset and are overwhelmed with how many people are there! It has become a major tourist destination. We are excited for fall when it gets more quiet again!  

          God Helps me....that's what I think, and then I am calm.

                                        (Carl Bloch)

              (Russell put this in our branch newsletter and I thought you would like it1)