We had such an enjoyable week in Bosnia. It was our last country filming project. We’ve gotten together with the Johnson’s (Public Affairs over Europe) from Frankfurt and our film crew Massimo and Allesandra from Rome for all 3 film projects. They have been so wonderful to work with.
We didn’t realize how beautiful Bosnia is. Bosnia has rolling hills, and green forested mountains and some high mountains that remind us of Utah. The crazy thing is that there are only a few highways so we were driving on 2 lane streets and we’d get behind a truck or a tractor pulling a load of corn and Dad was trying to pass these vehicles on curving roads!
We first drove to Sarajevo on Thursday taking an extra hour to go the scenic route. On Friday we started filming and filmed just one couple in the countryside of Sarajevo and then drove 4 hours down to Banja Luka (in the Republic of Srpska) in time to film the Banja Luka Branch Institute class. President and Sister Melonakos were there after attending the Bosnia zone conference. The branch members served us a delicious dinner of homemade potato pastries (Burek) and Baklava. We filmed all day Saturday and it was a beautiful fall day. We filmed at the fortress and at the beautiful river getting gorgeous photos. We finished filming around 7pm. Then late Saturday night our filming group went out to the nicest restaurant in Banja Luka-- "The 14th floor.” We had so much fun just talking and eating.
On Sunday, it was branch conference and President and Sister Melonakos were there. There was a branch luncheon afterwards as well. It’s a small branch but the few members are very friendly and generous. On Monday, the film crew started editing and we were more free. We took 3 sister missionaries in our car and the other 4 Elders (2 from Tuzla) drove and we had a nice lunch together at the Kastel Fortress overlooking the river and then we drove 30 minutes to a pretty area with multiple small waterfalls and took fun photos of the missionaries. We bought buckwheat flour that was ground right there at the waterfall. Then around 5:30 pm we had to drive the 4 hours back to Sarajevo getting in about 10 pm.
On Tuesday everyone left of our film crew. Dad and I got picked up by Elder and Sister Cooper, the Sarajevo senior couple and we spent the day together taking 2 tours of Sarajevo—were were immersed in the history of the siege of Sarajevo, only 25 years ago. For four years people lived surrounded by the Serbs, cut off from water and electricity, while snipers, mortars and tanks destroyed lots of the town. We walked up along the front line in the hills and stayed on the narrow path that had warnings signs of “live” land mines if we strayed from the path.
Later that evening we had dinner with the Coopers in a cute restaurant in the old city and walked around afterwards. On Wednesday we got on the road again and drove 4-5 hours to Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia to meet with three church families. Elder Phillips, the Branch President accompanied us on the visits. It’s so enjoyable to hear their story of joining the church or a special experience. The last family fed us a lovely traditional Serbian vegetable cake and chocolate cake. We had met them previously. Later that night we had ice cream with the Phillips, the Brewers and the young Elders serving in Sremska. Thursday was spent driving 51/2 home to Rijeka. Friday was just getting back to real life and Saturday was district meeting and district language study . We went home and made the filling for Chicken Enchiladas for 20 people for our branch luncheon the next day.
We had such a fun Sunday- we had 11 branch members, 4 investigators and 7 visitors. After church we served 3 trays of Enchiladas and a tomato cucumber salad. Elder Shaw and Elder O'Brian made a pasta salad and Sister Zemenchik and Sister Christensen
