I gotta say, it terms of all the weeks on my mission. This
one was probably the most average that I've had. A straight 5/10. Not bad, not
good.
We've lost contact with quite a few investigators in the
past few weeks, but we've gained a few instead. We play soccer on Saturday
mornings as a branch, and a 16 year old kid with a full beard usually plays
with us. We've been inviting him to church, but it always seemed like a fat
chance he would actually come. Last week, he said he would, and he was a no
show. This week, he said he would come again, and our hopes weren't too high at
all about it. But sure enough, there he was at 10! We also had a really good
lesson with him afterwards.
In Prishtina, a city in our zone in Kosovo, a woman named
Besiana got baptized. She's been meeting with the sisters there for a long
time, with a lot of support from the soldiers there. And it was one of the
soldiers that baptized her!
For my studies, I've been reading a lot in the Old Testament
in Macedonian. It started off pretty interesting; Genesis ran through the lives
of many different people, and Exodus detailed the great escape of the
Israelites. And then I hit Leviticus aka the Law of Moses priest's manual.
There were a lot of random phrases that I would get to know really well in
Macedonian, particularly having to do with sacrificing large beasts, unless you
don't have enough money, then you can just sacrifice a couple pigeons and
doves. It makes me thankful for Jesus and for what he did for us so that we can
live the different law, the higher law. It's beautifully simple.
Macedonian government protests. Skopje has become colorful
over the last few months (see pics). It’s political and I haven’t said anything
about it since it hasn’t really affected our work.
Elder Rigby
[background from Elder Rigby’s dad, 20 June 2016: the Macedonian
protest is called “Sharena Revolutsiya” or “the colorful revolution” and began in
April 2016 when protestors demolished the office of the Macedonian president.
It has been generally been peaceful in nature and is a revolutionary protest
against the government. Thousands of protesters have marched through Skopje and
pelted paint-bombs at the main government buildings and police. Protests generally
occur around 6pm every evening, Sundays exempted. The protestors say they are
spied upon and persecuted minorities and others demand economic justice. They want
the government’s resignation or at least “fair elections”. Protestors come from
the social democratic opposition party (SDSM), ethnic Albanians, LGBT people, and
other ethnic, social and political groups. The government and police have continued
to allow the protests.
Macedonian politics boiled over in Jan 2015 when the
government charged the SDSM leader with planning a coup d'état. In Feb 2015, the
SDSM leader accused the Macedonian government of wiretapping and illegally
spying on thousands of Macedonians and he provided example evidence. With the
help of the EU, early elections were planned and protests subsided. With the EU
relying on Macedonia to help stem the refugee crisis, EU pressure evaporated. Early
parliamentary elections set for June were cancelled by the Court and the
wiretapping scandal investigation was suspended and wiretappers were pardoned,
so in April 2016, the Colorful Revolution began, called for by the SDSM leader.
The President revoked some of the pardons in May and made other concessions. This
weekend a protestor ultimatum demands were not met. The atmosphere seems to be
getting more tense now. Follow news here:
This Colorful Revolution seems to be the latest in the series
revolutionary-minded movements occurring in several societies in the former
Soviet Union, the Balkans, and Middle East since the early 2000s (Rose Revolution:
Georgia 2003, Orange Revolution: Ukraine 2004, Purple Revolution: Iraq 2005,
Tulip or Pink Revolution: Kyrgyzstan 2005, Green Cedar Revolution: Lebanon
2005, Blue Jeans Revolution: Belarus 2006, Grape Revolution: Moldova 2009, Green
Revolution: Iran 2009, Jasmine Revolution of 2010 of Tunisia leading to the
Arab Spring movements).]
