A somewhat sequel to the previous story.
*****
A year and a half later I was living in Maribor for the second time. I had been all over the country by now, living in Ljubljana, Kranj, Celje. I'd been homeless for two months, I'd seen 30 baptisms. I'd made friends with all my fellow missionaries, and knew members who I liked, and who liked me in many cities. I'd been through the very first McDonald's walk-thru, and visited a weird old woman in a nursing home for over two months, I'd been to a wedding and two funerals, and leaped off one train in Zidani Most with two large suitcases in my hands and five smaller bags around my neck and within 30 seconds carried all of my possessions by myself underground and up again, and leaped onto my connecting train just as it started moving.
I'd obtained and discarded a paralyzing fear of dogs, and though I didn't realize it, I'd already had my final dog attack experience. I'd irritated Jehovah's Witnesses by asking for extra copies of their literature, and irritated 7th day adventists by talking so much about nothing without taking a breath. I'd been underground in a cave, danced a jig on the Alps, and I'd crossed all four of Slovenija's borders, some on purpose, and some accidentally. I was the only person Jasmina would talk to, and the only person Mandy refused to talk to. I had been to 18 Missionary conferences and spoken at most of them, and I had enjoyed or endured about 70 district meetings. I had been interviewed on television, and also for the paper. I had been to more castles than I ever thought possible for my lifetime.
I'd spoken to drunks, and old people, college students and expatriates. By NOT speaking I caused one girl to become interested in the church and eventually join. I'd claimed over intercoms to be selling honey, and also to be a woman so people would let us into the building. I knew where all the best bookstores were, and which ones had the items I routinely needed (as they were not all equal). I had been about four blocks away from President Clinton when he visited Ljubljana but I didn't care, and I'd brought a plate of brownies to the very cheerful woman who worked in the photolab behind Nama because I wanted her to know I appreciated what she did. I felt like I was home.
It was July of 2000, and a preparation day, so we missionaries weren't out working, but in, resting a bit. We were supposed to be doing chores, but my current companion was of the mind that chores should be done every evening anyway, so we had some time on our hands. The other two elders were over at our place, and we were probably eating lunch and writing letters to our parents.
The phone rang and I answered it. It was Sister Hubbard from the mission office, calling for my companion Elder Wettstein; he would be going home in a month and she needed to go over some scheduling things with him since his mother was coming to pick him up. They talked for a while, and I continued to write my letters and talk to Elders Pierce and Baldwin at the kitchen table. After a few minutes Elder Wettstein said that Sister Hubbard wanted to speak to me again, and I went over to the phone. Sister Hubbard handed the phone off to her husband Elder Hubbard, and he said hello in his very genial way. "Elder Young, I've got some information for you," he said in his British accent. "We've got your scheduled release date now." I protested that I didn't want to know it, and if he never said it out loud than I wouldn't have to leave, would I?
"Sorry elder," he said. "I wish it worked that way."
"Can't you tell me later, please, when it's closer to the actual time?"
"Best if I tell you now, and get it over with," he replied, and told me I would be leaving Slovenija on December 20th, six months later.
I was subdued somewhat after getting off the phone, and when the other elders asked me what was wrong, I told them I had been told my death date - that's what we called a missionary's date of departure, and for me it felt every bit as ominous as knowing the actual date I would cease to live. "When is it?" Elders Baldwin and Pierce asked, delightedly. I didn't want to say, but they soon got it out of me, I shared so I could get some sympathy.
But no, they began to laugh, and have fun. If I weren't so sensitive I could probably have laughed along with them, but I wasn't in any mood to think about it. It was six months away - I still had LOTS to do as a missionary. Elder Wettstein knew how I felt about it, and told the other two to lay off me, but they didn't. They just kept going on and on about leaving and singing Christmas songs. Elder Wettstein warned them again, and I warned them, in the strongest way I knew how. "If you don't shut up," I said, "I will stick this pen in you both!" and I waved the pen I was writing home with. Ooh, threatening.
They went quiet, and we all went back to our letters. Then, after a few minutes Elder Pierce looked up and burst into song, "I'll Be Home For Christmas!!" Elder Baldwin joined in, "You Can Count On Me!" They laughed.
With a blank expression on my face I rose from my chair, walked over to Elder Baldwin clutching my pen, raised it and jammed the point into the back of his hand. "Ow!" he yelled, and Elder Pierce went to block me. With one swift motion I pulled the pen out of Elder Baldwin's hand and stabbed it into Elder Pierce's forearm, and yanked it out again. I returned to my chair, and looked at them, both frozen in disbelief, bleeding.
"I warned you, didn't I?" I said.
"That's right, he did," said Elder Wettstein.
By now Slovenia was my home - getting me out would involve a fight.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Slovene Sunday - Threatened with a butter knife
When I first arrived in Slovenija in 1999, the town I was assigned to was called Velenje. Velenje was, and probably still is a mining town, and drew the kind of people who would consent to mine for a living. It was a town full of Bosnians - the actual Slovenes lived on the edges of the city, in the wealthy and established neighborhoods, in the hills. The city proper, with all the high rises, and businesses, and people and schools - that was very Bosnian. It was a great place to start, as far as the language was concerned - I thought I was hearing regular Slovene, and was surprised at how simple it was, and how much I understood; really I was hearing the simpler Slavic language of Bosnian, or Slovene spoken by a foreigner like myself.
Velenje was a neighbor to the city of Celje, through a tight and winding canyon, a bus trip of about 30 minutes. Because of the tight valley Velenje sat in, it indeed felt pretty isolated. My very first companion, Elder Kelly, did not like to stay there, and tried to wrangle our schedule so that we spent as much time in the larger, more populated, more open city of Celje as possible. Celje had the church building, and it had other elders, and members that Elder Kelly was familiar with and liked. I, however, was new, and was determined to serve the people in the area I was assigned to. I was kind of a nag, I guess, in my regular passive-aggressive way, using my wide-eyed naivete to inspire guilt (or a desire to be a good example) in my companion so I could keep the rules more easily.
One cold February evening within the first week or two of my arrival I managed to make us be in Velenje for the evening, instead of Celje, just hanging out at the McDonald's. With no other elders to waste time with, and no members at ALL to talk to, we were faced with the most daunting missionary task of all - tracting, going from door to door, and asking people on their own doorsteps if we could share our message with them. Up to this point Elder Kelly had managed to keep us from doing too much of that, especially at night, but I thought that tracting was what missionaries were SUPPOSED to do, that that was what we LIVED for.
Unenthusiastic, Elder Kelly said that if we were going to do this, then I had to pick the place we would tract. I smiled, and pointed to the tallest building in the city, an apartment complex right in the center of town, tall enough to keep us busy for the whole evening. Elder Kelly said OK, so we headed on over there in the chilly darkness. I was excited, but dreading it, too, as I was still so new that I didn't know how to do this right. Elder Kelly had up to this time not shown me any good techniques, and I was still so rough with my grammar. But in we went, and up, up 35 stories to the very top floor.
Velenje, I was told, was one of Tito's pet projects, and communist city to a T, designed to be completely self-sufficient. As such, it had many other hallmarks of communism too, the most obvious one being that all the apartment buildings, or bloki, were dark, minimalist structures, of the 70's entirely. Everything about them looked 20 years old, even if they were new. This tallest of all the bloks was no different, oddly dark to the extreme, and quite uninviting. I took a breath and began.
We rang the bell at the one door on the 35th floor and were turned away, and went down to the 34th floor. There were more doors here, and the first two also turned us away. The next door had a nameplate with a very Bosnian name on it, Mustafa Musarbasic. When we knocked, a voice from inside called out for us to wait, and soon the door opened to show a tall, gangly man, longish greasy gray hair. As he stood and listened to Elder Kelly talk he weaved back and forth a little bit, and he looked slightly tired. He said no at first, and then when Elder Kelly thanked him, he changed his mind and invited us in. We walked into his dark apartment, lit only by a candle on the coffee table. I really didn't understand a word of what was going on, so I sat on a low chair across from Mustafa, smiling in the dark and trying to exude happiness. Every once in a while the candle flame guttered, and Mustafa would take a butter knife and move the wick so the flame wouldn't go out. For some reason he never turned on the lights. He was very quiet and agreeable, and when Elder Kelly offered him a Croatian copy of the Book of Mormon, he took it and said he'd read it.
We'd spent, I'm guessing, much time in there with him just chatting, so by the time we excused ourselves to go, it was time to head home. We had the promise of another visit with him in a few days time to find out what he thought about what he'd read, and I walked home in the dark and cold very pleased with myself. People had been whispering that Velenje was a lost cause, that the previous elders has ruined the image of the church there, and that no one in the whole town was interested in the church, and then I arrive, and within one week have a second appointment all lined up! New blood COULD refresh the old and reigning apathy! THAT'S what I was here for! Just my presence could jump-start the work here!
Elder Kelly didn't tell me there had been three empty bottles of wine under Mustafa's side of the coffee table.
We returned to Mustafa's apartment a few evenings later, and this time he was a different kind of drunk. Now he was loud and ebullient, and moody as heck. One minute he was smiling in a loud voice, and the next he was... well, I couldn't understand him, but I felt very threatened. Again we were sitting in the dark, with only the tiniest flame within the puddle of wax on the plate on the table,and Mustafa was wielding the butter knife with much more gusto than before. At one point he kept pointing to me with it, and then waving for me to come nearer. I looked to Elder Kelly, who translated, very unhelpfully, the Mustafa couldn't see me in the dark and to come sit nearer to him. I hugged my missionary bag closer to my chest and said the first thing I could think of, "Jaz sem v redu tukaj." I'm okay here.
I understood Elder Kelly to ask if another night would be better, and Mustafa fixed on the word better. "You think you're better than me?!" it translated to. Elder Kelly told me later that Mustafa then said he would tie me up and kill Elder Kelly with the knife in his hand. Luckily I didn't understand anything, and Elder Kelly kept a very calm tone. Mustafa's mood shifted and he became the host, inviting us to see something in another room. Wide-eyed, I clutched my bag, and ran through it's contents in my head, to see if I could survive if I had to run out of there quickly. I was SURE when Mustafa opened the door to another room it would have a decaying corpse in it, and braced myself for the worst. What was inside was very unexpected - a neat and tidy child's room, with a Lion King poster on the wall. I was informed later that the room was for Mustafa's son, but his mother had taken the child away, and Mustafa hadn't seen him in a while.
I was still standing there, opening my eyes as wide as I could, like it would help me understand the dialogue any better, still holding my bag in front of my heart. The front door was behind us, and Elder Kelly began pushing me subtly backwards, all the while telling Mustafa what a nice time we'd had, and thanks for his attention. Then we backed out the door and made for the elevator. Walking home I was filled in on what had actually gone on in there, and I felt let down by it all. All I wanted was to go home to Utah, to be safe, to not have to walk around in the dark and not understand what the drunk people were going on about. I wanted to not have to talk to a drunk person ever again. I wanted to know what I was doing. I wanted to go home.
Velenje was a neighbor to the city of Celje, through a tight and winding canyon, a bus trip of about 30 minutes. Because of the tight valley Velenje sat in, it indeed felt pretty isolated. My very first companion, Elder Kelly, did not like to stay there, and tried to wrangle our schedule so that we spent as much time in the larger, more populated, more open city of Celje as possible. Celje had the church building, and it had other elders, and members that Elder Kelly was familiar with and liked. I, however, was new, and was determined to serve the people in the area I was assigned to. I was kind of a nag, I guess, in my regular passive-aggressive way, using my wide-eyed naivete to inspire guilt (or a desire to be a good example) in my companion so I could keep the rules more easily.
One cold February evening within the first week or two of my arrival I managed to make us be in Velenje for the evening, instead of Celje, just hanging out at the McDonald's. With no other elders to waste time with, and no members at ALL to talk to, we were faced with the most daunting missionary task of all - tracting, going from door to door, and asking people on their own doorsteps if we could share our message with them. Up to this point Elder Kelly had managed to keep us from doing too much of that, especially at night, but I thought that tracting was what missionaries were SUPPOSED to do, that that was what we LIVED for.
Unenthusiastic, Elder Kelly said that if we were going to do this, then I had to pick the place we would tract. I smiled, and pointed to the tallest building in the city, an apartment complex right in the center of town, tall enough to keep us busy for the whole evening. Elder Kelly said OK, so we headed on over there in the chilly darkness. I was excited, but dreading it, too, as I was still so new that I didn't know how to do this right. Elder Kelly had up to this time not shown me any good techniques, and I was still so rough with my grammar. But in we went, and up, up 35 stories to the very top floor.
Velenje, I was told, was one of Tito's pet projects, and communist city to a T, designed to be completely self-sufficient. As such, it had many other hallmarks of communism too, the most obvious one being that all the apartment buildings, or bloki, were dark, minimalist structures, of the 70's entirely. Everything about them looked 20 years old, even if they were new. This tallest of all the bloks was no different, oddly dark to the extreme, and quite uninviting. I took a breath and began.
We rang the bell at the one door on the 35th floor and were turned away, and went down to the 34th floor. There were more doors here, and the first two also turned us away. The next door had a nameplate with a very Bosnian name on it, Mustafa Musarbasic. When we knocked, a voice from inside called out for us to wait, and soon the door opened to show a tall, gangly man, longish greasy gray hair. As he stood and listened to Elder Kelly talk he weaved back and forth a little bit, and he looked slightly tired. He said no at first, and then when Elder Kelly thanked him, he changed his mind and invited us in. We walked into his dark apartment, lit only by a candle on the coffee table. I really didn't understand a word of what was going on, so I sat on a low chair across from Mustafa, smiling in the dark and trying to exude happiness. Every once in a while the candle flame guttered, and Mustafa would take a butter knife and move the wick so the flame wouldn't go out. For some reason he never turned on the lights. He was very quiet and agreeable, and when Elder Kelly offered him a Croatian copy of the Book of Mormon, he took it and said he'd read it.
We'd spent, I'm guessing, much time in there with him just chatting, so by the time we excused ourselves to go, it was time to head home. We had the promise of another visit with him in a few days time to find out what he thought about what he'd read, and I walked home in the dark and cold very pleased with myself. People had been whispering that Velenje was a lost cause, that the previous elders has ruined the image of the church there, and that no one in the whole town was interested in the church, and then I arrive, and within one week have a second appointment all lined up! New blood COULD refresh the old and reigning apathy! THAT'S what I was here for! Just my presence could jump-start the work here!
Elder Kelly didn't tell me there had been three empty bottles of wine under Mustafa's side of the coffee table.
We returned to Mustafa's apartment a few evenings later, and this time he was a different kind of drunk. Now he was loud and ebullient, and moody as heck. One minute he was smiling in a loud voice, and the next he was... well, I couldn't understand him, but I felt very threatened. Again we were sitting in the dark, with only the tiniest flame within the puddle of wax on the plate on the table,and Mustafa was wielding the butter knife with much more gusto than before. At one point he kept pointing to me with it, and then waving for me to come nearer. I looked to Elder Kelly, who translated, very unhelpfully, the Mustafa couldn't see me in the dark and to come sit nearer to him. I hugged my missionary bag closer to my chest and said the first thing I could think of, "Jaz sem v redu tukaj." I'm okay here.
I understood Elder Kelly to ask if another night would be better, and Mustafa fixed on the word better. "You think you're better than me?!" it translated to. Elder Kelly told me later that Mustafa then said he would tie me up and kill Elder Kelly with the knife in his hand. Luckily I didn't understand anything, and Elder Kelly kept a very calm tone. Mustafa's mood shifted and he became the host, inviting us to see something in another room. Wide-eyed, I clutched my bag, and ran through it's contents in my head, to see if I could survive if I had to run out of there quickly. I was SURE when Mustafa opened the door to another room it would have a decaying corpse in it, and braced myself for the worst. What was inside was very unexpected - a neat and tidy child's room, with a Lion King poster on the wall. I was informed later that the room was for Mustafa's son, but his mother had taken the child away, and Mustafa hadn't seen him in a while.
I was still standing there, opening my eyes as wide as I could, like it would help me understand the dialogue any better, still holding my bag in front of my heart. The front door was behind us, and Elder Kelly began pushing me subtly backwards, all the while telling Mustafa what a nice time we'd had, and thanks for his attention. Then we backed out the door and made for the elevator. Walking home I was filled in on what had actually gone on in there, and I felt let down by it all. All I wanted was to go home to Utah, to be safe, to not have to walk around in the dark and not understand what the drunk people were going on about. I wanted to not have to talk to a drunk person ever again. I wanted to know what I was doing. I wanted to go home.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Slovene Sunday - Knowing where to find a good Krof
Krofs, or krofi, are Slovene donuts, without holes. I presume they are fried; at any rate I know they are made with hot oil. Sometimes they have fruit or creme in the middle, and the most traditional ones have a topping of powdered sugar, or the tops have been dipped in chocolate.
My favorite were the ones called 'blazinicas', or 'pillows'. They were rectangular, and stuffed full of vanilla pudding. The best ones I'd found were from the Panda deli in Maribor, but you could find them in a few other places if you knew where to look. And I did.
During the last two months of my mission I was living in Maribor. There were six of us at the time - Elder Pierce, who had spent his whole mission in na Stajerskem, meaning in two months in the city of Celje and a year and a half in Maribor. He had only been to Ljubljana for missionary conferences and had never been able to explore the city; he admitted to me once that it kind of frightened him - he was used to the smaller-town atmosphere of the north. His companion at the time was Elder Hancey, who had only been in Slovenija for a month, all of it in Maribor. There was Sister Durham, who had lived in Kranj for a long time and knew that city backwards and forwards, but was mystified by Ljub, even though it was only a 15 minute bus ride away. With Sister Durham was Sister Cook, who had come at the same time as Elder Hancey, and had also spent her month only in Maribor.
And then there was me, who had lived in all five cities that were open to missionaries in Slovenija. I had started in Velenje, and subsequently moved to Celje, Ljubljana, Maribor, Kranj, back to Ljub, and them home to Maribor again. I was no stranger to any of those cities and felt right at home all over (except maybe Velenje). With me as my final companion was Elder Jones, who had spent his whole first year in Ljubljana, and only the month before had moved up to Maribor to be with me.
It was in 2000, probably November. There was going to be another of the monthly missionary conferences, and the missionaries from all over the country would be heading for Ljubljana. Though I was not the district leader in Maribor, I somehow convinced the others to go to Ljubljana a little early so I could look around for potentially my last time. We got up early and met at the Maribor train station that morning. The new Hitri Vlaki - Fast Trains - had just been introduced that September, so we probably took the Hiter Vlak down south, which accounted for an hour and a half or so.
When we alighted from the train in Ljub, at the wonderfully familiar yellow-brick train station, everyone was hungry. Elder Pierce knew there was a McDonald's in the train station, but people nixed his idea of fast food for breakfast. When someone else asked where we could eat then, and the other four complained that they didn't know anyplace in Ljubljana for a good breakfast, Elder Jones and I looked at each other and smiled.
"Will you trust us?" we asked the other four. "We know you're hungry - we all are - but will you trust us? It may be a bit of a walk." When the others agreed to follow where we led them - Ka-PWING! - we were off like a shot!
Crossing Trg Osvobodilne front, we practically ran down Miklosiceva about six blocks or so, until we got to Preseren's Square. Elder Jones and I stopped to make sure everyone was still following us, and when they caught up, we swung a right onto Chopova street. Past the shoe store, past the sport store, past another McDonald's. Elder Jones and I finally stopped in front of an optometrist's sign. Everyone caught up again and someone asked if we were headed to the Nama a little farther on that housed a grocery store. "No," I said, "we're here." Everyone else looked at the optometrist's sign skeptically. "Behind," I said, and lead the way into an inconspicuous alley. Back a ways, under an arch and to the left was a bakery, who's wares were still warm. The smell of fresh bread was enough to knock you over. I wanted to just inhale and inhale.
Everyone bought a little something for breakfast there, either a bun and some jogurt, or a hot pizza-thing. I got a roll with ham baked onto the top, and one of those good good pillow krofs that I loved.
"where shall we eat?" someone else asked, and Elder Jones took the lead this time, taking us up into the older part of Ljubljana, and along down a tight, crooked street called The Old Square, out past Levstikov Square, and across a large street to Zvezdarska street. I smiled when I realized where he was taking us - to an empty field, a park of some sort, where there was statuary on display. They were modern, and yellow and made of cement, and the statue-things kind of all resembled chairs, in a Dali painting. They were squiggled and odd, but you could sit on them like over-large, melting thrones. Everyone chose a statue, and sat down to eat their breakfasts. The sky was cloudy, which made the grass look greener, and it was just such a a perfect moment.
Everyone agreed that this - this out-of-the-way bakery, and the park with mooshy yellow cement chairs - was much better than sitting in McDonald's. "Thank you," they told us. "We're glad you two know this city so well."
My favorite were the ones called 'blazinicas', or 'pillows'. They were rectangular, and stuffed full of vanilla pudding. The best ones I'd found were from the Panda deli in Maribor, but you could find them in a few other places if you knew where to look. And I did.
During the last two months of my mission I was living in Maribor. There were six of us at the time - Elder Pierce, who had spent his whole mission in na Stajerskem, meaning in two months in the city of Celje and a year and a half in Maribor. He had only been to Ljubljana for missionary conferences and had never been able to explore the city; he admitted to me once that it kind of frightened him - he was used to the smaller-town atmosphere of the north. His companion at the time was Elder Hancey, who had only been in Slovenija for a month, all of it in Maribor. There was Sister Durham, who had lived in Kranj for a long time and knew that city backwards and forwards, but was mystified by Ljub, even though it was only a 15 minute bus ride away. With Sister Durham was Sister Cook, who had come at the same time as Elder Hancey, and had also spent her month only in Maribor.
And then there was me, who had lived in all five cities that were open to missionaries in Slovenija. I had started in Velenje, and subsequently moved to Celje, Ljubljana, Maribor, Kranj, back to Ljub, and them home to Maribor again. I was no stranger to any of those cities and felt right at home all over (except maybe Velenje). With me as my final companion was Elder Jones, who had spent his whole first year in Ljubljana, and only the month before had moved up to Maribor to be with me.
It was in 2000, probably November. There was going to be another of the monthly missionary conferences, and the missionaries from all over the country would be heading for Ljubljana. Though I was not the district leader in Maribor, I somehow convinced the others to go to Ljubljana a little early so I could look around for potentially my last time. We got up early and met at the Maribor train station that morning. The new Hitri Vlaki - Fast Trains - had just been introduced that September, so we probably took the Hiter Vlak down south, which accounted for an hour and a half or so.
When we alighted from the train in Ljub, at the wonderfully familiar yellow-brick train station, everyone was hungry. Elder Pierce knew there was a McDonald's in the train station, but people nixed his idea of fast food for breakfast. When someone else asked where we could eat then, and the other four complained that they didn't know anyplace in Ljubljana for a good breakfast, Elder Jones and I looked at each other and smiled.
"Will you trust us?" we asked the other four. "We know you're hungry - we all are - but will you trust us? It may be a bit of a walk." When the others agreed to follow where we led them - Ka-PWING! - we were off like a shot!
Crossing Trg Osvobodilne front, we practically ran down Miklosiceva about six blocks or so, until we got to Preseren's Square. Elder Jones and I stopped to make sure everyone was still following us, and when they caught up, we swung a right onto Chopova street. Past the shoe store, past the sport store, past another McDonald's. Elder Jones and I finally stopped in front of an optometrist's sign. Everyone caught up again and someone asked if we were headed to the Nama a little farther on that housed a grocery store. "No," I said, "we're here." Everyone else looked at the optometrist's sign skeptically. "Behind," I said, and lead the way into an inconspicuous alley. Back a ways, under an arch and to the left was a bakery, who's wares were still warm. The smell of fresh bread was enough to knock you over. I wanted to just inhale and inhale.
Everyone bought a little something for breakfast there, either a bun and some jogurt, or a hot pizza-thing. I got a roll with ham baked onto the top, and one of those good good pillow krofs that I loved.
"where shall we eat?" someone else asked, and Elder Jones took the lead this time, taking us up into the older part of Ljubljana, and along down a tight, crooked street called The Old Square, out past Levstikov Square, and across a large street to Zvezdarska street. I smiled when I realized where he was taking us - to an empty field, a park of some sort, where there was statuary on display. They were modern, and yellow and made of cement, and the statue-things kind of all resembled chairs, in a Dali painting. They were squiggled and odd, but you could sit on them like over-large, melting thrones. Everyone chose a statue, and sat down to eat their breakfasts. The sky was cloudy, which made the grass look greener, and it was just such a a perfect moment.
Everyone agreed that this - this out-of-the-way bakery, and the park with mooshy yellow cement chairs - was much better than sitting in McDonald's. "Thank you," they told us. "We're glad you two know this city so well."
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Slovene Sunday - Vanja Arsenuk
I recently decided that because I can now post from my own home, without traipsing over to my parents' house, I can spend a little more thought, and put a little more focus into my writing, my essays, my posts.
And so, with that, I unveil Slovene Sunday - specifically setting time to remember things about Slovenija - big things, little things, mundane things and things that meant a lot to my heart.
I begin...
When I first moved to Maribor in December of 1999 it was so different than the big city if Ljubljana I had lived in for the previous 8 months. It was smaller, and at first it felt more countrified. If I'm honest, I had a pretty low opinion of the people up there, especially the church members. They just were so small - small in numbers, small-minded. They didn't have the big-city hustle-&-bustle about them, they weren't busy like the folks of Ljubljana were.
I felt like I was being punished in some way. I loved my companion, and I loved the other missionaries I worked with, but... it just wasn't the same. And I had a bad attitude about it. I didn't like the people, I kept away, and aloof. I was mad that where the church building in Ljub had been a nice, open, spacious building above a pizza parlour in a beautiful Italliante courtyard, with wildlife immediate out the south window, the church in Maribor was small.
It was dark. It got almost no sun, the walls were paneled in dark wood, the rooms were laberyntine. The floors creaked, and it was placed above a tailor we affectionatly called "the Sweat Shop". It was quaint, yes, but not the nexus for the church I was used to.
And the members in Maribor were so PLAIN! Nenad Arsenuk, the branch president, and his wife Vanja, who was the Releif Society president. They were not pretty. He was of Ukrainian descent and pale and snaggle-toothed, and Vanja was... well, my first impression of her was that she was really common. She had bad teeth to, and had bulgy eyes, and dark stringy hair that she obviously didn't wash often. She had an over-loud voice AND a stammer. Nenad was quiet, however, but he seemed to only know two subjects to talk about in church - responsibility and authority. Vanja was loud, and seemed to have no decorum, and her ideas for doing things in church meetings were unorthodox and outside of the box. I wished I could ignore both of them.
And so I did. I rolled my eyes when Vanja sang loudly and off key during the meetings, but I ignored her. I tuned out when Nenad spoke to the men about authority, because it was the same every week, yet when he asked me a question, I always had a good reply; because his questions were always stock, so my stock answers would suffice. I didn't put my heart into it, I didn't invest anything in them.
I wanted instead to work with some of the inactive members who were prettier, the handsome handsome Goran, or the doll-like Petra; people who had left because of the way the Arsenuks were, too. I wanted to spend time going out to find NEW people to bring into the church, so Nenad and Vanja could step down from their positions and fade away, and scare new members anymore.
I felt like this for weeks, and it was really getting me down, and I was pretty damn homesick for Ljubljana, and I just didn't feel like I had anything to offer this branch. I wished they would all go away, or I could go back to the big city. It got so bad and noticable in my heart that I eventually realized it was something I had to work on, and not wait for God to fix it. But I had no clue what to do - I did NOT like these people, I had no interest, really, in trying. I was lost.
One Sunday, at the beginning of January, I was sitting there in the first church meeting, all together with everyone, doodling on a scrap of paper to help me ignore the members. It was the monthly testimony meeting and people, if they felt like it, could go up to the podium and tell the rest of us what was in their hearts, unscripted, whatever. In Maribor there had been a couple of these meetings where NO ONE had gotten up to share, and we'd all sat there in polite-coughing silence for 30-40 minutes. This Sunday looked to be more of the same, but we missionaries were determained to not take turns, and leave that to the members; they had to start doing it on their own sometime.
As I was sitting there in the silence, I saw Vanja, who usually wore slacks to church meetings (culturally verboten), stand up to go to the podium. I pointedly looked down at my drawing, focusing on that. She was weird, and un-understandable and I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of paying her one ounce of attention. She began to speak, and I tuned out, which was easy enough, I just had to stop listening in Slovene and I lost any gist of what was going on around me. I drew and drew.
Even though my comprehension was currently at zero, I could still hear her inflections, and she seemed to be stammering more than usual. "Just SPIT IT OUT!" I felt like yelling. "None of us are that interested anyway! Say it and be done!" I glared at the paper in my lap.
Her stammering went on some more, and finally I had to look up, so I could give her a glare and maybe get her to sit down. And when I looked up at her, finally looked up, I saw Vanja holding onto the sides of the podium like she had just been flung from the edge of the Titanic. She had a death-grip on the thing, and she was trembling, shaking in an almost seizure-like manner.
And all my pride and selfishness washed away for a second, and I saw that she was scared. That unscripted public speaking scared the snot out of her, even in front of members of her own church, people she had known for years, and missionaries who were bound to try and serve and teach and not judge (except me). She was scared to death of sharing her soul-feelings with us, and yet she was determined to do it anyway. She was shaking from fright, but she was at least holding herself upright, she was so scared her woulds didn't want to come out, but it was so important for her to share her thoughts and feelings with us that she forced them out anyway.
This woman was brave. She had more conviction than I'd ever displayed up to that point. Something scared her and she barrelled through it anyway. I was an actor, an attention-seeker - I loved public speaking, and had never had to comprehend of this aspect of it. That afternoon I saw through her eyes, felt her heart. I wanted to stand up right there and put my arms on her shoulders so she could have some of my public-speaking stength, and say what she wanted to say without any fear at all.
But it wasn't appropriate, not for an elder to touch a woman besides a handshake, not for me when her husband was there. Stengthening Vanja was his job. But oh, how my heart went to her, wished I could give her everything she needed right at that moment.
Instead, I turned on my Slovene ears and listened respectfully to what Vanja was trying to express. I paid her the respect that this very brave, strong woman deserved.
And so, with that, I unveil Slovene Sunday - specifically setting time to remember things about Slovenija - big things, little things, mundane things and things that meant a lot to my heart.
I begin...
When I first moved to Maribor in December of 1999 it was so different than the big city if Ljubljana I had lived in for the previous 8 months. It was smaller, and at first it felt more countrified. If I'm honest, I had a pretty low opinion of the people up there, especially the church members. They just were so small - small in numbers, small-minded. They didn't have the big-city hustle-&-bustle about them, they weren't busy like the folks of Ljubljana were.
I felt like I was being punished in some way. I loved my companion, and I loved the other missionaries I worked with, but... it just wasn't the same. And I had a bad attitude about it. I didn't like the people, I kept away, and aloof. I was mad that where the church building in Ljub had been a nice, open, spacious building above a pizza parlour in a beautiful Italliante courtyard, with wildlife immediate out the south window, the church in Maribor was small.
It was dark. It got almost no sun, the walls were paneled in dark wood, the rooms were laberyntine. The floors creaked, and it was placed above a tailor we affectionatly called "the Sweat Shop". It was quaint, yes, but not the nexus for the church I was used to.
And the members in Maribor were so PLAIN! Nenad Arsenuk, the branch president, and his wife Vanja, who was the Releif Society president. They were not pretty. He was of Ukrainian descent and pale and snaggle-toothed, and Vanja was... well, my first impression of her was that she was really common. She had bad teeth to, and had bulgy eyes, and dark stringy hair that she obviously didn't wash often. She had an over-loud voice AND a stammer. Nenad was quiet, however, but he seemed to only know two subjects to talk about in church - responsibility and authority. Vanja was loud, and seemed to have no decorum, and her ideas for doing things in church meetings were unorthodox and outside of the box. I wished I could ignore both of them.
And so I did. I rolled my eyes when Vanja sang loudly and off key during the meetings, but I ignored her. I tuned out when Nenad spoke to the men about authority, because it was the same every week, yet when he asked me a question, I always had a good reply; because his questions were always stock, so my stock answers would suffice. I didn't put my heart into it, I didn't invest anything in them.
I wanted instead to work with some of the inactive members who were prettier, the handsome handsome Goran, or the doll-like Petra; people who had left because of the way the Arsenuks were, too. I wanted to spend time going out to find NEW people to bring into the church, so Nenad and Vanja could step down from their positions and fade away, and scare new members anymore.
I felt like this for weeks, and it was really getting me down, and I was pretty damn homesick for Ljubljana, and I just didn't feel like I had anything to offer this branch. I wished they would all go away, or I could go back to the big city. It got so bad and noticable in my heart that I eventually realized it was something I had to work on, and not wait for God to fix it. But I had no clue what to do - I did NOT like these people, I had no interest, really, in trying. I was lost.
One Sunday, at the beginning of January, I was sitting there in the first church meeting, all together with everyone, doodling on a scrap of paper to help me ignore the members. It was the monthly testimony meeting and people, if they felt like it, could go up to the podium and tell the rest of us what was in their hearts, unscripted, whatever. In Maribor there had been a couple of these meetings where NO ONE had gotten up to share, and we'd all sat there in polite-coughing silence for 30-40 minutes. This Sunday looked to be more of the same, but we missionaries were determained to not take turns, and leave that to the members; they had to start doing it on their own sometime.
As I was sitting there in the silence, I saw Vanja, who usually wore slacks to church meetings (culturally verboten), stand up to go to the podium. I pointedly looked down at my drawing, focusing on that. She was weird, and un-understandable and I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of paying her one ounce of attention. She began to speak, and I tuned out, which was easy enough, I just had to stop listening in Slovene and I lost any gist of what was going on around me. I drew and drew.
Even though my comprehension was currently at zero, I could still hear her inflections, and she seemed to be stammering more than usual. "Just SPIT IT OUT!" I felt like yelling. "None of us are that interested anyway! Say it and be done!" I glared at the paper in my lap.
Her stammering went on some more, and finally I had to look up, so I could give her a glare and maybe get her to sit down. And when I looked up at her, finally looked up, I saw Vanja holding onto the sides of the podium like she had just been flung from the edge of the Titanic. She had a death-grip on the thing, and she was trembling, shaking in an almost seizure-like manner.
And all my pride and selfishness washed away for a second, and I saw that she was scared. That unscripted public speaking scared the snot out of her, even in front of members of her own church, people she had known for years, and missionaries who were bound to try and serve and teach and not judge (except me). She was scared to death of sharing her soul-feelings with us, and yet she was determined to do it anyway. She was shaking from fright, but she was at least holding herself upright, she was so scared her woulds didn't want to come out, but it was so important for her to share her thoughts and feelings with us that she forced them out anyway.
This woman was brave. She had more conviction than I'd ever displayed up to that point. Something scared her and she barrelled through it anyway. I was an actor, an attention-seeker - I loved public speaking, and had never had to comprehend of this aspect of it. That afternoon I saw through her eyes, felt her heart. I wanted to stand up right there and put my arms on her shoulders so she could have some of my public-speaking stength, and say what she wanted to say without any fear at all.
But it wasn't appropriate, not for an elder to touch a woman besides a handshake, not for me when her husband was there. Stengthening Vanja was his job. But oh, how my heart went to her, wished I could give her everything she needed right at that moment.
Instead, I turned on my Slovene ears and listened respectfully to what Vanja was trying to express. I paid her the respect that this very brave, strong woman deserved.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
