A Blanket Fort for Men, A Communion, Winging it, and Bleeding in the Streets with Todd

Those will be the 4 short stories for the week.

1) Anybody get the reference there? Hailey or Nan or Chip?

I hope so, or my life is vain. 

Anyways, on Thursday night, we again had our riot of a FHE activity after english. The pictures will make it make sense....But. We played a game that we played in mutual once (go to mutual kids, it's legit the source of all our FHE ideas) where there was a giant tarp dividing the two sides, and there was trivia questions asked and balls thrown and people killed, like battleship basically. Well, we did that. But we lacked a tarp, so we took the ping pong table, folded it up, and two stacks of chairs and our blankets later, and we had it set up. But when we had no tarp, Elder McAllister (on exchange here) said to me, "Well come on man, haven't you ever built a blanket fort before?" Genius. And it worked well enough. And if we had any success that night, it must've been the look on little Johan's face when he saw his first 'blanket fort.' I wouldn't be surprised if more of those get built throughout the course of my mission...

2) I was on exchange at the beginning of the week and brought our District Leader up to our area. I guess as a leader I am supposed to, when on these exchanges with the District Leaders around our zone, help and teach them. But, unfortunately, we've been hit with a few back to back hard, unsuccessful weeks, and the rough spot didn't stop just because I was supposed to teach somebody something. In fact, Elder Fisher and I got SLAMMED. We went out finding because we had nothing else to do, and street contacting isn't the easiest or most successful way to get things done, but it's where I was raised (thank you Elder Marks!). These people have been hit with every type of propaganda and "messianic salvation" from the Turkish and Ottoman takeover, to Tito and Milosevic and the Yugoslavian communism, they're just beaten and afraid and hostile. And they don't typically like Americans much, if they have an opinion. So we were going around the city for hours trying to talk with people, but this day was especially just negative. Nothing was working, and I was getting self conscious. What kind of leader can't make anything work?! Nothing worked. As we were both exhausted, physically and spiritually, we sat on a kind of stone bench like thing. We just sat there for a while, and I was getting apathetic at this point, not really caring; it hurts less if you don't care. But I tried breaking out of that, and I said, "Elder Fisher, what can we do?" We sat in silence for a bit. Then he said, "We can pray." I almost declined the idea, that we needed to do more on our own, and that it just wouldn't help. But then, I stopped and said, "I think you're right. Who will pray?" Again, we sat in silence, and then I said, "I will."

For the only time in my life that I can remember, this prayer was different. I didn't do anything special, I closed my eyes, in this public place, folded my arms and bowed my head. I thought a moment of how everyone would look at us, but then I thought, "I'm talking to my Heavenly Father, I could care less where we are." Besides, these people were making me mad as is, so I didn't care if I made them mad too. That may not have been the right attitude, so I tried changing it before I opened my mouth.

Then I silently asked Him to hear us. And then, in Serbian a) to stay simple, b) because I wasn't ashamed of others understanding, and c) just cause, I began to pray. It started off just as always, I addressed Him and asked Him for help. And then I paused. My throat caught and my eyes stung. However, this time was different, it wasn't due to emotions or love to Whom I was speaking to (though those were there) but rather I began to cry because I felt, for the first time in my life, I think, that I had the Lord one on One, right there. I FELT that He was beside me, and it wasn't as though I was offering up a prayer to the heavens like a wisp of smoke that I have faith will be heard, but rather it was a conversation, a COMMUNION. I was talking TO Him, and I felt the compassion as my words entered His ears. I slowly continued to plead for help and offer our thanks for the help we had already seen. Our environment fell away, I didn't even notice anybody watching or walking by, or anything. For a few moments, I forgot where I was physically. Then the prayer closed, I wiped my eyes and nose and we went to work. Nothing special happened, but we received help. That prayer was the miracle I needed to keep going. And I'll never forget it.

3) Deviating from the missionary cheese you all love, we had a riot on Sunday. Holidays, a marathon and one thing or another had our church attendance cut from upper 50's to upper 20's. And our Sunday School teacher was gone, and nobody had been assigned the second hour lesson (suprised? I shouldn't have been...).  So, the first counselor in the Branch Presidency, Borko, came up to me and asked if the missionaries could help and teach the lesson. I looked around, and saw what we had to work with. 2 missionaries too sick to talk, but to manly to stay home, one missionary fleeing to translate (the rage) and two very young missionaries. And Elder Hixon somewhere in there. Heck, I don't speak this language! And I wasn't prepared! "Elder Hixon," came my head, "aren't you on a mission to teach, and in Serbian? Man up kid." So I stood and told Borko I would teach, kind of just jumping up to it even though I legit had no idea what to do, and it looked like I would join President Monson in standing alone.

But, after I said that, I noticed that Elder Lowis, the stud of studs, was standing next to me. He's been out for a little over 4 months, so I wasn't comforted that either of us could take the language barrier down. But I was comforted because if I had to give the title of bravery to anybody I know, it's him. And so, unprepared and inadequate, we began. I told Vladan to say a long prayer, so I could figure this out. But then the thought came, from my two sided brain that likes to mess with me, "Boy, do you think you can really pull anything together here? That's what I thought, so respect the Lord in this prayer and let Him teach this lesson." I closed my scriptures and bowed my head. Then we went up to the front. And the lesson just came. And it was balanced between Elder Lowis and myself going back and forth, winging it and relying completely on the Spirit. The scriptures came, the idea for the lesson came, and even the right words came. The Spirit was felt, and we both pulled the Dallas. We stepped out of our comfort zone and relied on the Spirit to grow us. If anything, I grew about double in strength just from that. And I know my Mesa boy Elder Lowis did too. I love that guy.

4) I was on exchange with Elder McAllister at the end of this week, too, I mentioned. It was last minute because the elders in Banja Luka were really sick, so the AP's switched our exchanges. So I didn't see a ton of Elder Blackburn this week, but it's cool, we both learned a ton on both of our exchanges. As Elder McAllister, my main man, drove with me on the way back to BG, we talked of our longing to go together to Novi Sad, currently a very small and difficult area (ask Art) and just smash it, "bleeding in the streets of Novi Sad" has been our little motto for the future. We want to hit the colleges and just find all day long.

Well Friday was phase 1 of that. We had absolutely nothing planned in for the entire day. So, aside from our 45 minute lunch and dinner, we were making rounds at the colleges for a total of something over 8 hours. Just in the streets, talking to every human possible, most of them under 26. And we got phone number on phone numbers on phone numbers. It became fun, we worked together fluidly, feeling to talk to the same people, just tag teaming it like you've never seen!! It was so much fun. We passed a black guy because he was on the phone, and then I leaned over and said "Whoa, we don't let this one pass without talking to him." So we turned around, booked it around the next block over, and trailed him for something upwards of 5 minutes before we snagged him. "Hey man, we've been following you for a while," and then introduced ourselves. "Hey guys, yeah I've seen you before back in Nigeria, but I'm really in a hurry right now."

"Sweet, can we get your number?" Nailed it. I like to call that a bit of AGENCY!!! 

All in all, we just expanded our pool of people to teach immensely. And attribute it to blessings, prayers answered, our dynamic duo, or all of the above, but I like to call it "bleeding in the streets" for these people.

Hands down the funnest day of my life with Elder McAllister there. If we serve together in the future...it'll be a temple on Fruska Gora!!!!

Love you all, keep your heads up and just go do good this week, no matter how hard it's been.

Elder Hixon