How Will You Light the World?

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving, a major holiday in America and it kicks off the holiday season. It's one of the few holidays where you have four days off in a row. But in Europe, of course, no one celebrates this holiday.

Although, I would have loved to spend time with my family for Thanksgiving, instead we invited over seven young men and women.

Our American holiday was spent with others away from their home as well, a Czech, a Canadian, Slovak, Hawaiian, and 3 others from America. We shared family holiday traditions and things that we are personally thankful for and dinner.

At first, I didn't think I could find traditional Thanksgiving food in Slovakia, but I was pleasantly surprised that almost everything I needed was found, or at least a close substitute.

Can you believe, I couldn't find pumpkin puree, canned cranberries, cream cheese,evaporated milk, brown sugar, raspberry jello, or a whole turkey. I had to substitute all of these ingredients for something close, like whole chickens instead of turkey. So, I want my friends and family to know I was able to enjoy all the regular Thanksgiving dinner items with all the trimmings.

It's amazing how resourceful Google and Pinterest are when trusted recipes need adjustments due to lack of regular ingredients. It's one of the great things about the internet. Like how to make jello from unflavored gelatin and raspberry jam.

As we enter the Christmas season, I would like to turn your attention to the Savior. During His ministry on the earth, Jesus Christ spent His time serving and helping others. True disciples of Jesus Christ do likewise. The Savior said, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." (John 13:35)

Each Christmas, we celebrate the life of Jesus Christ, the light of the world.Light the World. By following His teachings, we let His light shine - in our lives and in the lives of others. This year, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a Christmas service project called "Light the World, in 25 ways over 25 days." Join me in giving time, talents, and resources during the month of December. Share the Light of Christ by doing little acts of kindness for someone each day. It's an invitation to serve others as the Savior did. I will be watching for opportunities to serve others each day in December. I hope you will join this great cause to bring Light to the World.

Clay, Water, and Hands

We visited an organization in Giraltovce, Slovakia. The staff cares for 121 disabled children and adults who cannot care for themselves.

The clients are people with physical and mental disabilities or serious behavioral disorders or a combination thereof. the organization provides 24 hour accommodations, meals, nursing, rehabilitation, recreation, and educational activities for clients.

The ceramic workshop involves preparing and sharing raw clay using the pottery wheel, then baking and painting the clay created items.

Working with clay allows clients with mental challenges to overcome fears and anxiety and gain self-confidence. It is also a place to work cognitive and creative abilities, fine motor skills and dexterity also improve when involved with hands on projects like clay ceramics. These are monumental tasks for many of the clients but help improve life skills.

Their hope is to encourage clients to work together by taking steps to accomplish multiple tasks, creating a finished clay artwork requires several steps to follow over a period of time with planning and follow through to complete.

Clients will be taught by a certified instructor on how to work with ceramics. The organization promised they would locate and provide an instructor to assist teaching the clients in working with clay. Items produced from this pottery workshop will be presented for cultural and social events in other cities and regions, and for Christmas and Easter events. These will also be viewed by the public including some family.

During a tour they showed us the designated room where a ceramic workshop will hopefully be placed. They were extremely appreciative that we would even consider helping them out with this request, and stated they have been trying to get a ceramic workshop for more than ten years.

A few weeks later, when the equipment arrived we returned to visit. There was a great excitement as staff realized this pottery workshop was a reality. We met the instructor, from a non-profit organization, who gave a demonstration to us and the other staff members who will be helping the clients.

We also met some of the clients who were excited to see new faces visiting them and we could see children of God with earthly disabilities.

Isaiah 64:8, "But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand."

What we Discovered near the Ukraine Border

This week, we had quite an interesting experience. We asked a young Slovak woman named “Antonia” to help us translate as we had an appointment with a "kindergarten" school. This village was located just one kilometer from the Ukraine border so it was a long drive out to meet with them. During the drive we enjoyed speaking with Antonia, who is desiring to become a member of the LDS Church. She is going to college to become a translator so this was good work experience for her.

Our journey took us to a village called Jenkovce where the headmaster invited us for a meeting to help. During our meeting, we were suddenly escorted into a large classroom where parents and grandparents were sitting. To our surprise we were the guest of honor sitting at the head of the table when all the children came filing into the room.

The children sang songs, recited poems, and performed traditional children dances for their parents and to honor their grandparents.

After the program, we were served some delicious traditional made-from-scratch sauerkraut sausage soup, along with stuffed cabbage meat rolls. The parents were invited to enjoy some home baked pastry treats and beverages, then the mayor of the village stood up and shared his thoughts. He spoke a few minutes and shared how grateful he was for LDS Charities help. 

He told of when he himself had slept on old mattresses as a young child, and was extremely grateful for the replacements and other contributions that LDS Charities contributed to the preschool.

A woman named Maria stood up and stated to all the parents in Slovak “I have known the people from the Mormon church and LDS Charities since 2010, I am sorry to say I am not a Mormon,  because I was born in a Catholic family", and that she has had only wonderful experiences with these people of the LDS church. They have been so helpful to so many people. Maria asked us after this meeting if we could come to her home for a few minutes as she had something to give to us.

After our goodbyes, we followed Maria in her van down narrow country roads to her home in a neighboring village a few kilometers away. We followed her to a barn and she introduced us to her husband. He was dressed in overalls and had been working with his garden and animals such as rabbits and pigs.

We were amazed to watch the husband go to the garden and pull vegetables from the ground that they were growing behind the barn. Maria went into a cold storage and handed us some frozen rabbit meat and traditional smoked sausage.

Maria stated she knew about the young missionaries and wanted to give vegetables and meat to them. We were touched by their gracious giving to us who were really strangers. She then invited us inside her home and asked if we wanted anything to drink, careful not to offer coffee or tea.

On her kitchen wall was a cross centered between two documents framed in nice wood frames. The words were in Slovak and I recognized the "Proclamation on the Family", and the one on the right was “The Living Christ”. I stood in amazement as Maria said both LDS documents had been given as gifts and she displays them proudly. She shared that recently, four predominant ministers all from different religions have stayed in her home and they read the documents and agreed with them wholeheartedly.

Maria shared how the influence of senior missionary couples who have served in Slovakia have impacted her marriage, and credits them with changes in her husband. She said he used to be unsociable and would leave the room whenever company came over but since meeting the LDS couples he has become more sociable and interacts with people now.

It has been a great blessing in her life and she is grateful for all those senior missionaries and their giving attitudes. She is grateful for how her marriage and life has changed for the better through the compassion and example of others.

It was amazing to visit this village, far away from our city, and meet such generous, grateful couple, displaying LDS revelations about Christ and families. Wow!! Our translator, Antonia told us, as we were leaving that she could not believe what she just witnessed. This is one of those unique experiences or "tender mercies" where we have felt the loving-kindness of God's love. 

A Night of Candles

This is new part of the cemetery, awaiting headstones.

Have you ever heard of All Saint's Day? In Europe November 1st, is a national holiday known as All Hallow's Day or All Saints Day.

It is designated in most of the Christian world but here in Slovakia they really go all out. The whole country sets aside a day to respect and honor saints who passed away, but everyone remembers their own ancestors who have lived on the earth.

People travel to the family cemetery and visit the grave of their dead ancestors. They come to clean, leave flowers, and light candles.

Lines form outside the cemetery gates, as people file in carrying plastic bags of decorations.

We observed a grandfather and grandson, a widow in her wheelchair, a nun praying with her rosary, many young couples, and hundreds of grandmas.

While this is a solemn occasion it is also impressive to walk through. I was struck by how families honor their loved ones who have passed on.

Prior to November, we saw stores full of candles and flowers. Some stores have dedicated aisles just for All Hallow's Day decorations.

We saw pallets of red or white decorative glass candles and people buying carts full of them. The floral shops were selling flower bouquets and wreaths on sidewalks outside their doors. Even vendors at the outdoor market were in on the holiday.


By the way, we saw nothing about Halloween in Slovakia. A few of us gathered to carve some tiny pumpkins of which many had never partook of such traditions. We saw no costumes, no skeletons, ghosts, witches, black cats or goblins, no Jack-o-lanterns, and certainly not any trick-or-treaters. Halloween is not celebrated here in Slovakia. But we enjoyed it through Facebook. 

All Hallow's Day is a three day celebration of honoring the dead. October 31, is All Hallow's Eve, a day to prepare themselves with prayers and fasting. All Hallow's Day  honors those who supposedly entered heaven. Then November 2nd, All Soul's Day, is a day you pray for departed souls. The cemeteries were busy with people coming and going preparing grave sites throughout the past few days.

When the sun went down the candles were glowing red and white in the cemetery. Nearly every grave was decorated with visitors stopping by for a visit. We brought with us two red glass candles to leave on a couple neglected graves which was no easy feat. We wanted to be part of this cultural event because it is awesome to participate and respect our kindred dead.

Today, is November 1st, and we remember our departed loved ones, let us ask ourselves "What happened to those who have died?"

God has given us some knowledge of what we can expect once we pass beyond this life. I hope these truths will help comfort you to understand where your departed loved ones are now and where all of us eventually will be.

When we die our bodies are laid in the grave, and our spirits go to the Spirit World. A prophet taught that those who have lived on the earth are all around us now, but we can't see them. The righteous will experience Paradise - happiness, rest, and peace, without troubles, care, and sorrows. The apostle John stated, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Revelation 21:4.