62. Claudia from Yugoslavia

Excerpts from a letter Claudia wrote in Yugoslavia on Sunday, April 4, 1971. She tells of a sacrament meeting they held in Thessaloniki, Greece, where the Apostle Paul ministered nearly two millennia earlier.

Liebe Familie

Here we are in Skopje, Yugoslavia! We’ve been traveling on the bus all day and tomorrow we travel some more to get to Dubrovnik— i’m getting really experienced at traveling long hours! Boy, that 12-hour ride to and from Utah won’t even phase me anymore!! Today being Sunday we had a really neat experience—we held our own sacrament service in Thessaloniki, Greece, where Paul wrote his letters to the Thessalonians so long ago. It’s a large city (the second largest in Greece—Athens is first) but we stopped at a park next to the dock and with the boats and men drying their fishing nets it must have been very similar to when Paul walked, talked and wrote there. We sat on the grass and had our own little service—i’m sure it was the only one in all of Greece (Greece is 95 percent Greek Orthodox and the Church has no mission in Greece) but yet it’s neat to know that we can have church wherever we go—we’re not like the Catholics who need their guilt church buildings and ceremony—as long as we have the priesthood there to bless and pass the sacrament we could have church in the wilderness—anywhere!! Needless to say, it was a really special meeting! A lot of people had gathered around, watch¬ing us and for our closing song we stood up and faced them to sing “The Spirit of God.”

Greece and Italy are beautiful—especially Greece! They’re so green with tall dark cypress trees and then all the olive trees—the mountains and hills of Greece are covered now with green-green, spring-green grass that waves in the wind and they’re covered with all kinds and colors of wild flowers!! It was so jolly when we went to the ruins at Corinth, Mycenae and Delphi ’cause you could climb all over the neat rocks and ruins and pick the most joyful flowers—I picked bunches and bunches full!!! i’ve pressed some of them so I can save them for ever and always! I wish we had wild flowers all over at home like that—it makes the whole world so beautiful and joyful!—those days climbing and exploring the ruins have been my most favorite days of the trip—the sun even shined! (We’ve had mostly gray overcast days—those days of 90 degree weather in Athens and Rome disappeared.)

i’m really having a jolly time with the Williams’ kids—there are five of them and poor Sister Williams really has a handful running after all of them—the kids and I get along great so i’ve been trying to help her a little by watching after the kids a lot during the trip (actually I guess it’s more for my benefit—you know how I love kids and love to be around them!!!) The youngest is Terrill, he’s less than two, and he’s so cute—right now he has a crush on me—he calls me Kwadia and always runs to me when he sees me or wants me to hold him instead of his mother holding him (I eat it up! I love to hold kids) Glenn is jolly too!—he’s four and has the biggest dark eyes—they’re all jolly and I have so much fun playing with them! Somehow it seems like they all flock around and so we have fun together—walking or climbing or just sitting on the bus together—I love to help Sister Williams with the kids.

Tomorrow is going to be exciting—we’ll be going through a treacherous mountain pass to get to Dubrovnik and there’s six feet of snow all around—the roads are clear but very winding and we have to go slow—but it sounds exciting (eventful anyway)—when we get there i’m going to go to the Tourist Office and get some posters of Yugoslavia—they’re free and they make great souvenirs.