I’m getting out the June post a couple days early.  Woohoo!  

19 June 1996

Wow!  Where to even start?  Well maybe the whole reason why there hasn’t been any entries in here for almost a month.

It started out a pretty normal day.  We were just going out with the elders to help on the Toskaj farm.  We were late, so we had to jump on our bikes and ride really fast to get to the bus station on time.  No problem. We went out and helped, then came home and went out proselyting, trying to get as many people as we could to come to Cvetka’s baptism that night.  We went and visited Karmen for a while. She informed us that she just wasn’t ready to accept anything we were telling her, but let’s be friends. Well that kind of told us where we were and how it was.  However, she did come to the baptism that night with her boyfriend, but just to see what it all looked like. When we left there we thought we’d go to Mirela’s house, we did, but she wasn’t home, so we left a note.  It was about 5:30-6:00 and we didn’t have anywhere to go particularly until 8:00, when we had to pick up Ljubica for the baptism. So, who knows, maybe a little tracting/contacting. We started cruising, back to the city. We’re going down Titova on the little downhill part, right before you go under the tracks, and I see this man ahead of us, whose on the same path, but going really slowly.  Now all I have is front brakes and those aren’t even very good. So what was I doing going that fast down a slant, you ask? Brain lapse, I guess, I have no clue. so I have a choice. I either slow down really fast, or I jump the little curb up onto the sidewalk. While we decide…let’s jump back to earlier in the day.

On the way to the bus I almost got hit by a car, and Sister Penfield insisted on riding in front of me, so she didn’t have to see me die.  Then talking to the elders, Elder Tingey asked me if I got a helmet yet. I said no. Then he said good, if you don’t have a helmet, you won’t get in an accident because you only hear about people with helmets saying, “If it wasn’t for my helmet, I’d be dead”.  We argued saying that those without helmets were dead. He didn’t go for it though. Then there’s the whole reason why he asked me… because I was telling them I needed to get a helmet because who knows what could happen and with my dad getting into 2 major bike accidents, I thought it may be an omen.  Call me superstitious, but I had a feeling I needed a bike helmet.

Now back to my big decision about the slow man in front of me bit.  I decided to just go for it and jump the curb. One problem, my bike didn’t agree.  it’s very weird to see cement rushing to your face in slow motion. I don’t know how I landed, but Sister Penfield said she saw me slide with my head bouncing of the sidewalk.  My face was the least of anything , just a few bruises and scrapes. My head however, wasn’t even touched. Talk about having angels round about us. They must have put a pillow under me.  I was still pretty messed up though. I sat down for a minute, thought I was fine and tried to get up, and said let’s just grab our bikes and head back to the city. Wrong! With my head spinning around, I figured that was a bad idea.  Maybe it would be better if I just sat down in the shade. Sister Penfield ran down and stopped a car who helped us lock up our bikes. I thought it was a bad idea to lock the front tires, but we were kind of rushed. They took us to the doctor.  [The car that picked us up happened to be someone we sort of knew.  They weren’t learning about the church, but knew we were missionaries and were friendly.  Coincidence?  I think not.]   There they cleaned me up a bit. I was sure my finger was going to fall off, the middle finger on my right hand of course. It was all bloody and purple, and pulsing and hurt worse than if I had bit it off. Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but very slight.  

I think the saga will have to continue later.  P-day is gone.

25 June 1996

Well, I was going to write the rest of the story, but I already sent it home on 2 tapes and it would take me a long time to write, so I’m not going to.  I don’t know why I’m explaining myself, so I will know. Maybe my memory won’t live that long. Well, I just wasted all my time talking about chasing bats out of your house without a bat and house.  It’s “me” for female plural instead of “mi”. Nevermind!!!

Ok, I guess I’ll finish the story here, now.  I’m not sure what happened to those tapes I made over 20 years ago, but I know I don’t have anything to play them on, even if I did.  

The doctor I went to was more of a first-aid station.  They were great, but said I would need stitches and for that, I would need to go to the hospital.  Sister P and I, being the Americans that we were, kept asking for ice, to keep the swelling down.  Well, at least at the time, that sounded insane to the medic, so instead and because of my need for stitches, they put us in an ambulance and rushed us to the ER.  Oh, my!  I hope I still have pics of this.  They are not interesting but laughable to me.  Anyway, we waited for about an hour or two in the ER before we could be seen, not uncommon for any ER.  Once I went back to be seen, the doctor pulled out my fingernail, and explained that I needed just a few stitches.  I think there were 5, all in the tiny part of my finger where my nail should be.  I asked if my nail would grow back and he just laughed at me.  I’m not sure what he thought of this silly American girl, who again asked for ice.  Finally, out of doctors’ offices and out in the real world, we still thought we needed ice.  Knowing that there was only a couple of places to get ice, my wonderful green companion,  who had a great grasp of the language already, but perhaps not the culture, asked two young men, who were standing nearby, where we could find a bar.  I’m sure she realized the very small blunder immediately, but I quickly said nevermind to them, and we set off to find McDonalds.  Of course McDonalds was nowhere near where we were, but we made it there.  Sadly by that time, we were going to be late to the baptism and we definitely weren’t going to make it to Ljubica’s house in time to walk over with her.  We hurried as fast as we could, found we missed Ljubica, and almost ran to the baptism.  Actually, it would have been more of an awkward fast limp.  I was a sad sight.  Walking into the baptism late, with my hand conspicuously bandaged into “the bird” was too much.  There were more than just the elder laughing at the fact that poor Sister Bogle was inadvertently flipping everyone off.  But, even after all that, the worst part of the evening was that Ljubica, our amazing 80 yr old friend and investigator had been mugged because we weren’t there to pick her up on time, so she walked alone.  Apparently, there were just about 3 teenage boys, who stole her purse.  They didn’t hurt her, thank heavens, but it sure did shake her.  We made sure she was ok and got home safely, but felt so bad that we were not there to protect her.  All of this, of course, could have been avoided, had I just been more cautious in the beginning, while riding my bike.  I didn’t need to be going that fast.  I shouldn’t have felt it necessary to try and jump the curb, even if I had done it before.  Oh yes, on top of all of this, Sister Penfield’s bike was stolen.  Never lock up your bike with just the front tire!  “by small and simple things

are great things brought to pass.”  This is true for both positive and negative effects. I wish I could say I was much more careful from this point on, but I’m not sure I was.  I know I didn’t race down that hill anymore, but I’m still working on my forethought to avoid negative consequences. Oh, and my fingernail did grow back, but it points in a different direction than  the rest of my finger. 😉

26 June 1996

it’s been such an interesting couple of days.  yesterday the sisters came on splits. that was cool.  It’s fun to have a bunch of girls around. We also had DDM yesterday instead of Friday, because transfers came and we wanted to have it all together before the elders left. So the Lent Festival is going on and they had trampolines there, so we went and had DDM jumping and then went to eat pleskavica. My back is so dang sore now, from the trampolines, I mean, not the pleskavica.

We’re on the train ride back from Ptuj.  It was really cool. We got to see a really cool old castle, and then met the 2 people taking the tour with us.  One was Lucija, from Ptuj. The other was Denis, from Paris, France. They were really cool, and we went to lunch with them afterward.  Denis is riding his bike to Israel. Cool! Lucija gave us her #, and we’ll hook up again.