August 30, 2010

Family!
I got an e-mail from everyone this week! Yay! Thanks for all the love and support!
This week was busy and good. I probably say this every time, but I can't believe how fast time is flying out here! Really, every week I feel like I was just at the Internet place, just barely shopping for groceries, just barely cleaning the apartment, and sve.
Last p-day we went to a couple places here in Zadar - one a tall tower with a winding staircase and pretty view, and another that's an old church or something. My camera's battery was dying so I didn't take a ton of pictures, but I'll get some from my companion's camera, too. It was really fun. We also went to a restaurant called "Surf and Fries" it is so good! It's not really a restaurant, so much as a fries place. They have a bunch of different flavors of dips, and you get to pick two when you buy a thing of fries, and they give you a little stick that you use to poke the fries and dip them, and the whole thing is in this carton-type thing so you can walk while you eat! All very efficient and delicious. Sister Nelson and I were just saying on our way here that it would be a big hit in the U.S.A. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they go there.
On Wednesday the Elders went to Zagreb to pick up the greenies, which meant that we inherited their bicycles for a day! It was kinda difficult to ride a bike in a skirt, not gonna lie. I thought before I got my call here, that I would really like a bike mission, but it's better that I'm not in one :) And it was a little more nerve-racking riding a bike with traffic and intersections and all that. It was a fun change, though, and exciting for one day. And then on Friday we met the newbie - he is literally TALL. It's really fun to see a new missionary out, too, just having the energy of being straight from the MTC and learning the language and all that, it's fun to watch.
Yesterday I gave a talk in church on Gratitude. It was alright - I had a long time to prepare it which was good, because I found lots of good quotes from Ensigns and True to the Faith, and those quotes are all in Croatia already, so I didn't have to worry too much about the translation! Which was good. Main idea was that True to the Faith gives four ways we can express our gratitude to God 1. recognize His hand in our lives 2. thank Him for all that he's given us 3. keeping the commandments and 4. serving others, and then I talked about each of those. And I had to make sure it was long enough, because there was only one other speaker, it turned out ok.
The weather has been cooling off a little bit - Saturday night it rained, Sunday wasn't nearly as hot as it has been, had a nice breeze, and today is rainy again. I love the rain! And our landlady gave us grapes and a whole crate of potatoes! Which will be great, because last p-day we didn't buy a lot of food and we were running out, and today we'll buy food, and now we can eat! We were definitely eating, but we ran out of milk and bread, etc. So it will be good to have those things again :)
Dad sent me some cool facts about Krešimir Čosić - and I've seen a documentary on him since I've been here - it's pretty much because of him that I get to be here in Croatia, it's amazing how much he did for the people here, and how through him we can bring the gospel to the Croats! Amazing what one person can do! And what's even more cool is that we meet people all the time who knew him personally, he lived and grew up here in zadar, and they all say what a great man he was, and we can be that example to everybody around us, too!
Oh - and I got a letter from Amelia, thanks! That was a fun surprise. I don't know when it got here exactly, sometime in the last week though, because it goes to Slovenia and then whenever someone is coming from there to Zagreb to Zadar we get mail. So I got it on Friday when the Elders got back from Zagreb.
Everyone have a super spectacular week! I say so!
Love you!
Sister Laws

August 23, 2010

Dear Family,
Happy Birthday Tylie Bug! I forgot to say last week :) I can't believe she's one!
Biggest news: I am staying in Zadar and Sister Nelson is still my companion!
We had zone conference meeting thing on Tuesday and President did "Box B" with us. Which means that we were all sitting in the room and he called out everyone's transfers right in front of everybody else! It was so fun! Usually we just get a call and then we have to hear through the grapevine where everyone else got called, but he just told us all right there! It was fun. The term "Box B" has history, President said that in the olden days everyone would go to the Tabernacle to get their mission calls, instead of getting letters, and so they would call out your name and where you're going and you'd go over to Box B and get some details about everything, so they called it Box B, and it was fun with transfers.
There are always some surprises with transfers - like they're taking the sisters out of Varaždin this transfer and putting them in Zagreb, so there will be four sisters in Zagreb this transfer and they're all living in the same apartment! Two elders are leaving Zadar, so we'll only have a set of Elders and a set of Sisters. And we're getting new missionaries, so we found out who's training and Elder Rhodes, who is the branch president here, will be training this transfer, so we're getting a greenie right into Zadar and he's 7 feet tall! And Elder Rhodes is one of the shortest missionaries in our mission, so it's going to be the tallest missionary with the shortest, and here in Zadar basketball is the most popular sport ever, and there are a bunch of tall people, it's like a trademark thing for Zadar, so this new Elder is going to fit right in, it's really exciting to us. I don't think I ever told you, I meant to forever ago, but the way that the gospel came to Croatia is through a basketball player, Krešimir Čosić, who played at BYU and then got baptized in Utah, and he's FAMOUS here. EVERYONE knows Krešo, we hear about him all the time and the basketball stadium here is called the Krešo dome and so we're thinking that Elder 7-Foot is going to create a lot of publicity and excitement for the church here. It's AWESOME.
We also got 2 new investigators this week, we passed one off to the Elders and the other one is living here for only a couple more weeks until school starts, she attends in Zagreb, so we'll get to pass her off to the sisters there when she does, which is really exciting because I have only had 3 new investigators total since I've been here, and TWO were this week. We do have other investigators, just not ones that I've found. And actually, the girl we didn't find, the Elders found and passed her to us, but we taught the first lesson and will teach her again tonight. Anyway :)
Oh yeah, I did get the letter that Mom sent, Thanks! I loved the pictures, Dad's land in Blanding is really nice, and it was fun to get colorings from the kids and Jesse :) And I got a ton of pictures in e-mails this week from ya'll -- the kids are all growing up so fast! I thought Jude especially looked older, thanks Dad for the pics, in one of them Jude looks just like the fake computer baby that we made at the baby shower! Really. All grown up.
I can't believe the U.S. Open starts soon. I saw a kid wearing a Roger Federer hat the other day and I wanted to ask him where he got it, but he was on a bike.
That's really cool that Lauren Laws went to the MTC, if someone could send me her addresses that would be great!
Hope everyone has a great week and all that jazz! Love you tons!
Sister Laws

August 16, 2010

Hi family!
Guess what? Tomorrow I've been on a mission for exactly 6 months! It's unbelievable! You wouldn't believe how fast time goes here. I definitely can't believe it.

Congratulations to Amelia and Brent! Just this morning I said to my companion - we were looking at pictures and talking about family - "I hope my sister Amelia has another baby by the time I get home!" And you will! That's so great! I wasn't expecting the news to come so fast! Now all of my sisters will have a new baby when I get home.
And Jesse has time to pop out another one too! :) Just kidding.

Glad that Dad's birthday went well - Happy 54th Birthday again!
And glad that Jesse and co had a successful move! Mom said it was in one day, that's crazy impressive! Hope everything works out in Logan with Justin's biz, itd.
Mom also mentioned that next year Amelia and Brent will be moving, has there been a decision on where to? Life is so cool, so many changes and news and everything! It just goes right along, doesn't it?
The mission is going well - since last week I told you about getting yelled at it's probably good for me to say that we meet a LOT of cool people, too. Very nice people, not all interested in learning anything, but good people. And generous, too. Our gazda, the landlord of the place we live in, has given us a whole crate of potatoes, a bag of peppers and tomatoes, and a watermelon, all from their garden. And it is a very Croatian thing to offer us sok when we go over for a lesson and some kind of kolać or something. And tourists are usually nice, too, we talk to some of them because there's a lot. It's fun to see where people are from.

Hope everyone's week goes well!
Love you tons!
Sister Laws

Sorry, this e-mail looks (and probably is) so short!
I really just don't have much else to say, we work work work and talk talk talk and Croatian is coming, malo po malo, and we're just here being missionaries.
It's cool.
Tomorrow we have zone conference so I'll be going to Zagreb and I'll get whatever mail has come for me, thanks Mom :), and it's the end of the transfer next week so by Monday I'll know if anything's changing, Sister Nelson and I think we're staying so it may not be exciting news, but we never know what God has in store for us!

Ooh, and I've still been reading old Ensigns, I read a REALLY good article this morning, in the May 2002 or 2003 Engisn, conference edition, from Elder Ballard, I think, about members helping with missionary work, you should ALL read it, it was that good. Members have so much impact on the work, it's really members that make all the difference, because all us missionaries can do is teach and then get transferred! But when we're members we stay there and can be friends for a lifetime with someone we helped bring to the gospel.
That's my spiel.
Love you all so much, have a super spectacular week!

Keshia

August 9, 2010

Kako ste moja obitelj??
How is the Laws family this week? I am doing good. First I wanted to ask you if someone could send me a picture of the world -- with all the countries outlined and labeled, preferably something plain so that I can print it out easily here. It would just be fun for us, because we don't always know where everything is exactly, and Sister Nelson and I meet a lot of people from a lot of places. AND we wanted to plan an activity with fun facts about the apostles for the branch here, but we don't know any fun facts! Or very little. So maybe if there's a website or something with some quick facts that someone could copy and paste for me and send, that would be so great! But of course, if it's a hassle don't worry about it.
I have been reading and reading from old Ensigns, especially this week from old Conference reports that I found in our apartment. They are all so good! I love General conference, and I love apostles! They are full of so much power and they are so wise.
Pretty standard week for us -- the best part was getting yelled at for no reason! There was a man, and we talked to his neighbor, we didn't even talk to him, and we were talking to his other neighbor and he started yelling at us from across an empty lot, and it was insane! He was so loud and SO angry! I just couldn't believe that he got so mad, so fast. We left so that he wouldn't give himself a heart attack or call the police or something. And just a little bit after that there were two little boys sitting out on their front porch, and we tried to ask them if their parents were home, but they just stared at us, and so we just asked them if they had been to the sea and stuff, I guess they couldn't really understand our Croatian, because right when we left they busted up laughing. It was really funny, one of them had a really cute laugh. Oh - and apparently I'm a dog person now, because dogs here love me. There were a couple dogs in the last couple days that ran up to me and wanted to play. Really cute dogs, too. Not big ones, that would not be funny if a big dog was running at me. And yesterday, funny story, we were walking to a member's house for a lesson, and we saw this little family with a stroller for two kids, and I didn't see anyone at first but when we got closer we could see that they were two really small babies, both sleeping, and Sister Nelson and I both yelled, "Blizanci!" Which is the word for twins, and then we both said, "Koliko imaju?" Which means like, how old are they?" But the dad didn't quite hear us, probably because we were talking at the same time, and he said "Dvojica" which means that there are two OF them, like Yeah, there are two twins! And we were like, No kidding! And asked again and his wife said that they were two months old. It was really funny, because we said everything at the same time, and just the way we said "BLIZANCI!!" was really funny.
Everyone have a good week! I'm glad that Mom finally told me that Jesse is moving, no I hadn't heard that yet! And that you all say, "You'll probably hear this from someone else, so I won't give you any details" -- if I didn't have Mom keeping me up to date I don't know what I'd do! And thanks for the fun pictures and news. Everyone feel better, Mom with knee, Kelsey with two, etc etc. And stay safe. And no, Mom, I haven't received any letters from you yet, it's something to anticipate! Yay!
Love, Sister Laws
p.s. If anyone has fun mission stories, Dad or Michael, I'd love to hear them!

August 2, 2010

Hi family!
I got a lot of pictures from you this week, thank you bunches! I love seeing you all! And your kids are such cuties. Dad asked about my hair, from the pictures that I sent last week, it's gotten a lot lighter from the sun! And I'm tan for the first time in my life. Tanner than I've ever been anyway :) I have a line from my watch and lines from my sandals! Dad also asked about the Croatian beaches, I haven't really been to a real beach, sometimes we sit by the ocean on a bench in this little park for lunch, but there aren't many swimmers around there. So I haven't seen any naked people, but I have heard a few stories from other missionaries. We won't be contacting there!
Anyway! I hope Nyah's baptism is wonderful this Saturday, I'm sure it will be, and I can't wait to see pictures of her most perfect dress. And of Baby Sophie on her blessing day.
This week has been good. The funniest thing that happened, Sister Nelson and I were tracting, and so we took the elevator to the top floor and I step out of the elevator and I hear "Sestro!" And I turn around and the elevator door is closed and Sister Nelson didn't get off fast enough! So I was without a companion for about two minutes. She ran up the stairs and we had a good laugh about it. AND we had rain this week! It was a nice change up from the heat. It rained on Thursday, Friday, and part of Saturday. And Thursday night in the middle of the night there was the biggest thunderclap ever! It woke us up! And then we were walking around Zadar on Friday and there was some thunder and it scared us both so bad that we jumped, and the people in cars laughed at us. It was pretty funny. Thunder in Croatian is "grmljanje" or something like that, and a thunderclap is "grom" And so on Friday when we had service, I can't remember what I told you about service, but we carry lunches from an old-people's home to old people that live in apartments closeby. So on Friday we talked with all our old people about the "grom" and they were cute about it, because we didn't know the world for thunder, so they made sounds and acted it out and then we were like, Oh! Thunder! And we get to eat at service when we want, and we had stuffed peppers, they were really good. And we've also had the cow guts like I told you, and some rice with octupus in it. I tried it the first time, but this last week when they made it again I couldn't eat it. I just feel like gagging when I think about it. But it's fun to try new things.
Also, I can't remember if I've told you this or not. But I have gotten more clumsy or something since being on a mission, because I'm constantly slipping and almost falling and Sister Nelson always asks, Are you ok? I thought you sprained your ankle! And I'm like, nope, I just can't keep my feet under me anymore! It really started at the MTC and I still slip all the time. It probably doesn't help that in the older part of town-- where we do service and stuff -- is all cobblestone. It can be pretty slick.
Oh, Mom said she had D. Todd Christofferson at stake baptisms! That is so cool! I didn't see him at the MTC or here in Croatia, but he did dedicate the Zagreb church building, so all our Croatian members like him a lot. He's like Croatia's apostle. And his talk in last conference is really good, I read it the other day.
Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting, it was really good. We had visitors from the Netherlands, Slovenia, Albania, and Bosnia, so half the testimonies were in English, which was nice for me, because I could understand everything! And then we got to teach primary! The family from the Netherlands has three kids and we basically let them color a picture and gave them a really simple lesson, because the oldest daughter knows some English, and we let them pray in Dutch and sing their primary songs in Dutch and it was so cute! That is really fun for us to be able to do primary.
Have a great week, love you tons!
Sister Laws

July 26, 2010

Hi family!
This week went by so fast, that I really can't think of anything new to say, because it feels like I just barely e-mailed you.
Mom asked if we have sno cones here. We do not. We have "the best ice-cream ever" which I don't even understand, because it just tastes like ice-cream to me. There are ice-cream shops everywhere here, in Varazdin, too. Maybe when I go home the ice-cream there will taste really bad and I'll appreciate what I have here, but really it just tastes like ice-cream to me. I must be getting the wrong flavors, which does remind me that I tried kiwi-flavored ice-cream a couple months ago and it was really good. We do have good ice-cream bars though, that we buy from grocery stores. Those I can appreciate.
Also she asked whether or not we have ice. We do -- some restaurants give ice with water and others don't, and we have a regular-sized fridge/freezer here in Zadar, which isn't really normal for missionaries here a lot of them have small ones, so we freeze water in water bottles a lot. But I froze some and brought it with me here to the Internet place and it was already melted by the time I got here. It's a 20 minute walk. So the ice we do have isn't lasting very long.
I am sorry to hear that Kelsey broke her toe. I can't imagine having a broken toe. That is crazy. We use toes every single day. Glad to hear that everyone else's families aren't so accident-prone as Kelsey's, you all seemed to have survived the travel and everything. Thank you for the pictures from last weekend! It's good to see you and to see ALL the chidlers together.
Yesterday at church we had some families visiting, so Sister Nelson and I got to do primary again! It was triple-lingual because one girl didn't know a ton of English, so her dad translated for her, and then one boy and his family is from Utah so he speaks English, and a family that spoke Dutch! And the oldest sister knows English alright, so she translated for the younger two. It was really fun. I'll send you some pictures. There were 5 kids total. We taught a little impromptu lesson on Alma the Younger and how to be a missionary and then "did a puzzle" but the kids picked out the puzzle with the most pieces, so we didn't get anywhere with it.

And Sister Nelson just got an e-mail from her Dad today that said that he met, at Costco in Utah, some of our members from Zagreb who were visiting Zadar for a couple weeks ago, and are now visiting a senior couple who served here.
So, that doesn't make sense.
The Croatian members from Zagreb visited us in Zadar for a couple weeks. And then they went to Utah to visit a senior couple there, and Sister Nelson's Dad happened to meet them at Costco. Cool story, huh?
Have a great week!
Love you tons!
Sister Laws

Dad & Mom,
Every time I have a p-day and do Internet I think about how awesome my parents are and how much I love to hear from you. I'm grateful for all the news you give me and for all the support and testimony. Thank you for telling me about the Blue Angels coming to Idaho Falls and all about the primary activity, it does sound like it will be really good! And for telling me about golfing and toodling. I love being here on a mission and Sister Nelson is a really good companion. We work well together and just keep brainstorming How can we get more investigators? How can we connect with people? We have four investigators, plus some that are in-between investigating and not. Three are teenage girls, two whose Dad is a member, but their Mom isn't and won't let them get baptized. They come to church every week and are just waiting to be baptized, so they're very solid. The other girl has been busy busy busy this summer, so I've only met her once, but I've met her parents, too, and they said we can come over and she wants to learn, she just isn't putting it first, which is hard, but it also makes sense, because she's a teenager and it's summer. And our other investigator we just found, she has three kids who are teenage/young adult age, and we've only been able to meet with her once, because we dropped by a couple times over the weekend and she wasn't home. So we spend a TON of time tracting and contacting and we hear "Ja sam Katolik" about a hundred times a day, which means I'm Catholic, and basically that they aren't willing to budge. And we talk to other people that at least listen, even if they aren't interesting in learning more. We definitely are aware of the "crazies" -- we don't really contact a lot of men so we don't put ourselves into any situation that isn't safe or positive -- I know that God is protecting us and the Elders watch out for us and I know and see that God is helping us with the work here. It will be so great to see the church growing here and someday there will be wards and stakes here, and that will be wonderful to see. Seeing all these new places makes me want to share them all with my family, so I'm grateful that we can keep in touch!
Love you tons!
Keshia

Pictures:
Sister Nelson with a Dutch boy, Jake.
Sister Laws (me) with the two Dutch girls, Alisha and we can't remember the younger one's name.
Us with the family from Austria.

July 19, 2010

Hi family!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NYAH!
I can't believe she's 8!

It's been a good week. Last p-day we went to Šibenik, I'll send some pics, it's a pretty little coastal town, and the whole thing goes uphill, so we walked a TON of stairs.
And we've been running a lot in the morning for work-out because there's a nice track about a half a mile away, so no worries! I don't think I'll be gaining 50 pounds this transfer :) There's just no time for that and we are melting in the heat. It's funny, because we learned a few weeks ago the phrase "u hladu" which literally means "in the cold" but they say it for standing in the shade, like "u hladu je bolje" -- in the shade is better. And I thought, sure in the shade it's better, it's going to be 35 degrees this week, somewhere in the 90's, and the shade is going to make all the difference, but it is so true! The shade is our only relief. We have to cross the street and walk on whichever side has the shade, and when we're at stoplights we stand in the shade from the pole from the streetlights, and there are no other people out on the streets in the afternoons so whenever tourists need directions they ask us -- yesterday we talked to a czech tourist, he didn't know english, but czech is close enough that he could point at the map and we know a few words from being in the mtc so when he said "dekuju" we knew he meant "thank you" --
luckily Zadar is breezy, so we have enough wind that we aren't overheating. But we've been living in our bedroom because it's the only room in our apartment with a klima - air conditioner. So we study in there and we make food and take it in there and whenever we come home for a meal we go straight to the bedroom.
It's insane. And we run home at least once a week, to get home on time. Because for some reason we always get our best contact the last person we talk to. Or we're at the church with members and they want to talk or whatever reason, we end up running home.

So in Šibenik we saw some ruins and we went into my first Catholic Cathedral! It was so dark and gloomy and everything looked old and worn out, and we payed 10 kuna to go down into their "baptismal font" or krstionica, which is just a small basin on a pillar type thing in this round room with little statues and paintings. Pretty weird, because when I heard about it and heard about a baptismal font I kept thinking of ours, like the big hole in the ground that we fill with water, and so when I saw their "font" I was like, of course oh yeah, it doesn't need to be big because they baptize babies by splashing some water on them, so that was funny.

On Tuesday we talked with a bunch of kids, high school age, that are here from France, just outside of Paris somewhere, they were on a tour of Croatia for three weeks, and asked if we spoke English and if we could help them find something. It was so fun to hear French! But when I tried to think of ANYTHING French to say to them the only thing that came was Croatian. Because I know I once knew how to say "my brother lived in France" but when I tried to think of the French the only thing there was "moj brat je živio u France" so I just told them that in English.

We've met some crazy people this week: this one old lady that we didn't know at all, smiled at us and kissed us on the cheeks and patted our hair and stuff. That was bizarre! And then one old lady we met while trakting, she would just laugh like a maniac after she said something, and she let us into her house, so we started with a prayer and halfway through it she just started laughing and went into her kitchen and was talking, she was SO crazy. I don't know of another way to describe her, she was insane. Eccentric, to say the least, but it was so funny and bizarre that it was funny and I still laugh every time I think of her.

Jesse asked what the people of Croatia are like. Well, so far here in Zadar, they all talk about how hot it is. They all ask us if we've been to the beach. They think if you drink something too cold you'll get sick, and that if you walk around the house with slippers on it hurts your kidneys, and they always give you sok if you're at their house and they're a little demanding, like if they serve you some food and you don't eat it fast enough they say "Jedi! Jedi!" which is pronounced "yedee" and means "Eat! Eat!" Or when we stop them on the street they say "recite mi" which means, "tell me" like, tell me what you want right now. And they don't let you leave until you've eaten and drank everything that they've offered you and all the members are really nice and we've met some other really nice people. And some crazies like I said. And there are kids around, but we just don't talk to them as much.

Jesse also asked what the mission is like for me compared to the Elders -- we do all the same things. We contact, we tract, we have lessons, we do stuff for the ward. The only difference is we can't be district leaders or branch presidents, so we don't have that responsibility on top of being a missionary. Which is great with me. And Croatian: it is coming. Slower than I want it to, I feel bad because when I don't understand a conversation it's like I'm just standing there and Sister Nelson has to do all the talking, but I'm understanding a ton more than I was, and I know I'll get it eventually, so.

We also got a new kitchen faucet this week for our sink. And we got invited to mass by a couple people who were trying to convert us to be Catholic. And President Hill visited our branch on Sunday to change Branch presidents, because Elder Babcock has been doing it but he's going home in a week, so Elder Rhodes is now our branch president. It's always fun to see President Hill. Oh and on Saturday we were trying to meet up with someone, so we walked kinda far from the church to this small street and we're looking for number 18, but it only goes to number 8, so we're super confused, we try calling the sister who was just here, who I replaced, because we knew she would know which house it was, and we tried calling the lady we wanted to see, and our district leader, and FINALLY we figured out that we were on the wrong street on the opposite side of Zadar than we needed to be. So Sunday, we walked from our house clear our to the right street, and couldn't find number 18 again, and couldn't get ahold of the lady, finally we find her house, but she isn't home! So her neighbors gave us sok, juice, and we tried to teach them the first lesson, but it wasn't working so we left, and both times it was the middle of the afternoon in the scorching heat! And Sister Nelson felt sick after we left the neighbors' and almost passed out on me. I didn't think she was going to, but she said she was about to hand me the phone and make me call 911, because she thought our drinks were drugged, only I don't know how to call 911, because it isn't 911! No, we carry emergency numbers with us, and we weren't drugged, but that would have been two companions in a row to pass out on me. That would have been too much probably, lol.

Parents, thanks for sending me those numbers, one of them worked! And for updating me on the Nelnet stuff. And thanks Dad and Michael for telling me how awful The Last Airbender was, I'm so glad that I'm not there to be disappointed too. I never understand why they change perfectly good plots etc. which end up horrible. We'll have to be content with the tv show, which I am ok with. Keep traveling safe, and staying happy!

Lots of love!
Sister Laws

Pictures:
From on top of some ruins in Šibenik, and the cathedral we saw!




Sister Laws