May 03, 2010

Bok moja obitelj! (Hi, my Family!)
Kako ste?  (How are you?)
Dobro sam. (I'm fine.)
I arrived in Croatia, Tuesday afternoon here, early morning hours for you.

--sidenote: the keyboards here are a smidgen different, so if i misspell something it probly isn't because i can't remember enlgish, because i still can, or that i've learned croatian reallz (my point exactly, that is supposed to say really) well, because i don't understand evertything happening around me, it's because the y's and z's are switched, the ' sign is a ć etc. --

I was picked up by the mission president and his wife and we drove straight to the church building in zagreb, where the missionaries of zagreb were having a district meeting, so i met all of them. i had my entry interview with president hill, got assigned to varaždin and got sister whitaker as my companion, we drove to a very nice and cute little restaurant with a view, where I ate hardly any of my very delicious food, because i was way too tired to eat. we walked around a little bit and then pres. hill dropped me and my comp off and set us lose to do missionary work, which included helping a lady to her english class and calling it a night!
we walked/caught a tram to the zagreb apartment, hung out with the other sisters there, got to know them a little - sister dillender from california and sister fitzsimmons from finland-i think-and then slept.

i've been taking naps every day, but the last few days i haven't had to because i feel like i'm on a normal sleeping schedule again! yay!
the next morning we ran an errand to the police station for sister whitaker, or as it's called here, the MUP (moop). Then pres. hill picked us up and drove us to varaždin, i slept almost the whole way, but what i saw of the drive was very beautiful.
varaždin is AWESOME. ODLIČNO! It's pretty small, we walk everywhere, a lot of people say hello back when we greet them, most of them are very nice about turning us down, and it has a fun square, in the center of town, good weather, it rained most of sunday, the building they're renting for church is nice, the elders who are here-elder brown and elder nitta- are really cool.
we've spent a lot of time unpacking and organizing, we live in the old senior couple's apartment since they moved out, which is nice. one bedroom, a living room, a kitchen, a large bathroom. and the people we're renting from are super nice, they said they love renting to mormons, because we don't drink or smoke etc. plenty of room for our stuff and everything we don't have we're getting from zone conference this thursday, which is going to be awesome, because i guess all zone conferences are awesome.
we have spent our time here contacting, because our area book is empty and there are no investigators that the elders could pass off to us. we've been passing out Free English Class fliers for the most part, because we teach English here. I hope that goes well for me when I have to do it, seems a smidgen daunting right now to teach english in croatian.
we met with a member, Vanja, on Friday and taught her a short lesson. and hopefully we're going to be working on the young womanhood recognition award with her, which will be fun and good. and we happened to run into a lady named Svetlana, who wants personal English classes.
Which was awesome, because it was Saturday, or May Day, which is a holiday here and aparently on holidays every one disappears, because there was no one out walking around, no one in center, everyone went down to the river -we went for a little while-- and so we'll get in touch with her this week and start teaching her.
we went tracting and met a jehovah's witness lady and her daughter, who talked to us for almost an hour. i did not understand any of it, but sister whitaker said it was hard for her, too, because varaždin has its own accent. and a completely different word for what. instead of što they say kaj, which hasn't been too hard for me to switch because, just because, lol.
we went tracting yesterday and had some good conversations with people, which is great. and last night we met a lady, not a member but really nice, almost completely deaf, and she was actually a little bit easier for me to understand when she spoke, when I knew what the words were. She gave me and Sister Whitaker a book each. She gave me a book of poetry, by Puškin, a Russian author, to help with my Croatian, she said. Really nice lady.
And earlier today we went to a bookstore so I could buy a better dictionary and it was so hard to restrain myself! i wanted to buy every book I like in Croatian and read them, but i'll wait for the end of my mission for that, so I can bring them home and actually read them, instead of just having them. i am looking forward to that and just to being able to know Croatian better in general.
Oh yeah, on Sunday we had church. It was nice .There aren't enough members for a relief society/priesthood so it is only two hours long. I wrote down words I didn't know during Sacrament meeting, but i couldn't understand anything in sunday school, which was funny.
the members are nice, one of my teachers at the mtc served here so she told me about some of them before i came, so i recognized a few. we got invited to a members house for next week, vladimir -he has a wife who served a mission in London, and a little baby, so that's really exciting.
what else can i tell you about?? when i got here the sisters gave me a little bag of Croatian treats, so I've already tried lots of new candies. that was really fun- there's this thing called 'bananko' and it has the weirdest texture ever. it tastes like a banana. and my favorite is a thing called beuno, which has cream stuff in the middle, chocolate on the outside. and of course, just different chocolates, we've tried 3 different kinds of chocolate bars from a brand called Milka, which actually isn't Croatian, but still really good.
I think that's everything that I could possibly think of.
Thanks for the pictures everybody, I love seeing my nieces and nephews!! And you all, too. Glad to hear that Baby Jude and parents are doing well, and everyone else, too!
Thanks for writing and I'll e-mail next week!

Volim vas!