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