October 11, 2010

Hi family!
Thanks everyone for e-mailing me this week! It's great to hear from you all.
We had a busy week - we went to Zagreb for a mission tour on Thursday, Elder Schuze from Germany came and talked to us. It was really good. He was a member in Eastern Germany during communism and he gave us a lot of insight on what it was like to be a member then and for these Croatian people. We're all just young American (or Canadian) kids so sometimes we get impatient with people here, because we don't understand everything, so it was really great. He really encouraged us with everything and told us to be PATIENT. But also the zone leaders told us that in Croatia in the last 3 weeks us missionaries have found 25 new investigators - which is a really big deal for this mission - and there are some baptism scheduled in one of the cities for the end of this month. It's a great time to be a missionary! And Sister Nelson and I found three new investigators on Saturday, too. A really nice older couple and their sister-in-law who lives next door. They have a really cute family and hopefully we can get all of them in on the next lesson Wednesday morning. It's a really exciting time for this mission, I think, especially because Elder Nelson came and gave that dedicatory prayer, it's given all the missionaries and the members here a lot of hope! Which is kinda different from at first when I came here, I noticed during my first transfer that everyone was a little worn out with all the rejection, so it's awesome that everything is picking up!
Last p-day Sister Nelson and I were "tourists" here in Zadar, we walked around and took lots of pictures. It was a bad time of day because all of the shops close in the afternoon, I guess because it's hotter and there aren't a lot of tourists during that time, and then they re-open during the evening, but it was fun to just walk around and enjoy Zadar. It's really pretty here. On Tuesday we made no-bake cookies! They were really good. I love no-bake cookies.
Wednesday seemed like one of those really busy days where not a lot happens. We were just working hard being missionaries! Thursday we went to Zagreb. Friday was a national holiday, so there wasn't school and lots of people out, but it was also Saint Šime Day for the Catholic church, so everyone was going to mass and everyone we stopped said "Danas je Sveti Šime!" so that wasn't really fun, we tried to ask people what that meant, like he who was and stuff, some people didn't know, but I guess he was like a protector of Zadar, and he tried to leave Zadar in ships for some reason, but he went out three times and there was oil (or something that was stopping him from leaving) so he knew he had to stay in Zadar! And we heard he was buried in Jeruselum or something. It was a big deal I guess. Luckily we had weekly planning, english class, and a lesson with a girl the Elders found that night, so we didn't spend as much time contacting people.
Saturday was a busy day, we had young women's and it was one of the girl's birthdays so we ordered pizza and started to watch the movie, Legacy, since we as missionaries can't watch other movies, and then we went to her house for palačinke, and then we walked really far (like an hour) to a neighborhood where we found our new investigators, we figured it had been a while since missionaries had been there and we were right!
And then YESTERDAY we had a couple visiting our branch from Arizona and they brought everyone their own bag of treats with a picture of President Monson and pictures of the Savior from their ward in Arizona to tell the members here how much they love them, and they brought us missionaries American peanut butter and oreos - which is kinda funny because Sister Nelson said a couple weeks ago, The peanut butter here isn't that bad, and it really isn't, but when we opened the American peanut butter it was like "this is SO much better!" we forgot how good it was. And the American couple, they came because they were on a cruise and they invited a non-member couple to come with them, which was cool, and then there was another couple visiting from Germany, so we had a member translating from Croatian to German for them sitting in front of me, and Sister Nelson translated from Croatian to English for the Americans and sitting behind me! So that was really fun. It was an exciting Sunday. And then Sister Nelson and I walked an hour in the opposite direction to look for an inactive member, but we couldn't find her, she doesn't live there anymore, but we saw a really pretty sunset over the sea and we tracted a little bit while we were out there, which was also interesting, because it's been a while since missionaries have been there, so people were more receptive.
So overall it was a GOOD week.
I'm glad your weeks were good, too. It's fun that you're all getting ready for Halloween! Croatians don't celebrate Halloween, but there's a little bit more of an American culture in the branch, because of all the missionaries from there, so we'll probably end up having a Branch Halloween party or something fun like that. We'll probably dress up like missionaries for it.
Have a super week! Love you all bunches!
Love,
Sister Laws