Hi family!
I had a really good week.
Monday, last p-day, nothing exciting.
Tuesday, one of the old ladies at our service place touched Sister Dillender's hand with her own after she told us that she had herpes on that hand so it's always cold now. So we've been joking about Sister Dillender having herpes all week.
Wednesday, the most exciting thing was we started making food for Thanksgiving!
Thursday, THANKSGIVING! We made FOUR PIES: cheese-cake-ish one, cherry, apple, and chocolate pudding. They were all good except for the cheese-cake one - we forgot we had the oven on broiler so the top got baked all weird and it ended up looking like some kind of egg dish thing. And we made the crusts for all of them, too, because Croatia doesn't do pies so that was hard, no wonder people say that pastry is hard to work with, it IS. And Croatia also doesn't do pie pans, so we found one pie pan at the church (from Frontier Pies, so it was obviously from America) we made the apple pie in a bread pan and the cherry pie in a glass dish that was luckily really deep because I forgot to measure out the cherries and put both jars into the recipe, which all in all turned out really yummy. And then the cheese-cake pie was in one of the Elder's skillet (if I remember what a skillet pan is) pans! With a metal handle, so we didn't have to worry about it melting. Which also worked fine. And then we got to the Church and found ANOTHER pie pan in the cupboard that we had missed. So that was funny. And Thursday morning we walked the pies all the way to the church and when we got there we realized we forgot the keys AND the phone, so we couldn't call the Elders to let us in, so we had to leave the pies on the back porch and walk all the way back home and to the church again, which worked out because there was more we could take early. We had turkey, we looked for ham but couldn't find any that looked normal, and none of the whole turkeys (which are all quite small here in Croatia) looked good so we just bought some turkey breasts and a couple legs, which the Elders cooked and it was SO delicious. We had stove-top stuffing from America. We used the potato flakes that Mom sent me, except we made them at the church and when I was halfway through with the two original packets I realized we hadn't brought any milk, so they were really tasteless, but we made some real mashed potatoes with it, too, and then the two other flavored packets that didn't need milk, so we had plenty. We made the gravy packets, thanks again to Mom, it was good. We had some vegetables and a fruit salad which we put vanilla pudding into, because we thought it was a good idea, but we got to the church and told the elders and they said "is that pudding from Croatia?" and we said, yeah. And they explained that they had tried nearly every kind of vanilla pudding and Croatia did NOT know how to make pudding. So when we got around to the fruit salad later in the meal we found out that Croatia does NOT know how to make vanilla pudding, it had a weird metallic aftertaste, so that failed! It was pretty gross, so we stopped eating it and shared it with the members that night at Institute :) And the crowning thing to the whole meal was the ROLLS which I made from a recipe we found in the apartment. They were SO SO SO good! I plan on bringing the recipe home, it was super delicious and nice to have good rolls, because Croatia also doesn't make rolls. So our meal turned out to be a success! It was the most American Thanksgiving on foreign soil prepared by young missionaries! Just like I thought and hoped it would be. And after the meal we read one of the gratitude talks that Mom sent me, which was really good, and we made Thanksgiving Plates! (we wrote on paper plates everything we were grateful for) And I totally intended to send pictures of our wonderful meal, but I forgot to bring my camera. Next week I will. And if you noticed, Sister Dillender and me made almost EVERYTHING for it. The Elders made the turkey and the boxed stuffing and the packet gravy. So it was DEFINITELY a sucess :) It was so great and so much fun! And the whole time we were cooking pies and rolls we listened to the Forgotten Carols! Yeah Christmas music!
And on Thursday when we were walking home at the end of the night we say a dead cat on the road with its insides on the outsides and it was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in real life. I had no idea cats' insides looked like that and I was so disgusted I couldn't stop looking. Just so you know.
on Friday (And actually every other day of the week) it rained, and we were walking home and I had forgotten my umbrella at the church and Sister Dillender's umbrella broke, but LUCKILY I was wearing my rain coat! It works! the hood and everything! And my rain boots work, too. They were good purchases. And it really did rain almost every single day this week and yesterday ALL day long. I really like the rain :) Also on Friday one of the old couples that we deliver lunches to for service gave us chocolate for Sveta Kata! That Saint Katharine Day or something like that, it was really sweet of them. Sveta Kata is every November 25, exactly one month before Christmas, and to celebrate they put candy under kids pillows! I learned about it on the 26th, or I would have told you all sooner so you could celebrate it! But for future reference! And I will definitely try to find out some more holidays or traditions that Croatians have and pass them along!
And of course we've been eating leftovers (they're gone now) and every time we would stuff ourselves again and feel like we had another Thanksgiving dinner. And on Saturday I ate my third Thanksgiving dinner and then had leftover pie on top of that and then had a big cup of the hot chocolate that Mom sent (THANKS AGAIN) and made myself disgustingly sick! I felt so gross. But I dipped chocolate chip cookies in it and it was really really delicious at the time. So.
And the most exciting thing on Saturday was that we got contacted by a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses. We basically let them say their bit and took their little paper and let it all go, because we didn't want to get into an argument. I've never experienced it but the JWs here can be a little confrontational. (All the ones I've met have been nice, even these two.) Anyway, it was funny to be contacted when we're the ones supposed to be contacting!
Yesterday was a good Sunday. We heard from a member that North and South Korea are preparing for war. That's kinda sad to hear about. Any updates on the situation are appreciated! We heard it might end up being the third World War, but I would say it's a little early to be jumping to those kinds of conclusions.
And then THIS MORNING We put up the Christmas tree! That was fun, we haven't decorated it yet or anything, and we need some more lights because one strand popped in my face for no reason, and scared me and another one doesn't work, and we need more decorations because we don't have that many, but it's really fun preparing for Christmas! The Holiday Season is here! And also there are lights and decorations up all over Zadar, like on the streetlights and grocery stores, so that's really fun. And I thought of just a couple other things I wanted to ask for 1. The Pocket Handbook for Missionaries, it's a really small book and 2. crest whitestrips, for fun.
Thanks everyone for e-mailing. Sounds like everyone's Thanksgiving was great! Jesse, your record player sounds BOMB, and the fair sounds like it would have been fun. And Kelsey, I love the quotes from your kids! So fun. Everyone have fun in the snow! And I'll have fun in the rain :)
I've been reading a lot of the conference talks from this last conference, Thanks Mom! and I really liked President Monson's closing remarks, and Elder Bednar's "Receive the Holy Ghost" and I really liked Elder Scott's "The Transforming Power of Faith and Character" the first time I read it, because of his language and the concepts, I was like "I do not understand this..." It was like I didn't know English or something. But I read it again and it was really really good and just what I needed to hear! And then this morning I read Pres Uchtdorf's, I can't remember the name, but it's the one from the general session, not the priesthood session (which I read a couple days ago and is ALSO really good) and he was talking about simplifying when life gets harder and crazy and focusing on the most important things, like the gospel, and how that's wisdom. And THEN in Mom's e-mail today she said, "when life gets like this I have to just slow down, focus on what's really important, breath without hyperventilating, and KNOW everything will be OK." Which is like exactly what Pres Uchtdorf said! So that was really cool.
Ok! Love you all!
Sister Laws
Monday, November 29, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
November 22, 2010
Dear family,
I had ONE OF THE BEST WEEKS EVER! Do you want to know why? Because on Wednesday the APs came down to Zadar for exchanges and brought our mail, which means that I got a package from Mom with lots of fun things, and a letter from Jesse, and then THIS MORNING I got ANOTHER package from MOM, which means that sending it straight here is SOSOSO much faster than the mission home, which I figured anyway, but STILL, so I'm sitting here writing President and I go back to my inbox and SEE that Amelia wrote me in the meantime! (You're up really early, thanks for the letter :D) Which means that I've heard from ALL the members of my FAMILY this week and I'm ENJOYING capitalizing LETTERS right NOW!
Thank you for the letter Jesse, it was so fun, and the fun pictures on the margin were really cute. I'm sending you a real letter in return :)
Guess what I got from my wonderful Mommy? I got toothpaste, thank you because my tube is about to run out, a flower bulb, which was such a great surprise because Sister Dillender said she was just thinking about needing to buy a plant of some kind, I got DELICIOUS gingersnap cookies, they travel well, thank you Michael for making them, and thank you from Sister Dillender, and I got good granola bar thingies, I got a GREAT temple edition ENGISN, I LOVE looking at the temple edition Ensign, we had an old one in the apartment, and sometimes I'd just look through it and remember what it's like to be in a temple, and how great that is, I got piano music for Christmas which I've been going crazy with on the piano, I'm so glad to have it in plenty of time to practice, stuff to make snowflakes, we whipped one out apiece and there will for sure be more to come, and some talks on gratitude for Thanksgiving! and I got a nice letter. I think that was all for the first one. And then this MORNING I got the Forgotten Carols CD, which we put right in, one of my Christmas CDs that I asked Mom to send because I didn't put any Christmas music on my mp3 player for some stupid reason, I got the Conference edition of the ensign and a friend magazine, which I'm ridiculously excited about, and dudududuh! gravy packets! STORY: We've been planning for Thanksgiving between us and the Elders, because we want to do a nice Thanksgiving meal and the Croats don't have any sort of Thanksgiving holiday as a replacement, we figure we can make a turkey, we have a recipe for rolls, I forgot to ask for pie recipes last week, but one of the Elders did and Sister Dillender too, and we're planning on ham, we got a box of stuffing from Sister Whitaker's parents when they came to pick her up, Mom sent potato flakes in the Halloween package, and basically the ONLY THING we were partially stumped on was GRAVY (one of the Elders said he figured he knew how, but I didn't trust that very readily) and Mom DELIVERED! She is inspired. We are going to have the BEST American Thanksgiving dinner ever, I'm so excited for Thursday! And if I forgot to mention anything it was just as appreciated. Thanks SO MUCH!
I got a nice long e-mail from Michael this week, thank you, good to hear that you're not registering for classes, haha, and all that other stuff, and that you're semi-sick of girls so I don't have to worry so much about you getting married within the next little while. Oh, and the picture you described in your e-mail didn't make it to me. So that would be nice to see next week.
It's good to hear that Dad is safely home from Florida, that kinda sounds like the weather here in Croatia, and in South Carolina, too, except maybe a tad bit colder. Oh, and it's been raining every single night. Some days during the daytime it cleared up and was sunny by the afternoon and some days, like yesterday and today, it's still cloudy and breezy. It's fun to always fall asleep and wake up to the rain, even though we can't play frisbee in the morning when it's raining like that. But we get along with sweaters and all the Croats are wearing their winter coats. That's kinda funny. We wonder how they can stand being so hot and they wonder why we're not freezing. It's not supposed to snow here, maybe every other year it snows, so we won't be getting a white Christmas. or Thanksgiving. The snow pictures that Kelsey sent look so fun! I can't believe the snow was so deep! all the way past Nyah's waist! That's craziness. And I'm willing to try the animal crackers and cocoa thing, especially for breakfast because it's usually cold in our house in the mornings. Everyone's Thanksgiving plans sound like fun, that's cool, Amelia, that you're going down to Louisiana, I keep trying to think of what I ate when I was there for Thanksgiving, because it would be fun to throw in some southern flair for our Thanksgiving here, but I can't think of anything that I'd be able to make/have a recipe for.
Thanks Mom for telling me the date of your baptism and all that. Our landlord didn't come by for more work on the apartment, but we can tell there's more to come. We don't know when. They're really great, though, it's not weird at all having them there. And I'm glad to hear that Sister Lauren Laws made it to Italy, what was the illness? That's too bad. Did she have to travel by herself here? That sucked for me, I hope she didn't have to. You know what would be cool??? I just thought of this, but it would be cool if someone could forward me those e-mails from her, so I could read what she's up to. That would be fun for me.
And FINALLY I meant to bring my study journal to the internet place today, because I learned some cool things this week, but I FORGOT so the only thing I'll share is that I am in a BIBLICALLY historical place! This is what you all HAVE to do. 1. Look up "Dalmatia" in the Bible Dictionary (in case you didn't know, because I don't think I've told you, the part of Croatia that I'm in right now (Zadar and the coast-line) is called Dalmatia) 2. follow the scripture 3. look up the person that the verse says went to Dalmatia in the bible dictionary and 4. you'll find out who went on a mission to these Croatian people that I'M teaching TODAY back in the times of Peter and Paul. And then 5. don't get confused, because the epistles to the same person aren't written to him while he was here. They were written before he came to a mission here. And the reason I'm putting you on a scavenger hunt is because 1. it's cool and 2. I can't remember the name of the person, haha. And I finished reading the Book of Helaman this week, which was very good. And I started to read one book at a time in the Old Testament so I can read the whole Old Testament and since I'm stuck in Deuteronomy and don't want to read from it, and I started in Haggai, and it was a really good book and really short. I basically read most of the short books this week, so we'll see how well this idea goes for the longer books. I'm taking suggestions for people's favorite books of the Old Testament if anyone is offering.
And FINALLY FOR REAL: Mom asked about Christmas. I don't know what to ask for, because sometimes I think of things during the week but I forget to write it down and I forget that I want it, so it doesn't matter anymore and also there's just not a lot of things I can think of to ask for. But, here's a shot: clothes: something missionary nice is always fun, and I could probably use another sweater or two since it's winter. I don't need white, brown, gray, or red, but any other color would probably be good, and anything else warm, and maybe a couple of pairs of more tights, nothing with patterns is allowed, I probably wouldn't wear bright colors, but some more basics would be good, (that sounds boring, so some fun colors would be good, too) and maybe some fun Christmas pajamas, food: maybe some raspberry sticks and orange sticks, and chocolate covered cherry things, and more homemade cookies (especially, Mom, if you make some chocolate cookies with mint chips) and a Chocolate orange, and then hygiene: I don't really think so. I can buy everything like that here. And as for THINGS: there are things I want here, like souvenirs, but I don't want them now, because I don't want to have them sitting around for the rest of my mission, there are things I want to give to YOU GUYS, but I don't want to send anything, because I don't want it to get lost in the mail, AND anything that would be fun and missionary appropriate would be fun. Music, talks, favorite scriptures, I remember one Christmas we sent Michael aprons, that would be fun, and Amelia and me sent pillowcases, that would be fun, and plenty of pictures!
Other than all of that jazz!! I hope everyone has a great week and enjoys their Thanksgiving feasts!
LOTS AND LOTS OF LOVE LOVE LOVE!
SISTER LAWS
I had ONE OF THE BEST WEEKS EVER! Do you want to know why? Because on Wednesday the APs came down to Zadar for exchanges and brought our mail, which means that I got a package from Mom with lots of fun things, and a letter from Jesse, and then THIS MORNING I got ANOTHER package from MOM, which means that sending it straight here is SOSOSO much faster than the mission home, which I figured anyway, but STILL, so I'm sitting here writing President and I go back to my inbox and SEE that Amelia wrote me in the meantime! (You're up really early, thanks for the letter :D) Which means that I've heard from ALL the members of my FAMILY this week and I'm ENJOYING capitalizing LETTERS right NOW!
Thank you for the letter Jesse, it was so fun, and the fun pictures on the margin were really cute. I'm sending you a real letter in return :)
Guess what I got from my wonderful Mommy? I got toothpaste, thank you because my tube is about to run out, a flower bulb, which was such a great surprise because Sister Dillender said she was just thinking about needing to buy a plant of some kind, I got DELICIOUS gingersnap cookies, they travel well, thank you Michael for making them, and thank you from Sister Dillender, and I got good granola bar thingies, I got a GREAT temple edition ENGISN, I LOVE looking at the temple edition Ensign, we had an old one in the apartment, and sometimes I'd just look through it and remember what it's like to be in a temple, and how great that is, I got piano music for Christmas which I've been going crazy with on the piano, I'm so glad to have it in plenty of time to practice, stuff to make snowflakes, we whipped one out apiece and there will for sure be more to come, and some talks on gratitude for Thanksgiving! and I got a nice letter. I think that was all for the first one. And then this MORNING I got the Forgotten Carols CD, which we put right in, one of my Christmas CDs that I asked Mom to send because I didn't put any Christmas music on my mp3 player for some stupid reason, I got the Conference edition of the ensign and a friend magazine, which I'm ridiculously excited about, and dudududuh! gravy packets! STORY: We've been planning for Thanksgiving between us and the Elders, because we want to do a nice Thanksgiving meal and the Croats don't have any sort of Thanksgiving holiday as a replacement, we figure we can make a turkey, we have a recipe for rolls, I forgot to ask for pie recipes last week, but one of the Elders did and Sister Dillender too, and we're planning on ham, we got a box of stuffing from Sister Whitaker's parents when they came to pick her up, Mom sent potato flakes in the Halloween package, and basically the ONLY THING we were partially stumped on was GRAVY (one of the Elders said he figured he knew how, but I didn't trust that very readily) and Mom DELIVERED! She is inspired. We are going to have the BEST American Thanksgiving dinner ever, I'm so excited for Thursday! And if I forgot to mention anything it was just as appreciated. Thanks SO MUCH!
I got a nice long e-mail from Michael this week, thank you, good to hear that you're not registering for classes, haha, and all that other stuff, and that you're semi-sick of girls so I don't have to worry so much about you getting married within the next little while. Oh, and the picture you described in your e-mail didn't make it to me. So that would be nice to see next week.
It's good to hear that Dad is safely home from Florida, that kinda sounds like the weather here in Croatia, and in South Carolina, too, except maybe a tad bit colder. Oh, and it's been raining every single night. Some days during the daytime it cleared up and was sunny by the afternoon and some days, like yesterday and today, it's still cloudy and breezy. It's fun to always fall asleep and wake up to the rain, even though we can't play frisbee in the morning when it's raining like that. But we get along with sweaters and all the Croats are wearing their winter coats. That's kinda funny. We wonder how they can stand being so hot and they wonder why we're not freezing. It's not supposed to snow here, maybe every other year it snows, so we won't be getting a white Christmas. or Thanksgiving. The snow pictures that Kelsey sent look so fun! I can't believe the snow was so deep! all the way past Nyah's waist! That's craziness. And I'm willing to try the animal crackers and cocoa thing, especially for breakfast because it's usually cold in our house in the mornings. Everyone's Thanksgiving plans sound like fun, that's cool, Amelia, that you're going down to Louisiana, I keep trying to think of what I ate when I was there for Thanksgiving, because it would be fun to throw in some southern flair for our Thanksgiving here, but I can't think of anything that I'd be able to make/have a recipe for.
Thanks Mom for telling me the date of your baptism and all that. Our landlord didn't come by for more work on the apartment, but we can tell there's more to come. We don't know when. They're really great, though, it's not weird at all having them there. And I'm glad to hear that Sister Lauren Laws made it to Italy, what was the illness? That's too bad. Did she have to travel by herself here? That sucked for me, I hope she didn't have to. You know what would be cool??? I just thought of this, but it would be cool if someone could forward me those e-mails from her, so I could read what she's up to. That would be fun for me.
And FINALLY I meant to bring my study journal to the internet place today, because I learned some cool things this week, but I FORGOT so the only thing I'll share is that I am in a BIBLICALLY historical place! This is what you all HAVE to do. 1. Look up "Dalmatia" in the Bible Dictionary (in case you didn't know, because I don't think I've told you, the part of Croatia that I'm in right now (Zadar and the coast-line) is called Dalmatia) 2. follow the scripture 3. look up the person that the verse says went to Dalmatia in the bible dictionary and 4. you'll find out who went on a mission to these Croatian people that I'M teaching TODAY back in the times of Peter and Paul. And then 5. don't get confused, because the epistles to the same person aren't written to him while he was here. They were written before he came to a mission here. And the reason I'm putting you on a scavenger hunt is because 1. it's cool and 2. I can't remember the name of the person, haha. And I finished reading the Book of Helaman this week, which was very good. And I started to read one book at a time in the Old Testament so I can read the whole Old Testament and since I'm stuck in Deuteronomy and don't want to read from it, and I started in Haggai, and it was a really good book and really short. I basically read most of the short books this week, so we'll see how well this idea goes for the longer books. I'm taking suggestions for people's favorite books of the Old Testament if anyone is offering.
And FINALLY FOR REAL: Mom asked about Christmas. I don't know what to ask for, because sometimes I think of things during the week but I forget to write it down and I forget that I want it, so it doesn't matter anymore and also there's just not a lot of things I can think of to ask for. But, here's a shot: clothes: something missionary nice is always fun, and I could probably use another sweater or two since it's winter. I don't need white, brown, gray, or red, but any other color would probably be good, and anything else warm, and maybe a couple of pairs of more tights, nothing with patterns is allowed, I probably wouldn't wear bright colors, but some more basics would be good, (that sounds boring, so some fun colors would be good, too) and maybe some fun Christmas pajamas, food: maybe some raspberry sticks and orange sticks, and chocolate covered cherry things, and more homemade cookies (especially, Mom, if you make some chocolate cookies with mint chips) and a Chocolate orange, and then hygiene: I don't really think so. I can buy everything like that here. And as for THINGS: there are things I want here, like souvenirs, but I don't want them now, because I don't want to have them sitting around for the rest of my mission, there are things I want to give to YOU GUYS, but I don't want to send anything, because I don't want it to get lost in the mail, AND anything that would be fun and missionary appropriate would be fun. Music, talks, favorite scriptures, I remember one Christmas we sent Michael aprons, that would be fun, and Amelia and me sent pillowcases, that would be fun, and plenty of pictures!
Other than all of that jazz!! I hope everyone has a great week and enjoys their Thanksgiving feasts!
LOTS AND LOTS OF LOVE LOVE LOVE!
SISTER LAWS
Monday, November 15, 2010
November 15, 2010
Hi family!
It has been a LOONG week for some reason. Good, but last pday felt FOREVER ago. Thanks so much for writing me everyone and telling me about your doings and your children, it really is one of the funnest things for me to hear little stories about your kids. I LOVE it. They are so cute and lovable.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSE! You're old. I'm kidding. Have a great day and spend it with your baby and your husband. In that order of priority. Haha, just kidding.
Some of the cool things we did this week: on Tuesday we had sign-ups for our English classes, it's at the church and so we made palačinke! Which is called crepes in English. Because we were at the church for two hours and people came every-so-often to sign up and it was during our dinner time so we had that for dinner! And I took one of the packages of butterfingers that Mom sent me and Elder Bachynski (who is seven feet tall) crushed the butterfingers with his fist!!! With one smash! So we sprinkled butterfingers in them with the nutella and it was SOO good! Thanks for the butterfingers. And we had lots of people sign up, at least a ton more than when we were doing it over the summer, and we started doing the classes on Wednesday, and then had it again on Friday, and the best thing is! That Sister Dillender is teaching Spanish here, so I'm learning Spanish!! It is not going nearly as smooth as learning Croatian went in the MTC. I said "yo soy bye-ya" instead of "ba-HA" on Friday -- I'm also not really working very hard at it, I can't learn Spanish when I don't even know Croatian and I don't even need to know Spanish yet. But I'll have all the notes for when I get home :) I'm really excited for that.
We also had men in our apartment, because our gazda is putting in pipes for some reason that we have not been able to understand yet, and gazda means landlord by the way, so they've been working on that and there is dust EVERYWHERE and it's a little weird to have them there. They aren't there all day and we're gone most of the time, so it's not a problem at all, but we have had to camp out in the bathroom a couple times to have a normal conversation without feeling like they were listening. Which was kinda funny.
On Monday AND on Saturday we played a game that Sister Dillender taught us! It reminds me of apple to apple - it's called loaded questions, if you've heard about it, and what you do, is one person asks a question, like "if you could go anywhere, where would you go?" or "which mythical creature would you be?" and then everyone writes down an answer, which can be serious or funny, and then you give it to someone who reads them all out loud, and then the person who asked has to try and guess which answer goes to which person. It was really fun the first time, we played with some of the members in the ward at family home evening, and it was really funny, and then the second time it wasn't as fun, because it was just the four missionaries and one girl at young women's - because the other kids there didn't want to play, so we could all guess each others because we know each other well enough, so it wasn't as funny. But it's a really fun game, we'll probably play it again sometime.
We heard about the Italian temple getting the cornerstone! That is so cool. Our members were excited, because it's closer than the Frankfurt temple. Except one of the members said that it wasn't closer. We shall see when it's finished. And it's SO cool that it's in ROME. Just because we hear so much about the Catholic church. Oh, and one of the members had her "baptismal date anniversary" on Sunday, and it made me realize that I can't remember when Mom was baptized! Or if I knew the date I don't remember it at all. When was it exactly? And Mom mentioned something about a world-wide training meeting that her and Dad went to -- haven't heard anything about it. I'm guessing no one here participated in that. And I don't know which new manuals we're talking about either, because we just barely got the new gospel principles class manual, which we had in English a year ago. So. [shrug]. We also heard that "they" found something in Arizona that has Hebrew written/engraved on it! And the question "how did a lost tribe of Israel get to the American continent" was the only thing that I really understood for sure from the article one of the members had about it. So anything you know about it would be cool to hear and interesting! Not that we need to know the answer to that question, since we already know! BOOK OF MORMON!
That's cool that Jude is standing up! What a grown-up little guy! And I hope water-aerobics are fun, Jesse. I remember doing that once in young womens and it was fun. Good luck to Brent on his test and finals this weekend, you'll do great! That's so awesome that Tylie can sign all those words! Dad, have fun in Florida and be safe! Kelsey, thanks for sharing the hymn "Lead Kindly Light" sometimes I forget about English hymns because we never sing them! So it was nice to hear them. Mom, thanks for sending me the conference thing to Zadar! I'm looking forward to getting it! And Michael, l agree with Amelia, sometimes I wonder what's going on in your life. I give permission to Mom and Dad to tell me anything about him since I'm in the dark. And thanks for sending the picture of your halloween costume - you do look creepy, and your beard looks weird. That's not a goatee, that's a beard. It probably looked so weird because it was black and your face was white.
I'm sorry to hear that Grandma Hicks has a growth on her kidney, I hope everything's ok. And I don't know what cataracts are. Could someone explain those to me? I would ask someone, but I don't think I'd understand in Croatian and my companion doesn't know.
Have a super fantabular awesome week!
Love you!
Sister Laws
It has been a LOONG week for some reason. Good, but last pday felt FOREVER ago. Thanks so much for writing me everyone and telling me about your doings and your children, it really is one of the funnest things for me to hear little stories about your kids. I LOVE it. They are so cute and lovable.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSE! You're old. I'm kidding. Have a great day and spend it with your baby and your husband. In that order of priority. Haha, just kidding.
Some of the cool things we did this week: on Tuesday we had sign-ups for our English classes, it's at the church and so we made palačinke! Which is called crepes in English. Because we were at the church for two hours and people came every-so-often to sign up and it was during our dinner time so we had that for dinner! And I took one of the packages of butterfingers that Mom sent me and Elder Bachynski (who is seven feet tall) crushed the butterfingers with his fist!!! With one smash! So we sprinkled butterfingers in them with the nutella and it was SOO good! Thanks for the butterfingers. And we had lots of people sign up, at least a ton more than when we were doing it over the summer, and we started doing the classes on Wednesday, and then had it again on Friday, and the best thing is! That Sister Dillender is teaching Spanish here, so I'm learning Spanish!! It is not going nearly as smooth as learning Croatian went in the MTC. I said "yo soy bye-ya" instead of "ba-HA" on Friday -- I'm also not really working very hard at it, I can't learn Spanish when I don't even know Croatian and I don't even need to know Spanish yet. But I'll have all the notes for when I get home :) I'm really excited for that.
We also had men in our apartment, because our gazda is putting in pipes for some reason that we have not been able to understand yet, and gazda means landlord by the way, so they've been working on that and there is dust EVERYWHERE and it's a little weird to have them there. They aren't there all day and we're gone most of the time, so it's not a problem at all, but we have had to camp out in the bathroom a couple times to have a normal conversation without feeling like they were listening. Which was kinda funny.
On Monday AND on Saturday we played a game that Sister Dillender taught us! It reminds me of apple to apple - it's called loaded questions, if you've heard about it, and what you do, is one person asks a question, like "if you could go anywhere, where would you go?" or "which mythical creature would you be?" and then everyone writes down an answer, which can be serious or funny, and then you give it to someone who reads them all out loud, and then the person who asked has to try and guess which answer goes to which person. It was really fun the first time, we played with some of the members in the ward at family home evening, and it was really funny, and then the second time it wasn't as fun, because it was just the four missionaries and one girl at young women's - because the other kids there didn't want to play, so we could all guess each others because we know each other well enough, so it wasn't as funny. But it's a really fun game, we'll probably play it again sometime.
We heard about the Italian temple getting the cornerstone! That is so cool. Our members were excited, because it's closer than the Frankfurt temple. Except one of the members said that it wasn't closer. We shall see when it's finished. And it's SO cool that it's in ROME. Just because we hear so much about the Catholic church. Oh, and one of the members had her "baptismal date anniversary" on Sunday, and it made me realize that I can't remember when Mom was baptized! Or if I knew the date I don't remember it at all. When was it exactly? And Mom mentioned something about a world-wide training meeting that her and Dad went to -- haven't heard anything about it. I'm guessing no one here participated in that. And I don't know which new manuals we're talking about either, because we just barely got the new gospel principles class manual, which we had in English a year ago. So. [shrug]. We also heard that "they" found something in Arizona that has Hebrew written/engraved on it! And the question "how did a lost tribe of Israel get to the American continent" was the only thing that I really understood for sure from the article one of the members had about it. So anything you know about it would be cool to hear and interesting! Not that we need to know the answer to that question, since we already know! BOOK OF MORMON!
That's cool that Jude is standing up! What a grown-up little guy! And I hope water-aerobics are fun, Jesse. I remember doing that once in young womens and it was fun. Good luck to Brent on his test and finals this weekend, you'll do great! That's so awesome that Tylie can sign all those words! Dad, have fun in Florida and be safe! Kelsey, thanks for sharing the hymn "Lead Kindly Light" sometimes I forget about English hymns because we never sing them! So it was nice to hear them. Mom, thanks for sending me the conference thing to Zadar! I'm looking forward to getting it! And Michael, l agree with Amelia, sometimes I wonder what's going on in your life. I give permission to Mom and Dad to tell me anything about him since I'm in the dark. And thanks for sending the picture of your halloween costume - you do look creepy, and your beard looks weird. That's not a goatee, that's a beard. It probably looked so weird because it was black and your face was white.
I'm sorry to hear that Grandma Hicks has a growth on her kidney, I hope everything's ok. And I don't know what cataracts are. Could someone explain those to me? I would ask someone, but I don't think I'd understand in Croatian and my companion doesn't know.
Have a super fantabular awesome week!
Love you!
Sister Laws
Monday, November 8, 2010
November 8, 2010
Hey family!
So this is how I found out Amelia was having a girl: "we were both a little bummed to find out we weren't getting a boy" --from her e-mail. I read it and then did a double-take, "What? Does that mean she's having a girl?" So, I feel a little left out because it sounds like everyone already knew before that e-mail and I didn't get a "It's a girl!!!" or something was missing from the e-mail. Maybe a sentence got deleted or something.
But-
CONGRATULATIONS! Yay! IT'S A GIRL!
And I think I forgot to say Happy Birthday to Kurt! And then Happy Anniversary to Amelia and Brent. And early Happy Birthday to Jesse, just in case I forget to say next week. My last companion Sister Nelson, has the same birthday as Jesse! That's kinda fun.
Thank you all for writing and sharing fun things about your kids! They sound as adorable as ever. I can't believe that Jude is crawling around! That means he's old and I've been gone a long time. Which reminds me that Mom mentioned my hump day is Nov 17, but it is not. We automatically stay a couple weeks longer in this mission because of the transfer schedule, 9 weeks instead of 6, so my halfway mark is not until Nov 27. It's a minor technicality, so I'm just saying. Which is UNBELIEVABLE. But anyway. And I heard this week that Michael has a goatee. Bleh. That is my opinion of goatees. Haha, I'm teasing, but it's hard to imagine that it looks good :)
And Mom asked what my address here in Zadar is:
Keshia Laws
Stadionska Ulica 66
23000 Zadar
Hrvatska
But try to send most stuff to the mission home, because we don't have a separate mailbox from our neighbors and I don't want anything to get lost or to suddenly move and have my mail in the hands of forgetful missionaries. And our street name may or may not have changed, so that may be confusing. It should be fine, though.
Oh, and THANK YOU PARENTS for the Halloween package! yay! a shirt (it's really cute, I wore it yesterday :)), window decorations, butterfingers, candy corn and candy pumpkins, the bobbleheads were really cute, and now we have mashed potatoes to add to our Thanksgiving dinner! So we have stuffing AND mashed potatoes and it's going to be an American holiday spectacular! And I'm glad I brought it up, because I need to ask how to make a turkey, because we are considering trying. Or we will cook chicken breasts. And hot chocolate! For when it's cold like today is! Yay! Thank you so much. We have a ton of candy and junk which actually makes it feel like it was Halloween, instead of before when we didn't have that. It's great.
So what did I do this week? On Wednesday we went to Zagreb where I got my package and where we picked up some clothes from the two sisters that just left, so I feel like I have a whole new wardrobe because one of them was my size, so that's really fun. Actually it's just three skirts and a sweater, but it still mixes things up enough that I don't feel like I'm wearing the same things everyday. We had zone meeting and it went really well. It's always great to receive inspiration from our mission president! Which reminds me that Mom asked some questions. Here in Zadar there used to be 4 elders but they took two out and put them in another city, so there's only two Elders here with us, it was the same way in Varaždin when I served there, but in Zagreb they have two sisters, and four elders, the zone leaders and another set. Our zone covers all of Croatia, so when we have zone meetings and conferences we go to Zagreb, which is the middle city for everyone and it has the church building so we have somewhere to go, but there isn't a mission office there or anything, here in Zadar Elder Rhodes is both the branch president and the zone leader, and last transfer he was training, too, and the two of them stayed together, so Elder Bachynski is still a newer missionary, but we got one new elder this last transfer, so he's technically the newest. He was all alone in the MTC like I was! It's crazy how that happens! I haven't had a chance to ask him how he liked it, though. Oh, I heard through a grapevine of missionaries that one of my MTC companions, Sister Ganbaatar, finally made it to the czech republic last transfer! If you don't remember, she's from Mongolia and was having a hard time with her visa, she was serving in Utah until it came through. It was fun to hear how she was doing, there's apparently a bunch of Mongolians in the Czech Republic, so she's like the only one who can speak to them. So that's pretty cool.
Anyway, we've spent the week "advertising" for language classes and it sounds like we'll get a lot of students, which should be awesome. We sang Happy Birthday to a little girl and her friend on the street, it was fun, AND we were putting fliers in mailboxes on Friday, it was dark, and we were walking up a driveway because the mailbox was on the side of the house, which is semi-common here, the gate was open so it wasn't like we were breaking and entering or anything, so it was all good, BUT we're halfway up the drive, kinda a longer driveway, and this dog starts barking at us, not a big deal, but it's HUGE and it starts running! And we didn't know if it was on a chain, it must've been because it didn't dig it's teeth into our heels or anything, but we BOLTED. It was really funny, because we like rounded the corner and ran up the street and we're wearing skirts and our bags are flopping around and then we both start laughing. It was a big dog.
On Saturday we made chocolate cake for one of our investigators and had a party for her birthday, that was fun, and we tried sarma! It's like filled peppers but is pickled cabbage instead of pepper and the inside is a little different, and it was pretty good. We were invited to go to a members house with the elders, but we couldn't go so she sent us food home with them, which was really nice. It's so fun to try new things here. Our jack-o-lantern from Halloween melted on our porch, it was really disgusting, food doesn't last as long here as it does in America. It died really fast. Also on Sunday, my companion Sister Dillender was finishing getting ready, we had just finished up the cake, and she put on a long sleeve shirt and a sweater over and I asked her "Are you going to bake in that?" And she said, "Oh, the cake is done" And so I said, "No, are you going to cook in that?" And she said, "Are we having lunch right now?" So I finally had to say, "No, are you going to be hot wearing that??" It was really funny, maybe you'd have to be there. Communication errors are the funniest, especially now that we take everything literally because we're always thinking about saying things in Croatian or hearing Croatian and so everything has to be very literal and straightforward and simple. Anyway, it was funny. We had a really good Sunday yesterday, good church, good testimony meeting!
And that is the whole week!
I hope everyone has another good week and remembers to write to me next Sunday! Just kidding :) Oh, and thanks Kelsey for sharing those scriptures from Job, they were good, and if I remember the reference right I think that Job chapters 30-32 or 30-33 are some of my favorite! But I've never read all of Job all the way through. I keep saying that I'm going to read the Old Testament, but it's hard for me to read. :/ Especially where I am now, in Deuteronomy. And I didn't read any talks this week, surprisingly, but I liked the scripture 1 Peter 3:15 and I was reading through some of the scriptures in the topical guide under "cleave" and I thought it was interesting that it says that Cleave means Join, in the TG, and that all the verses talk either about cleaving to God or cleaving to your spouse. I thought it was interesting word choice! And I liked Jacob 6:5 that goes along with cleaving.
And since Mom asked for a wish list, the only things I can think of right now, which I remembered to write down, was 1. Forgotten Carols CD 2. My Christmas CDs that I left at home and stupidly didn't put on my mp3 player, there's two that are in my CD case that I'm thinking of, and 3. recipe for your chocolate cookies with mint chocolate chips and 4. I sent a camera memory card home when I left the MTC and if you want to send that one back to me, wiped clean of the pictures, then I can send the memory card I have now home, because it has a TON of pictures on it. Those were the only things I wrote down. I'll keep thinking.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK!
LOVE YOU!
VOLIM VAS!
Sestra Laws
So this is how I found out Amelia was having a girl: "we were both a little bummed to find out we weren't getting a boy" --from her e-mail. I read it and then did a double-take, "What? Does that mean she's having a girl?" So, I feel a little left out because it sounds like everyone already knew before that e-mail and I didn't get a "It's a girl!!!" or something was missing from the e-mail. Maybe a sentence got deleted or something.
But-
CONGRATULATIONS! Yay! IT'S A GIRL!
And I think I forgot to say Happy Birthday to Kurt! And then Happy Anniversary to Amelia and Brent. And early Happy Birthday to Jesse, just in case I forget to say next week. My last companion Sister Nelson, has the same birthday as Jesse! That's kinda fun.
Thank you all for writing and sharing fun things about your kids! They sound as adorable as ever. I can't believe that Jude is crawling around! That means he's old and I've been gone a long time. Which reminds me that Mom mentioned my hump day is Nov 17, but it is not. We automatically stay a couple weeks longer in this mission because of the transfer schedule, 9 weeks instead of 6, so my halfway mark is not until Nov 27. It's a minor technicality, so I'm just saying. Which is UNBELIEVABLE. But anyway. And I heard this week that Michael has a goatee. Bleh. That is my opinion of goatees. Haha, I'm teasing, but it's hard to imagine that it looks good :)
And Mom asked what my address here in Zadar is:
Keshia Laws
Stadionska Ulica 66
23000 Zadar
Hrvatska
But try to send most stuff to the mission home, because we don't have a separate mailbox from our neighbors and I don't want anything to get lost or to suddenly move and have my mail in the hands of forgetful missionaries. And our street name may or may not have changed, so that may be confusing. It should be fine, though.
Oh, and THANK YOU PARENTS for the Halloween package! yay! a shirt (it's really cute, I wore it yesterday :)), window decorations, butterfingers, candy corn and candy pumpkins, the bobbleheads were really cute, and now we have mashed potatoes to add to our Thanksgiving dinner! So we have stuffing AND mashed potatoes and it's going to be an American holiday spectacular! And I'm glad I brought it up, because I need to ask how to make a turkey, because we are considering trying. Or we will cook chicken breasts. And hot chocolate! For when it's cold like today is! Yay! Thank you so much. We have a ton of candy and junk which actually makes it feel like it was Halloween, instead of before when we didn't have that. It's great.
So what did I do this week? On Wednesday we went to Zagreb where I got my package and where we picked up some clothes from the two sisters that just left, so I feel like I have a whole new wardrobe because one of them was my size, so that's really fun. Actually it's just three skirts and a sweater, but it still mixes things up enough that I don't feel like I'm wearing the same things everyday. We had zone meeting and it went really well. It's always great to receive inspiration from our mission president! Which reminds me that Mom asked some questions. Here in Zadar there used to be 4 elders but they took two out and put them in another city, so there's only two Elders here with us, it was the same way in Varaždin when I served there, but in Zagreb they have two sisters, and four elders, the zone leaders and another set. Our zone covers all of Croatia, so when we have zone meetings and conferences we go to Zagreb, which is the middle city for everyone and it has the church building so we have somewhere to go, but there isn't a mission office there or anything, here in Zadar Elder Rhodes is both the branch president and the zone leader, and last transfer he was training, too, and the two of them stayed together, so Elder Bachynski is still a newer missionary, but we got one new elder this last transfer, so he's technically the newest. He was all alone in the MTC like I was! It's crazy how that happens! I haven't had a chance to ask him how he liked it, though. Oh, I heard through a grapevine of missionaries that one of my MTC companions, Sister Ganbaatar, finally made it to the czech republic last transfer! If you don't remember, she's from Mongolia and was having a hard time with her visa, she was serving in Utah until it came through. It was fun to hear how she was doing, there's apparently a bunch of Mongolians in the Czech Republic, so she's like the only one who can speak to them. So that's pretty cool.
Anyway, we've spent the week "advertising" for language classes and it sounds like we'll get a lot of students, which should be awesome. We sang Happy Birthday to a little girl and her friend on the street, it was fun, AND we were putting fliers in mailboxes on Friday, it was dark, and we were walking up a driveway because the mailbox was on the side of the house, which is semi-common here, the gate was open so it wasn't like we were breaking and entering or anything, so it was all good, BUT we're halfway up the drive, kinda a longer driveway, and this dog starts barking at us, not a big deal, but it's HUGE and it starts running! And we didn't know if it was on a chain, it must've been because it didn't dig it's teeth into our heels or anything, but we BOLTED. It was really funny, because we like rounded the corner and ran up the street and we're wearing skirts and our bags are flopping around and then we both start laughing. It was a big dog.
On Saturday we made chocolate cake for one of our investigators and had a party for her birthday, that was fun, and we tried sarma! It's like filled peppers but is pickled cabbage instead of pepper and the inside is a little different, and it was pretty good. We were invited to go to a members house with the elders, but we couldn't go so she sent us food home with them, which was really nice. It's so fun to try new things here. Our jack-o-lantern from Halloween melted on our porch, it was really disgusting, food doesn't last as long here as it does in America. It died really fast. Also on Sunday, my companion Sister Dillender was finishing getting ready, we had just finished up the cake, and she put on a long sleeve shirt and a sweater over and I asked her "Are you going to bake in that?" And she said, "Oh, the cake is done" And so I said, "No, are you going to cook in that?" And she said, "Are we having lunch right now?" So I finally had to say, "No, are you going to be hot wearing that??" It was really funny, maybe you'd have to be there. Communication errors are the funniest, especially now that we take everything literally because we're always thinking about saying things in Croatian or hearing Croatian and so everything has to be very literal and straightforward and simple. Anyway, it was funny. We had a really good Sunday yesterday, good church, good testimony meeting!
And that is the whole week!
I hope everyone has another good week and remembers to write to me next Sunday! Just kidding :) Oh, and thanks Kelsey for sharing those scriptures from Job, they were good, and if I remember the reference right I think that Job chapters 30-32 or 30-33 are some of my favorite! But I've never read all of Job all the way through. I keep saying that I'm going to read the Old Testament, but it's hard for me to read. :/ Especially where I am now, in Deuteronomy. And I didn't read any talks this week, surprisingly, but I liked the scripture 1 Peter 3:15 and I was reading through some of the scriptures in the topical guide under "cleave" and I thought it was interesting that it says that Cleave means Join, in the TG, and that all the verses talk either about cleaving to God or cleaving to your spouse. I thought it was interesting word choice! And I liked Jacob 6:5 that goes along with cleaving.
And since Mom asked for a wish list, the only things I can think of right now, which I remembered to write down, was 1. Forgotten Carols CD 2. My Christmas CDs that I left at home and stupidly didn't put on my mp3 player, there's two that are in my CD case that I'm thinking of, and 3. recipe for your chocolate cookies with mint chocolate chips and 4. I sent a camera memory card home when I left the MTC and if you want to send that one back to me, wiped clean of the pictures, then I can send the memory card I have now home, because it has a TON of pictures on it. Those were the only things I wrote down. I'll keep thinking.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK!
LOVE YOU!
VOLIM VAS!
Sestra Laws
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
November 2, 2010
Hi family!
THANK YOU ALL FOR THE FUN PICTURES!
Sounds like everyone had a good Halloween. And we did too! But I'll tell you about it in a second.
First, I'm writing today because yesterday was a holiday here in Croatia, so all the shops were closed. So we couldn't do e-mail, but they're letting us do it today, yay, and our shopping, too. I remember all the weeks that Michael didn't write on time and it was always so sad and frustrating, so SORRY, don't worry! Everything's ok, and we didn't know that we'd be doing e-mail today instead of yesterday until Sunday. Or I would have told you.
My week was good. We got Sister Dillender all settled in here (I can't believe we've only been companions for a week now, this week has been a LONG one)(and short, too, of course, they all are short and long at the same time). On Wednesday we had lunch with Sister Whitaker and her parents, who came to pick her up. She's my trainer and now she's at home! It's kinda weird. Her parents were really nice and brought us beef jerkey, reese's peanut butter cups (which are SOO good. appreciate what you have in America. we have no reese's) and stove-top stuffing! Which we will be using for Thanksgiving! Yay! We don't have any real Thanksgiving plans yet, but I'm sure we'll whip something great together. They asked for my parents phone number, just to call you guys when they get home, and I couldn't remember Mom OR Dad's phone numbers, AT ALL. So I gave them e-mail addresses, I think they'll get home tomorrow so look for an e-mail from them, Mom and Dad. I just thought it was really funny I couldn't remember phone numbers. I know 208-4 something. And that's it. All unused information has completely left my brain.
So on Saturday we had Halloween! We had young women's and carved pumpkins and then we had a branch activity, we didn't dress up for it, but we had lots of food and one of the Elders made a pinata for it (that was indestructible, we had to just open it up) and so that was fun. It wasn't exactly like Halloween because there weren't little kids running around in costumes or too much candy, but we did what we could for it :) And I actually saw a sign in town for a Zadar Halloween party or something, I have no idea where it was or anything, but I thought it was funny because the whole sign was in Croatian except for the word Halloween. They have a name for it, but they just called it Halloween, probably because of American culture influence on it. It was funny to see.
Sunday was good, because Sister Nelson left and Sister Dillender doesn't play the piano and the elders don't either, I played the piano for sacrament meeting! A little weird. It went just fine, though, and the Elders brought over an unused keyboard that they had in their apartment, so I get to practice all week now, and that will be really fun to have a piano at our house, and it wasn't too bad playing for the meeting, because we have a simplified hymns book, so it will all work out! But it's crazy playing the piano in a meeting. It's totally one of those things, if you had spent more time on developing that talent when you actually had the time, then it wouldn't even be a problem now! But it's not too stressful, either.
And yesterday, pday, we went to the graveyard. The holiday is All-Saints Day and everyone goes to the graveyard and leaves flowers and tidies up and so we went and walked around and looked around and took pictures of the cool statues, and then we played games at the church, ping pong, skip-bo, put a puzzle together. It was fun. And a LONG day without e-mailing you all. It was fun, it's cool to have different holidays to celebrate. And then for family home evening that night we played pictionary, which was really fun with the kids that were there.
So that was my WHOLE week. It was good and this next one will probably be better. Oh, tomorrow we're going to Zagreb for zone meeting so I'll get any mail then - so I should finally get the package that Mom sent at the beginning of this month. And it seems like there would be something more that I could ask for, since Mom asked, and I know that sometimes during the week I think, Oh I should ask Mom to send that, but I can't remember ANYTHING whenever I come to e-mail. So it must not be that important anyway. Except I remembered toothpaste. Because it's different here. But you definitely don't have to worry about sending that, I can buy some at the store no problem. I'll think more about it, but really I don't think there's anything. Oh, and because Sister Dillender brought some clothes down to Zadar I have some new things to spice up my getting-old wardrobe selection! Yay! So I'm not even worried about getting new clothes anytime soon.
I can't believe Dad is in Korea, that's like literally the other side of the world from me! Hope you're having fun!
That's all I got, have a great week! Love you all tons!
Sister Laws
(And I'd like to see pictures of Jesse and Michael's Halloweens, too! If you get a chance to send them :))
Here are some pictures!
The first one was more than a week ago when Sister Nelson and I went to Zagreb to pick up my new companion and drop her off! The drive up was SO BEAUTIFUL, all of the trees were changing colors and the mountains were covered with trees, with patches of evergreens and it was all so pretty. So we took a few pictures at the stop we had, it was cold! But Zadar has been mostly sunny and warm still. It sounds like it's kinda like South Carolina, except it started to get colder a couple weeks ago. But it's still sunny and when you're outside walking around all the time all you need is a sweater and maybe a coat at night when it's colder. And long-sleeves in the morning for playing frisbee.
The second one is a view from someone's porch, we were tracting and they weren't home :)
Good picture of Zadar
Then at young women's with my pumpkin!
Sister Dillender with a pumpkin mustache :)
The last one is at the graveyard, tons of flowers, tons of people.
Have a great week!
Sister Laws
THANK YOU ALL FOR THE FUN PICTURES!
Sounds like everyone had a good Halloween. And we did too! But I'll tell you about it in a second.
First, I'm writing today because yesterday was a holiday here in Croatia, so all the shops were closed. So we couldn't do e-mail, but they're letting us do it today, yay, and our shopping, too. I remember all the weeks that Michael didn't write on time and it was always so sad and frustrating, so SORRY, don't worry! Everything's ok, and we didn't know that we'd be doing e-mail today instead of yesterday until Sunday. Or I would have told you.
My week was good. We got Sister Dillender all settled in here (I can't believe we've only been companions for a week now, this week has been a LONG one)(and short, too, of course, they all are short and long at the same time). On Wednesday we had lunch with Sister Whitaker and her parents, who came to pick her up. She's my trainer and now she's at home! It's kinda weird. Her parents were really nice and brought us beef jerkey, reese's peanut butter cups (which are SOO good. appreciate what you have in America. we have no reese's) and stove-top stuffing! Which we will be using for Thanksgiving! Yay! We don't have any real Thanksgiving plans yet, but I'm sure we'll whip something great together. They asked for my parents phone number, just to call you guys when they get home, and I couldn't remember Mom OR Dad's phone numbers, AT ALL. So I gave them e-mail addresses, I think they'll get home tomorrow so look for an e-mail from them, Mom and Dad. I just thought it was really funny I couldn't remember phone numbers. I know 208-4 something. And that's it. All unused information has completely left my brain.
So on Saturday we had Halloween! We had young women's and carved pumpkins and then we had a branch activity, we didn't dress up for it, but we had lots of food and one of the Elders made a pinata for it (that was indestructible, we had to just open it up) and so that was fun. It wasn't exactly like Halloween because there weren't little kids running around in costumes or too much candy, but we did what we could for it :) And I actually saw a sign in town for a Zadar Halloween party or something, I have no idea where it was or anything, but I thought it was funny because the whole sign was in Croatian except for the word Halloween. They have a name for it, but they just called it Halloween, probably because of American culture influence on it. It was funny to see.
Sunday was good, because Sister Nelson left and Sister Dillender doesn't play the piano and the elders don't either, I played the piano for sacrament meeting! A little weird. It went just fine, though, and the Elders brought over an unused keyboard that they had in their apartment, so I get to practice all week now, and that will be really fun to have a piano at our house, and it wasn't too bad playing for the meeting, because we have a simplified hymns book, so it will all work out! But it's crazy playing the piano in a meeting. It's totally one of those things, if you had spent more time on developing that talent when you actually had the time, then it wouldn't even be a problem now! But it's not too stressful, either.
And yesterday, pday, we went to the graveyard. The holiday is All-Saints Day and everyone goes to the graveyard and leaves flowers and tidies up and so we went and walked around and looked around and took pictures of the cool statues, and then we played games at the church, ping pong, skip-bo, put a puzzle together. It was fun. And a LONG day without e-mailing you all. It was fun, it's cool to have different holidays to celebrate. And then for family home evening that night we played pictionary, which was really fun with the kids that were there.
So that was my WHOLE week. It was good and this next one will probably be better. Oh, tomorrow we're going to Zagreb for zone meeting so I'll get any mail then - so I should finally get the package that Mom sent at the beginning of this month. And it seems like there would be something more that I could ask for, since Mom asked, and I know that sometimes during the week I think, Oh I should ask Mom to send that, but I can't remember ANYTHING whenever I come to e-mail. So it must not be that important anyway. Except I remembered toothpaste. Because it's different here. But you definitely don't have to worry about sending that, I can buy some at the store no problem. I'll think more about it, but really I don't think there's anything. Oh, and because Sister Dillender brought some clothes down to Zadar I have some new things to spice up my getting-old wardrobe selection! Yay! So I'm not even worried about getting new clothes anytime soon.
I can't believe Dad is in Korea, that's like literally the other side of the world from me! Hope you're having fun!
That's all I got, have a great week! Love you all tons!
Sister Laws
(And I'd like to see pictures of Jesse and Michael's Halloweens, too! If you get a chance to send them :))
Here are some pictures!
The first one was more than a week ago when Sister Nelson and I went to Zagreb to pick up my new companion and drop her off! The drive up was SO BEAUTIFUL, all of the trees were changing colors and the mountains were covered with trees, with patches of evergreens and it was all so pretty. So we took a few pictures at the stop we had, it was cold! But Zadar has been mostly sunny and warm still. It sounds like it's kinda like South Carolina, except it started to get colder a couple weeks ago. But it's still sunny and when you're outside walking around all the time all you need is a sweater and maybe a coat at night when it's colder. And long-sleeves in the morning for playing frisbee.
The second one is a view from someone's porch, we were tracting and they weren't home :)
Good picture of Zadar
Then at young women's with my pumpkin!
Sister Dillender with a pumpkin mustache :)
The last one is at the graveyard, tons of flowers, tons of people.
Have a great week!
Sister Laws
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