Sister Laws: 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.