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