December 27, 2010

Is it only two days after Christmas? It feels like a century!
How is my family since we last talked? I hope good. I hope everyone is enjoying all their Christmas presents and new things and candy. We have SO MUCH candy - we got candy bars, each apiece, from three of the old people we deliver lunches to. And everything delicious and yummy from Mom and Dad! homemade cookies and raspberry and orange sticks and chocolate covered cherries and cinnamon bears and candy canes! I realized when I got the candy canes that I haven't had one all Christmas season! That's another thing they don't do here in Croatia, I guess. And we bought nuts, pistachios and cashews etc. for some holiday spirit - oh, AND we got chocolate from one of our English students. And from zone meeting. And probably more from somewhere else. And the presents! I appreciate the clothes I got, and Sister Dillender liked her sweater that Mom sent her, it does fit and it looks really nice, and my stuff is REALLY cute! Thank you! And I liked the scarf, did you make it Mom? Or someone else? And we did a little gift exchange with the Elders, I got this wood puzzle thing. And we got scarfs from zone meeting. AND at zone meeting we did a white elephant exchange with the sisters - we picked things from our sisters' closet (hideous things that people have left behind) and swapped them up. It was really funny. And we got foot stuff from Amelia. And... there's more. But my brain doesn't work anymore!
It was nice to talk with all of you and hear your voices! Glad that everyone's Christmas was so great.
Yesterday was good - we had church of course and that's about it that's interesting.
And today we're going to Uglijan! That's an island close by, I went to it a couple times right when I got here, Sister Dillender still hasn't been yet and there's a new Elder here, who I actually served with my first transfer, so even though we heard it's supposed to snow we're going! We did hear that, but it's actually really sunny outside. The weathermen weren't right this time.
It's weird not having anything to say! I can't think of much.
Last pday we went to a couple of China shops to buy our exchanges gifts and I had Sister Dillender and I was looking at some keychains. And I asked how much one of them was. And the man said 10 kuna. And I was just standing there thinking, should I get it? Should I get a different one? Would she like it? And he said, you can buy it for 5 kuna. And i said ok! So I bartered for the first time without even saying anything! That was funny. On wednesday we had young women's and made sugar cookies and listened to Christmas music. That was fun. They actually played the Josh Groban CD, I thought of that when Mom said she listened to it for some Christmas spirit. Oh and I also thought it was funny that Nyah wanted and got a electric helicopter, because one of the Elders got two of them! Actually one for him and one for his companion, and they brought it to the church and flied them all day long. I tried it out and it was actually pretty hard! Well, inside our small church was harder than it would be outside of course. And on Christmas we had a really good dinner - turkey breasts and mashed potatoes and green beans. Simple and yummy. We didn't eat the trix Christmas morning because we had a french toast extravaganza! But we're looking forward to eating that, probably tomorrow. This morning we had our weekly pday eggs extravaganza!
So that's all I have to say I think! Everyone have a great week! Love you tons!
Sister Laws
Oh, and Mom, I didn't get a letter from you at zone meeting :/ I already told president in my weekly letter to him that you said you wrote one so to check out if it came to the right place and it was just missed. But if you would like to resend it straight to me that would work, too! Love you!

PICTURES!!
The first one is from Wednesday, we went by the sea for lunch! It was REALLY pretty!
Christmas Eve, we walked around the old city section (poluotok) and took pictures of all the decorations and everything.

On Christmas morning!

On Christmas morning, we propped our cameras up on the couch and put them on timer!

December 20. 2010

MERRY CHRISTMAS CHARLIE BROWN!
Do not worry, there has been no watching of movies here, but we did hear our landlord upstairs the other night watching Home Alone! We could just hear the music for it.
IT'S CHRISTMAS IN ZADAR!
Why?
Well, on Friday we had our last English class of the transfer, and some of our students surprised us by giving us GIFTS! Yay! One lady gave us a scarf (mine is a light pink) with puffy balls on the ends and gloves, and a Christmas gigantic muffin to share with the Elders, and one guy brought us a box of chocolates, and another lady, who we started to teach a little bit, gave us each a picture that her cousin drew of a famous place here in Zadar, AND a book of the Psalms in Croatian, which is SO nice and awesome. And THEN it started TO SNOW!!!!!! WE GOT SNOW!!!!! It was SO SO much fun! This whole winter, whenever we ask, people have told us that Zadar doesn't get snow, and then on Wednesday one of the Spanish students told us that it was supposed to snow on Friday and we all thought, Sure. It won't. And it didn't all day, and someone told us it was snowing in Sibenik, which is about an hour and a half away, but we still didn't think it would and then we were reviewing everything we had taught in English with our students and Sister Dillender saw the snow start outside and said "snijeg pada!" and we all got excited and it didn't come down very hard during the class and everyone left and then while we were waiting for the Spanish students to come me and Sister Dillender sat by the big window around a space heater and sang Christmas songs with all the lights out except for the Christmas tree lights in the background and it started falling harder and then little neighborhood kids came waddling out in all their winter clothes and threw snowballs at each other... and THEN, since none of the Spanish students came to class, we got to walk home in it, and we were all bundled up because we thought it would rain, at least, so I was wearing boots and winter coat, and we dropped everything off at home and went outside and took pictures! And made snowballs and tried to hit a trashcan with them, and walked around in it. So PICTURES are on the way for sure and it was SO MUCH FUN.
That was Friday. And on Saturday we had our branch Christmas party. We had a really nice dinner and we made gingerbread houses out of these wafer thingies, and some less-active and non-members came so there were lots of people, really fun, and on Sunday we had our Christmas program for sacrament meeting! The story of the Christmas program: I knew I would have to pick out the music because I'm the piano player here. So I did that. But until Saturday morning we didn't have ANYTHING for the actually speaking parts. So we went early before the activity and met the Elders at the church, and we showed them the scriptures that we had picked out that morning in companionship study, and there was just no thinking happening at all, so we didn't get anything written, had the Christmas party, so Sunday MORNING I woke up early and WROTE our Christmas program. It wasn't a final edition, it was scribbled out and there were arrows all over and not everything is translated. Go to church early, the Elders are there, we ask, Do we need to re-write this or is it legible enough?? I'm making copies of songs that I need so I don't have to juggle four different books, because I had to take songs from the semi-easy edition, the real edition, the easy edition, and the Croatian primary book, and getting a member who knows English really well to help me with translating a couple parts and we haven't divvied out the parts or anything until the meeting is starting late, no one is playing prelude music, I sit down and realize, that I haven't practiced these songs that I learned in the last week for 24 HOURS, so I'm like, oh this will be interesting... AND IT WAS GOOD! The members like to sing, I used some of the piano music that Mom sent me for a couple of short musical numbers, which, during one of them one of the papers kept falling so I was looking at it upside down trying to play it for a second until one of the Elders straightened it and it fell again, but I was past that part by that point, and we had scriptures and thoughts and it WAS legible, so we survived! Christmas program, check.
So what else did I do this week? I got elbowed in the face during frisbee, no split skin no stitches and NO visible bruise yay, we are doing 12 days of Christmas for the Elders. So far we've given them 1 chocolate candy bar, 2 packs of gum, 3 bags of popcorn, 4 oranges, 5 lollipops, 6 beunos (that's a candy-bar type thing here) and 7 chicken nuggets, we thought we could do the first half serious and nice and the second half things like 8 pez and 11 teaspoons of chocolino (a baby-food here that everyone eats, not just babies). So that should be fun. We've just been leaving everything on their porch, but last night we doorbell ditched because we didn't want their chicken nuggets left out all night. It was fun to doorbell ditch again! Its been a while. One day we had to eat lunch at the church because the power in our house was out (they were doing some kind of work on it, so they had to cut the power, which meant no heater, which meant freezing) so we ordered pizza and watched some of the churches Christmas films, that are really short (Mr. Krueger's Christmas, Nora's Christmas) so I guess there has been film-watching. But those are mission-appropriate. That was fun. And another night there was some REALLY loud thunder and bright lightning, it woke us up, but it was over by the time we woke up for the day. It was right above us and the thunder was RIGHT after the lightning, it was crazy. Oh, and I saw the coolest thing last night! The moon was glowing and around the glow was a rainbow! That's the first time I've seen that, Sister Dillender said she's seen it before, but it was so cool! And yesterday we went over to a member's house for lunch, it was yummy. soup, pototoes, and turkey. good stuff.
AND THAT WAS MY WHOLE WEEK.
This week: we have zone conference, so we'll be in Zagreb on Thursday for some fun Christmas times, on Christmas Eve we're going caroling to some of our old people that we carry lunches to, on Christmas I'll be hearing from you all! We're doing a gift exchange between us and the Elders and we've managed to keep it a secret who we have! So we'll have to do that sometime. It will be a GREAT week. Oh, and Mom you never said there was a package coming straight to me, but no it hasn't come yet. Thank you! I hope it's great. Oh, and I don't know what I put in your phone but it's "dobar dan" instead of dobro, they both mean good but it just has to match up with gender, since dan is a masculine word. I'm glad to hear that everything is going alright with Grandma. Hope everyone has a great Christmas and lots of fun with the little kids crawling and running around, and gets good presents and enjoys good company, and good health!
LOVE YOU ALL! čujemo se!
Keshia

And I forgot to tell you, I read Esther this morning in the old testament. It was a good book. I like the part where the King asks Haman (??I can't remember his name, he's the bad guy) what should I do for the man I want to honor? And he thinks to himself "Who would the king want to honor more than myself!" and tells him to do this big elaborate thing and it's not even for him! So funny.
And I randomly flipped open to somewhere in 1 kings, I think. It's a story about a king wanting the farm of somebody, and when the guy says no, the King goes home and lays on his bed and won't eat or get dressed or anything, basically he's pouting, and the queen comes and says don't be a baby, I'll get you the land. And she has the owner killed and the king goes to get the land and then ELIJAH the tishbite comes and the king says "so my enemy has found me" and Elijah says, "yes, I have" and then curses him for doing what he did! the actual story is better, of course, because I'm major paraphrasing it.
And I read a really good talk in an Ensign, by Elder Bednar called "Quick to Observe" (December 06 Ensign) he talks about the spiritual gift of being quick to observe, and also the gift of discernment. And how the gift of discernment has four parts: recognizing hidden error and evil in others, recognizing when we have that in ourselves (like the influences of a bad spirit) recognizing the good in others and bringing it out, and recognizing the good in ourselves! I thought the recognizing the good part was nice, because whenever I think about the gift of discernment (which is not often) I think about the bad part. It was a good article.
And I read Joel, and I liked Joel 3 : 10. You'll have to read it to find out what it says!
SRETAN BOŽIĆ! LOVE YOU!

I almost forgot about pictures!
The first one was Sister Dillender's idea. She wanted to send pictures home for everybody for Christmas, but didn't want to spend too much money, so she made the Sretan Božić sign and we took pictures by the sea last p-day! It was a really nice sunny day, but super cold, too!



Next, in the snow!


And finally our snowman! It's from the snow on our porch, which wasn't very much.


SRETAN BOŽIĆ
Have a merry and white Christmas!
These are pictures from around Zadar!
I hope I haven't sent them before :)

Pictures

This is hard to see because a couple p-days ago we went to these "caves" we heard about from some other missionaries. I don't know what purpose this place served in it's time, but it reminded me a little bit of a bomb bunker, because they were man-made and way abandoned. And CREEPY. We got one room in and SPLIT out of there pretty fast, I stepped in a pile of poo while we were in there and it looked like bums used to live there (we hope that they didn't still live there) and we joked about finding a dead body or catching leprosy while we were there. Don't worry, we really left really really fast. And no one would have messed with us because Elder Bachynski is seven feet tall. So we were safe. And it was creepy. :) That's Elder Rhodes and Sister Dillender in the picture.

This one with me and the cake is a funny story because one of the ladies from our last english class is coming again this transfer, and Sister Nelson told her that her birthday was the 16th of November and she said, That's my birthday too! And so Sister Nelson got transferred away, lala, and the lady brought cake for us! For Sister Nelson's birthday! Even though she's not here! So we got to eat her birthday cake. It was really good.

Thanksgiving pictures!
One of my plate of food before, and then me with it AFTER.


Our Pies!

This last picture is from this morning on our way to Internet! The Pope on his donkey-pulled wagon!

December 13, 2010

Hi family!
First off, thanks for all the information on the holidays that could have been the pope in the wagon, I'm betting on St. Nicholas Day just because of where we are, but I didn't remember to ask anyone about it! Maybe I'll remember this week. It was fun to read all the info on holidays, it's fun to learn about!

Second off, recipe for rolls:
2 C warm water
2 Tbl yeast
7 C sifted flour
1/2 C sugar
2 tsp salt
4 Tbl shortening
2 eggs

Dissolve yeast in water, add 3 1/2 C flour, 1/4 C sugar and 1 ts salt into water and yeast. Stir well. In a separate bowl use a beater to mix 4 Tbl shortening and eggs. Add that to the water and flour mixture, then add 3 1/2 C flour, 1/4 C sugar and 1 tsp salt. Let raise 2 hours. Make balls and put into greased pan, let raise another 2 hours. Bake 10-20 minutes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit and baste with butter!
If it's wrong, that might be because I wrote it down in my planner and my abbreviations are a little confusing. But I'm pretty sure that's right.

Third off, THANK YOU FOR THE PICTURES!! I got so many this week from Amelia and Kelsey. It was so fun to see how big Tylie is and how cute Kelsey's whole family is.

Fourth off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUSTIN. This isn't in order of importance, Justin, so sorry you're number 4 on the list.

Fifth: this week was GREAT. We got three new investigators! That's a really good week, since we haven't had any new investigators in a while! Yay! All three are women and all three are really great. Hopefully we get some Christmas miracles!
Also, we had interviews with President on Tuesday, so he came down from Slovenia to Zadar. It was really nice and FUN to see him and have a conversation! Just because it's been awhile since we've had any meetings and haven't been to Zagreb! But we have zone conference next week. Anyway, it was a good day. He's a really inspired leader!
It's been mostly rainy and FREEZING, but today is sunny. It has gotten really cold, I've worn my winter coat almost every day for the last week and a half and I'm so glad I brought it! I was started to think that I would never use it! It can be annoying, with the rain, because it might be sunny in the morning, but the weather changes so fast here, a couple times this week we got caught somewhere without an umbrella! Because it didn't look like rain when we left, but a storm rolled in, luckily we borrowed an umbrella from an investigator one day, and the other day we borrowed one from the church.
We're making plans for Christmas! Which means that we're juggling ideas like "go to mass" with "take pictures of all the decorations all over town," and it will be really fun when we actually get to it! On Saturday for young womens we decorated the church and it was really fun, we put up a Christmas tree and made paper snowflakes and listened to Christmas music. And this Saturday we're going to have a Christmas Activity, which means dinner and fun at the church with the members. And then Sunday is our Christmas program during Sacrament meeting, which means we need to plan and prepare for BOTH of those things. Ha ha, which means that I need to learn all the Christmas hymns! And all that jazz. So it's going to be a busy couple of weeks. Which is GREAT.

This morning I started to read a talk by... a guy from the Presiding Bishopbric, can't remember his name, from the general conference Ensign and so far it is SO good! It's on faith and he was saying "Choose Faith" it actually might be called that, I can't remember. And I'm also reading in the Book of Mormon about when Christ came to the Americas and that's really good. The Book of Mormon is AWESOME.

I'm glad that everyone has been traveling safely (Amelia) and future travelers (Jesse and family and Mom) I hope everything goes well for Mom (in SD, with your Mom) and I'm happy to hear everyone is happy and well! Do something nice for somebody else this week!
LOVE
Sister Laws

oh, and for Christmas calls, Dad you'll have to call me at 8 or 9 Christmas morning, your time, so tell me which one would work better for you next week!

December 06, 2010

Hi family!
On the way here today we saw the FUNNIEST thing! There was a donkey pulling a wagon, and there was a guy dressed up as a Pope in the back handing out candy to people, and there was a devil behind him who was like, whacking people with this whip thing after they got candy, well, older people, not kids, it was the most bizarre thing. We have no idea what it was for, or if it's an annual thing or just some weirdos doing it, and then we're walking behind it and the wagon stopped. And the devil was out doing something, and then the wagon started again and the Pope fell out of the wagon and nearly landed on his back, he saved himself somehow, but it was so funny, and then he got back in and the devil got back on behind him, and the wagon started, and the Pope almost fell out again, and he would have but the devil guy caught him. It was the most random thing ever! It was so funny. We'll figure out what it was all about and write next week. Maybe the members know what it was. So funny.
So I'm happy to hear everyone had a good week! One of the funnest things here is everyone is putting up Christmas decorations, like the mall and on the streetlights and everywhere. It's so fun! Sister Dillender said, and I agree, that with Croatia being predominately Catholic, at least they do Christmas! And it seems like they do it big, based on all the decorations that are going up, so I'm excited for that. Thanks for sending my Christmas package, if it gets to the mission home before Christmas then I'll for sure get it, because we have a zone conference in Zagreb on the 23rd! It should be really fun to see everyone so close to Christmas! And I think we're doing a white elephant gift exchange, so that will be fun, too.
Last p-day we walked out to a new mall that opened. It was pretty lame. Most of it was clothes and most of those weren't mission-appropriate, so it's not like we could go shopping, and we didn't take money with us just so we WOULDN'T buy anything. But I got a cool toys catalog that doubles as a advent calendar, so that's been fun.
On Tuesday we had a lesson set up with an inactive member and we decided to take a bus, because it's a little far, so I rode an in-city bus for the first time in Zadar! We've done trams in Zagreb, but I haven't done buses here yet. I got SO car sick and then I started to hyperventilate and then I was freaking out that I couldn't stop feeling sick or stop hyperventilating, even though I was trying really hard to focus on my breathing! And then the member cancelled so the whole thing was a flop, but it was cool to experience it. Next time I'll sit closer to the front or something. Also on Tuesday we went trakting, and we looked at the last name on the doors, because people have their last names on a plaque on their door in apartment buildings, and we looked it up in the dictionary to see if it meant anything, and if it did we tried to come up with something to say that went along with it. There were a lot of names that don't mean anything but the few that do were fun to try. And luckily none of those people answered, because we had last names like "Marinović" and the closest word is "marinirati" which means to marinate. So we thought we could say something like, "We're like meat, and when we soak up the gospel then we're better" and "kovać" which means "blacksmith" so we thought "we're all like metal, and God is the blacksmith..." Like I said, it's a good thing none of those people answered the door!
On Wednesday it was raining SO SO hard! The street we always walk down had a ton of puddles and there was one street with a big dip that was flooded, people were driving on the sidewalk to get by. And for English class we taught (and learned) a bunch of Christmas-related words like "magarec" means donkey, and "jasle" -- manger. It was really fun. One of the students is an older lady, and we were asking how to say Christmas tree in Croatian and she thought we were asking what it WAS. And one of the other students said, "do you have that in your church?" And she was like, "No, they don't have it" and I said, "Yes we do! Yeah! Christmas tree!!" I thought it was funny, sometimes they think that we're so different that we wouldn't even have a Christmas tree, or celebrate Christmas, but we're not! We're almost normal people. Haha, just kidding, that's a joke the Elders told us. They said they were on a lesson and one of them said, "We're almost normal people" and his companion was like, "we ARE normal!" So we ARE. We're just a bunch of normal people here.
Nothing special on Thursday.
On Friday during English class we were teaching traveling words, like airport and passport, and I wrote "backage" on the board instead of "baggage" and I didn't notice for 5 minutes! And then I was looking at it and was like, that looks wrong... oh! dumb! It's weird the mistakes I make nowadays. It was really funny. And also on Friday Sister Dillender and I started writing secret notes in cyrillics! They aren't secret of course, but we're having fun re-learning cyrillics! We both learned in the MTC, but haven't used it since. So that's fun.
Saturday nothing exciting. And Sunday we had a kinda crazy church day, because one of the members was asking why we were going to sing a Christmas carol during sacrament meeting, she didn't know if it was appropriate and made a little bit of a big deal about it, but I was like, we've got to sing that because I only learn how to play so many songs in a week! I can't just whip out a different one! But I didn't have to say that because it rolled over pretty fast. I was thinking, What could be wrong with singing "Oh come all ye faithful"?? But it all turned out. And we're going to have a Christmas program the Sunday before Christmas! I'm so excited! That basically means that we, as missionaries, need to plan something that I, as the piano player, can work with. And we only have 6 Christmas hymns translated into Croatian, so we'll see what we can throw together! It's going to be so great!

It was great to hear from everyone this week! I'm happy to hear that Mom and Dad had fun being "seven swans a swimming" and that Kelsey doesn't need the doctors to put her kids' shoulders back into place, that sounds a little gruesome. Oh, and thanks Kelsey for sharing the words of "Be Still My Soul" That's one of my favorite hymns, too! My favorite line is "Be Still my Soul, The waves and winds still know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below" because God is really in control of everything that happens, even when our lives are crazy, we don't need to worry because he's in control of the winds and waves and those are a lot bigger and more out of control than we are! It makes more sense in my head than on paper anyway. Mom requested the rolls recipe that we used for Thanksgiving, I will be happy to share next week! I hope I remember to bring it.

Thanks for all the love, support, and news! Love you all!
Sister Laws


I'm sending lots of pictures because I meant to a couple weeks ago and didn't have my camera cord with me!

The one with me and the cake is a funny story because one of the ladies from our last english class is coming again this transfer, and Sister Nelson told her that her birthday was the 16th of November and she said, That's my birthday too! And so Sister Nelson got transferred away, lala, and the lady brought cake for us! For Sister Nelson's birthday! Even though she's not here! So we got to eat her birthday cake. It was really good.

And then the other one is hard to see because a couple p-days ago we went to these "caves" we heard about from some other missionaries. I don't know what purpose this place served in it's time, but it reminded me a little bit of a bomb bunker, because they were man-made and way abandoned. And CREEPY. We got one room in and SPLIT out of there pretty fast, I stepped in a pile of poo while we were in there and it looked like bums used to live there (we hope that they didn't still live there) and we joked about finding a dead body or catching leprosy while we were there. Don't worry, we really left really really fast. And no one would have messed with us because Elder Bachynski is seven feet tall. So we were safe. And it was creepy. :) That's Elder Rhodes and Sister Dillender in the picture.

Thanksgiving pictures! One of my plate of food before, and then me with it AFTER, our pies, and lastly my Thanksgiving Thankful Plate!

And the last picture is from this morning on our way to Internet! The Pope on his donkey-pulled wagon!


Hi parentals!
Our President said that we won't be using skype this time.
And my number is, in its completeness, country code and all, 011 385 91 444 8096

That being said we still haven't decided if we're calling you or you're calling us, or when.
Actually, I think you'll have to call me. Does that work and can we still be on a conference call? Because I'm pretty sure that I can't call everybody like Michael did that one year. So would it work?
Let me know what you think is best. Other than that I have no updates for calling. I'll let you know next week!

I really liked your e-mails this week, I thought Mom's was especially funny. What with the 7 swans a swimming and the aliens being possessed, and for some reason I thought the story of Michael with the stocking was REALLY funny. I'm good with my old stocking, so you don't need to buy me one. It's "grown-up" enough for me! Thanks for asking! And thanks for sending my package, I'm so excited to see what I got! Just like any other Christmas! Oh, and that recipe Mom sent looks like it would be good, too, thanks. I think we'll try it out!

Have a great week!
Lots and lots of lots of love!
Keshia