January 10, 2011

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLIVIA!
And happy first step to Jude! That's really cool - he's growing up so fast! I hope, Jesse, that Justin does get his promotion quickly and that you guys can move out to your own place! That would be awesome. And I hope that everyone has a great week this week. Mom, thanks for letting me know about the package on the way. I'm sorry to say that there's little likelihood that I would get it before my birthday, but that doesn't bug me! Because I got 4 Christmas packages this week and it felt like Christmas again! So I'm sure my birthday will feel like my birthday, even if it doesn't come on my birthday. :D

So MY week: I GOT 4 CHRISTMAS PACKAGES! Yay! Christmas again! The elders had a meeting up at the mission home so they brought all our mail here to us. Thank you Amelia, for the stuff you sent my companion. She is really grateful for the foot stuff and said just this morning that her feet already feel smoother and better. (I'm grateful, too, but I haven't used any of it yet, my feet are smooth enough for now, lol i'm kidding, but it will mostly come in useful in the summer, my feet were pretty calously in the summer) That was a good idea. Thank you, Kelsey, for the two packages! I'm excited for the food, because food is ALWAYS great, and for my new journal! I bought a dinky little journal here because I finished my last one a couple weeks before Christmas, and I am GLAD to have a new one - and my companion is, too, because she whips through journals pretty fast. So yay! My last package was from my friend Alicia, she was my roommate at SUU, and she's getting married! That's pretty crazy, because the last time I heard from her she didn't even have a boyfriend! So it's all happened in the traditional Utah style - fast and meant to be! She's getting married in March in the St. George temple, too bad I won't get to go :( It was good to hear from her.
OH! And I almost forgot to say that I got Mom's package that we've been expecting at our house! It came Wednesday at the same time as a package for Sister Dillender full of reese's peanut butter cups and butterfingers! yum! and THANK YOU PARENTS! That's such a neat calendar! For those of you who don't know, which is probably none of you, Mom and Dad sent me a calendar with pictures of them on all the months! I haven't seen most of those pictures! It is so fun to look through - I especially like looking at the wedding pictures. You both look so happy! And Dad looked just like Michael when he was younger, and Kelsey's kids look like the few pictures that are of her in it, and Tylie looks like Amelia when she was a baby, and and and! It's great! Thank you! And the magazines are fun, too! And I just remembered, so I'll say it right now, I found the music for that song from the primary them this year, Mom, I have it in my stuff from the MTC, so if you haven't sent it don't worry about it! I haven't played it out on the piano yet, though, so I'll have to wait to tell you if I like it. But I'm sure I'll like it. AND if you don't mind sending me in an e-mail the music for that Did you Think to Pray? piece I played in sacrament meeting once, I can print it off from here and then maybe we can have a musical number for sacrament meeting! That would be great. OH and THANK YOU Dad for sending me those couple of talks about justice and mercy and thanks Mom, for what you said about it, too! That's a BIG help! I started to write my talk yesterday, but I still have no idea what I'm going to say! So you are officially lifesavers! Which was already obvious.

Some of the best things that happened this week other than all that:
Sister Dillender and I have been joking about "what if another war starts in Croatia and we have to be evacuated, what will we take with us if we get a call that says we have a half hour to get to the bus station" (it takes 20 minutes to walk there, so half an hour doesn't leave us much time) - this may not seem funny, but we made a list that we will put on our door (called the End of the World Kit) - mostly included is passport, a change of clothes, journals, and a second list that has things that we would HAVE to have if we had the space and time, mainly chocolate, flash cards for learning words on the bus, and other useless stuff, that was really fun to make and talk about. AND we've been joking about "what if a monster came around the corner right now? what would you do?" and "what if a t-rex walked down the street?" and the best one: "what if a monster came around the corner AND a t-rex walked down the street at the SAME time?" Which is quite a dilemma, because you have to run away from the monster, but if you move the t-rex will see you! I think we're maybe a little desperate for entertainment, and maybe even a little bored because all the lessons we set up last Sunday fell through this week. and THEN we were on the top floor of a really tall building last night, a building that the elders said you could go out on the roof and see a nice view of Zadar, so we checked the door and there was a lock, but there was a whole in the door so we were peeking through, and then Sister Dillender said maybe the lock isn't actually doing anything, and pulled on the lock, and a MONSTER attacked the door from the outside! And I'm not sure if I grabbed Sister Dillender's arm and pulled her with me or if she just followed, but I BOLTED and we were in the elevator cowering and heading downstairs in two seconds flat! And in all honesty we still have no idea what made the noise that made me think there was a monster outside. So it could have killed us.

AND this week I got my first ever referral! It's a really funny story, a member named Sanja Kolega gave us the address of her sister-in-law who had a surgery, and she said maybe her sister-in-law is more humble now because of her circumstances and the surgery, so you can go over and try to teach her. So we go to the place, we find the building 20A and go up to the second floor and see the name Kolega on the door, which is exactly what we were looking for! We knock and a lady asks who is it, without opening the door, Sister Dillender says "we're missionaries and Sanja sent us here to see if you needed help" and we hear the lady walking away and the tv turns on! She didn't say anything and just walked away! So we're like, that's too bad and really rude. But we leave a note on the back of an english flier for her in her mailbox, that just says we would love to help with anything and our phone number. So we decide to stuff english-class fliers in mail boxes (because we're starting classes this week) and walk around these garages that separate the buildings we were at with another set of buildings. And what do we see? We see number 20A Put Murata! Which was the street we were looking for - even though we were already on that street. So we go in, we check the mailboxes and see a Kolega, we go up to the second floor and it's the right Kolega and we went to the wrong building! So we knock, a lady asks who it is through the door, we say that Sanja sent us we'd like to help with anything and what does she say? That she doesn't have time and walks away. So we leave the same note in her box and hopefully she calls us sometime. The best thing that happened was the next day the first lady Kolega CALLS us and says that we left a letter in her box and she doesn't know a Sanja Kolega. Which was really nice. It was a really funny experience.

This morning we cleaned the house, which was nice, and included finishing laundry, cleaning the shower and toilet, and bathroom in general, sweeping and mopping the floors, and doing the dishes, and did not include taking down Christmas decorations. We still have ours up even though it's tradition in Croatia to take down the tree on Three Kings Day, we asked a couple people what you do to celebrate three kings day and they said basically nothing, that it's just a holiday. So that's cool. And we had a good Sabbath day yesterday and will probably have a GREAT week this week.

I'm sure you'll all enjoy yourselves! Love you tons!
Sister Laws

Oh- and I found a new favorite scripture a couple weeks ago, I don't think I ever said! It's 3 Nephi 21: 9-10. And I read James 4:14 a couple days ago, also good.
LOVE YOU!