The next one is Elder Schouten pretending to grab the monkey's hand. We think the monkey stuck his hand out because I'd reached my hand up when he was sitting there, because he picked up some food in his cage on the ground and then perched up there. So I was asking him to share. He didn't want to. And then he stuck his hand out. haha.
And the last one is a view of Osijek from the bridge! you can see their cathedral and the river and the "coast" stuff. hotels etc.
ENJOY!
Sister Laws
Today is the first day of AUGUST!! Woohoo!
I was actually writing in my journal yesterday or the day before, and I wrote "it's the last day of July, so now we're going into March... I meant August!" This year has truly flown by. Sister Creager mentioned that next transfer is Halloween and I was like, "WHAT?? We just had Halloween! That felt like yesterday!" And that is true and not at the same time. I really can't believe that it's already the end of the year -ish. Not to mention that it's the end of my mission! Holy crow! Kelsey asked if I've been counting down. Not exactly, but Elder Warren in my district, going home at the same time as me, reminds me often enough of how much time there is left and so I know there are only 5 more weeks. Some days that still seems like a long time and some days it's not. Like today, when I was thinking about it, I realized how fast that is in home-time. That is going to come so fast for you all. For me, too, of course. But for you! That will be like tomorrow. It does seem a little more real now that we're in August. Because this is my last full month. WHELP! Enough trunky talk :)
My week was good. I forgot my planner, so I can't remember everything that happened. Last Monday, I may have mentioned, we spent the whole day working on legal stuff. At the police station etc. Not a very fun pday activity. on Tuesday we had english of course and district meeting. On wednesday, nothing exciting. on Thursday, english class.
on Friday we got lost a little bit. Well, I think my definition of lost is different. Because to me we weren't lost, because I knew where we were and how to get home, but we were looking for a house for a lesson and we couldn't find it and didn't know exactly how to get there. So we weren't lost but we were confused. We rode a new tram (Well, there are only 2 trams in Osijek, so we rode the other one) and we ended up at the end of it, missed our stop. And then wandered around in a circle back to the tram and went home after that. I got ahold of the lady, because she hadn't answered her phone and told her that we were lost and we'd come the next day. Kinda funny.
Saturday was one of those classic missionary days, had a couple of lessons and 2 people told us they didn't want to keep meeting with us and one person just stood us up! But don't worry, I'm not discouraged. Those days happen. It kinda made me happy because I felt like a real missionary :)
Sunday was good. Church. Not as many members came as last week, but still a good number. And they all came like, 5 minutes before sacrament meeting started, so we were worried there wouldn't be anyone! That hasn't happened to me yet on my mission. So that's good.
TODAY we went to the Osijek ZOO! It was pretty fun. It's not exactly like American zoos, the meer cats had a 2-foot fence and we could have reached over and grabbed them out and cuddled with them. I guess if they had let us. A pretty small zoo which was good, because we were all tired by the end of it. The heat and walking and all that. And the zoo is on the othere side of the river, so yes, I walked over the foot bridge! Today was the first day that I did. We've been meaning to check out that side, but haven't gotten around to it. We've also been to a couple of different restaurants that are actually boats floating on the river. It's kinda cool.
And to answer your other question Dad, yes. There actually is a lot of war damage here in Osijek. There are a lot of buildings with bullet holes and they are re-doing a lot of old buildings so they look nice again. Some of the older historical-looking buildings.
And we'll probably go to Vukovar next week! That was really cool what you told me about it. Well, maybe cool isn't the right word for a war. But it's good stuff to know.
(Here's what I told Keshia: You are only about 30 km from Vukovar a prominant city in the Croatian War for Independence. Vukovar was basically bombed to the ground and it has been called the Worst damage to a city in Europe since WWII. 2,000 Croatian defenders held off 36,000 Serb troops for 87 days before being overrun and killed. Another 23,000 civilians went missing or were killed when the city finally fell. They left their heavily damaged water tower standing as a symbol of their losses. 10 km from Vukovar is a town named Ovcara. Some of the Vukovar citizens were taken to Ovcara and were tortured and killed there. They built a memorial in Ovcara for Croatians killed in the war.)
I've been reading in 3 Nephi and one of our lessons this last week a lady brought up a question about baptism and I was able to turn right to 3 Nephi 11 and read her what Christ teaches right when he arrives to the Americas. I thought that was cool. I remembered where it was because I'd just read it. and I found a Ensign from 1985! at the church and I read it this last week one day, and there was a really cool biography about Elder L. Tom Perry. His first wife died 7 months after he was called as an apostle! Crazy huh? And then he got remarried a little more than a year later. And he was talking about how much his parents involved all the kids in church callings, and they'd go clean the church and also with work, and he'd be at his dad's office a lot. And like, how we should involve our families and kids in our callings and work. It was kinda neat. Ooh, and President Harold B Lee (I hope that's the right one) ordained Elder Perry to be a high priest when he was in the quorum of the 12, and he said in the blessing that Elder Perry would be involved in the church's leadership councils or something like that, and Elder Perry was called to the quorum of the 12 when President Lee died! So he basically replaced President Lee. I thought that was pretty cool. I like learning stuff about the apostles. They are cool.
I'm glad that Amelia is getting settled in! I heard from her before she left for Texas but mom and dad mentioned that they'd talked to her. One of them said something about making connections with ward members, maybe job opportunities, and that's awesome! Oh, and I've totally thought about how fun it would be to live with you again, but I probably won't this time :( We'll see.
Jesse congratulations on getting a place! Well, on moving in this weekend hopefully :) New spaces to organize and make homey! so much fun.
Mom, say hi to grandma for me!
I love you all to pieces!
Sister Laws
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