More Pictures!

So, here are more pictures from the Elder. I am going to include his own captions that he wrote on the back of the pictures. Just a side note...His dad's birthday is on Sunday (happy b-day, Phil! :) ) and P.J. sent the sweetest letter to his dad. It's too personal to share here, but it was awesome. Even though we are happy he is serving a mission, I will admit that we have missed him almost-freakishly a lot! Now, in his own words....

My district...We're small. We call ourselves, "District Sef (boss)," but we're actually 14A. Note the Mission-appropriate separation gap?

The back half of my room. I'm on the bottom bunk. And no, that's not my stuff everywhere; I'm actually being rather clean.

These desks bite (last word changed to make blog appropriate)! So we were happy when.... (next picture)
someone dropped off 2 awesome desks which have huge surfaces, a shelf, and padded, rolling, and reclining chairs. Everyone keeps saying that they're gonna steal them. There was just a note on them saying, "From your friendly neighborhood Spiderman." We were so excited, we were freaking out for a few minutes!

There are more pictures, but since pictures are rare from the Elder, I'm saving some of them for future posts. Here is another e-mail from him from later on Tuesday:

So I'm back on......

I don't think I have a whole lot of questions for you guys. I'm glad that my visa finally got sent off....I was starting to think that I'd be here forever.

Just some stuff that I found out about slovenia from my teachers:

We have 12 missionaries there right now (6 elders and 6 sisters) assuming that Elder S and I get there before anyone goes home, we'll make it 14. The missionaries are in Ljublijana, Kranj, Celje, and Maribor. They used to be in Nevo Mesto, but after over a year and a half, they couldn't get any baptisms or any members to show committment, so they shut it down about a year and a half ago.

Supposedly outside of Celje, it's all green rolling hills and people build their homes into the hills. Sis. K said it's like tracting in the shire from lord of the rings. Supposedly the food is pretty good. I heard they dont know how to season or sweeten their food, but i'll deal as long as it's not pig intestine like Brett in Romania.

Some news about the mission: We met the grandmother of one of the AP's in the mission. She recognized the language on the nametag and started telling us about the mission. Supposedly the mission is about to open two new contries. There are sr. missionaries setting up apartment rentals and church rental spaces in Montenegro and there are rumors about Bosnia. So that would make 5 countries total in one mission (slovenia, croatia, serbia, montenegro, and bosnia). Dont worry.....I'll still be in Slovenia. All of those other languages except for Slovene are pretty similiar, but Slovene's different enough that it would be too much of a hassle.

Some weird stuff about the language:

Slovene congugates based on singular, plural, and dual....which (bites) big time. So if I were to say, "I am" (jaz sem), if there are two of us I would say, "we are" (midva sva), and if there are three or more I say, "we are" (mi smo). And it's like that for 1st 2nd and 3rd person. A bit of a pain. But Slovene also doesn't have a word for "of". So much of the language is based on context and the case endings on certain words. Like Church of Jesus Christ: Cerkev Jezusa Kristusa. Since the implied non-existant "of" is after church, it turns Jezus Kristus into Jezusa Kristusa.....We have a lot of memorazation to go. I think I have the hang of conjugation, but the cases and word order need some work.

There's some more basic info. I look forward to hearing from you. And I'll email you later to let you know which apostles show up tonight.

Love you and miss you a bunch,

P.J.

Elder Holland and Elder Nelson spoke at the devotional. It was way cool. And Elder Nelson dedicated 5 new buildings here as well. It´s not weird about the emails. They thought it was a good idea. And I dont mind if you read the blessing, since if I hadnt been lame and waited you would have been there anyways. I better get off....it´s almost time to get off to bed. we got to cut the devotional line because we have an international companion. They try and give them a chance to see church leadership up close. I love you a bunch and wish you luck with work. By the way, I sent dad something in the mail today for his birthday. I hope it´s there by Sunday