Moonshine?!?

Hello to my family!!!!!!!!!

So these emails this week all had a ton of news, just because I learned so much...no sarcasm.  

So ya....ugh...J*** and the collarbone sends shivers down my spine....body's aching all the time...too late... (Babylon! Get out of my head, right? ;))  [In reference to his friend, who is serving a mission in Portland, Oregon, who ran into a car while riding his bike and broke his collarbone  -P.J.'s broken his 3 times and knows the pain well.]

And thanks for turning my dad (your husband) into a gay man....I'm a little embarrassed. But ya...I don't know if I’d go around bragging about the whole experience.  [In reference to his parents getting pedicures...It's a life-changing experience, I tell you...go try it....REALLY!]

1. They would probably need a cheese grater on my feet . They are constantly peeling in some spots, blisters in other spots, and then giant callouses in the spots where other blisters used to be....It's pretty much a foot party all the time.

2. I know how awesome the wax is! When I got my haircut at the boardroom with the gift certificate (the $50 haircut) from work for Christmas, they did a parafin   hand wax dip....the same stuff they did on your feet. Wasn't it amazing? I don't even use the word "amazing", yet I still just did. It was that good. 

It sounds like it was a pretty good experience for you though. But ya, I'm not sure if I can picture you with painted nails...weird.

So I definitely did not know that M***** was even pregnant, but that's cool. Number 9...good luck to them. And I also had no idea that C*** was in Tennessee. I was assuming that he was in Argentina. I didn't even know that he was getting held up on Visa stuff. That's the cool thing about Croatia. You can come without a visa. Speaking of Visa's...guess who still doesn't have one and has until June 10th until he's illegal in the country of Croatia and has the chance of getting kicked out. Ready to make your guesses? ME!!!!!!!!

Okay...so don't freak out. I'm hoping I get it in time. But since I was going to be going to Slovenia, I had all of my stuff in Slovene, but I need it in Hrvatski...So V, our attorney in Zagreb that the church uses, is supposed to translate my paperwork, but she took forever to get a hold of. So hopefully it will get done. If not, I still have 3 other countries in the mission that I could get banished to if things don't get taken care of ;). Doesn't that sound like me? Uh.... I can put it off....things will work out.....I still have a couple of weeks.....who cares.....So…

Please tell me that you punched that Wal-Mart guy in the throat and said, "only knuckle sandwiches, buddy!" Okay...maybe not the line because it's way cheesy, but I hope you at least punched him. "Lean pockets.... Looks like somebody is taking care of their figure....or something like that" [In reference to an obnoxious checker who commented on the deli meat I was buying by saying, "Wow...Looks like someone at your house is a professional sandwich maker."  Pet Peeve of mine...checkers commenting on my purchases]

Ya. I'm excited for the box to see what it is. And Little Debbie, I can go without. I haven't had much of a sweet tooth lately, anyways.  

1.  How goes the teaching?

 It's going all right right now. We had an investigator return, A***, that hasn't been meeting with missionaries for like 6 months. Some ding dongs offended her and she stopped meeting, but we ran into her on the street, and said that we would like to meet with her. (Elder B**** recognized her) She agreed. She likes to talk a lot. She's older, of course, but she's way nice and she loves coming to church. She came to church for like 6 weeks before she stopped coming, so all of the branch members (well like the 13 that showed up yesterday...it was a low number week for church) were excited to see her and they all remembered her.

2.  What do you do in English class (and don't answer, "Teach English")

Elder B**** and Elder K**** created a curriculum for a 12 week program where we introduce different vocab words and a grammar or tense concept and we just spend the hour teaching that every week. But we kind of stopped English class. The first week they did it, before I was here, a bunch of people showed up, then they started decreasing. For a while we had 3 solid people coming every week, but they stopped coming a few weeks back, so English class is about to stop for the next little while. 

3.  How was Slovenia?

The meeting was way cool. Elder Teixeira from the Europe area presidency came and taught us and talked about not limiting our abilities through doubt and we also talked about trying to get more referrals from investigators and members because we can be a lot more efficient that way. And we talked about using the Book of Mormon as a street contacting tool, so we spent time doing that the last few days.....After the meeting we went to the Burger King in Ljubljana. It was so good! It was weird to see prices in euros though. I’m used to high numbers like 30-40 for most meal prices, but with the euro it was like 5, so it looked deceivingly cheap. The drive back was cool. We took a drive over the mountains into Karlovac instead of going over to Zagreb and then south to Karlovac. It was super green and half the drive was through forests on mountain roads.

4.  What do you eat for breakfast?

Eh...depends on the day. Sometimes I don't because I don’t like breakfast, but sometimes I have bread and a flavored cream cheese that's really good. I get the vegetable flavor...but it doesn't really taste like vegetables. Or sometimes I just have corn flakes. Just depends on the day.

5.  You haven't slapped any old people yet, have you?

Not yet. that's all I’m going to say. :)

6.  I'm still finding your black socks in the oddest places (not a question, but it popped into my mind just now). They have a mind of their own and an agenda to go with it.

Ya...you're right. That really wasn't much of a question, but oh well.....

7.  Are you happy?

So far, so good. Yes, I'm happy. It's quite enjoyable over here, and we are able to keep ourselves busy. Our members are the best here in Karlovac and our investigators are great too. 

8.  Is it hard for you to follow the rules?

Not usually. The hardest one is probably getting up in the morning. It's so rough to get up sometimes, but we do. We had a lesson the other day with some guy that kept on trying to get the two of us to drink his Croatian moonshine, but we wouldn't do it. He asked us why and we told him that we weren't allowed. He told us that he wouldn't tell anyone and a little wouldn't hurt, but we didn't budge.  He really wanted us to try his stuff. I smelled it and almost died. Just the smell was like rubbing alcohol on steroids. It cleared my sinuses. I don't know how anyone could drink it....ugh.

I love you guys so much and wish I had time to tell you more, but I'm kind of running out of things to say, and running out of time as well. It's getting a little bit harder to email, because less and less seems out of the ordinary. So I kind of have to rely on your questions to make things interesting. Best of luck in all of your endeavors this next week.

Until next Monday,

Love

P.J.