He got his birthday package...and old men who answer the door in their underwear?!

June 18, 2012

Hello to the whole famn damily (What? It doesn’t say anything bad....)

So first off, this computer is driving me nuts.
We came to the Karlovac student center today

instead of the other ghetto place, but the computers are super weird.

I have no idea what operating system is, but its rather archaic, and I

don’t know how to switch the language of the keyboard. The z and y are

switched in Croatian, and its really messing with me. I also can’t find

the apostrophe...so that’s why punctuation is missing..... So because

of this weird computer, I can't get it to read my memory card, so no

pictures this week.....

In other big news, I GOT MY PACKAGE!!!! But I decided that I’m going to

wait until my birthday to open it. I figured that since I’m on my

mission, I should be more mature. Totally just kidding. I ripped that

sucker open as soon as I got it on Friday. And that card....I think

the whole Karlovac district, the four of us, were pretty shocked.  

Yup....I showed it to all of them. It was a good laugh. Its now

hanging on my wall. Just kidding. But the watch is awesome! I wore it

on Saturday and the K**** family told me not to go swimming with that

anchor attached to my wrist because I’ll sink straight to the bottom

and drown. And the Airhead Sour Strips were way good. I shared them.

And Elder B**** likes the punching balloons.  Ever since I got them I

started beating on them instead of him, so.... I’m rationing out the

Skittles and I haven’t opened the Reese’s Pieces yet. And I’m so excited

for the cookies and Velveeta. Both of the apartments here in Karlovac

have deep fryers, so one day we’re gonna combine fryers and get some

chicken and I’m gonna try and fake some fried chicken, Express style.

As long as R*****(you don’t have to edit his name. I hope he

sees this. Although he doesn’t know me so I don’t know why he would),

the corperate owner, doesn’t try and sue me for infringement or

something all the way over here in Croatia. But someday we’re gonna

have fried chicken and Velveeta for dinner and its going to taste like

stars, stripes, and freedom. I just had the best idea! 4th of July

will be fried chicken, Velveeta, and salad with lettuce and ranch

dressing (Elder B**** has some Hidden Valley packets that he’s been

saving for a special day) and maybe some lemon white chocolate chip

cookies for dessert. I’m already excited. And we found a cd at the

church with the national anthem on it, so well put it on repeat while

we eat and feel free and then well find the American money we have,

smell it, and feel uninflated. It will be great!

That bites pretty bad about Mollies hives. I would milk it to get out

of camp, but oh well....well at this point I would milk it for a

couple more hours in bed, but it would be way to hot. It’s like someone

just hiked up the thermostat out of no where. For a while it was in

the high 70s, low 80s and as it started to get hot, it would just rain

and cool everything off. But the rain stopped a few days back, and it has

been so hot ever since. It’s supposed to be 35, which is misleading

because it sounds close to freezing, but yeah, Its 95. And air

conditioning is not a luxury we have in our apartment. We have

windows, but outside is the same temperature as inside. Its humid like

Texas too, so the night doesn’t cool off as much either. I took a cold

shower last night, but as soon as I dried off I was sweating again. It

was so nasty. Studies in the morning get way warm too. The church has

climas, like what the bishops always have in their offices. It gets it

pretty cool, so we like to chill (literally) every once in a while. So

yeah, we’re dying. And people like to just take their clothes off when it

gets hot. I’m tired of tracting into men in their underwear. I have no

idea why someone would answer the door in his underwear, but they

do.....frequently. And since it’s Europe and the men wear questionably

short shorts, I think the girls are in a competition to prove that

they can still have shorter shorts.   Seriously. So short....

So, this last week. It was all right. We met with A****. We were

calling I****, but A***** answered and just said, “When are you coming

over again to visit?” So we went over on Thursday and she seemed to be

doing a lot better and was really happy. She said that she was really

feeling the spirit and she prayed at the end and was in tears about

how warm she felt. I really hope we can solve some commitment issues

and get her going. She is so ready and she knows everything is true. I

think she just has some fear about tithing and the word of wisdom.

We wanted to meet with M********, but she had to go to a meeting up in

Zagreb on Saturday. She ran into the other Elders and said ˝Please

tell your associates that I will not be able to meet on Saturday. I

have some rather urgent business in Zagreb that came up. Well, its not

too urgent, but I must attend to it˝ in her British accent. She is so

proper. It was kind of funny. They had never met her before, but they

immediately knew who it was from us telling them about her before. So

hopefully this week.

We spent a lot of the week stuffing mailboxes with English flyers. The

four of us combined have put out 4000 of them so far and were probably

going to print more this week. So a good chunk of time was taken up by

that.

We are going up to Zagreb on Wednesday for specialized training (zone

conference), so that will be good. They’re always interesting and its

always fun seeing everybody.

I can’t think of anything else major at the moment. Thanks for the

package! It was awesome! Oh yeah! Pray for the Croatian soccer team.

They’re playing against Spain tonight in the Euro Cup. They beat

Ireland, and tied Italy. So if they beat Spain they move on. The games

are crazy. On game days everyone dresses in his or her white and red

checkered shirts, they have flags everywhere, and all of the little

kids blow their noise making horns all day long, and we can usually

tell the way the game goes by loud gunshot noises. We don’t know if

they are actual gunshots, but we're guessing they are. So yup....Spain

tonight. It will be interesting....well as interesting as soccer could

possibly be....so not that much, but we’re missionaries and we’ll take

simple thrills wherever we can get them. Too bad we can’t watch the

game though. Oh well.

I also got a letter from K**in South Carolina. He has less than 8

months left and he’s loving it there. He said that the area he’s in

right now has a small ward. I laughed. Its still pretty huge if its a

ward. And Jake says that he’s now serving on the coast and his ward is

full of hippies.

I think that’s about it now. I love you all a bunch and wish Christmas

was a little sooner so I could talk to you again, but oh well. Email

will have to do for now. Sorry for the lack of punctuation, but oh

well.

Love you all a ton!

P.J.