~Elder Quinn's Pinnochio dessert~
~Up Close!~
Good day to the family!
What the heck? I leave and everyone starts getting all fancy and
spoiled. New office, nice tvs at home, $1,000,000 coconut pillows, Christmas
trip to Florida, new car.....what the heck people? Send some love over
here...... My birthday was a good one....And Venice...beautiful. I'll talk more
about that later....
So the new office looks way nice. I hope it works out well for you.
Is it the office spaces on the other side of the building you were already in?
Thanks for the facebook update. Sometimes I miss it, but oh well. It's almost
been 6 months without it. Did you know that Wednesday is my 19 months left
mark? I finally made it out of the 20's. Supposedly that's the longest part. We
should be getting transfer calls towards the end of next week and I’ll find out
what my fate is for the next 2 months. I’m pretty sure I’m staying here in
Karlovac, but you have to expect the unexpected. You say it's hot there....it's
about the same here right now. It got up to 42C in some parts of Croatia
yesterday (which is about 107.6F) but here it stayed around 39C, which converts
to about 102. And it's still way humid here too. It's terrible. It usually
cools off to the 80's by about 4 in the morning. I’m kind of getting used to
sweating. As long as I’m up doing something the heat isn’t that bad, but when I
have to sit or try and sleep in it, it's absolutely terrible. I think Elder B****
and I are going to call the mission office today and get some fans approved, so
we can buy some for our apartment. The frozen wet rag only works so well...(get
a rag wet, freeze it, and go to sleep with it wrapped around my neck).
So the new car! At first I thought it was a Focus and I got way
excited. Then I saw that it was another Edge. It's still super nice though. The
color is much better this time around. And I'm glad the air conditioner is
better in this one. And that sound system sounds awesome. Not that I have any
really good music to play on it right now anyways. I miss my music so much.
Next to you guys, that's what I miss most. It looks like a nice car, but it
still has a little too much cross-over SUV estrogen dripping off of the front
and back bumpers. I’m glad it's still leather. And sweet back up camera. Now
you can see the lawn mower behind the car before you run over it.....too soon
still?
And the flask next to the cereal isn’t too bad. Here you have center
isle kiosk things full of Karlovačko beer right next to the cereal in Kaufland.
It's pretty much everywhere.
And no, B***s apartment doesn't have air conditioning either. If it did
I would've already killed them. That's too bad that you got sick. I've gotten
kind of nauseated a couple of times. One time I threw up off the bridge into
the Kupa about 20 feet below. It was gross but it looked cool. Another time I
just threw up at the apartment before bed. I think I just ate something funky
both times. But that's the extent of being sick that I've experienced. I used
to think it would be cool to be sick because you just stay home and sleep all
day, but now with the heat, that would just be a curse.
Well, we had one of our 3 English students drop already. He came to
one class and saw that it was just he and Š*****, the nicest member ever. He
didn't come back again.
What the heck with the Christmas vacation? I've never been on vacation
during Christmas...well before this upcoming Christmas....which isn’t even
vacation. It's just in a different place. But that sounds like a lot of fun.
Maybe I'll try and get some leave...military style. I've heard they do that. So
I'll join you in Florida. (Dreaming on his part....~Dore)
I
miss good soda. I've taken a liking to Coke because it beats nothing. Fanta
here is strange and the other soda choices are sprite and Cockta, which is a
weird pomegranate cola drink. So Coke is the least of all evils. But I miss Sunkist,
Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, and Gatorade. Slovenia has Gatorade though. We just
need to go to another meeting there and stop by a gas station. Maybe Croatia
will get better products after it joins the EU next July...if the EU is still
around by then. I hope they join, switch to the euro, and then the euro
crashes. I could buy all sorts of cool stuff for way cheap.
So
my birthday....it went like this: First of all, there really wasn't a Venice
trip....tear....tear...sniff....sniff (I’m assuming you already knew that). But
we woke up, got ready for the day and went to the church for a solo English
class with one of our new students, M***. That went pretty good. Afterwards we went
to Tiffany’s for lunch...one of the more expensive restaurants in town. Then we
went to the slastičarnica (sweet shop with the palačinke...crepes....
chocolate, ice cream....) next door and got dessert. I got the Pinokio cup...It
was so gay. I'll attach the pic....but it’s two scoops of ice cream (vanilla and
strawberry) with a ton of whipped cream, a face made from wafer things, a bunch
of sprinkles, and it’s all on a plate that looks like Pinocchio. The guy gave
us a funny look when the others ordered if for me, and it was a little embarrassing,
but oh well. Then we went to the church and the other Elders gave me some good
stuff. I got a kilogram tub of little cola gummies (they’re one of my favorite candies), a couple of milka
white chocolate bars, a couple of kinder eggs, a remote control car that the
other Elders got for free when they bought a new vacuum, and a Croatia soccer
garden gnome. It’s all pretty awesome. Oh yeah. Go back in time a bit to the
night before. Our landlady, D*****, called and asked if we were home because
she had a cake to drop off. She remembered that it was my birthday. So she
dropped off a cake...look on Shutterfly. And so go back to my birthday. After
the church we went to have a lesson with A***** and I*****. I don’t know how
they knew it was my birthday...I think we mentioned it a few weeks before, but
they remembered. They had some good cookies and a giant hazelnut Swiss roll. So
we ate that and then they brought me out a present. They said that they wanted
to get me something because its not everyday that you turn 20, but they didn’t
know what to get me so they got a couple of things that they thought I might
need. They got me a thing of shower gel, a thing of axe, and a giant hazelnut
chocolate bar. After I opened it, I smelled my armpits and said, "yup...I
need it." They just started laughing and said, "We didn't mean it like
that." It was so nice of them. It meant a lot that they remembered and
that they bought me something. They are so nice! So after
that, we had the cake from the land lady with the other elders. It was really nice. Then after that the H******* picked us up and took us to their apartment and we had some ice cream with raspberries.
B****** and Đ***, a super cool couple from the ward were there too. It was
cool. Then we went back and went to bed on sugar overloads. It was a good day.
Not the usual birthday routine, but it was one to remember.
I think that's about it for the week....wait...we had an American
family show up at church yesterday. It was kind of funny. I saw a 9 and 13-year-old
boys walk in and I was wondering who they were. Then the dad walked in, I waved
to him and paused because I had no idea which language to use with him. He
looked at me and asked if I knew English. I laughed and said yes. I first
thought that it was an old missionary returning with his family. We've had a
couple of them so far. But he wasn’t. It was a family from Arkansas (mom, dad,
two boys, and a daughter) who was rv'ing through Europe and their last leg was
through Croatia trying to do some family history research in some local
graveyards here. It was nice to have them at church. They were way nice people.
So that was interesting. But I think that's the extent of the week here.
Nothing too thrilling. I'm excited for our 4th of July feast. That will be soo
good. Have fun in Oklahoma if you go. And I'll tell Bri happy birthday here
too. I hope everything goes well for you. Enjoy the new car! I uploaded some
new pictures to Shutterfly. Enjoy!
I love you all a bunch! Have a good week!
P.J.
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