11/19/2012
Hey Family!
I'm not surprised that I've frequently messed up my
hear/here and they're/their/there....they always trip me up in the email, and I
mess them up every time, and I thought I caught them....oh well.
I'm going to start this
e-mail by addressing your last e-mail. About the baby shower....I can
only hope that that's the only one I have to attend. It was funny. Z*****, the
member, was planning it and she looked at me and asked me what usually happens
in America when there's a baby shower, and I just laughed, looked at her, and
said, "I stay home..." She just laughed and I added that I didn't have
the slightest idea. I just remember that my mom said that she was going to a
baby shower, I asked if I could go, and she told me no, because I wouldn't like
it, and that was the extent of my experience with showers. I also said that I
wasn't the one to ask because it wasn't until I was 7 or 8 that I even realized
that they weren't "showering the baby". I thought that it was just a
giant bath where all the women helped bathe the baby....I think that that would
still be more entertaining in most cases ;).
I had heard about Hostess....my life is ruined! At least Little
Debby is still around at the moment to help me pick up the pieces.....Zingers,
little donuts, Twinkies...all just gone. I never even got to say goodbye....How
could they do this to me? Oh well. I hope it'll all be solved and someone will
have bought the rights by the time I get home. They have a year left. They best
be gettin' a move on it. It would only be the best thing ever if Little Debbie
company bought the hostess stuff! It would be the #1 cavity powerhouse of the
world....It'll bite if Bimbo buys them though (you know the company...remember
how if you buy enough stuff at the ghetto Mrs. Baird’s store they give you a free pack of like churro sticks or something...that's
Bimbo...and they are all nasty)....I don't know about you, but a chili powder
Mexican Twinky sounds so wrong and more like an intestinal problem, than a
desert snack cake. I can just imagine a world where my future children have
no idea what a Twinky is...So sad...
Nope...not coming home for Thanksgiving...If I were, it would be
quite the problem....
1. Are you
guys doing anything for Thanksgiving?
It's kind of long to type, so this is a copy and paste portion:
So, for Thanksgiving, they said that missionaries will have dinner with the senior
couple in that city and that we need to be back on the streets again by 5:00
pm...Well, we don't have a senior couple here in Zadar, so the Tanners, who are
kind of split between here and Rijeka (about 3.5 hours away...he's the branch
president in Rijeka...they come down for a couple of days about every 2 or 3
weeks) asked president Rowe if they could bring the Rijeka elders down for
Thanksgiving and have it here. He wasn't thrilled about it because the Elders
wouldn't be back until late, so the Tanners decided that they would do
Thanksgiving with us here on Wednesday and then go back to Rijeka that night
and do Thanksgiving again on Thursday. So we are celebrating on Wednesday at
the Tanners' apartment with the sisters. It should be cool. I'm going to make a
cheesecake. So Ya...Thursday will just be like any other day, so that's they
way missionary work goes I guess....I don't mind too much. I'm not the biggest
fan of Thanksgiving anyways. I don't picture Wednesday night being too much fun
though. Who can go out and tract after a big meal? We'll see what happens. It
should be all right.
2. Did you
get transferred?
Nope! Still here.... I'm gonna be here in Zadar for at least
another 6 weeks. It would normally be another 2 months for sure, but we have a
few elders going home a couple of weeks early to make winter semester of
college, so we might have a little bit of early transfer shuffling. We'll see
what happens. All four of us here in Zadar are staying the same, so no changes
for any of us. I don't mind though. I think this will be a good city to be in
for Christmas, and we have a webcam and Skype for the call on Christmas.
3. New
companion?
Nope...We're gonna have to stick it out for a few more weeks ;).
Just kidding. We get a long just fine.
4. I got an
e-mail saying that several new missionaries are coming your way courtesy of the
MTC. Does this affect you at all?
It might. President Rowe went to a mission president seminar with
all of the presidents in Europe, and they said that Europe is going to be
getting a 40% increase in missionaries, which is absolutely HUGE! I think he
said something like 40 elders and 30 sisters by next year! That’s compared to
like 40 missionaries in general! So ya...It looks like nobody is getting off
the hook by not having to train anymore, but we'll see what's ahead.
5. Are you
cooking more yet since you are getting sick of Croatian food?
Nah...just dealing with it for the moment.
Ya...have fun with Thanksgiving. Good luck!
I'm trying to think of other things to say....I really am getting
bored at this computer, so I might be a bit of a tool this week and copy and
paste from other emails...forgive me:
This week, 2 of the Croatian Generals that had been arrested and
sentenced to 24 years in prison by a war tribunal because of what happened
during the homeland war of the 90's were released by an appeals court on
Friday! It was huge. They flew into Zagreb while we were there, and People were
driving all through town with flags everywhere with their horns honking. When we got
back to Zadar, Pres. Perovic made us take a taxi home from the bus
stations because drunken people were everywhere creating a bit of ruckus. So
we got back right when all of the firecrackers, cannons, and fireworks
started going off. I think there were a couple of gunshots too. Well, it was a
huge deal. They had a huge rally in Zagreb and had like 200,000
people in the main square in the center of town and the Generals talked to the
crowds and stuff. I wish I could have been there. It looked intense. You'll
have to look it up if you haven't heard about it. I can't really explain it all
that well.
So we took the train to Zagreb for Zone Conference. It was all
right. It would be really good if it weren’t twice as long of a trip. We had to
take a 2 hour trip to a town called Knin and then we caught another train to
Zagreb, but there was construction on the tracks, so we had to get off at one
point and take a 20 minute bus ride to another set of rails and get on a
different train. In the very first train, it was a super ghetto single car
connecting train....the second was pretty cool. We were sitting in a
compartment....it felt like we were on our way to Hogwarts or something. We all
made the comment at the same time that it felt like Harry Potter. The last
train was good. It was all just regular seating, but every few rows they had 4
seats facing each other with a table in between, which was cool because we
brought snacks and the sisters brought cards, so we played hearts for about an
hour. It was pretty cool over all....just not a do over experience because of
the length of time required.
Quick story: So on Thursday night I went out tracting with Elder
H (the Muirs' nephew) and we were walking around Zagreb and we contacted
this guy with a mohawk and a few piercings. We asked him if he knew about the
Book of Mormon, and he said, "Yes, I used to live in Salt Lake." We
asked what he did there, and he said that he was studying music. He then said,
"I study organ. I played in your tabernacle." We asked him about the
building, and he went into detail about how the organ was too big for the
space, but it's great. He then went into detail about the specs on the organ
and the materials used to make it and how it compared to the Conference Center
organ. It was one of the most surprising things to happen in the last couple of
weeks. It was pretty funny. He was surprised to see that the Book of Mormon was
in Croatian. He said that he had one in German (he's from Germany) and said
that he wanted one in Croatian and that he wanted to meet up sometime to talk
more. I just never expected a guy that looked like that to be an organ
performance major. It was quite the surprise!
I think that
just about sums up this last week! I love you all and I'm thankful for all of
you and that fact that we get to Skype in 5 weeks. That's what I'm thankful for
this year...that among other things. I hope you have a good holiday! Tell
everyone that I say hi! Until next week....
Love,
P.J.
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