Tour of a museum, good food, and an uncensored American song at the grocery store!

                                                  ~P.J. and Elder Bates visiting Plitvice Lakes National Park~

Guess what????? Guess who gets to talk to ya in less than a week?????? Me!!!!!!!!

So that's pretty cool about the new stake presidency. I was kind of expecting "President" Woodland to get caught up in all of that. Too bad he only had a weeklong break. I bet he wishes he could just be Sunday School president or something like that. That's way funny about the G***** kids too. I think you would be dead if you were the one with triplets. How's the Battalion doing anyways?   Not gonna lie....I'm in Kuna mode. When I saw $400 for the plane ticket, I thought, "So what?? That's only like $80....." I'm gonna be so bad with money when I get home ;)

That's cool about T**** getting his mission call too. Too bad it didn't quite work out as a Mother's Day surprise, but it was still somewhat of a surprise I assume. When does he leave? Oh ya....and Kai is in Columbia, South Carolina. I think Daniel might be in that mission though. 

It has been going by fast. Everyone says that the 2 months in the MTC is the longest part and so far it has been. But then they say that the longest transfer is the first in the country. If that's the case, time's gonna fly because it feels like I just got here, but I hit my 2 month mark and end of the first transfer next week. I'm thinking that I'll still be here in Karlovac, but who knows? I would be happy anywhere. It's weird to think that in a week and a half 1/6 of my mission will already be gone. And by the end of the next transfer, I'll be a quarter finished....assuming that the next transfer goes by as fast as this one. It's weird how fast time goes by. It feels like some days we just don't have time for a lot of the things we need to do, but we try and make it work.

I'm pretty jealous about Germany [His cousin is moving to Germany]. They speak an easy language there. I'm pretty sure...in all seriousness.....I would be close to fluent in German by now. It's just so much easier from what I remember. But I have faith that my Hrvatski will get there someday. I hope that Jordan [another cousin] and Chris's baby will be like the one in the funny commercial. It's weird to think he'll be talking by the time I ever see him for the first time.

Thanks for the info about the bank stuff. I'm not planning on taking much out very often, but I'll figure out what to do.  

1.  Who is your companion?

I’m still with Elder B**** for at least another week. It's going good. I could last for another transfer with him at least.

2.  How is your toothpaste doing?

Toothpaste is fine. It's not a 3rd world country. They still have the same Colgate and stuff as in America, so it'll be fine. And it's always in supply.

3.  I will e-mail you Skype info in a separate e-mail (our account number)…what time do you think you will Skype at, and will it be on Saturday or Sunday?  

We just decided that I will call at 4:30 on Sunday, so that will be 9:30 am your time. Is that all right? Bri might have to get up early, but oh well.

So some news about this last week. Last Monday we made about an hour walk outside of town to the war museum. I have a bunch of pictures, but I forgot my camera at the apartment...sorry. It's way cool. They have old aa guns, tanks, amphibious craft, bombed out buildings, and in the middle is a crashed Serbian plane wreckage. It was pretty awesome to climb on the tanks and stuff....even if you're technically not supposed to as we found out by reading a sign at the end. But everyone else there was climbing too, so whatever. Karlovac was pretty much the front line for the "Homeland war" back in the 90's because of its location. We're about 45 minutes (give or take a few) from Slovenia and Bosnia in both directions, and we are about half way between the north border and the coast of Croatia in the other direction. *just a quick tidbit*....It's so hard being here in Karlovac because every cool place in Europe is like a 3 hour drive away.....Venice, 3 hours by bus....Vienna, 3 hours by bus......Salzburg, 3 hours by bus......Budapest, 3 hours by bus......but we are stuck in little old Karlovac. It's a little frustrating. It's also weird being in a city that's older than the United States. Karlovac was first founded in the 1500's. random facts...

On Tuesday, it was Croatian Labor Day (Dan Rada) and everything is closed for holidays around here. And B***, our old landlady invited us over for a barbeque....It was so GOOD!!! By far the best meal I've had so far. She had a huge bowl just filled with different meats. We had grilled chicken, pork chops, kabasica (sausage), čavapčići (little sausages and the best meat there), and other meat than that too. There was so much meat and it was all so good! And then she made a salad, which was cabbage with salt, pepper, olive oil, and apple vinegar. Believe it or not, I'm kind of getting used to cabbage (kupus as they call it) and it's not too bad anymore. She also had a type of pickled pepper for us that she made last year and canned. It was okay. I've had some here where the peppers are sour, and those are good. She also had a ton of bread. And then the Higbees (the senior couple) brought ice cream and sugared strawberries. It was such a good meal. I ate a ton.

That morning was pretty cool too. They had the annual Bicikliada, which is a 15K bike race that pretty much the whole city rides in. It was huge. I don't think I've ever seen so many bikers. But it's a huge deal every year. And I got a free t-shirt. So it was way cool.

The rest of the week was all right. We tracted, but didn't find anybody new. We had a couple of lessons with old people. Some guy last night did not like the fact that I’m thinking about studying politics in college. He was telling me that I needed to do work with my hands so I’ll never be out of work, like be a baker, or builder or something. He was also saying that politicians were all out for money and were all evil. I told him I wanted to be a teacher and he just said, "Well good. Then teach something better. Like history or something." Elder B**** got a lecture too though because he's studying astronomy and physics. The man was just weird. He's definitely not a prospect, but we were at least able to teach him. We barely ever get let in while tracting, so it was still nice.

So next week will be exciting. We get to call and talk, have transfers happen (if anything changes), and then on Wednesday we have a meeting with the 1st counselor in the area presidency who will become the president in August. He's doing two meetings with our mission for the zone conference this month instead of 3, so we are all shifting around. Serbia and Bosnia is coming to Zagreb along with most of the Croatia zone, so that means that we are going back to Ljubljana to even out numbers in the meetings! It's a nice drive, and I think things have greened up a bit, so I’m excited. My passport is getting quite the stamp collection.

I'm trying to think of more to say so my emails don't get lame, but I’m running out of things to talk about. Things are getting pretty routine here. Oh ya....about the phone number. I'm not sure if it will be the same number that we have right now because we may or may not have managed to get our sim card locked on our phone making it essentially useless at the moment....But we called the mission office and they are going to get it fixed tomorrow. But we are getting a new sim card and stuff...I’m assuming that will be all that changes, so the phone number will be the same, but I'm not quite sure. But I think Skype is a pretty sure thing.  

So what the heck is the deal with Mollie? I haven't heard from her in a couple of weeks now. She's just a freshman in high school with no job or anything so I know she can't be that busy...... What the heck?????? Just kidding. I understand if you're busy with school and trash like that. Just drop out as soon as you can. Education isn't that important. Trust me.......

Another thing....funny and slightly appalling. Elder B**** and I started doing our grocery shopping at 7am on p days because Kaufland is open then, so we went this morning and they were playing that one song "Forget You" but it's actually "Ef you...." Brianne and Mollie will know it....Well....it was public and they weren't playing the censored version, so I heard the f bomb dropped like 50+ times while shopping. Elder B**** looked slightly mortified, but I just kept laughing because I’m terrible.

I better get going. I look forward to seeing you all and talking to you all on Sunday. Good luck with your week!!!!!

Until Sunday,

Love,

P.J.