Mother's Day....Yipee!!!!

Dore typing here.....

So yesterday was Mother's Day in the U.S., and this year it had a totally different meaning to me than any other year.  Usually I consider Mother's Day a success if we can get through it without having to referee any fights/arguments between the kids.  This year Mother's Day took on a different meaning.  I think it's fair to say that even though we are happy that P.J. is serving a mission, and yes, we are so very proud of him, NO ONE prepared me for the brutal beating my emotions would take having him on a mission.  It's not about  him being in a foreign country vs. state-side.  It's all about not being able to be in daily contact.  You see...this kid could be one state away and I would still feel this way.  So...one can understand the anticipation that we all felt with Mother's Day coming because it is one of the two times a year he is allowed to call/Skype home.  HOORAY!!!!  

First off, let me give a shout-out to the Higbees (the senior couple serving in the same town as P.J.) for having a lap-top computer that allowed the elders there to Skype their families.  There is just something special about being able to see your kid's face, hear his voice, and see him live with missionary tags on.  How did moms do this ten to fifteen years ago??  Anyways, I hope the Higbees know how much I appreciate them.  Here in the states we take for granted that having a computer readily accessible is a blessing.  From what I understand, where P.J. is, the majority of people do not own computers and there are only two places in town where one may access the computer.  The Higbees deserve a high-five.

P.J. skyped us at 9:30 am our time.  It was awesome.  He had an hour so we talked and talked and talked. Highlights:

• He is happy there.
• He is doing well with the language and studying the language, even though he wouldn't really speak it for us except for a phrase that sounded totally inappropriate to an American but very innocent to a Croat.
• He has had to adjust to some cultural issues such as people telling him that standing under an air-conditioner would render his shoulders useless, sitting without a cushion would render him sterile,  wearing short-sleeves would ruin his kidneys, and walking barefoot in his apartment would cause him to get very sick.
• He has an apartment with NO air-conditioning (which is a big deal to a Quinn...we love meat-locker air-conditioning).
• The food is awesome and one of his new favorites is lamb.
• He is meeting some really nice elderly people, which is good for him.
• They are often mistaken for Jehovah's Witnesses or for people who bless homes for a fee.
• He teaches English classes.
• He will be staying in the same town for at least another nine weeks.
• He gave us a tour of the church (folks...they have a ping-pong table and foosball in the church!  Ummm....can someone get on that for our building?). 
• He doesn't miss any foods from the states.
• His new land-lady is a woman who has son(s) in late 20's who lives somewhere else so she has sort of adopted the elders and calls them, "My boys."  When they are walking around town, if she sees them she will call out to them ("Hello, my boys!") and wave.  She has told them that since their mothers are far away, she is their mother there and considers it her job/duty to watch over them.  Hence, the lecture he received for walking in his apartment bare-foot.  As a mother, this warms my heart to know that someone over there is watching out for my son and cares about him.  Can I give this lady a cyber-hug? 

After about an hour, some of the other elders were waiting to be able to Skype their families so we reluctantly said good-bye.  Then P.J. mentioned that we could call him back on their cell phone since it was Mother's Day.  Let me say right here that I am not ashamed of the fact that I asked my husband to break the Sabbath by going out to Wal-Greens to purchase an international calling card.  And you know...my husband (the sweet man that he is) immediately left to buy a card so we could continue to talk to him.  I'm assuming the Lord understands and that I'll be forgiven for this one.  Did you know that international calling cards are a bear to figure out?  I think it took about forty minutes for us to figure it out, but we were able to call him.  The cool thing about this call was that each person got private time to chat with him instead of it being a group thing.  Poor Phil....before they had a chance to say a proper good-bye, the card ran out and they don't believe in giving any warning; the line just went dead.  After vacillating, Phil went ahead and put some more time on the card so he could at least call him back and say a proper good-bye.  It was such a sweet experience to be able to talk to our son on Mother's Day. I didn't get emotional until after while I was getting ready for church.   ~Sigh~ next Skype will be at Christmas....7 MONTHS AWAY!!!!!  But yes, we can make it...

P.J. did send an e-mail today so here it is:

Dobar Dan! 

Another monday, another email....though i must admit that it's pretty lame compared to skype. I'm all for the weekly calls. I think I could handle it without getting trunky. The only reason people get trunky after calls is because they know that they have to wait 7 and a half months until it happens again. If it was once a week it wouldn't be an issue..... Maybe you should write the first presidency and see what happens. But it was really good talking to you all yesterday. And not so good saying good bye, but oh well. that's the way it's gotta be. I'm glad we were able to use skype too.

I'll just say sorry right now. I don't really have much to say since the phone call last night. It's just another p-day in Karlovac and there's not much to do. It's still pretty cold and rainy outside, so walking around outside aimlessly isn't even all that fun. And all of the old people are back to harassing me. And yes, it is a little cold outside, but I refuse to wear anything even close to a jacket when it's the middle of May. That's just a crime.

So as far as exciting news goes, I decided to see what this country has to offer, so at Kaufland today I bought bacon, hamburger, and hot dog flavored chips. I'm not really expecting either of the three to be good, but I just had to try. The hot dog flavor confuses me. Why would you want chips that are flavored like pig left overs? But then again, people like me buy them. Next big thing....We get to go to Ljubljana again on Wednesday!!! The drive should be even better this time because everything is even greener now. I'll let you know how the conference was and how awesome Slovenia was....which is really awesome because you can buy lemon-lime gatorade there. 

 So ya....things are going pretty all right here in good ol' Karlovac (emphasis on the old). I don't have a whole bunch else to say.... Jake says hi. I think that's about it. Sorry it was a little bit of boring email this week. I hope I have more to say next Monday. Were you able to find that flash drive in the cabinet? I hope so.....

Well, I love you all bunches and I look forward to Mondays....and Christmas (only 7 and half months away!!!!)

Talk/type to ya'll later!
Love,
P.J.

**pdays are prep-days.  They get part of one day a week to do things like grocery shopping, laundry, sight-seeing

**trunky is a missionary term for wanting to go home, fantasizing about home, dreaming about home, planning on going home, you get the picture.

**His comment about writing the first presidency is tongue-in-cheek.  He knows I would NEVER do that.

Closing comments:  

I am sooooo thankful we were able to talk with him.  Even though it isn't easy having him gone (and we will have two out on missions soon), we are so proud of him and our girls.  Mollie, our youngest, had a teacher ask her today what her parents did to punish her and she said that she really didn't get into trouble.  Her teacher replied, "I really don't believe that..."  But, it's pretty much true.  As a counselor who works with many teens, I'm well aware of the things my kids could've chosen to do.  I am soooo thankful for our kids.  When it comes to P.J. serving a mission, yes, it's hard.  But I can't help but think of parents who have had their children pass away and I can't complain or feel sorry for myself.  He is doing the Lord's work and we wouldn't have it any other way!

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.

Questions and Answers...and a grumpy old man!

Hello Family!!!!

This last weeks been pretty good. The weeks are going by faster and faster. In just 2 weeks my first transfer will be over (in most other missions, transfers are just 6 weeks, but ours are 9). Which means in a week in half I should be receiving a phone call to find out what's going down for the next 9 weeks. I would be really surprised if I moved out of Karlovac. But who knows?

That's pretty exciting about the new bishopric....especially for Bishop/Brother Woodland....oooohhh....that's so weird.......Everything is going to be so different when I get home. That's the weirdest part. It's only been like 4 months.  And that's way cool about Spencer. I hadn't heard about that. Tell him I said congrats! Is it English speaking in Tucson? And Mollie looks like she made a good haul. Is the Sony stereo dock thing the thing she was saving for? She didn't e-mail me this week. And I’m glad I’m half the world a way to avoid the mental destruction that watching people play that dumb dance game causes. That's cool about your room. Y'all are gettin' too fancy for me. I won't be able to live there any more when I get back because I won’t fit in.

So ya....have I said that this week has been average? It's heated up a bunch. It started off being in the high 40's low 50's and rainy, and now it's humid 80's and super sunny. It's SOOOOO HOT! Especially since no one has air conditioning....including us. So the apartment doesn't cool off much at all. We're hopefully gonna buy some fans this week. But the joke is that during the winter you can’t get the Croats to take clothes off and during the summer you can’t get them to put clothes on. It's kind of gross when a man opens the door without pants on....just his briefs and a t shirt...or just a towel...... blech. A little disturbing. And people, especially little kids, have no problem with public urination here. They just whip it out, go, and go back to playing in the park. So don’t roll around in the grass.

 Albania would be okay....As long as you end up in Montenegro or Macedonia. It's kind of interesting. Montenegro speaks "Montenegrin (SP?)" but it is really just Serbo-Croatian with a twist, but for some reason it's not in the mission with Serbo-Croatian speakers. They stuck it in the south with the Albanian speakers. It just doesn't make much sense to me, but oh well.

They're haven't been any super funny stories this week, so I'm at a little loss. Oh....one thing. I bought an external hard drive today to store pictures on. Here's why: The computers are super ghetto and slow at uploading so the hard drive would be faster storage and I’m also not sure of the quality of shutter fly photos. It might just be the old monitors, but it looks like it uploads them in low quality. So I probably wont be uploading to shutterfly very much. I'll probably just be attaching some pictures if I want to send them home.

Oh one funny story....So we eat out a lot....from like maybe 4 different restaurants because Karlovac doesn't have a whole lot. Well, we eat out at least once a day usually. Most places deliver here, and delivery is always free (and people think you're dumb if you tip. They think you can't count money or you're forgetting it....it's way nice), so we either get it delivered to our apartment or the church. So when you order they ask for your address and we told the guy at Mona Lisa (one of our favorite kebob/pizza/calzone places) that the address was Tuškanova 10 (the church) and he asked what floor and we said the first floor.....now usually they would ask which business, but after we said first floor, all he said was "Ya....Church of Jesus Christ, right?" We just started laughing....I think we get it a little too much. But it's good and it's cheap.

So now I’ll answer your questions

1.  Do you know if you are calling on Saturday or Sunday for the Mother's Day Call?  We want to be sure we don't miss it.  Also, I think I'll go ahead and get a international phone card.  What is your number for me to call you on in case the Skype doesn't work?  Do you have all the Skype info you need in order to use it?  I don't have it, but Dad will.  I may have to send you out an extra e-mail with that info.

We still have a few weeks. You can wait a little bit if you want. We can talk with the Higbee's this week and finalize plans for using Skype. If we do use Skype, I’ll just log on with my username and password and call dad that way. It'll be fine.....JUST A COUPLE OF WEEKS AWAY!!!!!!!!! I wouldn't recommend buying the phone card. You might never use it.

2.  Do you guys have a cell phone or are you borrowing one?

 

We have a cell phone for our companionship (everyone does). So you would just call that one. I don't know the number, but if we end up using it, I’ll send you the number in the email, or call dad and hang up and then you can call back....I don’t know.

3. Not a question, but give me a "Mom Moment," okay?  You know…if you took those vitamins, it may help you from feeling so tired.  Just putting that out there.  Is this a normal tired or should I be concerned? 

My sleep is fine now. Everything here has just as much vitamins as everything in America. It's just that the people telling us to take the vitamins can't read Croatian, so they can’t read the labels that talks about how everything is fortified. And I was just tired for the first few weeks because of jetlag and stuff....but now I stay awake throughout the day and get excited at 10:30 when I can go to sleep. It's fine.

4.  How are your investigators doing?  

The investigators are doing well. A**** is cutting back on her smokes and her coffee. She'll be able to give them up. The problem is getting her to church. We've really drilled it in that it's important and she has to even just for baptism, but she's still never been, which is why we keep moving her baptismal date. Right now it's for May 20th, but we'll see. She understands she should go, but it's still a struggle, because she's considered herself religious her whole life, but she's never gone to church, so now it's weird for her that she has to go. It'll work out.

5.  What goes on at the Zone Conferences? 

Well technically we don’t have "zone conferences" very often. The church doesn't want them happening too often because they get expensive with all of the food and transportation, so you can only have zone conferences every other month.....so then in the months where we don’t have zone conferences, we have "specialized training meetings" which are essentially the same thing.....it just helps us get the money for them. But you go and the mission president, the zone leaders, and the assistants (along with anybody else who's asked) teach lessons about things that would help us improve our work and be more efficient and successful. It's broken up into halves with lunch in between, but you pretty much just sit and get taught for somewhere about 4 hours. It's pretty interesting. And then you take what you learn and apply it.

6.  How is a mission different from what you thought? 

I'm not really sure. I'm not sure if I had any expectations before I went, but being a missionary is different than I always pictured. It's weird to wake up in the morning, feel like P.J. and then go and put on a tag that says "Starješina Quinn". It's weird to think that all of the missionaries are just 19 and 20 year old guys that are just trying especially hard to behave themselves. Because I always imagined becoming a missionary and just becoming a different person, but for the most part, it is the same. I just wear really hot clothes and try to survive in a foreign country with a weird language.

7.  What personal changes have you noticed from being on a mission? 

For a while I thought I was getting more patient and more loving, but then an old man yelled us the other night for walking through a field because we were walking to the field to get to a building on the other side of it. He was telling us that we had to cross the street and use the sidewalk on the other side.....which is ironic, because he was standing in the field. It went like this: Boys! What do you think you're doing? You don’t walk through fields. Get to the other side of the street and use the sidewalk. And then when we told him that we were just hurrying through, he yelled at us to hurry on the sidewalk on the other side. He was super jerky and was just chewing us out.....So as I was saying, I felt loving until that happened. But then he yelled at us and I had to resist every urge in my body to just flip him off and just keep on walking.....I was so mad! First off, You know how I feel about old people....which I’ve been trying not to, because Karlovac has a lot of old people. Second, I hate people that are just rude because they think they can be.....But besides that, I think my patience has been growing....maybe. Also, not saying that I'll be different when I get home, but I really realize how much time I used to waste. Just the thought of taking naps or just watching TV or movies for hours at a time seems ridiculous. I think back and wonder "How did I ever fit all of that into my day? How did I fit that into my planner?"....oh I’m such a loser. I guess the thing that's changed the most is my mindset. It seems weird that I ever went anywhere by myself. It feels like I was breaking rules. It also seems super scandalous to think that I ever hung out with girls. It's just funny because as a missionary girls are such bad news. Oh well.....It's only been 4 months and I’m turning into an awkward missionary.

I think that's about it. It's really nice to hear from you guys every week. If anybody asks how I’m doing, tell them that if they really want to know they should write and ask me....just kidding....but you really can if you want ;). Tell everyone I said hi! Oh...and Mollie, I'm probably gonna finally ship your birthday thing today or tomorrow....it should be there in a couple of weeks. Sorry I'm lame. I love all of you bunches!

Until next Monday,

Love,

P.J.