10/17/2011

Greetings, Mortals.

First thing's first: It took me about 3.59801 after I'd signed off that it was the very important week of which includes the date of October 12th. JESSICA BREANNE ADAMS I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! ican'tbelievethatyou'
rereally18yearsoldbecauseitmeansthatdad'salmostfiftyandthati'mbasically20andallthiscrazystuffisjustwaytoomuchformeandsotheregoesmybrain.brainexplosm.....
Anyways. Oh, and happy birthday to you, too, Dad! Yay for added days which make months which make years! Oh, math....

Sooo.... You know how in Rocky and Bullwinkle when dawn breaks over the horizon? Yeah, you know how winter breaks over Serbia? Roughly equivalent. It's been a pretty fun last little week and a half. Scarf time, gloves are out. Layers, baby. <---- I'm pretty sure that this is a Wendy Adams quote, but I could be wrong.... No snow, yet, but the nights are frigid (we've got this boss heater in our room which is pretty sweet, but it only heats our room....) and the tiles in our apartment are gonna give me frostbite, I'm sure. Ah well, all things in the service of our God. :P Our gazda (landlady) suggested boots, so I may look around a little for some of those. idk. People just keep referencing this ridiculous amount of snow that was here last winter (though for some reason or another this backward language has NO word for "ridiculous" which has been causing me to basically trip and stumble every 4th word as that is .25 of my vocabulary in English....) (Math again! yay me) and that just kind of freaks me out a little? Inflection?

I'm gonna work backwardsish.

Yesterday I had a talk in church! I was assigned this on Saturday evening at about 9:23 so there wasn't much time to prepare. Oh, mormons.... Anyways, got up early in the frigid apartment air and planned it out. I talked about hope (patterned after the spiritual thought further down). The culminating part of it was the horribly translated lyrics of Disney's Hercules - the song "Go the Distance". For all you English majors out there, I know that MLA says that I'm not supposed to do songs in quotations, but come on, give me a break! Basically the worst translation in the world, but there you have it. What a great song. I just talked about how we all have this hope in gaining an eternal life with God after all this is said and done and how we need to share that. Decent, though towards the end I just kind of threw out the window cases and clitic word order. No big deal.
Still Sunday. We walked all the way to Lacarak (pron. Law-chaw-rock) looking for a referral and decided to try and find (again) a less-active who was on the way. As we're sitting outside in the frigid Serbian air she rides up on her bike behind us at her door and invites us in. REALLY cool lady. Jelenica or something like that. She said to come back whenever and it was okay to bring like a spiritual thought or something. Awesome stuff. She works as a popcorn maker along the river and had brought some home. We just shared some of that amazingness and talked. It was really nice. Just a normal lady. :)

Saturday we had district meeting (first of Serbia for a long time!) in Beograd. Elder Jacobsen and I woke up at like 5 so that we could catch the bus at 6 (in the frigid air, mind you) so that we could be there at 7 so that we could have palacinke (Serbian crepes - WAY better than that frenchie crap... and pronounced pal-uh-cheen-kay) at 8 and district meeting at 9. We were running late - so we ended up running to the bus station. Funny how that works out. No bus at 6. Stood in the frigid air for an hour and then still beat Novi Sad elders to Beograd. Palacinke were amazing (Elder Hansen has like a professional palacinke maker. It's WONDERFUL.) The district meeting itself was pretty cool. We talked about investigators (and ones that Sremska will soon have, I'm sure *nadamsenadamsenadamse* <--- I hope I hope I hope) and the book fair coming up in Beograd. It's 8 days long and requires people at the booth from 10 to 9 every one of those days. Should be fun. Sremska's definitely down for help. We're all just taking a shift on next p-day and then the other two companionships will hit the town on the off shifts. Should be sweet.

We drove down on Wednesday with President, Sister Rowe, Sister Turner (our mission nurse) and Mama Rowe (Grandma Rowe who is companions with sister Turner). Elder Defreitas and I had a terrifying moment or two at the border where we realized (as soon as President started speaking to the Serbian borderlady in English - crazy guy) that we had the most language experience in the car. No problems though. Dodged a bullet there. Perhaps literally? Just kidding... maybe. Said our goodbyes in Dear Sremska Mitrovica and then it was back to the old drawing board in Sremska. Just been trying to figure things out and what we want to do with the rest of the transfer. English class was fun on Thursday. All Thursday, however, I was in constant remindership? of the importance of NOT eating week-old bread that Elder Harris didn't end up eating on the exchange as apparently this whole preservatives thing has not yet found Serbia. (Though I don't in any way blame them because of the quality and overall amazingness of their bread. Mom, if you want a challenge, try making some potato burek - which is wonderful, btw) Anyways, I was pretty sure I was following father-dearest's (Elder Jacobsen's) example of discovering giardia water, but it was just like a 24 hour bug. Grozno. (Gross)

We talked to Mama for a while. She's such a cool lady, and if I could every understand what she really means then I'm sure we'd just be best of friends... Ah well. Just falling in love with her, home here in Sremska, Serbia, burek, the constant smell of campfire, and smoke-filled internet cafes. It's the greatest.

Something that's really been giving me comfort though has been this Churchill quote that I vaguely mentioned last time. Thanks to Bethany for sending it to me: “We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all our strength that God can give us: … That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be” This has kind of summed up my hopes and fears and dreams and doubts. If you ever have a quote that you think would help, I'm always thirsty for more. Send 'em right along! :)

Anyways, looking forward to this week. We're going to have Zone Conference again on Thursday and then a mini exchange thing over the weekend where rumour says I may either be with Elder Defreitas (same age as me mission-wise) or Elder Schouten (Osijek. One transfer older....) for a couple of days. Then on to the Book Fair! Yay! Anyways, hoping that you are all well.

Word of the Week:
Љубав
Ljubav
Pronunciation: Lj (face it, kid, you're never gonna make this sound right) - ooh (as in for fireworks) - baav
Definition - Love.

Све љубав и нада
All Love and Hope,
Старешина Адамз