09/29/2011

Dobro Jutro!

Okay, we're doing this in a two part type deal today because we're going to go and travel over to Beograd in like an hour. So if it seems like bipolar or something like that, it's because I'm obviously going to be a totally different person when in the BIG CRAZY BIG MCBIGG BIG CITY OF BEOGRAD. Okay, so Sremska is a little small.... But anyways.... Just excited. Maybe just a little bit. :)
P.S. Sorry about all the cyrillics in the last letter. If you don't want me to speak my mission language... okaydokay, I guess! Haha, just kidding. It's one part wanting to show off and one part being able to actually spell the names of the people and places which I am referencing. Saying "Vucenovic" just doesn't quite tell you how to pronounce their name as well. And seriously! You all should just learn to read cyrillics! Way easy. Bash lako... :)
The weather is just barely starting to turn here as well. Like, by that I mean that we've turned off our fan in the middle of the night and maybe have closed one of the windows so that we don't get mildly cold. It's pretty warm, especially for a NW boy, you know? It's been like 32 degrees the whole time I've been here! Okay, okay, more like 28, but who's counting? Oh celsius.... So, when the time comes I'll definitely be finding a coat. I think I'm probably gonna be pretty set, except for socks. As Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore once said, "One can never have enough socks..." Or something like that... (illi neshto tako (Или нешто тако))
Our address here is
Шећер Сокак 2 Secer Sokak 2
Сремска Митровица 22000 Sremska Mitrovica 22000
Сербиа Serbia
The "Secer" part of that is an S nasty and a c nasty, but only half nasty. That is to say, accented. If you catch my drift. Silly Serbian computers can't do the croatian nasty letters, only Serbian cyrillics. sry.
My companion is Elder Jacobsen. He's from San Diego, CA and has been in the country for a year and a half. I've kind of refrained from talking about him much because I just didn't know much about him but we've really been getting to know eachother a lot as we're really the only people that we see on a regular basis. That is to say, ever. He's a trumpet performance major at BYU, or at least he was, we don't really know what it is that he's going to do now, maybe media music? Idk. He's got one brother and seven sisters all of whom are older than him (By leaps and bounds, too). He is incredible in the language even though it's much more different from Croatian than I had originally hoped. Okay, exaggeration. He's very firm and resolute in his opinions about the gospel and very factually based in it. Kind of a strong, silent type at first, but now we talk a lot. Really good teacher. He's my dad! :)
Our trip to Croatia was WAY fun. We had to hop the border because of our gross illegality here. Okay, not so bad, but still. We ended up staying the night in Osijek with Elders Genther and Schouten. It's nice to know some more of the people that we work with. They're actually with us in the Serbian Zone along with their Sisters (Creager and Black) in Osijek. We talked and talked. Got to see their town which is huge compared to Sremska (What isn't?). They have a really cool cathedral and a tram! So great. Anyways, we just rode back to Serbia after that and now we're home. Just a quickie. No real touristy stuff, though I did see Vukovar (The town that got DESTROYED during the Serbian campaign) through a bus window. Tons of bullet holes. Way sad.
Our apartment is quaint. It's exactly what Fram would love to live in. In fact, our gazda (landlady) reminds me a lot of her sometimes even though I've NO idea what she's saying ever.... We have a big red door along the street and then pass by her part of the house (it's a long one split into two living areas). There is a bistro area with trees and plants and cutesy wheelbarrows full of planters and things. Inside is pretty small. A couple of rooms - bedroom, study, kitchen, bathroom - and a hallway I guess. We hang our laundry up back in the yard kind of by the dog kennels. She has two - Jipa (something like Gypsy) and Crna (Blackie). Quaint.
We get together with our district EVERY day. No lie. Okay, so our district is Elder Jacobsen and me, but whatever. Districts in our mission just mean towns. So only Rijeka, Osijek, Zagreb and I believe Zadar have districts. Idk about Slovenia... Some maybe? Our Zone which is Beograd, Novi Sad, Osijek and us has only been together once. I guess that happens maybe once a transfer. Could be as sporadic as once every quarter though. I don't really know....
Serbian is coming along very nicely. We're doing okay in speaking our language, but it's hard. The biggest thing for me has been trying to determine where the stops and beginnings of words are, because it just usually sounded like a blur. But now that I've been hearing their filler words and how they say things, it's definitely getting easier. My speaking is pretty slow comparatively, and I don't actually know if it will ever really be up to par, but they understand. We taught again in Sunday School yesterday, and I got fewer confused looks. Just bored ones because of the simplicity of what I say, I think. But, I am understanding when people swear, when people are telling funny things, and when people are parroting what they have heard and aren't thinking for themselves (a real problem here, though I'll save that for another time). My vocabulary has been staying roughly the same, but I've been learning how to use it. It's coming along. I'm making enough mistakes, that I figure I must be on the right track to learning what this stuff means.... :)
We did see some futbol the other week! There's a stadium in SM and so we were just walking by it. Watched some 30 somethings play. Crazy good.
Talked to some Christian kids from America last night. Lost, but trying to do good. A little antagonistic, but not bad. It was nice to talk to some people who actually care about what they believe and well, believe it.
I called a girl a gypsie this week. Ooops. Far worse than many racial slurs in America. Bad greenie mistake. Well, I won't be making that mistake again.
I don't know if we'll e-mail more in Beograd. Maybe. We'll see.

Ciao


Whoa. Beograd is crazy huge. Like oh my gosh I have no idea where I am, but I'm in the fifth story of some bookstore. Like, a bookstore with at least five stories. This is ridiculous. Anyways, I was thinking about it as I was sleep/riding on the bus here that there are really two ways that we can do this. You can ask me questions, and I will definitely respond to them in detail, or I can tell you about my week. It's usually pretty difficult to do both... Anyways, I'll try to do the latter right now.
In Novi Sad last week we looked at a really cool fortress thing that must have been built in like 1300AD or something like that. We hung out, had McDonalds and life was good. Later on Monday we had FHE with the Vucenovic family as we will again tonight. Dushanka, the mom, has been translating for General Conference and I swear is going to have a heart attack from stress. I guess it should be good or something like that. Anyways, that was fun.
We made the border run. I didn't have a visa. Croatia was curious. They took my passport off the bus for a LONG time... I made it. End of story
English class started this week. On Tuesday we had a bunch of people show up for beginners level and everything, but on Thursday not so much. Middle level is pretty cool. Basically just a bunch of kids who want to practice for school and so they can communicate as they play World of Warcraft. (Crazy rage here). We give spiritual thoughts and pray at the beginning and end of each. It's pretty fun, though I'm often a little stuttery while teaching. We'll see.
Had an exchange with Elder Freeman this week. Way cool guy. He's our ZL in Novi Sad. So I got to spend a day contacting with him in their huge city and it was really cool. It's interesting to see the different ways that people do the work. I learned a lot from him and hope to be able to apply it. After that, we had a little English party thing put on by the Vucenovic girls and Ljubica their friend. Pretty fun, and in Sremska. Food, Ping-pong. English. Way cool.
Really, that's about it. Time to hit the city and see what Serbia has to offer! :)
Love you all.

Старешина Адамз