July 5 - Week 6

Bok!

Yesterday we received a mini lecture on the whens and hows of how to say Hello. Turns out saying Zdravo will offend some people in Croatia and Bok will offend some Serbians. At least we can safely say Dobro Dan ili Halo!

Yesterday was also the 4th of July! What a wonderful holiday! It went on as normal, except there was a lot of color coordinating and one of the sisters in my district went all out. Around the time we usually have TRC we had a really short 4th of July program followed by a showing of 17 Miracles. You'd think that we were told the whole world had already committed to baptism, and we just needed to show up! Everybody was so excited! It's a very good movie. There was lots of sniffling and sobbing. The movie didn't end until after our bed time. Nevertheless, they had magnum ice cream waiting for us and we got to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks. I got to watch fireworks and spend the 4th of July with some of my favorite people! I will never forget it.

On Sunday, our Relief Society speaker was Sheri Dew. As you could guess, that went very well.

I can't believe Liz's wedding is today! And Lizzie's baptism is tomorrow! We had a "baptism" scheduled for tomorrow but it has been postponed to next week. One of my teachers got married last Saturday and was gone the whole week prior. We were a little nervous to see what would happen to 'Ervin' after his "vacation" but it wasn't so bad. He gets baptized next Saturday. Same time as Kristina. Now Kristina, we thought everything was smooth sailing. We originally planned to teach her the law of chastity and word of wisdom in the same lesson, but we never got past Chastity. She doesn't have a problem with it, she just doesn't understand some things. After some racing around campus we printed off a talk from general conference. Good times!

We also get to be progressive investigators for each other now. We've only taught our Darko and Tomislav once but they might already be committed to baptism. It wasn't easy! At least we can understand what they are saying. We got to make up our own investigator and we were given a Yugoslavian name. The way we did it was we told Brat Hansen what our investigator name is and  he gave us a new Croatian/Serbian name. When he finally got to me and my companion (we were last) she said Emily and I said Broomhelga. I had to repeat it to him a couple times. The name I got back was Dragana. It took me almost half the class block to get the joke. Then that night, someone looked up words that are close to our names. It was pretty funny! I love all of our teachers! I love love love LOVE them! They are simply top notch!

The Bulgarians are leaving on Tuesday. My bestest buddies are in there, so I'm a little sad about it but so excited for them to get out there! We, ourselves, have had the scary realization that we only have 3 weeks left! Last week we were complaining about how we have been here forever and we still have forever left. Now we are beginning to see a possible end. We've been setting new goals and visions for our MTC stay. I guess it's time to start learning the language. I'm also making friends with the new missionaries. They're not so scary anymore.

This week has also been full of companionship exchanges. My companion is a training sister which means she's gone a lot. There's also been some sickness going around. There are often times I'm not sure who my current companion(s) is/are.

I keep losing things! I lost my water bottle (I got a new one from Liz today), my hygiene kit went missing for a day (that was embarrassing. I never thought I could get so excited about brushing my teeth), my razor has gone missing, and I can never find my pen (but that's not new). Since the temple is closed we had some extra time to sleep (we didn't go to bed until very late) and since I woke up before everyone I just read my scriptures. I finished Ether today. One of the chapters begins with a description of a curse. The people would put their swords away wherever they would keep their swords and the next day the swords would be missing. So no one would borrow or lend their things because of this curse. Then the thought came... I'm cursed! Haha I had a good laugh. We all know the far more likely theory is that there is something living in our vents who likes to harass me.

I am loving it here at the MTC. The people are great. The food is alright. The weather is smoldering. The future is bright! And I have the unique opportunity to devote 100% of my all to the Lord! The changes are slow but the evidence is lasting and undeniable.

Oh, I think the natives are catching onto me. However, none of them have figured out it's my birthday. You would think 3 packages in one day (one of which covered in flower wrapping paper) would tip them off.  It tipped off random missionaries who were walking by. I love that people here are so friendly.

Also, I was quite embarrassed. I'm not use to getting much attention here. I couldn't pick up the packages until this morning. I don't think they got here until yesterday. There's probably a total of 15 steps between my residence and the post office and 2 sets of Elders were like "WOAH! Happy birthday sister!" It was pretty funny. Thank you for writing Pooh Bear on it. I haven't opened it yet.

Love you all!

Keep the faith!

Sestra Farnsworth

Drago mi je, missunari!

HOBY alumni make OUTSTANDING missonaries

P.S.

The big group picture is my zone before the new Polski's showed up. I've also seen Clinny Purser, Micheal Scott Peters, and Tyler Barton. These boys are winning! Oh, and of course Elder Bursell. (He's Tomislav)

Until next week!