Zdravo everyone!!!!!!
Welcome back!! As you can tell from the title the weather was not a vibe. The start of the week was really nice!
Summary:
Spent a lot of the days indoors because of the weather. General conference was this weekend!!! Met a lot of new people and am excited to meet with them more.
Today was pdayyyyyy woooo! Our plans were to hike to the castle at the top of Celje. It is called Stari Grad Celje and is so beautiful. We wanted to have a cute little picnic up there so we spent a lot of time shopping for supplies and then making it. I made my famous and favorite sandwich: toasted bread with pesto, gouda, salami, and tomatoes (heavenly) - on baguettes! We sliced fruit too and had some other snacks like chips, oreos, and some fun drinks. We got another one of those non-alcoholic alcoholic drinks but a flavor none of us tried yet. Then we set on our way to hike up the mountain to the castle.
Part of Stari Grad
The hike to the castle was a little rough not gonna lie - everything was super steep and talking while walking on a straight incline was not it. It was super fun and pretty though. We had our cute little picnic on the bench that was by the overlook of the entire city. The 0% alcohol drink was nasty - it tasted like straight weeds haha. The castle has a section of medieval torture devices which was so funny to see. They also had a tv with a digital guy on it. You could take pictures with him or a woman. We took full advantage of that haha. It was so good to just laugh and have fun with Sestra Williams. I got to know her so much and that was lovely.
On the way back we stopped by a thrift store. We spent SO LONG in this store haha. I swear I tried on at least 30 different outfits. There were these mens pants that were psycho colors and designs (very 70s and 80s looking shorts) so we tried them on with Hawaiian shirts (they had fish all over them). I ended up getting two of those psycho shorts because they were SO comfortable. It was so fun and we took so many pictures. The store attendant kept coming up to us and talking about whether the clothes we tried on looked good on us or not - so funny. I think she wanted to practice her english. We left that store and immediately went to another store. I didn't get anything there but it was still fun.
The 70s/80s pants and shirt at the thrift store (yes I did buy those bottoms)
Part two of our 70s/80s try ons
We came back and I wrote my weekly email which took FOREVER. Thanks again to everyone that takes the time to read my emails haha.
Tuesday 3/29:
Today was alright. I woke up so tired and I had a massive headache. I took a nap later on in the day and that helped. I think today was just an off day.
Later we went and got some fresh bread. We got some chocolate croissants, a fresh loaf of bread, and then I got this one pizza breadstick thing. It was absolutely heavenly. No joke. The bread was more of a croissant consistency where it was flaky and really yummy and then it had cheese, some pepperoni, and sauce in it - absolute heaven SO GOOD. I think I am addicted.
The most heavenly thing I have ever eaten
In the evening we went to our church to meet up with a member named Marko. He is the only young adult person in our ward and is so cool. He played the piano while we sang songs in Slovene and it was so fun. Overall a pretty busy day.
Wednesday 3/30:
Today was a pretty good day! All of my studies in the morning were super focused and good! After language study we walked to a kebap place and I got a Jufka Kebab. It was actually pretty good - I usually am not a huge fan of that so I was surprised.
Me with my jufka kebap
After eating, we walked over to the supermarket to meet up with Maria. She is a girl from Peru who is living in Slovenia with her husband who is Slovenian. She wanted to know how to make chocolate chip cookies so we were going to teach her how to make cookies and then eat them with her. Win win situation for me. As soon as we got to her house and started preparing, we immediately ran into a couple different challenges.
1. We had whole grain flour
2. We did not have a cookie sheet, only a cake pan
3. We had limited bowls
4. We had no cooking utensils like a whisk
5. We only had almond milk
6. The butter was frozen completely
7. No microwave - only stove
We somehow made everything work - I don’t know how but we did so I am proud of us haha. The cookies weren’t that bad; they just tasted extra healthy but also insanely sweet. Don't ask me how, haha. The rest of the day was pretty chill. Since tomorrow is April Fools' Day, I am going to prank s. williams (note from the future it was not in fact April Fools day the next day). After Sestra Williams went to bed, I got saran wrap and put it on the door frame that goes into the kitchen (s. Williams keeps her phone on the table) in hopes that she would run into it while trying to turn off the alarm on her phone. I also got sticky notes and spelled out “happy april fools day!” It took soooooo long - I nearly died from falling off the chairs.
2. We did not have a cookie sheet, only a cake pan
3. We had limited bowls
4. We had no cooking utensils like a whisk
5. We only had almond milk
6. The butter was frozen completely
7. No microwave - only stove
We somehow made everything work - I don’t know how but we did so I am proud of us haha. The cookies weren’t that bad; they just tasted extra healthy but also insanely sweet. Don't ask me how, haha. The rest of the day was pretty chill. Since tomorrow is April Fools' Day, I am going to prank s. williams (note from the future it was not in fact April Fools day the next day). After Sestra Williams went to bed, I got saran wrap and put it on the door frame that goes into the kitchen (s. Williams keeps her phone on the table) in hopes that she would run into it while trying to turn off the alarm on her phone. I also got sticky notes and spelled out “happy april fools day!” It took soooooo long - I nearly died from falling off the chairs.
My first attempt to April Fools my comp (yes the one on the wrong day)
The sticky note sign that I did (also on the wrong day)
Thursday 3/30:
Today is not April fools day - that’s my bad ngl
Literally as soon as I woke up I went out to find Sestra Williams and I asked her “did I get cha?” She said no and then was so confused as to why it was there - I showed her the sticky note sign and she just looked at me and said “it’s the 30th not April 1st”. I think we about died right then and there. I don’t even know how I thought it was April first - I literally look at a calendar every day - this just made everything more funny and memorable hahahaha. As part of being a new missionary in the field, we need to go through some training. As part of this training you need to meet with a mentor and talk/set goals/follow up with your goals. We had a meeting online with Lyndie Mott! Lyndie is a girl that was in my church ward in Utah! It was super fun to see her and talk with her.
she had us come up with specific goals - mine was daily repentance and s. Williams was a better personal/comp/language study - it was very spiritual and nice to have that meeting. We ended up going to the church to print out some papers and do some other random stuff. On the way back we stopped and had dinner at Hood Burger - I got a Brie Burger which was insanely good!!
The yummy Brie Burger at Hood Burger
We went back home and had our weekly mission wide zoom call where we can all talk about what miracles we have seen in the past week. It was so good to see all of the other missionaries that were in the mtc with me like Sestra Wendt, Sestra King, Sestra Mefford, Sestra Voigt, and Elder Walters. After this we got ready for bed. When s. williams went to bed before me I did another one of those saran wrap tape things but in front of our bedroom door so there would be no way she would miss it (note from the future: I was wrong haha)
Friday 4/1:
Happy april fools day!! (for real)
Happy april fools day!! (for real)
My second attempt to April Fools my comp
The morning was filled with studies and more meetings so woo. We got lunch after and I was so excited because we were going to go to wok n’ roll (that one place that I talked about last week with the absolutely divine food). BUT we get there and find out that THEY ARE GOING TO BE CLOSED FOR TWO WEEKS FOR RENOVATION. Ruined my day. Horrible news. We went to a different area and I got chicken pad thai. While we were waiting for our food we went and walked around the outside market just looking at what was there. We passed by this bread guy who offered us some of his bread (really good) and started talking about the history - once he could see that we didn’t understand, he switched to English. Later on he noticed that we were missionaries and started talking about his beliefs - he said he was the Messiah (I don’t know if he truly believes that or if it is just a mistranslation thing haha) and that he believes in the Second Coming but when Jesus comes down from the cloud, it will not be a cloud, but instead a UFO... interesting. He kept talking and we were trying to leave so we could get our food and go but he would interrupt us and keep talking about his beliefs haha. We got his facebook and told him we would plan a time to meet up and chat more and that was the only thing that got him to let us go. We got our food and mine was absolutely disgusting - the chicken was really good but the noodles tasted very suspicious and just not good in general. I miss Wok n’ Roll. We had district council today. Reminder: this is where we meet up with the Elders in Maribor and talk about the week, practice a lesson, give language tips, and talk about emotional resilience (they just added doing this!). The Barrus’ arrived to take us to district council in Maribor - I fell asleep on the way. It was very cold there in Maribor. District council was pretty good. Sister Barrus brought snacks which was a lifesaver. On the way back I did a timelapse of the drive home. It was really cool! I loved the random little meadow popups.
Saturday 4/2:
Today was a pretty good day! It snowed the entire morning and then was raining/foggy the rest of the day. Studies went great. After language we set up the church for GENERAL CONFERENCE TONIGHT WOOOOO. General conference is a big church meeting that happens twice a year and is my absolute favorite thing in the world. The leaders of our church speak and give messages of hope, joy, comfort, and advice. I would definitely recommend checking it out. There are typically five sessions: Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon. I only got to watch the first four sessions because of the time zone difference. Hopefully I can watch the last one soon. In our church building we set up the tv and had lots of couches and chairs set up for people to come watch it with us. After setting up the church we went shopping for supplies to make the desserts for tonight.
We are making monster cookies (cookies with peanut butter and m&ms in them!) They are actually really good which is surprising because I am not super big on dessert but I actually ate quite a few. After buying everything we went straight home after shopping and started making the cookies. We jammed out to music while making it and it was honestly so much fun. There have been very few times where I have laughed harder than I did while making the cookies. Anyways we had finished baking everything and were just sitting eating strawberries when we realized we had to leave in literally 8 minutes. We had also gotten a text from one of the people that said they (10 year old boy and his mom) were at a cafe and didn’t know where to go - we are 98% sure the boy only wanted to come because he has a crush on Sestra Williams. We met up with them at the cafe and just sat and talked with them for a while. Soon enough it was getting close to when we had to leave so we headed out and while we were walking the mom asked if we could take a picture - she had us take a picture with her son and then with her. So so so sweet. If anyone is following me and Facebook you probably saw her post.
Beautiful sunrise
We showed up to the church and it was just the Barrus’ there. We also came to the realization that we had left the computer at the apartment aka our whole means of watching general conference. So we had to run all the way back to our apartment and it was such a disaster:
- Conference started in 7 minutes
- I left my coat
- We thought we forgot our keys but then found it
- Sestra Williams tripped but caught herself in time
- I tripped and nearly ate the ground (thankfully I didn’t) but also barely caught myself
- somehow Sestra Williams nametag flew off her onto the ground - we had to stop and gather everything
- some random guy was yelling at us but we had no clue what he was saying and kept running
We learned two important lessons from this
- I left my coat
- We thought we forgot our keys but then found it
- Sestra Williams tripped but caught herself in time
- I tripped and nearly ate the ground (thankfully I didn’t) but also barely caught myself
- somehow Sestra Williams nametag flew off her onto the ground - we had to stop and gather everything
- some random guy was yelling at us but we had no clue what he was saying and kept running
We learned two important lessons from this
1. Make sure you have everything with you before you leave
2. We need to run more haha
Anyways we started watching general conference and the slovene link wasn’t working so we had no slovene subtitles for our poor new friends
They said english was fine so we just continued to watch with the english subtitles until those also randomly disappeared so again these poor people could only listen to english. Eventually they came back on their own which was good. Conference was so good, I can’t wait for the next sessions. After general conference we walked them to their car, said goodbye, and promised that we would meet up again. They are genuinely so sweet. I can't wait to meet with them again. Then we went back, grabbed our stuff and walked home. There was a guy behind us that was starting to creep me out so I had sister williams and I go to the side to “check for something” so he could pass by. We then crossed the street which he then proceeded to cross as well and it looked like he was coming straight for us. I told Sestra Williams to fake a phone call as we passed by him and walk really fast. We took a bunch of random alleyways back to our apartment. It was kinda sketchy because we know this guy and he is known for being sketchy especially towards girls. But we arrived safe and sound.
2. We need to run more haha
Anyways we started watching general conference and the slovene link wasn’t working so we had no slovene subtitles for our poor new friends
They said english was fine so we just continued to watch with the english subtitles until those also randomly disappeared so again these poor people could only listen to english. Eventually they came back on their own which was good. Conference was so good, I can’t wait for the next sessions. After general conference we walked them to their car, said goodbye, and promised that we would meet up again. They are genuinely so sweet. I can't wait to meet with them again. Then we went back, grabbed our stuff and walked home. There was a guy behind us that was starting to creep me out so I had sister williams and I go to the side to “check for something” so he could pass by. We then crossed the street which he then proceeded to cross as well and it looked like he was coming straight for us. I told Sestra Williams to fake a phone call as we passed by him and walk really fast. We took a bunch of random alleyways back to our apartment. It was kinda sketchy because we know this guy and he is known for being sketchy especially towards girls. But we arrived safe and sound.
Sunday 4/3:
Literally the only thing I wrote in my journal was that I fell off my bed hahahahah. Today was a very good day. It was filled with three general conference sessions. We watched the Saturday afternoon one at 10am here, the Saturday night one at 2pm, and the Sunday morning at 6pm here. At our first viewing, we had two people join us. We had David and Mario join us. David is a member and is so cool. He is from England and loves Star Wars. Mario is not a member and is someone we have been talking to. He is so so so cool. He stayed for the entire 2 hour session and then talked about the things he liked and what stood out to him. We also want to meet up with him more. The rest of the sessions were so good and I feel spiritually filled to the brim. We ate dinner at the Barrus' house which was great. Now to bring it back to the falling out of bed thing haha, I was trying to find my way back to my bed in the dark. I found the bottom of my bed and climbed over it but I guess I was coming at an angle because my new completely missed the bed and I faceplanted into the mattress while my knee proceeded to hit the floor. I think I might have a bruise haha.
Literally the only thing I wrote in my journal was that I fell off my bed hahahahah. Today was a very good day. It was filled with three general conference sessions. We watched the Saturday afternoon one at 10am here, the Saturday night one at 2pm, and the Sunday morning at 6pm here. At our first viewing, we had two people join us. We had David and Mario join us. David is a member and is so cool. He is from England and loves Star Wars. Mario is not a member and is someone we have been talking to. He is so so so cool. He stayed for the entire 2 hour session and then talked about the things he liked and what stood out to him. We also want to meet up with him more. The rest of the sessions were so good and I feel spiritually filled to the brim. We ate dinner at the Barrus' house which was great. Now to bring it back to the falling out of bed thing haha, I was trying to find my way back to my bed in the dark. I found the bottom of my bed and climbed over it but I guess I was coming at an angle because my new completely missed the bed and I faceplanted into the mattress while my knee proceeded to hit the floor. I think I might have a bruise haha.
My first bloody nose in Slovenia (for those of you who have been here a long time know how often my nose bleeds haha - it is a tradition to take a picture and include it)
Spritual thought:
My favorite message from general conference was the message spoken by Elder Patrick Kearon from the Saturday Afternoon session. He gave a powerful message to anyone that has experienced abuse, war, bullying, or any kind of hardship (physical, mental, and spiritual). It was a message of hope, peace, and comfort. I would absolutely recommend everyone read it and feel the peace that I felt while listening to his words. The talk isn't out yet, but when it comes out I will send it in my next email and on my Facebook. The most powerful thing Elder Kearon shared was the reminder of the truth that God is in our midst. He loves us in a way that we cannot comprehend. I know He sees you. I know He knows you. He knows your hardships. He knows your desires. And He is with you every single step of the way. He will not let you fail. He will not let you fall. Trust in Him.
Some of you may know this already but for those of you who don't, I am hard of hearing and wear hearing aids (I can hear pretty well without them so I usually don't wear them - bad I know). This next section is dedicated to all of the things I have misheard/didn't know made a sound when I am not wearing my hearing aids haha. My poor companion.
- "Ugh but the sound it makes" - S. Williams
Some of you may know this already but for those of you who don't, I am hard of hearing and wear hearing aids (I can hear pretty well without them so I usually don't wear them - bad I know). This next section is dedicated to all of the things I have misheard/didn't know made a sound when I am not wearing my hearing aids haha. My poor companion.
- "Ugh but the sound it makes" - S. Williams
"THERE'S A SOUND?!?" S. LaRose
- *S. Williams asks me something*
"Gopher?" S. LaRose
- apparently my shoes whistle and I only notice it randomly when I have my hearing aids in (it sounds like a tire deflating and always catches me off guard when I hear it) Sister Williams has been hearing it this entire time and has said nothing
- "What are your favorite movies?" - S. Williams
"Leaves?" - S. LaRose
"..." - S. Williams
"Maple" - S. LaRose
- "Lahčo noč" (Slovene for good night) - S. Williams
"Kaj?!" (What) - S. LaRose
Highlights:
The picture of shame for having cracked my phone not even a week after arriving
- I cracked my phone which was not fun - I don't really know how but I'm pretty sure it is from falling into my drawer - this just SUCKS
- For one of our workouts we went to the church and did a latin dance workout which was super fun and surprisingly hard. I realized just how uncoordinated I am haha
- I learned that you can change the color of google documents!!!! my journal on google docs is now a very pretty blue
- I think I have eaten nutella every day here - it is great
- Sestra Williams had me try this nasty dark chocolate - idek how she likes it - it tastes like pure sadness to me
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