Sretan Pripremni dan! Happy Preparation day! I wish that I could copy and paste this past week into my next 7 weeks at the MTC. If I could do that the next 7 weeks will be a piece of cake!

 

We started Monday with P-day! We did initiatories at the temple, I got caught up on all of my letters, and was even able to have some fun too! It was a good day. Monday night we went back to class and when we got there found out we had to teach a lesson to a new investigator. So we had about an hour of preparation time. And it actually went pretty well. We just did a short basic overview of the words we knew and we could feel the Spirit in the lesson so that's all that matters. Another funny story, he was having us use the phrase ako sam bila u hrvatskoj (If I were in Croatia...) and then we filled it in with what we would be doing such as teaching the Gospel, meeting people, etc. We were going around the room talking to everyone and me and Sister Peel got to each other and at the exact same time said "If I were in Croatia I would know Croatian." We both started laughing really hard. It probably isn't that funny but at the end of a 3 hour class it was.

 

Tuesday morning they think it is a good idea to have us wake up at 6 and exercise. But we can't use the gym we just have to do stuff in our room. It really is the dumbest thing. This week our exercise consisted of walking up to the fourth floor and back down and then stretching. Haha! We do wake up at 6 we just aren't so good at the exercise part. We exercise every other day though. Sister Palmer really wanted to go running but I was adament that that was not going to happen. I hate running. It ended up being a good thing because it actually snowed on Tuesday morning. I don't know if it snowed there or not. It actually snowed here today too. I'm ready for it to be warm. Walking to and from buildings is kind of miserable. Tuesday during class we officially started learning Serbian which means we started the Cyrillic alphabet. It actually isn't that bad because except for a few exceptions most of the words are the same in Croatian you just have to translate it into Cyrillic. I will have to send a hand written letter with some Serbian because I don't know how to type it. Also during class We decided to sing More Holiness give Me as the opening song. And at the end where it goes super high one of the elders decided to try and sing it. Needless to say he couldn't sing it and all of us including the teacher started busting up and we weren't able to finish the song. Tuesday night we also had a devotional. I have decided that there is nothing more powerful than being in a room with over 3000 missionaries when we sing. It brings the Spirit into the room immediately. Especially Called to Serve even though we sing that song at least 3 times a week I will never get sick of it. The Devotional this week was Gerald N. Lund. He talked about recognizing the promptings of the Spirit. My favorite thing he said was not only do we have to say they will be done but also thy timing be done. I can promise you we will always recieve answers to prayers but it will take time. I felt like this is something we can all learn from because I know even when I want something I want the answer now but it's not my timing that matters. He also talked about how once we get the revelation we have to be willing and act on it otherwise it does us no good.

 

Wednesday we had to be up early again for service. We got to clean the bathrooms today. Luckily the bathrooms we have to clean don't have showers so they really aren't that bad. And it's actually fairly fun. Wednesday they had French toast stix for breakfast and I remember Jordan saying he loved them so I decided to try them. I didn't realize until after I got them that they were deep fried. Needless to say I won't be getting those again. They were good but they are definitely not what I want to start my day off with. I had to force myself to eat the rest of the day. Wednesday we also started learning cases. We don't have them in English so it's kind of hard to explain what they are. Basically there are 5 different cases and how a word is used in the sentence such as the Subject, the direct object, the indirect object, etc. determines the ending of the word. For example Book of Mormon in one case is Mormonova Kniga and in another case it is Mormonovu Knigu. And the only way to learn them is to memorize the cases. You also have to memorize whether a word is masculine or feminine because those are different in each case too. We have learned 3 of the cases so far and I feel like for the most part I understand them but it takes me a few minutes to say what I am trying to say to make sure that I say everything right. Wednesday we had our first lesson with another new investigator. It was by far the best lesson we have taught so far! We really focused on the needs of the investigator and talked about what he needed to hear. We also made sure to talk to the investigator throughout and ask him questions and made sure he understood what we were talking about. And it was pretty amazing that we were able to for the most part answer his questions when we didn't have everything written down because we didn't know what he was going to ask. We actually committed him to baptism! And it was the first lesson! The Spirit was amazing in that lesson. When we left the room we were seriously giddy and had the biggest grins on our faces. It was amazing! Our word of the day for the new missionaries was bježite which translates to get out! But none of them know that! Haha! We have to find some ways to have fun!

 

Thursday we decided to try our first Speak Your Language (SYL) day. It went great up until about lunch and then we kind of stopped. But I was actually suprised at how well we could carry a conversation. Sister Pelton and I were actually carrying on a fairly good conversation about normal non church related stuff. We did have to use the dictionary a few times. And we are all really good at saying the Baptismal Commitment so whenever there was a dull moment we would just ask eachother to be baptized. Thursday Sister Madsen who is the Widow of Truman Madsen came and talked to us. She new Kresimir Cosic when he first became a member. She talked a little bit about him and about Croatia. She went for the 40th anniversary thing last year and showed us pictures. It was really cool. I forgot my notes or else I would tell you more about what she said. She didn't talk much about Kresimir she just mostly told us her experiences in Croatia. It was still really cool to talk to her though. Thursday we also did the TRC which is where they have returned missionaries come in and you basically just give them an uplifting message in Croatian. It was really cool because it was like a conversation and we got to ask them to share missionary experiences and I was actually suprised about how much of what they were saying I understood. I could pick out enough words to get the gist of what they were saying. After TRC we went back to class and did role play teaching where we got to be the investigators. It was really cool. It was in English. My companions taught me about prayer. And I can honestly say that even though prayer is a principle I have known my whole life but when I put myself in the shoes of an investigator it was amazing how much I felt the Spirit. Our teacher left the room for a minute and when he came back he said the second he opened the door the Spirit immediately hit him. It was a neat, eyeopening experience to see a bit of what investigators feel when we teach them.

 

Friday was a pretty relazed day. Friday was pizza night so they brought in Papa Johns which was delicious! We also used the Jelly Beans you sent and were throwing them into eachothers mouth during class! During one of our breaks on Friday we decided to play heads up 7 up except for it was heads up 2 up. It was really funny! And whenever Elder Stuart would put his head down he would describe the galaxies he was seeing when he shut his eyes really tight. It was pretty funny! Friday I also bought a Croatian hymnbook. I think it's weird that they don't give them to us but I decided I wanted one so I got it. The church doesn't make official hymnbooks so they are basically just on computer paper binded together and they aren't real great quality but they work. It's also kind of interesting that the Croatian Book of Mormon isn't officially printed by the church. I don't really know why. We tried to get a Serbian book of Mormon and Hymnbook but the bookstore said they can't order them.

 

Saturday we had to move classrooms. They are redoing something in our normal building so they moved everyone in our building. It is only temporary but it was kind of depressing. We moved from a decorated classroom with big desks and comfy chairs to a classroom with white walls, hard chairs, and the desks are the ones that are connected to the chairs and are super small. And it is in a building with all of the Spanish people. It is only for a week or so though and then we get to go back.

Sunday. It was our first normal Sunday! We started off with Sacrament meeting which is just with our branch. It was just in a room in a building. They have a bunch of assigned Sacrament Meeting rooms so it is different than our classroom but isn't an actual chapel if that makes sense. They assign everyone a topic for a talk and then they announce 2 people to speak but you don't know who is speaking until they announce it. So everyone prepares a talk every week. Then they have a member of the Branch Presidency and their wife speak. And then we go to breakfast. After breakfast all of the Sister Missionaries go to Music and the Spoken Word and then Relief Society. For Relief Society they have a guest speaker. This week wasn't anyone I've heard of before and I can't remember her name but she did a really good job! And she was really funny! We then have study time in our classroom and interviews with the Branch Presidency until lunch. After lunch is district meeting which is basically like Sunday School. Each companionship prepares about a 5 minute lesson on an assigned topic and then we discuss it. We then had our Sunday walk where we go to the temple and can just visit and take pictures. After that we had more study time and then we go to dinner. And then there is an MTC Fireside. This week was the Media Director from the Missionary Department who talked about what the Church is doing in different places around the world to encourage people to be interested in the church. It is actually kind of amazing how much they do and it is actually pretty effective. After the devotional they have different movies and talks playing in different rooms and you can choose where you want to go. We watched the Joseph Smith Movie this week which was good.

 

That was my week now just a few random things. For the Men that went to Priesthood session if any of you paid attention to President Eyring's talk he talked about an orphan Priest who joined the Church. That was in Bosnia. Anyone interested should go watch it. It's pretty cool.

 

We have another teacher named Brother Hansen. He is a new RM so he is still a little awkward but he is an awesome teacher and you can tell he loves teaching by how excited he gets about each subject. He was telling us the other day that there is a correct way to eat chocolate but he won't show us because you can only do it with real chocolate. Apparently the first ingredient has to be cocoa and it has to be at least 60% cocoa. So if anyone knows what that means and wants to send some I can teach you the correct way to eat chocolate once he shows us. I don't know if it even exists.

 

We have a teacher that constantly has a red face but when something embarassing happens or he laughs it goes even redder. So we learned how to say you are turning red in Croatian. So one night when he started laughing we all said it to him. It made him turn even redder!

 

Also because I am OCD I am having a hard time getting myself to mark my scriptures because I don't have a system yet. I tried to ask my teachers good ways to mark scriptures but they don't understand my OCD and just said to start marking. So if anyone has any good suggestions on how to mark your scriptures I would appreciate it!

 

I brought my wolf shirt because it is awesome and comfy! And I have gotten a ton of comments on it! Carrie asked about that!

 

I hope I have answered all of your questions. I am going to write a quick letter to send in the mail in a bit so if I missed anything I will tell you it then. But I think I've gotten everything! Thanks for everything! I love you all lots, and lots, and lots!

 

Shoutouts!

 

Letters this week from Mom, dad, Jordan, Tyson, Justin, Kaitlin, Brianne, B, Carrie, Zach, Nicole Banks, and some YW. To answer Carrie's question the past two weeks I have gotten the same letter from her twice. Which is fine because then it looks like I am getting more letters than it really is. They have also started putting multiple letters on the same paper sometimes when I have too many.

 

Sretan Rodjenum! Happy Birthday to Tyler Griffiths this week!

 

Congratulations to Kendal on his mission call! That will be awesome!

 

Also, I'm hoping that Grandpa is still alive tonight and made it through tax season!

Volim te!

Sestra Clark

 

 

  Nametag with languages for Speak Your Language Day

 

 They had to switch classrooms and were sad!

 

Croatian flag on classroom door

 

All the sisters in the district at the temple