week 2

Drugi Obitelj, (except i don't know the vocative form for family. oh well)

This week has been really good. I love being a missionary. I'm learning the language really fast, but I still get really frustrated that I know how to say very little, and it takes a century just to say one sentence. I'm glad I have patient teachers.

I talked to my teacher, Sister Carter, who got back from Croatia a year ago, and she says there are only 2 cities where sister missionaries serve--Zadar and Zagreb. There are only 4 sisters currently in Croatia. One has been in Croatia for 3 weeks now, 2 have been there for 11ish, and 1 is coming home when I go out. So when I get out there, my trainer will have been out there for only 4 months. Crazy, huh?

They've been making a lot of changes here in the MTC in how they're teaching us. Because they've been putting so much more emphasis on having us focus on the needs of the people we're teaching and tailoring our lessons to what they need in their lives, there are a lot of changes. For instance, the people who we're teaching in the TRC are no longer supposed to pretend to be not members of the church. They're supposed to be themselves, and we're supposed to help them, as members, come closer to Christ by teaching the basic principles of the gospel. We still teach during class to our teachers and each other as we pretend to not be members of our church though. On Friday, we learned that the investigator we had been teaching was actually the Slovenian teacher, who also knows Croatian. It made it more real though to not know who he was.

Now we're teaching Marilena, who is actually Sister Carter, one of my teachers, but she's pretending to be a non-practicing Catholic from Zagreb. It's so much easier to understand her than Uroš, our old investigator. Partly because she wasn't throwing in Slovenian words, but partly because she talks more slowly.

I watched the new Joseph Smith movie on Sunday. It's really good. I would highly recommend it. It's made from the old one that they showed in visitors' centers, but they've taken out a lot of stuff and added other scenes.

So, some elders in my district have decided that they will learn 50 words a day, besides Sundays and P-days, and I couldn't have them passing me up, so I'm doing it with them. It's crazy. That's a lot of words to memorize in one day. I've still got 13 words left to catch up from yesterday. The elders in my district are so good at memorizing. It's not fair.

Wow, 30 minutes isn't very long. I need to get better at writing these.

I know that God lives and loves me. I know that the Book of Mormon testifies of Jesus Christ as does the Bible. We can find more happiness in life by reading those books than by any other book. I love you all. Have a wonderful week.

Sestra Ariana Black

PS- thanks to whoever sent the cookies. they were very yummy.
Also, someone who knows Sabina could tell her that her email didn't go through, that would be great.