June photos - from Croatia

Note the little dog in the bushes sleeping, we call him our little dog.

On our way to finding a less active with my really good milka bar.

With the Thompson's two grandaughters that came here to visit them in Zagreb. This is in the back of the chapel.

Sister Fitzsimmons and I near the Babic' place.

Sister Whitaker and I practicing numbers because they are rediculous in this language. This is in one of the rooms at the church.

Photos from Croatia - June 2010

All above photos are at Plitvica.

This photo was taken after we arrived home from tracting in the rain.

June 14th through June 28th - 2010

June 14, 2010

Bok!

First of all sorry to all those who may have written to me and I was not able to write back. I have less time than usual today because we went to a wonderful place called Plivička Lakes. I spelled it wrong to a few people already, oops. It was an amazing sight to see. There were a lot of waterfalls and beautiful green lakes everywhere. I thought I was in paradise, especially since the sun was shinning and it was a beautiful day too. It was fun to go with the Elders and hike around. My favorite part of the day way when Sister Fitzsimmons almost fell into the water. Actually my favorite was a dialog that went like this between elder Matson and Elder Pashce:
E. Pasche: "This reminds me of scout camp. Did you have a really hard core scout group?"
E. Matson: "Yeah we would go cliff diving and ...."
E. Pasche: "No I mean like did you have a really intense scout group."
E. Matson: "Oh! yeah man, we would go on camp outs all the time and...."
E. Pasche: " No, I mean was it really intense like...
E. Matson: "Dude what do you mean."
E. Pasche: "I mean, like did you wear your scout shirts all the time and stuff."

I started laughing and stopped listening after that, well they were laughing a lot too. Anyway, I will send pictures next week.

This week end was so much fun! We had Zone Conference on Saturday and then the next day we had District Conference. For both, Elder Sterri, an area seventy from Norway came. He said so many things that Sister Fitzsimmons and I really needed to hear. It was a Zone Conference better than others. Darija who was going to get baptized decided not to and it was hard for us to hear. It made us wonder what we are really even doing here. Elder Sterri taught us about the Faith clock. We read through Alma 32:27 ( I think it's verse 27) and we talked about all the things that we need to do to have faith. Then in the next verses it describes what the Lord does. From 12 to six it's our part and then from six to 12 the Lord does his part. It is a great way to show us that we and investigators go half way and then the Lord does the rest. I realized me being here is to help me, my companion and others work their side of the clock. When people decide to get baptized or become active etc it's not me and my success or my doing, it's the Lord. My success comes from doing my part and doing what I can.

So at the end of this week all our senior couple is going to leave and there will be none to replace them, therefore I am officially the oldest missionary in the mission, well starting now and especially July 7 when I will be 24. Ha ha, that is ridiculous. We had seven countries in our mission Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia. Only Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia are open to missionaries though. But since May, our mission is only these three that are open to missionaries. So this is a little piece of church history I get to be here for.

I was going to talk about District Conference but I will talk about it next week. Sorry I don't have much time! Thank you for the letters, support, prayers and financial help! I miss you all and think of you often!

s ljubavlju,
Sister Dillender


June 21, 2010

Bok svima,

I hope everyone finds themselves doing well. I miss you all a lot, especially lately. The past few days it has been raining a lot and it feels like the fall in Oregon and you know what the fall in Oregon brings....Halloween. I feel like it is the Halloween season right now, but it's the end of June. I can't believe it. I just feel bad for all the tourists I see walking around in the windy rain. Actually, after our English class on Thursday, we got caught in a thunder and lightning storm. By the time we got home we literally looked like we had just gotten out of a pool. It was a great missionary moment and so we took pictures. The week was topped off when we went out contacting on Saturday and got stuck in the rain again on our way home. We didn't look like we just got out of a pool but we did look like buckets of water were splashed on us. We took pictures again. It's nice that it was always on our way home and in clothes that are very okay to get wet.

We had district conference last week and it went well, as I think I mentioned. I just wanted to say a little more about it. Since there are only branches in Croatia, all the branches make a district and President Hill (mission president) is over the district and the District leader. President and Sister Hill came to our chapel in Zagreb (there is only the one) and so did as many members as could from all over Croatia and all the missionaries. It was great to see the chapel so full, I wish it was like that every Sunday. President Thompson and his wife just went home to Oregon. They were a senior couple here and President Thompson was the District President. Elder Sterri who is an area authority from Norway came and spoke in our Zone Conference for the missionaries and in District Conference. It was a great, but tiring week end. Those who only spoke English, gave their talks in English and there was a translator who stood up there with them. They would say a line and then the translator would translate the line. This is what they do for every talk that is given in English. The translator is usually a Croat because most of them here in Zagreb speak English better than I do.

So transfers are upon us once again. I think I said already, but transfers here are nine weeks because we don't get as many missionaries as other places, so that means that Sister Dillender gets to serve a 19 month mission ;). First off for me I get the best situation possible, I get to stay here in Zagreb with Sister Fitzsimmons. YAHOOOOO! I am glad that we will get to have at least one more transfer together before she goes home in October. Sister Nelson, my MTC companion, is going to get Sister Laws (who is on her second transfer now) in Zadar (which on the coast). Now this may not be a shock to you, but to those who have served a language speaking mission...this is huge. Sister Nelson and I can only understand about fifty percent of what goes on since we are starting our fourth month and so Sister Laws who is starting her second obviously doesn't understand much either. I talked to Sister Nelson yesterday and asked her how she feels. She said the first day she was thinking, "Okay I can do this" the next day she was freaking out and the third day she was numb. Ha ha! I am just laughing because I am not in the situation, ah! She is a wonderful missionary and is going to do so well. Their language is going to go out the roof especially with all the blessing that are going to fall on them.

I feel like every Sunday we get to see the fruits of our labor. If we didn't work hard it shows in sacrament and no one came and we have nothing to do. But when we do work hard our Sundays are sooooo busy and it's so nice. I feel like this week our fruits showed and it was so nice to feel really busy. Most of the people that come aren't even directly related to us and what we did, but the Lord blesses us when we do our part. I know I mentioned this last week, but it is hard to go on each day wondering why you are here when no one is interested, but then you get that one person who is. Even if that interest doesn't last, it is such a nice high and it makes every thing worth being here. Then we trudge through the next weeks still on the high, until the next one comes a long. It's a hard mission in the sense of just looking all the time and it's not rude, but common to ask do you have any investigators? It's nice to have a great companion and have this time to learn and grow. Ha ha just for fun you can see how much different our mission is from Mexico where Sammy Ray is serving and here are some stats:

Lesson taught in a week
Croatia: 8-15 Leon Mexico: 45-60

Contacts a week (which is going out and talking to people on the street or tracting)
Croatia- 140-200 Leon Mexico- 13

We all have our challenges in a mission!


I love you and I will talk to you next week. Thank you for all your letters and love, I am so happy here and I hope you are happy too!

s ljubavlju,
Sister dillender



June 28, 2010

Hello everyone!
So this has been a very slow week. We usually teach four language classes a week and it takes up four hours each week. But this week we don't have them and we are starting over with the seven weeks again. We have been giving out flyers like crazy and dropping them on a bunch of trams. So without our four extra lessons last week, it felt very looooooong. But on Wednesday, we went out and hit the town going crazy on the flyers. It was so fun to be doing that with Sister Fitzsimmons, she is such a good missionary and we always laugh at all the awkward moments. It was such a good feeling too to be working extra hard and the joy that comes when Heavenly Father says well done. I obviously wasn't perfect at it, but with extra effort comes extra joy.

Yesterday President Hill came for interviews and it was so nice and needed! He told me all the things that I needed to hear and now I feel like I am so much more stress free! I realized that it is more and more the perfect mission for me. A few weeks before I received my mission call I was reading preach my gospel. I realized that the selfish reason I was going on a mission was to know my Father and Savior better. It's funny because when I opened my mission call and saw Slovenia/Croatia I was so excited to learn a Slavic language and I couldn't believe that He was giving me exactly what I wanted. Now that I am here and learning, I can't believe that He really is giving me exactly what I wanted, just not on a superficial scale like I thought before. What a perfect mission this is to know Him better!

Just a funny little side story that I thought was hilarious was when Sister Fitzsimmons and I were walking home. We always walk by our neighbors chickens and we realized that recently some of the chickens had some babies, but they are not babies anymore but not full grown chickens yet. They were running around all together and I said, "Look it's so cute to see teen-ager chickens. I haven't really seen this stage before, only a chick and a full grown chicken." Then Sister Fitzsimmons adds with her dry humor, saying under her breath, "Yeah look at them running around flirting with each other." I laughed so hard. You have to hear her voice and it just came out of no where ha ha. You see why I love serving with her!!!!!!

Again, as usual, thank you for all the letters. I am so happy to hear how you are doing and I am so happy that I have email to keep in touch! I love you all!

Love,
Sestra Dillender

June 7, 2010

What do you call a person who doesn't know the Star Spangle Banner? Not American.

This past week in district meeting we had the Star Spangle Banner as a closing song. The good thing is that we are all Americans, except for my halfie friend and companion Sister Fitzsimmons. But to my horror, everyone started grabbing at the hymn books to find the song. I yelled, "No you do not need to open the Hymn book for this song!" Like my name is Shaniqua from Oakland. The elders just looked at me and just made excuses for it, they just did it out of habit. We all had a good laugh and in the end we all put our hands over our hearts, especially during the prayer when Elder Robinson thanked Heavenly Father for America and every thing about her. It was funny, but not sacrilegious. These poor Elders miss the mother land :).

Well, one of our investigators has decided to get baptized. We are so excited for her. She is so happy now and has a sort of a peace about her. The only hard part is she always feeds us and makes food for four. We end up shoveling our faces so she will not think that her excellent cooking is bad. Now we are meeting with her twice a week, and twice a week we have to shovel our faces. But I'm not going to complain about good food, since what the Lord giveth, he also taketh away. She is so good to us, really. For Easter she had us over and said, "Today I am your family." We had a great meal and a great lesson about the Resurrection.

I have been reading the Hymns a lot lately. I really miss poetry, and I really miss singing hymns in English. I have been reading the song, "Jesus The Very Thought of Thee" on page 141 a lot. I'll share my favorite verse:

O hope of every contrite heart,
O joy of all the meek,
To those who fall how kind thou art,
How good to those who seek.

Okay one more verse I love,

Jesus the very thought of thee,
With sweetness fills my breast,
Far sweeter great thy face to see,
And in thy presence rest.

I just love the Hymns and there are a lot more I read often. What I love about poetry is that something new always pops out and it just gets better and better the more I read it. I have been memorizing them so I can think about them in the trams or just sometime during the day. I feel such a peace when I read and think about them and also hum the tune in my head.

We talked to the Elders in our district this week about our concern that we don't feel they have confidence in us as missionaries. They are so wonderful and afterward I felt such a weight lifted from my shoulders and freedom to feel their confidence in us and to be the missionary I want to be. Sister Fitzsimmons and I are not looking forward to this transfer ending because we have such a good time together and with our dear Elders. But Sister Fitzsimmons didn't get my joke when I said to everyone, "I'm really glad that we are learning to work together because this is going to help your wifies, this will help Sister Fitzsimmon’s husband, and it will help my colleagues."

We went group contacting in a park last Saturday. Elder Pashce and I were going around and talking to people and here are our favorite quotes from the day:

-What church does the devil go to?
-Christ was a communist
-Man is God

We still haven't figured out what church the devil goes to, other than his own church.

Well I will be sending some pictures today, they will be great. I love you and thank you for your emails. Just to let you know, if you write me I will write you, but if you don't this is all you get! My email is kristen.dillender@myldsmail.net

I also cannot and don't check my regular email, or my blog site. Thank you Lynny for putting this up for me. So if you comment on anything, I won't see it till July 2011. Thanks everyone for the support and love!

s ljubavlju,

Sister Dillender

May 31, 2010 - Church in Zagreb

Hello Everyone,

Monte Picasa came and did some training at the American Embassy. But while he was here he took some pictures of all the branches he visited. The first bunch are the Zagreb branch where I serve. (you will obviously see me in the pictures with the elders I serve with here). I thought you would like to see them. You can read his letter and at the end of his letter is a place where you are invited to look at his photo album. I hope you enjoy!


Dear President and Sister Thompson, Elders, Sisters, beloved members of the church in Croatia, and their friends and family,

My wife Sandi and I, and our good friends Tony and Cathy Hall, had the great blessing of visiting Croatia recently and meeting the most wonderful missionaries and church members while there.

By way of introduction, we all live in Boise, Idaho, where Tony and I work for the United States Attorney's Office. Tony and I traveled to Zagreb, Croatia in early May in order to teach Croatian prosecutors for the United States Department of Justice. Because we arrived on a weekend, Tony and I wanted to attend church at the Zagreb branch.

After getting some general idea of the branch's location, we embarked on a train that was supposed to take us near it. After riding for some time, we became worried that we had missed the church. Just then, a young women got on the crowded train. Her wonderful spirit immediately identified her as someone we needed to talk to, and is it turned out, she was indeed on her way to the same location. She led us off the train and to the chapel where we met the rest of the members, the missionaries, and Elder and Sister Thompson. Elder Thompson was serving as the District President at the time.

I can't begin to explain the spirit that was in that little church. Tony and I enjoyed three hours of meetings and then stayed and talked with the members and missionaries for some time after. (See attached pictures). At the risk of leaving someone out, I won't try to mention each missionary by name, but they were all wonderful, and their families should be very proud of their faithful service and the love shown to the people of Croatia.

As we left the church, the missionaries inquired about the rest of our trip. When we explained that our wives would be arriving in the next few days, and that we would be traveling to the Dalmatian Coast, we were told that we should visit the little branch in Zadar where 8 members resided. We were given the name and phone number of Elder Hadley in Zadar.

Our wives arrived mid-week. By Friday, we were ready to leave Zagreb, but were still trying to decide our route of travel. Because of the wonderful stories that we shared with Sandi and Cathy about our visit to the Zagreb branch, they were very anxious to make sure that our travel plans would allow us to be in Zadar on Sunday. Consequently, we changed our itinerary, forgoing a trip south to Dubrovnik and spending our time in Trogir and Split instead.

(As an interesting side story, before we left Zagreb, Tony, Cathy, Sandi and I were making one more visit to the main square in Zagreb when we ran into President and Sister Thompson, their son, and two grandchildren. Because of this wonderful and miraculous reunion in a city of almost one million people, our wives were able to meet some of the wonderful people they had heard about. Again, pictures are attached.)

We arrived in Zadar near sunset on Saturday night and had the chance to talk to Elder Wood on the phone. He assured us of the meeting times and the location of the house where they met. The next morning, we used the GPS in our rental car in an attempt to find the church, but again, we seemed to be lost until we saw some young ladies walking down the sidewalk ahead of us. One of us mentioned that it looked like the Relief Society headed towards the church. As it turned out, it was the Sister missionaries and a wonderful young lady who they had invited to church for the first time.

The church in Zadar is held on the bottom floor of a small apartment building. We immediately were welcomed by the wonderful people in the branch, some investigators, and of course, the missionaries. This happened to be Mothers Day, and the presence of Cathy and Sandi seemed to be especially appreciated by the missionaries (who would be calling their mothers shortly after the meetings ended.)

The Spirit of the Lord was again powerful as this little group met to partake of the sacrament and learn the gospel. It would take me an hour to explain everything I felt, and every conversation I had. Instead, I intend to send this email to my wife, and Tony and Cathy, since I am quite sure they will want to add their own thoughts about the experience.

Again, we took group pictures after church. Because photography is my serious hobby, I was carrying a large number of lenses which I exchanged frequently as we took pictures. About 10 minutes after leaving the church (headed north towards Istria) I received a phone call on my cell phone which I did not answer (despite my wife's insistence that the call may be "important.") Two hours later, I realized that I was missing my 15 mm lens, which would be important to me the next day when we arrived in Pula. I immediately called Elder Hadley and Woods, who assured me that they had found my lens and had tried to call us right after church. I asked anxiously about the possibility of sending the lens via Fed Ex or UPS, and was told that these services couldn't help me under the circumstances. Instead, the Elders told me that they would contact a bus driver who would be driving all the way to Pula the next day. They told me that this bus driver would then be met by the missionaries in Pula.

The next afternoon, as soon as we pulled into the parking lot of a wonderful Roman colosseum in Pula, we called Elder Champion and Warren. Within 10 minutes, they arrived with a strange package of plastic bags, tape, and a scarf that carefully protected my lens. It had been wrapped and sent by Elder Woods and Hadley. What a blessing this was, and quite a miracle. I took a few pictures of the Pula Elders near the colosseum on their prep day.

The attached pictures are a few memories of missionaries and members who we had a privilege to meet. Because of the difficulties of handwriting, I hope that I have properly discerned the correct email addresses of all of you. If you find that someone has not received this email as intended, please forward as necessary.

To the members of the church in Croatia, we admire your faith and dedication to the Lord. You are making history there, and we will continue to pray for your welfare. To the many wonderful Elders and Sister Missionaries, thank you for your service, for your love of the Savior and his church, and for the people of Croatia. May Heavenly Father continue to bless you in your missionary efforts. To President and Sister Thompson, we believe that you are now back home in Ontario, Oregon, where you are missing the missionaries and members you lovingly served. May God bless you and your family as you return to life at home.

To my wife, Sandi, and good friends Tony and Cathy, thanks for sharing this wonderful place with me. Please feel free to hit "reply to all" when you want to share your thoughts about these wonderful people.

Since I took about 4,000 pictures of Croatia, I will be sending additional pictures of the country at some point, and I will try to include all of you. But this will take some time. Croatia is a beautiful country filled with walled cities, cathedrals, castles, ancient ruins, mountains, and green rolling hills. Two weeks was not nearly enough time to see all of it. The people there are also wonderful, and made our trip all the more enjoyable.

Although we saw many interesting things of historical value, and saw many beautiful sites, our best experiences were with the missionaries and valiant members of the church. I hope you enjoy the attached pictures of them.

Monte Stiles
Boise, Idaho

You are invited to view Monte's photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=monte.stiles&target=ALBUM&id=5477290932891397617&authkey=Gv1sRgCLz6z43c3MzQ4wE&feat=email

May 24th, 2010

Bok!

So I have a few good stories for you this letter. P.S. My mom only said sissies proof read, and I'm no sissy.

First of all, this week we were heading out to go to this insurance place. On the way down we saw there was a package and then I read my name on it. I was so excited! But then I also read Fitzsimmons and couldn't understand why it had both our names until I realized....Sister Fitzsimmon’s dad sent me a package! I was so excited. When we came home for lunch I opened it and he sent a suomi (means Finland in finish) t-shirt and these salmiakki chocolate bars because Sister Fitzsimmons told him I like those. He wrote that a little bird had told him I like the chocolates and wanted to send me something of Finland. I can't believe how nice and funny that was. It totally made my week and I wear the t-shirt every day when we come home. We took pictures because Sister Fitzsimmons has the same one and I will send some next week.

Also on our way to the insurance we thought we would stop at this Pekarna (bakery) to see if one of our English class students works there. Her name is Dragica (Drag-ee-tsa) and we told her that we wanted to stop by her work and she was telling us where it is, but we couldn't figure it out. So we thought she might work at this one close to us. We stopped in and asked if a Lady name Dragica works there. The two ladies that were working there looked at us weird and I know they were thinking that we were gospel stalking Dragica. So they called her up and we were hoping that it was the same one we were looking for. The ladies looked at us very eerily and then Dragica comes through the door sees us and yells with a loud smile, "Eh, BOK!" the two ladies were all smiles too and we all talked for a little bit. She is so fun to have in the English classes and she wants to hear so much about the gospel and is so grateful to us for teaching English. She makes me so happy.

This really isn't a story but Sister Fitzsimmons said a blind lady in Rijeka used to call her Sister Fifymon because she couldn't read her name or hear very well. Ha ha, so I call her fifymon all the time.

So I have been here in Croatia for three months now and on a mission for five. Weird. I still can't speak or understand very much...but I can ask for the bathroom no problem and tell people I'm tired and hungry. Baby steps through the essentials. I've started reading my Book of Mormon in Spanish and then in Croatian and it helps to learn in Croatian a lot. I am trying to learn to separate the languages so that my mind can switch to one or the other. Right now, when I try to speak Spanish it comes out Spanish and Croatian and I don't even realize it most of the time.

Well, I read in the end of Mark today when Christ was being taken away from the Garden of Gethsemane after being betrayed by Judas. It says that a disciple came in a loin cloth took hold upon them and then ran away naked (that really is in the end of Mark). Ummmmmm, so what I got from that is when we are immodest we can't really do much and then get embarrassed in the end. I'm just being stupid today, what I really got out of my personal study today was something out of reading about the widow's mite. I read in Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage about it a little more. He said that we can see it's not about quantity but it's about the quality that we give the Lord. As I am here I can give a lot of things or I can give my heart and only I and my Savior and Father know what was given.

I hope you are happy and healthy, I hope you remember your Savior, and I hope you can give to him some quality everyday! I love you and think of you often, if you are reading this email, than yes I really do think of you often!

Volim Vas,

Sister Dillender

May 3 and 17, 2010

May 3, 2010
Dobro Jutro! (good morning)

So Sister Laws came last Tuesday! It was such a crazy week, just to put that out there. She is so nice and easy going and super cute. We were all in District Meeting when we heard a lot of noises in the hallway of the church. Then Sister Thompson (senior couple here) said, "she's here". We all just look at each other in silence and then Elder Matson half yells, "look at us, get it together guys." and we all scramble around to clean up the candy wrappers and make the table look nice. So President Hill walks in with her and we meet her. I am so happy to have her here. We talked for a while all of us and I got to ask her a lot of questions about the MTC since I just left from there two months ago. She stayed overnight with us and the next morning President and Sister Hill took them both up to Vraždin (I keep mixing up ž, and š in the name Vraždin, sorry). Since Wednesday it has been just me and Sister Fitzsimmons and I'm not going to lie, it has been.........AH-MAY-ZING! She is such a good friend and missionary. She has been carrying me through my first two months here and has been so wonderful. It's so funny that we spend twenty four hours a day with each other and still don't have enough time to say all the thing we want to. She is just so wonderful and I wake up so happy and excited every day.

We are doing a lot better with having more people to meet with this week and we are so excited! We started our next set of language classes and already have four investigators out of them, well, all of us missionaries and hopefully more to come. My Spanish class had about thirty people come which is awesome because most usually have ten at the most. I hope at least half keep coming though, there are a lot of young adults in the class, so that would be great.

So we went to Darija's house last week and we talked about the atonement and repentance. The best part was when Sister Fitzsimmons finished saying all this great stuff about how repentance is a changing process and a great opportunity for us while we are here on this earth. It was quite and Darija looks at her and smiles and says, "what's your Zodiac sign?" ha ha. So we talked about that for a little while. Needless to say, Darija is a wonderful investigator and loves hearing about the gospel, she loves it, but it still is just talking time for things to click into place. My sign is Cancer if any of you were wondering.

We have Zone Conference this week and I am so excited because my battery is running a little low and it will be nice to have a recharge. Fortunately I have Sister Fitzsimmons to keep it recharged too, so I am doing well.


I'm sorry I don't have much to say this week but it was a really long weird week. But I will have more to say next week! Thank you again for all the emails and prayers. I feel so loved and blessed!

I love you,

Sestra Dillender


May 17, 2010

Hello loved ones,

This week in Croatia has been on the not so sunny side, and I do mean weather. I hate the rain, but I do love my rubber boots. They are one of the best purchases I made before coming here. It was raining really hard the other day and Sister Fitzsimmons and I got stuck in a mud puddle. So no big deal, we just stomped our feet to get the chunks off our boots and then went to a puddle to wash off the mud. We were standing there swishing our feet around in a puddle to our ankles when Sister Fitzsimmons stops, looks at me and with a straight face says, "I have a hole." ha ha. Nothing like a puddle to show you have a hole in your boots by getting your socks wet. Also, there is nothing like a mission to show me my holes, and I feel like my socks are soaking.

We went over to the Thompson's last night with Maja (incase you forgot, the Thompsons are the senior couple here and Maja is our new member, well technically the Lords new member). We watched Elder Uchtdorf's talk in a CES fireside last year. Maja loved it and she heard a lot of things she said she needed to hear. I on the other hand heard everything and most of it was very inapplicable....for example finding your eternal mate. It's nice not to think about if someone could ever like me enough to put up with me all the time. Instead I get to relish in the fact that Sister Fitzsimmons has to like me and if she leaves me she's going back to Finland. Too bad marriage isn't like that, "ha ha You have to be with me companion, because the Lord said". Well, that is just another reason why God's thoughts are higher than my own.
But we only have the Thompsons for another five weeks then they go back home to Eastern Oregon, while we are trying to manage without them here. They have not only been invaluable to the people here, but for Heavenly Father as well. I truly love them and I am so happy that I got to serve with them....what am I talking about, I still have five weeks left.

Speaking of time, I have been on a mission for five months and three in the country. What have I learned? Well here is a list:

-Elders are still 19 and 20, if you get lucky they are 21
-how to make a lazy eye
-Croats are happy when it's sunny
-I love American food
-root bear isn't as good as I remember
-I still can't explain that my last name isn't Dillinger
-everyone looks better in white
-Finns are passive aggressive and know where you sleep
and
-There are only two types of people in the world, those you love and those you don't know yet

I know you and I love you and I thank you individually for making me who I am today....well only the growth parts of me not the annoying parts.

Volim Vas jako puno! I love you all so much!

Sestra Dillender