October. Osijek, Croatia

the candles from all saints day

a building inside the grave yard... but we never figured out what it was.

ghost version of me and elder brown. but elder brown moved so i told him that i was going to crop him out. he was just too excited to be a ghost.

from the park next to the church

artsy picture that i thought looked cool

congrats to dad. i am very proud to have old retired parents now. sounds like the visit with adam was fun. wish i was there to join in on the fun. let me know how the elections go. you know. the props that pass and dont and the seats in the senate and all that jazz. i need to know so i dont waste my time wondering. even though i will all this week. i might just ask president hill tomorrow at zone meeting what the turn out is. halloween is NOT the same here. i think i saw about 6 trick or treaters. lame. and they're all scary things. which is okay. of course. but they arent anything fun. like a racecar driver like me :] the bigger holiday was all saints day and its not really a holiday for anything. they just put candles in the grave yard and it looks cool. its going well. i like elder marchant a lot. of course we're getting to know each other every day. i think this week we're going to start talking in croatian 24/7. he's pretty good with the language too. he has been here in croatia for 9 months i think it is and i have for 8 or something. so he's been here longer but did have that break where he went home for 3 months for the operation. he knows some words that i dont know, but sure isnt used to speaking in croatian this much. even as much as we do right now. but when we start to do it 24/7 i think itll help him and stuff to be a little more comfortable with speaking in croatian. its good exercise. his knee is pretty good. he cant play sports or anything like that, but its healing well i think. sometimes when we walk too much, it swells and hurts the next day. but it sure doesnt affect the work. we can do everything we were doing before. we taught a guy this week named mario but i dont think he's really interested. he's just really interested in finding out the differences between us and the catholics and then he really likes the fact that we're from america. i mean half the people here are interested in that. haha stella is great. we did service this past week but nothing too exciting happened. elder jones still has back problems so he cant do service. so we have to help them out. we're still passing out english fliers for the sign up day which is next monday. so we'll see how many people come and for which classes. im hoping a lot of people show up. im super excited for this transfer and english classes. the fliers look great and we're doing great handing them out. a lot of people sound interested. we have a piano at church. elder jones kinda knows how to play so he plays the most often, but thats probably the hardest part about sundays is the music haha. no one leads music cause its not really needed. but maybe someday in another ward. i used to in rijeka sometimes. but here we dont really need it. when more people come, maybe. there's not a whole lot to tell about this week. we had a couple lessons with people and we went over to lidija's house with alen and little lydia there. that was fun. she's going to make us sarma for elder browns birthday on friday. so im SUPER excited about that :]]] we also had a lesson with alen that went well. we had a lesson with ivana. a lesson with mario. and i think thats it. he became a "new investigator" so im glad for that. i just hope he really is interested and keeps wanting to learn more. i cant wait to come home and celebrate real halloween :] i dont really know what you guys want to hear from me. i always feel like these emails are super duper boring and have nothing to do with missionary work or anything. sorry everyone! i should be better about that. here's a small story. it was all in croatian, but ill type in english of course.

so we were walking to an appointment (that ended up falling through) and we saw a couple older guys standing by some pumpkins. one was carved too.
so we stopped and elder marchant says, "hey thats cool".
they stare at him and say "... what?"
marchant just says "well that pumpkin right there. thats what we do in america and we havent seen one like that here yet"
they give him a weird look and say " we didnt do it. some other boys did it."
elder marchant kinda just says "oh.... well... then thats not cool"
after that we ended up talking to them for quite a while and found out that one of their wives is from england and the kids knew English and had little accents and everything. so it was cool we talked about what we do and everything. its just good for people to understand that we're not jehovah's witnesses or catholics. we need to just get our name out there.

announcement for everyone. i need recipes. i want recipes. but here's a little twist. they cant contain measurement like "1 can of..., 1 packet of..., 1 stick of..." cause they dont exist here. i could figure it out maybe, but still i dont know. some recipes that ive thought of:

• any cookies!
• breads that are good and easier
• cakes or brownies or something
• pizza ideas (already have amys famous from cammy, thanks!)
• any meals that are fairly easy
• anything that is cheap, fast, simple, good, and healthy. if it fits into that category, send :]
• ivy, those cookies you made me before i went into the mtc. they're the chocolate ones that are always moist. i LOVE those.
  

you can send them to me via email or snail mail, up to you. just a note. croatia doesnt have jello. so i cant even make my favorite cake :( and doesnt have dry ice and a couple other things, but its okay. you can still send me recipes :]

ill write more if i can think of more, but usually i dont so i guess this is good for this week. i love you all and thanks for everything!

love
elder jacobsen

Elder Brown and Me

Translation: "STOP SECTS! we are catholic! we dont want your conversations! thanks"

English class

Zone Conference in Zagreb

Stella and me

me and stella. we're basically best friends now

i just want to let everyone know that i love this work. even though sometimes i think about home and look forward to being back in good old ramona, i still know that this is the most important thing i can be doing right now at this time of my life. im having a great time. ill just let you guys know in case you were wondering... its hard here. its a tough work. thats why they call it missionary WORK. just to give you an idea... we had 1 lesson this last week. that was the spiritual thought in english class. and 2 lessons taught to members. one was just a spiritual thought, but the other was a good lesson with ____. that was really good. but basically that was it. otherwise we were just trying to find people. we talk to around 20-50 people everyday and its very rare to even get a number from someone. but still we keep truckin away. there's not much time. we cant waste our time. i have found out how important this work really is. i am one of the 4 missionaries called here in osijek to preach and teach and baptize people into Christ's church. thats very particular and very special. i have felt the companionship of the holy ghost with us. its a great feeling and only comes when we're obedient and truly ask for it. but the Spirit is so important in this work. without it, its just a couple of 20 year olds trying to convince people to what they believe. we talked a little in zone conference about this but we are put in twos to work. we have companionships. what we need to realize though is that every companionship is basically like a three-some. there's elder brown. me. and the Holy Ghost. thats 3. and we need to be that close in order to work. im so grateful for this work and all these missionaries here in croatia. i love the scriptures. they have all the answers. all the answers we need are found in the scriptures. then if we have questions. there's prayer. its so simple. hard work is how we are able to reap blessings. if we work hard we'll be able to find the people, teach others, and truly feel the Spirit. it might be hard or tedious, but its all worth it in the end.

My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
D&C 121:7-8

when we think about it like that, its not so bad. really, this time is short when you compare it with eternity. i know that this message is so important for everyone in this world. i know that we have a prophet who leads and guides this church. Elder L. Tom Perry in the MTC said "no man leads this church! Christ does". its through him that we receive revelation for his own church and i know how important that is now. we are not lost. a general authority in the MTC also said that the Great Apostacy ended with Joseph Smith yes... but the apostacy is still alive and well in the hearts of people. these people are living in an apostacy. they are searching for truth but know not where to find it. we're the ones who need to pull the people out of their personal apostacy. im so happy that im here and that im called by God to be a servant of Christ for the crpatian people. im super excited for this opportunity and i hope that you all can feel this same excitment and urgency. remember, every member a missionary. i love you family. i think about you a lot. the work is hard. people arent listening. their hearts are hardened... but that never stopped paul in the new testament. and it wont stop me either. i love you. have a great week.

love

elder jacobsen

New Baby, Rylee Rebecca Smith

Rylee Rebecca Smith was born Sunday, August 8th, 2010. She weighed 8 pounds and 5 ounces and she is chubby and healthy. Cam said this was the worst labor she'd had the pleasure of experiencing but all is well and she is feeling fine. Rylee had her hearing test today and she passed it.

Isaac, Jaycee, Ammon, Callie and Sheldon are all excited to have a new sister.

August 8th Letter from Ethan

good morning!

first order of business: got the package on friday! and i loved it. thank you SO much for all that and yeah that was expensive! everyone say that and apparently they were very amazed at how much it was. butthank you and i hope that ill be able to use my trumpet soon for some kind of music thing.

second order of business. recipe for friendship bread! croats would love it! so that would be cool. also could you find out a little about nikola tesla. where he was born and went to school and stuff. whats funny is croatia claims him as his own, but so does serbia, and slovenia. so.... who knows. so if you can find out CITIES. thats the big thing. cause technically he was born in yugoslavia haha. but oh well. its a funny thing. every city here has a nikola tesla street. another thing. camaro pictures. at least on the email. i need just a few to show some people cause its so cool. oh yeah, by the way dad, when i get home we are fixing up the pick up. wou can just sit there and tell me what to do if you want, but i want to fix it up cause it would be really fun to learn about all that stuff and actually do something like that.

a really cool thing that you guys can listen to is a song by a croatian guy. and its really pretty. its by oliver dragojević and the song is called vjerujem u anđele. so if you look that up on youtube it should be there. if not on google you should be able to find something. he's really good.

another thing. every year for zone conference near christmas we have christmas skits. so.... i was thinking. can you send me things like phonetic punctuation, the other victor borge thing i have (with the inflamitory language or something. "threelips". and if anyone has any funny church related skits, they are very welcome. any ideas whatsoever. its nice to have a variety haha.

oh yeah, and for chirstmas i dont really need a whole lot. especially cause i got the package! :] but what i was thinking was a family calendar. the ones that leah always makes. she can just make one more and you guys can send it to me so then ill remember birthdays, ill have a calendar, and ill have great family pictures. that would be really cool.

this week was really weird cause elder brown left for ljubljana and it was just elder anderson and me in osijek. we have some good times though. we had an audit. and it consisted of a lot more than i ever thought. it was a good training experience though and it was a good learning tool. ill definitely respect my bishop and stake more now that im learning more about how it all works. im having a good time. its pretty different here cause we dont have a ward or a stake or anything. its basically the mission president and us the missionaries. thats about it. i mean there are a few members and stuff, but they are very few and not many stay active for a long time. thats a big problem here. the inactive rate. we have about 50 members in osijek. and 2 came to church yesterday. and that was a good sunday... its pretty different...

a lot has happened this week and i dont have a lot of time to email. only about 30 minutes left. okay so heres a story for you.

elder brown went to ljubljana (slovenia) this last week and he got back late friday night. so elder anderson and i had to pick him up fro the train station. especially since he had a huge suitcase and my package which was stinking heavy! so anyway. right before he had to go we started hearing thunder and we looked outside and there was lightning in the clouds going every 2 seconds literally. it was lighting up the entire sky. it was about 9 at night. then wind started blowing like crazy and the rain came soon after. it all came very fast and it was insane. but the best part was that we had to go pick up elder brown from the train station at 9:30. so we were pretty excited cause it was going to be pretty wet outside. ive been stuck in some pretty crazy storms before, but never as bad as this one. i have never seen this much rain or wind in all of my life. let me tell you that right now. so we get in regular p-day clothes cause its not too likely that we're going to stop people on the street and talk to them. and i get my camera so i can get some of the action on film. the sad thing is that i watched the films that i took and they are nothing compared to what it was actually like. they are weak sause (thats what we say here). so we're about a 8 to 10 minutes walk from the train station. not too bad. so me and elder anderson just start running! we ran so stinking fast. we were running full speed all the way to the train station and it took us like 2 or 3 minutes at most. we only stopped once. that was under a little tent thing at a cafe and all the people were inside the tent thing just drinking their little drinks and just laughed and said we were crazy. we just waved and started running again. so we got to the train station and water was just pouring everywhere. we were soaked. literally. everything on my body was wet. my shoes through and through and my garments were soaked in every place. so we waited for him for a while and finally say him getting off the trian> we ran out to grab his stuff for him and he was wearing his entire suit, so he was getting wet. and there was no way to save him from getting wet. at the beginning elder brown was running around to try and avoid getting wet and after about 1 minutes, he was already completely soaked so he just started walking. we had his rolly luggage thing and my package which was crazy heavy too. so we just walked home and got in and we all had to just strip down in the bathroom and throw our clothes in the shower cuase they were so stinking wet. the paper on the package was all wet too but goo thing everything was wrapped in bubble wrap cuase nothing got wet excpet a little bit on the ensigns. but thats okay. they dry. so yeah. it was an exciting night and we all have pictures and films and such so you will all see very soon. ill try to attach some today so you can see how wet we really were.

anyway. i gotta go now. if i think of anything else, ill email again later today. i love you guys and ill email you again more. dont worry.

love

elder jacobsen

The Mission in August, Osijek, Croatia

Mac and Cheese!! Courtesy of Elder Anderson's mom.

It was raining..... a little

After our adventure of picking up Elder Brown

Elder Brown after our 8 or so minute walk.

Delights from the Weed Patch

Most likely you've seen these weeds in your garden. Purslane.

Sauted with onions, cherry tomatoes and rice. Gooooood!

With salmon and homemade bread.

And the next day in a salad.

greetings from osijek!

the hunt for the bed

email in croatia is either in a library or just an internet cafe where you buy it by the hour. i am in the latter.

i heard about jace being ap. that is just insane. i heard about his mission over there and its SO different from over here. its strange to think how different our experiences will be when we get home. ill be waiting for bishop francos letter. and yes i wrote back to gery carlson. he should get it this week or next.

by the way there are no wards in croatia. only branches. yesterday we had us 4 missionaries, 3 people who are visitors (but they come every single week without fail and probably wont ever become members), and 0 members. so elder brown gave the opening prayer. i passed the sacrament. elders brown and porter blessed it. elder anderson (current branch president) gave a talk. i gave a talk (almost 20 minutes too). and elder porter gave the closing prayer. there are probably 45 members here in osijek but most are inactive. we have probably 5-8 who randomly actually come.

and yes dad. its very hot here as well. thing is, here its HUMID. like crazy. its around 35-37 degrees celcius daily. and one day i heard it reached 42. woohoo. thats hot. and its darn humid... joj. we have a huge river that goes all along osijek. if you want to look up our apartment, the address is: sjenjak 32, osijek 31000, croatia. something like that. by the way dad, im very impressed and proud of you for getting a gmail address. isnt it just light-years better?

i havent had to sing yet, no mom haha. we dont have anyone to play the piano here. kinda hard. i dont remember if i told you last week but i did sing at zone conference again. a duet with sister nelson. elder lee played. and the first time i saw the music was about 20 mintues before we sang it. so we ran through it twice and then performed it for the zone haha. we did okay though so that is good.

nikola invented that trumpet design. and yes, its VERY strange. its kinda useless for playing. im sure glad trumpets arent made like that haha. he seems to think its pretty revolutionary though. he traveled to france and america to show it to professional musicians and never got anything from it. i kinda feel bad for him, but i dont see anyone buying his idea in the future. thats the only trumpet like it in the world. its his prototype and its the only one. so yep, right now i am in the possesion of the only trumpet like that haha. im pretty bumbed that you still havent sent my trumpet. but its okay. remember, if its crazy expensive, i can probably live without it. just keep that in mind. i did send that package. but it ended up being a lot more expensive than i thought. so just to let you know, it will NOT be there in a week. instead, you will be getting it between 1-2 months from now. so i dont know how that chocolate is going to hold up. its actually not going to be traveling on an airplane. its traveling "brodom" (by means of boat). crazy huh? it seemed weird. but it was way cheaper going by boat rather than zrakoplovom (by means of airplane).

we're not doing any humanitarian things just yet, no. here and there. but not anything like planting trees. and i think the serbian elders are doing fine. dont worry about me. if i get beat up randomly by some drunk guys itll be some good story for when i get home.

and yep. all my pictures are in the package. so be ready for yome un browsing. i love taking pictures with elder brown. he's a lot more fun than my other companion when it comes to taking pictures. i got a shoulder bag that is called "star dragon" and we think its hilarious but its super nice and light and fits everything i need for the day. plus my camera so thats good.

if they ever have a chior thing here its either in karlovac or zagreb. they have the most members present. so ill just have to wait if i want to do any choir things.

we had exchanges with the assitants to the president last thursday and it went great. i really like elders dixon and fowler. they're really good and im excited to see who will be ap after dixon. we'll see in a little over a month.

im trying to take a lot of pictures. you'll have to tell me how im doing with that. ill try to send as many as i can. okay thats a lie. i could send them all probably but it would just take me all stinking day. but anyway, ill try to send a lot so you guys know what its like being here in osijek. it sure in different. culture and looks and everything. ive gotten pretty used to it though.

ill tell you guys the story about our bed. so the lindorfs (the senior couple in charge of finances - dad and mom, you should try to do this. it would probably be super easy for you dad) came to osijek and say that i was sleeping on the floor so sister lindorf said that i need to get a bed. so they told us to start looking around. so we did. problem was, our limit was 800 kuna. which is SUPER cheap. we found a couple for 950 and stuff. but it was super hard even finding places with beds. we had to ask SO many people. we ended up walking down this road to a place called baumax. we thought it COULD have something in it like a bed... turned out NO. it was basically a home depot. but it was so much fun looking for a bed inside and seeing all those manly tools (just to let you know dad, i miss doing all that work with you too). so we bought ice cream cones (at a home depot store thing haha) and left. by the way this baumax was super far away from osijek the town. and we walked all the way there. so we walked back another way just to see if there were more stores. and there was. we found a bed for 750 kuna. woohoo. and when we told the lady we wanted it she thought we were crazy for getting the crappiest bed there. she kept on repeating, so you want the 3 star matress.... with the 2 start frame.... with the cheap slats?..... and then finally we finished and she asked, so do you want any pillows with that? no. how about some sheets? no thanks. blankets? no thanks. a matress pad? nope. haha. she thought we were crazy. so two days ago (sat) we woke up, did studies. or at least started. at about 8:45 our door rang and we answered the little talk button thing and it was the bed. so we got to put it all together just like at ikea and it was cheap wood like at ikea too haha. but it worked out good and now im sleeping on a bed thats more uncomfortable then the floor haha. hard to come by, but its possible. its pretty bad. but hey, i found a feather pillow in the apartment and im using that and its super comfortable. so i like that.

anyway. i better get going. sorry that its not longer. ill try my best next week to write more. i dont really have any great stories to tell. just pictures and such. and the pictures arent any good without telling the entire story behind it.

love you guys!

elder jacobsen

Cruisin' Grand

This post is Cruisin' Grand with Grandpa's old race car, not the Camaro. Will post the Camaro soon.

Friday, July 16th (Grandaddy's Birthday, incidentally), 2010, we went to the Midget and Sprint Night at Cruisin' Grand, Escondido. Denny spent practically all day, washing the trailer, the car, hooking up lights and just generally getting ready. I drove down in the Audi and picked up the Shelbo kids to babysit (Ally had to work) and we parked on Broadway where it was blocked off. It was nice to sit in the shade (it was around 100 degrees) and not have to worry about the kids getting in the street.

Ollie got a kick out of "driving" the car. Pyke played with her Polly Pockets Princesses. Denny talked to all the old codgers about the good old days!

A Little History

Uncle Gordon Petersen had the race car built in 1932 by Lujie Losovsky (a pretty famous race car builder. Look him up on the internet). Uncle Gordon, who was Grandpa's uncle, Grandma Jacobsen's (Petersen) brother, used it to advertise his shop on Slauson Avenue (Petersen's Garage) in Los Angeles. Grandpa got a job at Petersen's Garage, upon first arriving in the area, from Iowa, in 1934. The car was sold and they lost track of it until Grandpa, or maybe Uncle Gordon, found it and Grandpa bought it back around 1955. On it's maiden run, before he had even painted it, it won the main event!! And it just happened to be Dad's ninth Birthday! What a cool birthday present! Poor Dad (Denny) didn't get to drive the 3/4 Midgets much. I suspect Grandpa didn't really want to share the fun and I'm sure Grandma wasn't crazy about the idea of her little boy driving in the races. But Grandpa sure had a blast!! He retired the car in 1966, then built a new one that he raced for about ten more years.

More of Osijek, Croatia

if you want to look at pictures of what this side of croatia is like look up the cities. vukovar, đakovo, osijek. you'll probably see some intersting things.

Elder Jacobsen

(Try Google Maps and zoom in close. Click on the little squares and those are pictures that people have submitted to Google Maps.)

Osjiek

Where are you Ethan??

osijek! here i go!

im in osijek now. its RIGHT by serbia. so during the war it was one of the first cities attacked by serbia (yugoslavia). there are still buildings that have bullet holes all over them. and there are actually some buildings with huge marks where grenades hit and exploded. its really crazy. our apartment complex has bullet holes in the walls. our church has tons on the building (our church is just a part of an apartment building like in rijeka). i was really sad to leave rijeka. maybe ill go back but i have no idea. im with elder brown who is great so far. he's been on his mission for a year and 2 months. so he knows croatian pretty well which is really nice. its going really good and we're getting a lot done even though we've only been together for what? 5 days?

we're starting english class on tuesday. im teaching beginner again with elder brown. i love beginners. so much more fun. and a lot of funny things are said :] in croatian AND english.

okay the mission. here it goes. we have one senior couple in croatia. and they're leaving next month. they will be replaced. so we will have ONE couple. but they just deal with humanitarian things so its kinda different. and we are losing 3 of our sister missionaries. like 4 of our elders. and yeah. its crazy. we have 6 branches in croatia. 7 areas. pula is included in the rijeka branch. but we only have 2 croatian native branch presidents. one in zagreb and one in karlovac. the other 4 are elders. elder davey (rijeka), babcock (zadar), anderson (here), and nitta (varaždin). so yeah. and something you might not know yet. our mission has totally changed. it used to consist of 7 countries. slovenia, croatia, serbia are the 3 that are open. and then maccedonia, montenegro, bosnia, and kosovo were the closed ones. but as of may 12th i think it was, our mission is only slovenia croatia and serbia now. the other 4 are just under a general authority. so yeah. some big changes.

funniest thing ever! so osijek is right next to serbia. and it gets really hot during the summer. and its kinda swampy. the main thing osijek is known for are the mosquitoes here. so what do you think they do to get rid of the mosquitoes? if you said that they fly above the city with an airplane and dump insect poison onto the entire city, you'd be RIGHT! haha. im not sure how often it happens, but a plane will fly overhead and just DUMP stuff on the city. it goes by a few times. ill be getting a video and picture of it very soon trust me. (i can just see mom at the computer covering her mouth and doing that half laugh - half "oh my goodness" thing. the thing she does when she wants to laugh but tries to cover it up with surprise haha)

so yep. thats about it. nothing too big or exciting.

we've been talking to a lot of people and its amazing how much the lord helps when i try to speak croatian. i probably sound like a bumbling fool but when i start talking to members or people on the street they understand and get everything i say. and they're even surprised sometimes when i say im from america. i really like talking to people in croatian and i love being able to communicate. i know that the lord is helping us too cause without his help we'd be so lost. hope you guys are having a great time is california/america/wherever you guys are. ill try to write more often.

elder jacobsen

His companion, Elder Brown,

seems to have had a

little better luck with this guy.