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