Punk Kids

I've been doing pretty good this week. It was pretty warm earlier in the week so we've been going out coatless. On Tuesday it was even like 60 degrees and we were in long sleeved white shirts, and an old lady riding past on a bike said "Nije još toliko toplo dečki" (it's still not that warm boys). I love that here everyone always just call us "Dečki" (Boys). Like, "hey boys!" or "sorry, I'm not interested boys". If the kids want to try to learn that word, it's pronounced "dech-key". Also this week I slipped in dog poop (I didn't fall though). Luckily only Elder Marcek saw. People here just let there dogs poop wherever, so there is just poop all over the sidewalks, even in the main center of the city.

Bad news though, M lost his job in Karlovac and had to move back to his parents house near Varaždin, so he won't be getting baptized on the 16th. We talked to him on Tuesday though, and he said he does want to get baptized, and he wants to do it in Karlovac. He said he'll be coming back some time in April to pick up his final paycheck though, and he might do it then.

Last week, on Wednesday, a lady called us and asked if we were still doing family history class, we said yes, and she also asked if we still taught piano and English class. She came on Wednesday night for the family history class. There she told us that her husband had just recently died, and she was now trying to do things to take her mind off of it. Luckily this weeks family history class will be on "why the church is so interested in family history" (a.k.a. plan of salvation). So we think that there might be a good chance that she will be pretty interested in that. Also last week one of our English students said he would come to family history class, but couldn't last week because he had a dentist appointment. This week though he said "there is a 90% chance that I will come", so that should be good too.

Something else kind of cool and funny that happened on Saturday; we were at the church a little early, playing some foosball while waiting for a guy who we teach English to (the one who said he needs to learn it so he can flee the country), when we got a phone call from a blocked number. We answered it, and of course it was a bunch of punk kids who saw our number on a family history flier and decided to prank call us. After a short, giggle filled, half Croatian-half English conversation that didn't really make sense they hung up, but then called back a few minutes later. This time they told us to meet them at some bakery or something, but (kind of jokingly at first) we told them that they should come play foosball with us. We told them our address, and after a minute we saw them on the street below the church walking around. We opened the window and yelled at them to come up, and after assuring them that our church wasn't scary, and didn't have a creepy cross or anything, they came up. While Elder Marcek taught English, I played foosball and talked with these three 15 year old kids. Obviously it was a Saturday and they were just bored, and asked if they could even come back later to play foosball again. They said that there isn't really else anything fun you can do without money. We told them they could come back (because honestly all most high school age kids do here is just smoke and get drunk on the weekends). Also we told them that we have free English classes and piano class and stuff. We played for about 45 minutes before one of them said he had to go (also the older guys English lesson had finished). Elder Marcek and I started cleaning up the church a little bit because the people who had church cleaning that week didn't show up, and after about 15 minutes one of the kids came back (alone) and kind of nervously poked his head in the door. He said that they had an English test this Friday, and asked if they could come sometime and we could help them study for it. Of course we said yes. I really hope something good comes out of it, and also it gave me the idea to start some sort of youth activity thing with it, because it's really sad that all of the kids here start smoking and drinking at a really young age because they don't think they have anything else to do. 

Anyway, I finally remembered to send you pictures of our apartment building. 

Also, for my plaque in the 8th ward, my favorite scripture is Isaiah 52:7. 

I love you guys.
Love Schyler.