haggard hunchbacks & thanksgiving.

Well, it's Thanksgiving. My second Thanksgiving in another country. My second Thanksgiving away from my family. My second Thanksgiving not really celebrated. And let me tell you, it is hard. I really miss it. I missed it last year, and I miss it even more this year. Spending time with my family and eating literally all day. Because in case you didn't know my stomach is pretty much a bottomless pit. Even if I say I'm full I can always still eat. It's a problem. 

Anyway. 

I miss it all. The laughs. The fights. The food. The games. The people. It's all so great. Although I miss it, it has definitely helped me become even more thankful for my family and the warm, safe environment that encapsulates my home. And despite the fact that I miss it all so much, I am thankful to be here in Lithuania. I'm thankful for the little smiles that brighten my day. For the snide looks and remarks that are sent my way when the kids don't like something I make them do. For the random insane 30 second tickle attacks from all the elementary students. All of it. 

Also, a shout out to my 9th great grandpa, William Bradford, for making this holiday possible. Without him there might not be a Thanksgiving. 

Enough about Thanksgiving. It might make me cry. 

The only good thing about it is that while everyone is consuming their weight in food today, I will be eating practically nothing. I'm saving myself for Christmas.

Flashback to last week.

The week started off great! All 5 of us were invited over to one of our students houses (yes, an actual house) after we were done teaching to have dinner. Oh my goodness it was fabulous. I ate so much food! We had appetizers that consisted of different types of meat on a platter, liver spread on bread, a slice of salmon, avocado, and a caper on bread, and just plain bread. I didn't touch the liver spread. Been there, done that, never happening again. The fish one was good and so was the meat! Then came our main course of dumplings with either an onion sauce or a mushroom cream sauce. The dumplings were filled with meat and both sauces were amazing! We also had some delicious juice that they had made. For desert we had a poppy seed cake. Don't get me wrong, I like lemon poppy seed muffins and poppy seed chicken, but the only flavor this cake had was poppy seed flavor. And I'm not too fond of that. However, the chocolate on the outside of it was delectable. 

The family was so fun! Emilija is the girl whose house we were at. She has to little brother, Raffle and Lukash. Lukash was the life of the party! He is 5 and he had so much energy! It was so fun getting to play with him. Raffle is only 1 and he was the happiest baby I've ever seen. He went to all of us willingly. We got to see Emilija come to life at home. It was such a fun thing to do. Her parents were so nice, too! They made us feel so welcome. Their house had such a warm, loving environment. We all just wanted to stay there forever. Oh and her house was so cool! I want one like it. 

Later that week, one of the teachers got sick, so I ended up teaching the primary kids for her. I discovered that I really did miss teaching. It's so fun spending time with the kids. We made snow flakes (something I didn't know how to do before) and we played a game. Hopefully the kids had just as much fun as I did! 

Then, to top off the week, we had our last vacation to Krakow, Poland. I had already been there before, too, but I was excited to go again. We took an overnight bus to Warsaw, and from Warsaw we took a bus to Krakow. We got there in the afternoon and headed to our hostel. We stopped at a market to get some food on the way so we wouldn't have to eat out. After eating and settling in, we went out to see the town. We found a bunch of shops that were super cheap and, of course, we had to get some ice cream. I was able to get a ton of souvenirs there. It was great! Saturday I spent most of the day in the hostel while the  girls went to Auschwitz. Since I went last year I didn't really want to go again. That night we went around town as well, just looking around. Sunday was our picture taking/exploring day since it was finally light outside when we were walking around. We found the dragon statue that is very popular in Krakow and we even ended up in mass, which I thought was pretty cool. 

At one point, I was waiting outside of a store with Shelbi and Joni and a haggard looking hunchbacked old man approached us and started talking to us in Polish. We had no idea what he was saying, he just kept going on and on with what he was talking about. He kept inching closer to me and I was getting a little nervous. Then, he grabbed my hand and kissed it tenderly. He then did it to Shelbi and Joni, too. To shock us even more, he dropped down to his knees and started fake sobbing and then laughing. After, he popped back up, grabbed our hands again, kissed them, and walked away. It was one of the strangest, most hilarious thing I have ever seen. 

That afternoon we started our journey back home. More long bus rides. I do not even want to think the amount of time I have spent all together on bus rides. Thinking about how high the number is hurts my heart. 

The next big journey made will be the one home. 

 

so little time.

November 17th. 

What? Seriously? Is this real life?

As of today I have 31 days left here in Lithuania. I cannot believe how quickly time is passing. I know these next few weeks are going to fly by! Soon I'll be on a plane heading home. Then I'll be headed back out to BYU for school. I'm excited for both of those things! But I can promise you right now that I will be crying the whole way home from Lith. All 26 hours of flights and layovers. Yes, 26 hours. Just in flights and layovers. Heaven help me. Sorry in advance to my family for the way I may act when they pick me up. It will most likely be the hangries and sleep deprivation speaking and not me. 

Things here have been about the same.

Wake up. Breakfast. Get ready for the day. Lunch. Teaching. Dinner. Sleep. Repeat. 

The kids always make the day more exciting and interesting. We never know what to expect when we teach. Some days the kids are angels and some days it seems like it's their main purpose in life to make us want to jump out of the window. 

Although they make me want to pull out my hair sometimes, they totally make up for it when they make hilarious comments or do things that just make you laugh. That's what I'm going to remember when I go home. The times they made me laugh, not the times they made me bite my tongue with my hands kept tightly by my side. Those are the moments that matter. 

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to go to a city outside of Vilnius called Kaunas to attend Lithuania's district conference (like stake conference but they are too small to be a stake) for church. Joni and I met all the missionaries and some members at 8 in the morning at the branch building. They had rented a bus for us all to take there. So we all loaded up and headed to Kaunas. It was a fun bus ride. I got to hear all the missionaries talking. It's sometimes easy to forget that they are just normal people too. I had some pretty great conversations with a few of them on the way there and on the way back. The conference itself was great too. Members from all over Lithuania were there. It really touches your heart when you see people from all over a country gather together to hear words meant just for them. Seeing their dedication meant so much to me. It really is such a neat experience. One that does not come along very often.

This past week I had to fill out the paperwork for our visas for all of us and just filling that out made me nervous. What if they decided to deny our visas? What if just mine was denied? Would I get kicked out? Would I be allowed back in Europe??? Then we went to the immigration office. A quiet, clean building. Even more intimidating than I thought. The only thing missing were all the military men ready to cart us all off to the dungeon underneath the building. Turns out, there were no problems! We are all going to be able to get our visas. Thank heavens. I had enough problems getting out of Ukraine. I do not want to relive that experience ever again. 

Oh! It snowed this week! Coming back from the immigration office it was snowing a little, and then yesterday when I woke up there was snow on the ground! I was so happy to see it! It didn't last long because the snow turned to rain. But that's okay. At least I got to see some snow! 

Friday night we ate dinner ate Dima's house with his wife and kids. We watched Rio with Sofia and Nicole while dinner was being finished. Once it was ready it was well worth the wait. Dinner was delicious! We had potatoes, meat, and carrots all mixed with a gravy. It's making my mouth water now. After we had brownies and ice cream. My weakness. Well, one of them. 

We all sat around and talked for awhile with Dima and Natasha. It was such a nice time. They are such a great family. I have been so blessed to be able to work with them. 

Drinking tea after dinner is a big thing here. For the first time probably ever in my life, I had a cup of tea. It was apple raspberry tea and it was actually pretty good. I still can't believe that I had it. I almost drank the whole cup too. I was kind of proud of myself. 

We went to a HUGE market here in Vilnius yesterday morning. In the freezing cold. I couldn't feel my toes. At all. It was still really neat to be there. They had absolutely everything you could ever imagine. All of these vendors at these little booths. I do not know how they brace the cold. They are some very dedicated people. It was really neat being able to go to it. 

Lithuania really is such a great country. And I love Vilnius. This city is fantastic. I'm going to be sad to leave. I can only hope that one day I will come back.
And just a random side note. Dinner is always something really random. Half the time we don't even end up eating it because it's the nasty balls or nasty noodles. Or something we can't even decipher. But one time we walked in the kitchen and lifted the lid of this pot, thinking it would be noodles for dinner.

That is a whole chicken. In a pot. We kinda didn't know how to react to it. It turned out to be delicious.