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.