Email from James - October 25, 2010

Sviekas Dad,
  
   OH good ol guitar hero! :D That's crazy how there are mice in the house again. We haven't seen any in our apartment so we have been pretty lucky. Our apartment is so small so if we did have some we would hear them or see them. I guess the spiders make up for it. :D

   Haha I laughed at how you had to turn up the heat. We have a good laugh at our heating system in our apt's, and also with the electricity here. If we have to wash clothes, we have to make sure all the other electrical things are off and unplugged cause our washing machine uses so much power. We usually wash clothes when we are asleep or when we are out. Elder Leishman gets cold easily but I have been alright. He brought a blow dryer from one of the other apt's so he puts it by his feet when he studies haha. I just make little whinny faces and he just tells me to shut up and I laugh. :D Last Firday, there was a crazy storm that came in all day, It hailed way hard for most of the morning then snow came in. First snow in Lietuva!!! Then it stopped at about 13:00 then rained the rest of the day. Our pants were soaked when we finally got back home. We were had fun though! We used our umbrellas as shields when we would walk past the roads so we wouldn't get sprayed. You couldn't even see the tires of the cars there was so much water in the road. But there isn't snow on the ground yet thankfully. It's pretty cold though, but not too bad. I haven gotten used to it.

   Sweet, you sent the birthday package off. Tell mom thanks for sending her camera. I was probably going to buy Elder Cooke's cause it's a nice one and he is going home after this transfer but that will be a lot easier to not have to use money for another one. :D I'm excited to get my package. Today we are going to a Turgus, it's like a big flea market. They have them all over Lietuva, grandpa would love them. They are huge here. But we are going there today so I can get me a coat and a hat. I'm not excited to wear the "newsie' hats. I think they don't look good on me, but i'm already past caring how I look. I still make sure I look good, so mom don't worry, but what the president says to wear, I wear it. :D I will send some pics in the chirstmas package I will send. Speaking of christmas package. You could probably send that to whatever city I serve in next transfer, unless president dance has said otherwise. We are having zone conference on the 16th of November so that is going to be the only time we could get a package from Riga from them. You can let me know what your going to do for that next email. I am going to send back my trench coat so you can have credit and then I don't have to haul it around.

   I"m excited to hear about how that roadshow went. It doesn't really make sense to me with the hoarse line but it sounded like lots of fun. :D Ya Bro. Fletcher is the new Elder's quorum president! He is perfect for that job :D Man, you have to do a lot of work again for the ward. You are going to be quite busy. Don't worry, I feel for you, I'm busy everyday so I can see how much you have to work. I feel so blessed to have such a hardworking dad who cares so much about us, his family, and the ward and God's work. Thanks dad for everything you do. :D

   Ya (phone) calls here are funny. They have you guys call here on our cell phones and our phones aren't the greatest. We set up a time to talk and then you call us here. I'm so excited to talk to all of you in December. :D It's coming pretty quick. Yesterday I realized I have 3 weeks left of being a teen then I will be 20 :D haha! 

We asked our english class what they do here for chirstmas. They do lots of traditional foods but they don't really put up lights like how we do in America. Like around stores and stuff they might have lights, but everyone lives in domes, not houses, so they don't do lights. That kind of made me sad. So it doesn't change to much here at night. They do put up tress and have Grandpa Chirstmas ( Santa Klause) Chirstmas will be interesting. We don't go out a lot cause everyone uses the hollidays as an excuse to get even more drunk then they usually do during the week so it gets pretty dangerous for us to be out. So we just contact til 3 then have to stay inside for the night. 

    Wow your doing Trek again. I loved Trek so so much! That would be so fun to be a counselor for that. You'll have to let me know how that goes! That's so crazy how that might be your last big thing with the youth as a bishop. I didn't realize in February that it will be your 4 year mark. Time is just flying. That would be so cool if you were still the Bishop when I get home. :D You sent me out and brought me back lol.
    
    Ya Turkey Bowl!!! I miss going to those. Those are so much fun! You'll have to take some pics and send them to me. Ya play real futbolas and some good ol american football. You might be surprised to know I have been dying to watch a good american football game. I think the mission might change me and I may be watching football a lot more when I get back :D lol. Once again your right that I might change about football when I grow up ahaha. 
    
    Ya halloween is this weekend. I love halloween so i'm kinda sad they don't do much for that here. Elder Leishman and I are going to decorate the apt., there are already thick dusty old spider webs on most of the wall cealings and corners so we have that creepy part taken care of  haha, but we are going to try to find some pumpkins to carve and decorat the apt. in other ways too. :D I wish I could see what the neighborhood looks like. I love how are nieghborhood goes all out for halloween :D
     
     So not too much has happened here. We were able to teach a way cool guy. He let us in and he accepted a book of mormon and said he would read and pray about it. I am excited to see if he wants to meet more. He is really nice to us. He has a young daughter and is married. His wife wasn't there so we werent able to teach them together.We went to his door and he opened and asked if we were coming for tithings. hahah at the time we both didn't know what tithings were in lithuanian. He told us to wait and he went in his house. He came out with 5LT's and said here you boys go. We laughed and said we don't need money, we are teaching people about Jesus Christ's true gospel that is back on the earth. He at first didn't seem that interested. We asked if he had seen or heared about the Book of Mormon and we showed him a copy. He took it and began flipping through the pages. We asked if he had 20 minutes so that we could explain what the Book of Mormon is and what we are talking to people about. He warmly let us in and he seemed very interested.
    
     We went to the zoo last monday. It was so so much fun. There was no one there! It is a very small zoo but we don't get to do lots of fun stuff like that so we had a blast. We were acting like little kids as we freaked out about all the animals we saw. We took lots of funny pics I will email to you. :D I figure I can send some pics in letters and in emails perodically so you can have some instead of sending the card back and forth. If you didn't, could you send back my card in the christmas package. :D I need to get those other pics :D I finished the book of mormon in lithuanian and I have set a new goal for myself. I don't learn a lot of word when I just try to memorzie them one by one. So, I was pondering one day of what to do. I set a goal to memorize all the scripture mastery for the book of mormon in english and in lithuanian. It will help me with grammar structure, words, etc. Then after I will keep memorizing verses we teach with. :D I have DC 4 down. We had to memorize it all in english for zone conference cause we are having a area zone leader come so I memorized it in Lithuanian too :D It's been a lot of fun. I have learned so much and I have yet to learn so much more. :D
       
     I can't wait to get the package and hear from you all. :D Thanks for all you do for me. I am so truly blessed by how much you sacrifice and do for me so I can be out here. I love you all so much. 
             Su miele,
                Vyresnysis Džemsas Sanfordas