Email from James - September 27, 2010

Dear Dad,

  In Lithuania, they don't have halloween. Sad day! What they do though on October 31st is a sort of day of the dead thing. Everyone goes out to their ancestors graves and puts candles around it. I have seen pics and it looks really cool. But ya they don't dress up or hand out candy. I was hoping they would then we could score some free candy. :D

  We all womped on Elder Morrel. haha. I made 18/20 shots along with Elder Manning and Elder Morrel had a high of 10/20. So we got to go to a really yummy lithuanina restaurant. I got a way good cepiliniai that was as big as my head. I was stuffed after. Apparently the potatoes aren't as good as the ones here cause no one has been able to make cepiliniais in america after their missions. I was sad to hear that cause I love them. they are so so good. Definitely something i'm going to miss after my mission. But ya we, Elder Leishman and I, didn't get six investigators. It was our goal as a District. Elder Leishman and I only got one. But ya Sigitas, our investigator hasn't been answering our calls, which is weird for him. We are getting a little worried but we will keep trying. We only taught a lesson with a less active and our two spritual thoughts at english this week. We would set up apointments, then go over to the less actives houses, and they wouldn't be there. We had a full week of lots of walking and talking and knocking on domes. I got to practice my simple Russian last night. :D We went to a way far out area and most of the people only spoke russian so we told them we were missionaries and what we were doing and we only spoke lithuanian. It was fun.

    So the leather case, the one I was thinking of is the cases that are tighter on the book so when you open your book the book of mormon can just stay in it. Some of the other Elder's here have some that other missionaries have given them. I probably want one without a handle on it. More convenient that way.

    Ya, ugh I have bad news. So the camera is probably going to have to wait but the trench coat I have is the ones the missionaries wear in Russia. They wear more convenient coats here so I can't wear my trench coat. President Dance has a way he wants missionaries to look here. So my B-day present might have to be a new coat. They are having lots of sales on those coats so I will look around at the prices. They are about 300-400 lts which is about 150-200 dollars. I hit myself in the head when I found out I couldn't wear that trench coat we bought. So my camera will have to wait a while. Luckily Elder Leishman likes to take pics to I copy his pics onto my sd card. 


    Ya it has been a little cold this past week. The weekend got pretty nice so I was hoping it would be nice today so we could play bball but it rained a little early this morning and now it's cold again. We're allowed to go bowling so we might do that or go see a really cool war museum they have here. Wow that's crazy about the National Guard catching the fields on fire. I am so glad to hear you are all safe. I bet the sky looked cool that day.

   I loved that picture you sent! I told mom in a letter I haven't lost my picture book, she figured I had lost it ahaha, but to send another one full of more pics. I love pictures and I want to get more of the family and everything. Elder Leishman's family send him tons of pictures and I love looking at them. :D Pictures are our only little touch of home. They give us hope in times of harship. :) ahaha you accidentaly erased the audio file. that's not good. Thankfully there wasn't a lot. I need to record on my tape recorder and then send it out to you. I put some pics in the letter to mom. Oh that reminds me, instead of sending back that sd card through mail do you have an extra flash drive so I can just take off my pics and put it on that quicker. Then you can't see all my pics before I'm home and then I won't have to buy one here. :D I will send you pics every now and then but I want it all to be a surprise when I show you all the pics. But do send back the SD card I sent in the package. I want to see those pics. :D

    Nothing else to report this week. Anna and mom should be getting their letter sometime this week. :D Transfers is coming quick . I have a feeling I will be leaving Kaunas. If not, I will be the only Elder in Lietuva to have been in Kaunas the longest and in a consequetive order :D. I am getting pretty close to finishing the Book Of Mormon in Lithuanian. It has been a lot of fun reading it. I plan to keep reading it til I understand all of it. ahaha. I had a dream two nights ago that I had to come home to change something on my facebook account. I asked President Dance if I could just change it from here but he told me I would have to fly home, change it, then get back on a plane real quick to come back. So I hopped on a plane, flew home, you all came and picked me up and took me home. I went in and changed like two things on it, my status and my email thing, and that was it. Then we ate some food and I told you a couple of things about my mission then we were off back to the airport. At the airport you just let me jump out of the car and waved goodbye and then I flew back to Leituva. ahahah I laughed. Then last night I had a dream we were at the airport. I think I was leaving for my mission cause I was in my suit and we were all crying but happy crying. I gave you, dad, a hug goodbye and you started crying and said i'm proud of you then I started crying and then mom was obvioulsy crying and i hugged her and then anna was crying and gave me a hug and parker was trying to climb a tree, that didn't surprise me ahaha, then he climbed down and gave me a hug goodbye. Then I grabbed my luggage and went onto an airlplane. ahaha it made me laugh. I think I was thinking so much about the armour of god video from seminary when they guy leaves to go on a mission and it has that song in the background that I like. lol. It made me laugh when I woke up. I have had funny dreams every night. All my Elders love hearing them every morning. It's become a routine for me to act them out every morning :D
  
 Tell everyone Labas for me and a hug. 
           Su meile,
               Vyresnysis Sanfordas