Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Girl's Night

Hello hello family! Whew! I feel like I just need to take a deep breath before I start telling you about my week. It's been insane here! Things are going well though! After finding out about Diana last week, we met with Emona and we've been having lots of success with her. I then had to write a talk in BULGARIAN because I had to speak in sacrament meeting on Sunday :s but it wasn't too bad..... I might actually say... just perhaps... that the language is kind of,... kind of starting to click.. ish :) ha ha it's getting there Oh and that whole time we didn't have water or electricity in our apartment for some reason!! So we couldn't shower there or do the dishes or anything. We had to walk down the street to a cafe to use the bathroom and use the senior couples shower in the morning ha ha. I have no idea why it happen but it went on most of the week... our apartment was pretty gross! ha ha Anyway, then I had passport work to do in Sofia so we had to take the 7 hour bus ride into Sofia for all day monday and tuesday but it was really fun because all my groupies from the MTC were there and all the sisters in the country so we had a big sleepover with the sisters and it was really fun to see them all! Well we got to work again on Wednesday but had a lot of time and work to make up for with those two days in Sofia so we've been working hard all week. Emona is doing great! This girl is incredible! I just adore her. We've gotten really close really fast and she just loves the church! She comes to every activity and church every week. We met with her about 4 times this week and she wants to be baptized!! YAY! She is super excited! She has already almost finished the Book of Mormon in just two weeks and she just can't seem to get enough of it. I'm way excited for her. We set her date to be baptized for April 23rd. Now we just need to talk to her parents and get their permission to have her baptized since she is under 18. I'm kinda scared I'm not gonna lie. From what she says her parents are way chill and they don't care what she does, but I know that the biggest opposition always comes right before someone is going to be baptized. They know she is meeting with us, but we've never gotten a chance to meet them yet. We are going to this week. Please be praying for her!! Anyway, we also had a big zone conference this week and that was really good. Pres and Sister Roth came out and we met for most of the day. It's fun to see all the missionaries in our zone and the Roth's are awesome! I love them! I've been playing the hymns for church and all the missionary meetings and such so that's been a little stressful because I hate playing in front of people but it's getting better! I'm actually learning the hymns! ha ha Other than that things have been going great. Transfer calls are coming this week. I don't know if Joel will still be in my zone or not. It just depends but it would be really fun if we got to serve together again next transfer too! This transfer has been really fun! Let's see.. what else. I always forget all the things I want to say by the time I get here to write..... mmm..... well I can't remember. But grand news... I think I'm going to go play some soccer today!!!! YAY!! I'm so excited! I wanted to try to attach pictures to this email but I forgot the cord... grunt. I'm sorry! Next week I promise!! Love you!! MEOW!!! MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW!!! Love me

Monday, March 21, 2011

Pray For Diana

Alright family!

So this computer has been kinda freaking out on me so I don't know if you will hear much from me this week but I will try my best. So this week has been a little crazy. First off, I spoke way too soon. It's cold again. Grunt. ha ha but it's okay hopefully it will warm up soon! They were right when they said that March weather is way up and down. Anyway, on to bigger news. We met with Diana (The one who was going to be baptized on April 2nd) on Saturday and she came in bawling. She was so upset she could barely talk. I guess she had talked with her children and they told her that if she was baptized they would no longer recognize her as their mother. They would disown her from the family. She says they are all she has in this world. Her husband died a long time ago and she literally has no one else. I don't know why they are so against her being baptized but it broke my heart to see her in that situation. She was so upset. She was shaking and sobbing and we all cried together. Her kids told her that she had to call them by a certain time that night and tell them her decision because they all live in Norway. She left really upset and crying and left her books and things behind. She walked out without saying anything so we took that as her answer. We were heart broken. She was so so excited to be baptized and I saw how happy it made her. She is an incredible women. Keep her in your prayers please!! I pray everyday her kids heart will be soften to allow her to be baptized.

Sorry to start off with such sad news but it affected our entire week. We were blessed with meeting one incredible girl this week though. Her name is Emona and she is awesome! She speaks 6 languages and says english is most comfortable for her. Which is great for me! ha ha I met her on the street and was able to teach her the first lesson on Saturday. She came to church on Sunday and loved it! She was answering all the questions in class and everything. She's already started reading in the Book of Mormon and says she really likes it. I'm really excited for her! We were very blessed to find her.

So right now I am in Sofia because I had to come in to the capital to do some passport work. It's about a 6 hour drive to get here, but it's not too bad. All the sisters are going to be here for passport work as well so I'm super excited to see all of them! We are going to have a little party as sisters! It's nice to have a break from all the elders all the time ha ha.

So I can't believe that March is already almost over. March is a fun month here in Bulgaria because they have holidays the whole month. Bulgaria has SO MANY holidays. It's really funny and they all get really really into it. They even have something called name days where a certain day of the year is your name day.. if you have that name and you give out presents to other people on your name day. It's really fun. I think I'm going to start making my own name day now! ha ha it'll be great! They also celebrate women's day on March 8th and women get flowers all day long! ha ha Here if you are going to give flowers to someone you carry them upsidedown and if you received the flowers then you carry them right side up. I like it! I think we should start doing that little tradition as well.

Well things are still going well here in Varna. Transfers are coming soon and I'm sad to have Sister Loss leave and all the fun elders in my district! I get the feeling I'll be staying in Varna, but who knows eh!? Alright well I can't remember what else I was going to tell you so that's it for now!

Tootles!

Love,
me

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Flip-flops and Sunshine :)

Hello family!

Okay so I heard about the giant earthquake that hit Japan and I was really worried about Nicole so I'm glad you updated me on all of that today. What's going to happen with all of that? Are they taking the missionaries out of the country or leaving them in there? Did Nicole get hurt at all? What a scary experience for her!! Update me on EVERYTHING okay?? Is there a Tsunami headed towards Hawaii and California now? I heard there was... I need you to update me on all of that because I am a little out of the loop here.

Anyway, this week has been pretty good. The best news is... SPRING IS HERE!!! YAY!! It's finally warm here and it makes me so happy!! In fact, I'M WEARING FLIPFLOPS TODAY!!!! BAh ha ha ha so brilliant! Makes me really happy! So yes things are great now that it's warm :) Also, other grand news is... one of our investigators Diana has decided that she wants to be baptized! yay!! She is awesome! We weren't able to meet with her for a while because she was having some health problems but she is okay now and is meeting with us and is wanting to get baptized. We set the date for April 2nd and she thinks she will be ready by then and I think so too. I adore her. It's funny though because she doesn't really speak english and I don't really speak Bulgarian, but we still love each other. I'll keep you updated on her.

So I forgot my planner today which had what I wanted to say in my email on it so this might be short email cause I can't remember everything that has happened this week. We have another investigator that we found tracting a while ago. Her name is Neli. She is really really sweet! Radka (the one who's brother we were teaching) came with us to a lesson and they were instant friends. We knew they would be! I feel really good about Neli and she is so so open to the things that we are teaching her. Radka's brother hasn't been willing to sit in on any more lessons, but we still come every week and teach Rodka and hopefully he listens to some of it. He usually sits on his computer, but in the same room as us so who knows if he's getting anything out of it. He's a way cool guy though and I think it's good for him to be friends with the missionaries. We were going to go bowling with him and Rodka today and some of the other elders to get him to know more of us but it fell through so hopefully someday...

Other news.....uh.....this transfer is almost over and I can't believe it!! It's gone by WAY fast and I can only imagine how fast things will keep going... I better learn Bulgarian soon! ha ha Yesterday Rodka told me that I speak really good Bulgarian! ha ha It was probably because I was saying the prayer and I'm really used to praying in Bulgarian, but other than that.. I can't really speak but none the less it still made me feel really good that she said that. There is some hope that I can learn this language! :)

Oh man, I fail. I can't remember what I wanted to write today so I will just end this before I run out of time! I love you all and hope everything is going well! Please let me know about Nicole this week okay? Tell her I say hi and I love her.

обичам те!!
сеcтра чаилд

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Women Month

Hello Family!

SO I promised to update you on some things this week because my email was so bunk last week!! Sorry about that! I'm trying to do better with managing my email time here.. it's difficult though. I'll do my best. So things here are going great. The weather is... crazy. It reminds me of Utah weather actually! This guy we were teaching the other day told us that Bulgarians call March the women month because it's so up and down with being cold and hot randomly all the time! You never know if it's going to be happy and good or horrible! ha ha It's true! Some days it's like in the negatives and other days it's almost warm... almost...... I LOVE the warm days and I can't wait until summer here! I heard Varna is BEAUTIFUL in the summer and i can't wait to see it! and I really can't wait to see the Black Sea in the summer....and people get baptized in the Black Sea in the summer and I REALLY can't wait to see that happen! ha ha anyway, last week I mentioned a funny story about a gypsy lady... so one day we were walking to the church just minding our own business and as we were crossing the street this lady literally comes out of NOWHERE!! and starts yelling at us... We couldn't understand a word she said because I was pretty sure it was all in Turkish .. she was mostly just yelling at Sis. Loss and like threatening to hit her with her bag. Sis. Loss tried talking to her and she smacked her across the face with her bag and walked away still yelling. It was the WEIRDEST thing ever. It's hard to identify us as missionaries because we blend in a lot more than the elders do but I don't know what her problem was.. maybe it was because we were missionaries. Anyway, kind of a crazy experience. But we are all good! so no worries!! We had a good experience yesterday.. we went out tracting last night and good things always happen when you go tracting on fast sundays! ha ha We knocked on one door and the lady was not really interested and then the next door we knocked on was this lady whom we had ran into on the bus like 3 weeks ago. She had come up to us on the bus and asked what church we were from. We gave her a pamphlet and told her some information but we only have 1 minute because we had to get off the bus. Well.. this just happen to be the apartment of that same lady!! It was nuts!! She recognized us right off the bat, but neither of us recognized her. She let us in and fed us dinner and we got to sit and talk with her and her family for and hour. It was really neat! She is Provaslav (The main religion here- mostly just because of tradition) and says she will never change but wants to know more about our church anyway. It was really cool to be able to meet with her. It's cool being out on a mission. I was just thinking the other day how being on a mission really helps me to realize all the little miracles that God blesses me with everyday. It's funny because I think back and I know he was always blessing me with those miracles my whole life, but I just never saw them all. Being here I really can see these miracles now and I am so grateful for that. I know that God blessed everyone with so many little miracles everyday, we just have to open our eyes wide enough to see them all. Anyway, yesterday we spent the day in Pervadia... I don't know if I told you about that city but it's tiny and we have about 4 members there that actually go. We combined it with another city called Shoeman so now we have about 7 people that actually come! ha ha but the missionaries still have to do everything for the church.. give the talks, play the piano, say the prayers, pass the sacrament. Everything ha ha it's kinda funny but makes you grateful for those big wards back home!! The members there are really cool though and we meet with some less actives out there every week and I just adore them! Let's see what else is new... um... my mission president is pretty awesome!! We had a zone conference a couple of weeks ago and it was really good! He is super chill and a really funny guy! ha ha His AP, Elder Truman, was wearing some jeans with like tiny little holes in the leg on p-day when he came in to get ready for zone conference and president roth saw him and said "look at my AP" and stuck his finger into one of the holes and ripped his whole pant leg all the way down!! ha ha it was so funny! We were just dying the poor elder Truman had to try to hold his pants up as he walked home to change.. ha ha President Roth is awesome!! Oh and you were asking about Rodka's brother. Things are about the same still. That one lesson was the best we've had so far. He will come sit in with the lessons sometimes and other times he won't but I really like that we are able to get the missionaries to be friends with him. We are going to go bowling with them sometime and just really try to get him involved with the missionaries and see that we are actually normal people!! ha ha We meet with Rodka once a week though and we'll just see how things go there. Rodka is a new member too. She got baptized in October but she is incredible! She comes with us as we teach people and it's really nice to have her there! We are teaching a new girl named Nelie that we met tracting and she is incredible! We are bringing Rodka to meet her on Tuesday because I know they would get along so well! We'll see what happens! Anyway, once again I am out of email time but I think I did a lot better this week eh fam?? ha ha well I love you tons!! MEOW!!

Love
me