Emona's Baptism

Hello Family

So this week has been pretty great. It was super super busy but still really good. First off, Emona was baptized this week! I didn't realize how much planning would really be behind planning a baptism, but it takes a lot of work! It was fun to plan it all though! The baptism was on Saturday and it was beautiful! We didn't do it in the Black Sea though. I went down and felt the water and it really was WAY too cold to have her baptized there. I don't want to torture her! ha ha

So we set up the font on the porch of the church and it was a beautiful sunny day so everything went really smoothly! Radka gave a talk, I did a musical number on the piano, another elder here gave the other talk and it all went really well. Emona leaned over to me during one of the talks and said she really felt the Holy Ghost. It was really cool. I could tell she was really happy and it really turned out to be a special day for her. I am really excited for her and the progress she has made. It's been really neat to watch the changes in her since I first met her out on the street up to today. I was so happy that everything went smoothly for the baptism and the spirit there was really so strong. It was so awesome! And the food we made was delicious! ha ha I'll try to attach some pictures today if I can. We had her confirmed yesterday at church and that was really special to watch. I'm so happy for her.

Anyway, that was the biggest news of the week and really what I've spent most of my week planning for. I don't know if I told you in the last email but the city of Pervadia that we were traveling to each week for church and to visit less actives was finally shut down. There just weren't enough people coming to church. The last week we went there absolutely no one came to church! ha ha it was just us four missionaries sitting there waiting for people to come. The other weeks it's only been about one or two people that have come. It's a bummer that they shut the church down there but we just can't keep going out there and having no one come. It takes a lot of travel time and money so they shut it down. It's sad though because I am worried for the members out there. I have grown close to them over the last three months going out there to visit them twice a week. I guess we'll just see what happens. Things in Pervadia have been going down hill for a while now so I guess it had to happen. But I won't be going out there anymore. We'll just be working here in Varna from now on.

So other big news! Radka's brother is awesome! Sister Orr and I keep running into him randomly on the streets and the other day we saw him down near the beach and we hung out with him for a good hour just talking and hanging out on the beach. He is such a cool guy and I love that we are able to get him at least involved with some of the missionaries! Last week we were in Sofia so we weren't able to go over to Radka's to teach her a lesson and I guess he was really bummed that we didn't come and said he thought he could learn a lot from us! He still pretends to not listen while we are giving the lesson to Radka but he always stays in the room now and he'll sit and talk with us for hours about different things. He is a way smart guy and I know he's been searching for something more with the religion. Anyway, it's slow but I really do feel like we are making progress with him and at least giving him a better idea about the church here in Bulgaria. Bulgarians have a really bad outlook on the church here. Everyone thinks we're some kind of cult that eats children or something. When people see us coming down the street they will yell out "secta!" which basically means cult! It's a little strange but slowly we are trying to change people's opinions of the church here.

Anyway, that's all for this week. Love you all!

Love
me