Zdraveite priyatelite mi! Kak e fsichko? That's right, I'm this kind of person now. Owing to the fact that we have less than three real weeks left here (WE ARE ENGLISH MISSIONARIES NOW??), it has become necessary for me to keep up the facade of being a Bulgarian-speaker, for the purposes of practice. Do you see how convoluted my sentence structure has become???? This is what missionary work does to you. It's all "was restored to" and "appeared himself to" and strange reflexive phrases that circle, circle, circle within each other during lessons like so many horses walking in a circle, toward a single horse-doughnut in the middle of the circle.
'Round these parts, when somebody has taken upon themselves the most irritating of all oaths, that of only speaking their mission language in public (if I have one more Elder say "Hola, Hermana!!!" while holding the door open for me. . . why I'll . . . RESPECT them!), they wear a little tag of their own make that has the initials for "Speak Your Language" (SYL) on their actual Jesustag. So usually it's "HSI" for Spanish, or something unintelligible for Mandarin, or probably something looking like "GBE" for Bulgarian (Gavori Bashite Ezik). And so we do that. We do do that.
I've gotten over Sweatylawn's untimely death. Now his obituary, hanging in our classroom, is a friendly reminder of our teacher who plays him, Brother Purvis, and his inability to make serious faces, even while getting his engagement pictures taken. (BTW, as some of you wanted to know, these are my teachers: Brother Purvis, the Papa Bear, Brother Mattinson, the Mama Bear, and Brother Crowther, the Baby Bear, who can do a really good impression of a one-eyed stray Bulgarian cat. They're all good bros who understand the importance of burritos.)
I've also gotten over, mostly, anxiety about Bulgarian, owing to the fact that we actually don't have that much more to learn of the language? This seems impossible, but it is actually true. Nyama povoche chasti na Bulgarski che ne znam, vubreki che ne znam tazi chasti mnogo dobre. Does that make any sense, Bulgarian speakers? Don't tell anymore if it doesn't. Keep it sacred and safe.
We are falling into a routine, the three of us (three! I always forget how weird it is that I teach, learn, and am in a district with myself, one elder and one sister). We teach Kosyo, the friendly baby bear, who came to church on Sunday, and who seems to be progressing nicely. Last time we taught him, I got a burst of "creative" "idiocy" and pretended to invite him to a ward soccer activity of some kind!!! Because this whole "we have an actual ward you can be a part of" fascade is also something that needs to be practiced. So I said, "If you wants, we has a . . . time . . . of soccer. Saturday. With . . . the youngs." And he agreeeeeeeedd! To that insanity. So hooray for Kosyo. Also, Otetz Zahari (who is an Orthodox priest who thinks we're crazy but wants to know who Joseph Smith is; also, if you google "Bulgarian missionaries Orthodox church" you'll find an actual news incident with him) is doin' good. His name means "Father Sugars." That's all I want to say about that, because teaching an Orthodox priest is really hard. And finally, our resident mumbling atheist, Nikolai, agreed to come to church! And to pray to know if what we said was true! And I wanted to tell him about my grandpa Tom, as a way of explaining how I knew the Plan of Salvation was true (because his mom recently "died"), but I couldn't remember, in the crucial moment, how to say "grandpa." So I had to say "grandma." Ummmmmmm . . . . let's forget about that time. Nobody died! Yay! Glory for everyone!
The unfortunate part of falling into an empty sea routine is that it starts to get very repetitive/false-seeming/strange, as you can probably guess from my description of teaching fictional characters. It's like the waves of this empty sea keep smashing, smashing, smashing us against the shore of the lunchroom full of wilty salad and the classroom full of books and Bulgarian grammar and the constant ebb and flow of new elders and siters. Our three English sisters from our district flowed away this morning. :( And so did my dearest friend, Whitney Bush! Off to Milan, like a young fashionable sailor. I love that kid. She will do so good.
It's weird to be in here because you're always saying goodbyes, so it becomes really profound/normal. Like, "See you in heaven!" is something we legitimately say and mean to each other. Partly because we're Mormon and we know that we'll inevitably see each other again (at one of the BYUs, at one of the Temples, at one of the wards, married to one of our friends or somebody's cousins, etc) and partly because time loses a lot of its meaning here. Days seem about three weeks long, but also one second long. And it takes time to adjust to how different time is in here.
AHHHH! Why can't I write a decent letter to you all? Everyone read Alma 32. Just do it. Also, reading the Book of Mormon is the only way I've come up with, in 21 years, to remember who I am, how bad war is, how important women are, and how cyclical life is, ALL IN ONE BOOK. So read it. Regularly. On the reg.
Okay. I love you all. Thank you Kremlin for your package!!! IT WAS THE BREAST! I MEAN THE BEST! I WRITE TO YOU SOON! MOM, I LOVE YOU!
I am who I am, guys. In the tragically underquoted words of Britney Spears, What U See is What U Get.
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