Hello everybody!
Easter is over. Does everybody know that Bulgarian Easter is a week later than non-Bulgarian Easter? I think it might be that way for all the Orthodox bros, actually. Also, does everybody know that Easter is a BIG HUGE DEAL here? Like every holiday? I think it's the ole communist work ethic here or something, but every single holiday is a huge deal here, and there are holidays, like, every other day. All full of various blandy baked goods with cute names, people telling you to have good health, and giant beer bottles everywhere. And things being CLOSED. Remember when I was supposed to go to Carandila last week? Yeah, the little lift thingy was CLOSED because "of the holidays." (Praznitzi). That was a week ago. People take, like, two weeks for Easter, and that affects the Work (missionary Work) too.
Also, quickly, there's a fair/carnival thing set up on the glav here where I am right now (near our apartment) with a ferris wheel and a little roller coaster thing and bumper carts. And it's hilarious because everybody who gets on there looks so bored and Bulgarian. Even the kids. Everybody just sits on the ferris wheel or bumper carts looking bored and angry and smoking cigarettes. Hahaha.
On Friday, we went out to the house of a couple in our ward who are from Scotland (the husband is from Utah, the wife is Scottish, they met on their mission in England and lived in Scotland for 30 years and decided, like many English couples struggling to make ends meet, to retire in a dirt-cheap village in Bulgaria for some reason). They're great/crazy people, kind of like the Canadjun side of me. They live in a celo (village) about an hour from Starz, and have a farm with chickens and goats and rabbits and dogs and a horse and a frisbee and piles of garbage/food everywhere. So we did service (planted corn and dug the earth and blah blah blah) and ate hot dogs over a fire we built and went to teach an investigator who lives out here. And fed a HORSE! I had a flashback to when I was young and ambitious and loved horses. Then I found out that the world is a cruel, car-filled place and quickly started reading Baby-Sitter's Club books instead of horse books and forgot about everything. But oh the horses!
So for Easter, we had an activity at the church (which is located on the fifth floor of an apartment building - the church is, I mean) in which we did a traditional Bulgarian thingy: dye Easter eggs (the dyeing isn't the fun part), and then have little wars where you try to crack someone else's egg with your egg. And I think it symbolizes health/strength/communism something something? I don't know. It's all a rich shmorgasbord of health and traditions and beer around here. Then on Sunday, we had the mission president here with his wife, which was fun, and then got to watch conference AGAIN (it takes four weeks to finish around here). On Easter Sunday, everybody goes up to everybody and says, "Isus vuzkrusen!" and then the second person says, "Boistina vuzkrusen!" Which is literally like: Jesus was resurrected! And then, Truly resurrected! Kind of like, "He sure was!!" It's cute.
Then, last night, we went to an eternal investigator's house for dinner. Her name is Maria, and she's delightful little lady who used to be a professional Bulgarian chef (I know right???) and loves to feed missionaries, but just won't get baptized quite yet for some reason, even though she wants to. So me and Sister Child and the three elders went to her house, already full from being fed by other investigators/Easter cookies of the day, and had the following:
1) Lettuce yogurt salad (actually really good, I'll show you how to make it) with boiled eggs
2) A plate of lamb liver, stomach, and lung
3) A bigger plate of meat casserole (don't even know what was in there), lamb liver, lamb kidneys, lamb stomach, and probably lamb brain
4) Bread
5) Kozunac (special sweet easter bread you eat with kisalo mlyako, which is yogurt)
6) Korabi (little special Easter cookies, korabi meaning "boats")
7) I forget what else because I was dead with meat coma
Oh man. That was one of those ones you get to write home about! As I am doing right now. But ohhh man. That LAMB. I am a vegetarian for the rest of my mission, man. I just will never forget the texture of that lamb liver. I knew, with every fiber of my own liver, that I was eating the vital organ of a baby lamb. I also sneaked some chunks of the meats into my purse, so as to not offend/eat them all, but it was pretty intense. Wacky adventures!
We're really happy to have some families to work with here, like Mitko and his son and girlfriend, and Peter and Tanya, but both sets of them need to get married before they can get baptized, which is a common problem with Bulgarian investigators. People just shack up and have kids for years and years and years and own block apartments together and share slippers, and then they're 56 and never got married. Different around here. So hopefully that will happen soon. Both of the families want to be baptized really badly, but are struggling to make the marriage possible. But I believe in them!! And we also have an investigator from Congo, who escaped during the 1990s and came here? Good choice. He speaks Bulgarian and French and a dialect from Congo, which makes speaking to him kind of interesting but fun. He's great. I also found out this week, that since the new missionaries coming in are having some visa delays, we'll have to have one of the trainers come and be companions with me and Sister Child for a few weeks until her greenie can come. So I'll be in a threesome? It will be cool.
Write to me, all of you! Also, email shout-out of the week to BAM (Patricia Asplund) for her sudden slew of emails she had been sending to a wrong address (my fault) but which were all so delightful! I love accounts of family get-togethers like that, and I appreciate you telling me about all the meals. I miss those meals. I love you, Bam. Also email shout-out to Rachel Wise!! For sending recipes. Rachel, can we go on a road trip to a museum when I get back?
Okay. I love you all. Send me packages! I'm excited to get my first packages one a these days. The Atonement is real! You read it here.
Love,
Sectra Campbell
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