Here comes an email! 


My first real week as senior crompanion in Stara Zagora. Bulgaria. Eastern Europe. World. It was a strange time, but I'd like you all to know that McDonald's is currently giving away free glass cups with a wristband on them and the logo of the Eurocup 2012 also on them. With each Golyam MacMenyou purchase. And I currently have two of them. I am so sucked in by things like that. But anyway, I convinced our whole district to go to McDonald's at the mall last pee day and get free McDonald's cups, which are FREE despite the fact you have to buy a like, ten leva meal. Nobody cares about that part.


On Tuesday, we ended up getting a tour of a Bulgarian K-12 school in a suburb about ten minutes away from the main part of the city from one of our oldest English students, Dinko, who loves the missionaries and brought me an apple ("An apple for one teacher," he said to me proudly) the first time I taught English here two months ago. He showed us the sweaty math floor and the sweatier writing floor and the cool, air-conditioned principle's office and the sweatiest of all teacher's lounge. Everything was pre-1989 and so strange but cool. And there was a little courtyard with an apricot tree, and a "LCD televisiya" giant screen in the middle of the school (for music videos, which play everywhere here, I gather). We went to said tour because this Dinko has expressed interest in the Gospel before, and because we're interested in finding service opportunities in the area (the Church has a pretty awful name here and it would be good for people to see us being normal/mingling in a positive way with Bulgarians) but, again, nobody ever wants help here. It's a strange mindset (mindsweat) but people seem often unwilling to accept service - some sort of hangover from communism? Anyway. But it was cool. And we will keep searching for service times. Dinko also invited us to see an opera, at an opera house built on some of the oldest ruins in Europe (Stara Zagora is actually one of the oldest cities in Europe). I wish we could go to the opera all the time! And have that opera-tunity! Ha ha ha. Thank you to Sister Turnbow, my new companion, for that pun.


But anyway, we've been contacting a lot, on account of having no investigators/people to teach/area book, and setting up a lot of lessons that fall through or don't show up. But that's the nature of the work here, pretty much. But you just kind of keep pushing through and relying on the strength of the awesome, solid members (of which there are several) and finally find people who are cool. We had an appointment with one of the oldest members in Bulgaria (by which I mean, first members, not most ag-ed), Elena, this week, and it was so cool. She talked about how she joined the church after learning about the temple in Germany and asking the Elders there for a Book of Mormon (which at that point, was just selections in Bulgarian) and basically lost everything, including her family, after becoming a member. But she's solid, and she has a testimony that the children of Israel are slowly, slowly, coming home, and she is one of them.


We also got to visit my favorite lady, Gyolezar! Who is a Turkish lady working here in Starz at a bannitsa stand she owns, who I met first two months ago as we walked by, and who struck up a friendship, and who invited us to make bannitza with her at her kitchen the other night in the sweltering heat. Twas fun. 


I'm out of time, and we have a new mission president to go email (!) so I'll say goodbye. I love you guys. Happy Canada Day (and fourth of whatever, I guess.)


Love, Sister Crumble