Week of August 13, 2012: Probably

First of all, a quick party salute to my good comrade Thomas, who has continued the family tradition of serving missions to formerly communist countries. And also I am so excited and proud for him (wherever he may be?). Sorry for this weird third-person address. Anyway, it's just cool to me that missions continue happening and people continue getting ready for them and coming home from them and continuing to get up at 6:30 on them. Hooray for Zion!

Welcome to another week in Stara Zagora, the home of the best beer in Bulgaria! (According to many. The Zagorka beer factory is very near by, and looks like a scary orphanage or sword factory.) Ooh, also, notice the slogan of said Zagorka beer company: "Probably the best beer in the world." Probably. Oh, and also an interesting language note for all of you language nerds (nobody cares, I know, sorry): Bulgarian contains a tense used to express doubt or sarcasm in something having happened. So where in English we could say, "Supposedly she ate 5 watermelons in a row," or "Oh, so you 'Didn't have time to make me a sandwich,' huh??" in Bulgarian, you can just get rid of those air quotes and supposedlies and use a tense to express it all! Interesting. I am excited to embark on a sarcastic Bulgarian journey when I am capable of doing so.

Goings-on of the second week of August. First of all, hung out with awesome member Zladka, who needed help with her technologies (camera/skype/email/finding LDS.org/learning how to use Liahona talks for lessons). She is adorable and also made little lists of commands written for all of the above things to help her remember, e.g. "Press the red button, then click the round button, etc." She is also the current Relief Society president, and we got to have another lesson with her on Wednesday about how everybody (her, me, etc.) feels inadequate for their callings and as if there perhaps is no hope. But there is! Even though our Relief Society consists of about 4 active women and 2 or 3 investigators/non-active women, we are still sisters in Zion, darn it all! And we will MAKE pies for each other! And TEACH each other the Gospel! So there.

And then, guess what. Congratulations to me, I managed to lose ANOTHER wallet on my mission, all within the same six months. Bra-VO. So we spent like four hours one day chasing it around, asking the store where I probably lost/had it stolen if they had it, turning off my cards, etc. Sigh. I will never grow up.

Also, mostly, helped the long-time investigator Maria prepare for her baptism this week! And all that that implies! She is a professional cook, and very insistent upon having an excellent spread of not just a pie at her baptism, and therefore the following traditional meal will be present: kebapcheta (ever-present spicy sausage thingies), bannitsa (you know about it), mlechen salad (cucumber and dill and yogurt), watermelon, pitki (bread balls) and bread. Bread must ALWAYS be present. I am delighted by Maria and her sweetness and her insistence upon only eating things that are appropriate for the given month. For instance, even though her shopska salad is amazing, I would never dare to ask for it anytime except in between May and August. Before or after that, it is inappropriate, and according to her, might make one sick, because of the temperatures of the ingredients (?). Also, the peaches are getting bigger, just so you all know. Bigger and better. It's out of control.

We also got to have a great lesson with this new lady Bogdana, who is very Pravoslav and very sweet, and insisted upon buying us drinks at an outdoor cafe (one of the youthful ones where people sit all day long in purple leather booths and listen to rap from 2008 and techno from Croatia from 2006 or so) which was a funny place to give a lesson on the Restoration to a 65-year-old lady, but awesome. 

Mostly I've just been realizing this week that I am not perfect, but that the main thing is to not focus on that but to do my best every day and try to show love to people around me. And that's it. That's all you can do.

I love you guys. I might leave Starz next week. Who knows??? Stay tuned!

PS: Bulgaria's volleyball team is doing well, I heard? In that 'supposedly' case?