Let me set the scene for you in terms of yarn: (while I spin you
all a yarn): I'm sitting in our old internet zala, which is all but
abandoned on account of it is a BIG holiday called New Year's Day here,
and wearing the following wool products:
1) wool Land's End tights
2) wool plain tights underneath
3) gray sweater (purchased with GG! Thank you GG! I love you!)
4) white fluffy huge yarn eternity scarf I MADE LAST NIGHT, thank you
5) huge blue and white and dark blue swooshy big hat I made a few weeks ago
6)
remember in that one book when a southern grandma was trying to express
the idea of "whirlpools" in the river near their house but says like
"wool pooh," and then the grandkids imagine that there is a
winnie-the-pooh demon made of wool in the river to kill them? What book
was that???
Just setting the scene for you. As I mentioned previously, Sister Tate's going-home-soon-stress-
1) Christmas eve. Found us pretending to have p-day but
not really, because we had to prepare to entertain members and
entertain ourselves and try to do real missionary work at the same time.
Also, wearing my new fur hat. Eventually we found ourselves at the
house of a long-time investigator named Ina, who wants to get baptized
but whose husband isn't into it, having Christmas eve dinner! Did I tell
you about this already? Whatever. We also met her husband and it was
actually really nice. He's cool. They want to move to Australia, like a
lot of young mover and shaker Bulgarians. Also, guess what mom and dad:
there are a million Bulgarians in Vancouver, B.C. So. Let's go there
someday and buy cirene. Eventually we ended up at the church hosting a
party that one member was excited to have (a lot of members here are
kind of alone/have bad family situations) and we watched "Horton Hears A
Who" (in Bulgarian! not as funny, I don't think) and made gingerbread
houses out of chocolate biscuits and Christmas candy sent in packages to
us.
2) Christmas day! The longest and most stressful day ever! I think I
understood the "adult" side of Christmas more than I ever had, where
you kind of are just responsible for making sure everyone's happy and
has a good time. But it was nice. I realized how happy and sweet it is
when you get to a point where all the people in your care ARE happy and
quiet and not fighting (like we kids used to). We visited our
investigator Rumi and gave her a CD player with headphones and a MoTab
CD (thank you GG and Papa!) which she LOVED, and looked at all the cool
pictures of when she used to live in Libya and Tunisia and be a hipster.
And then went to go see sister and brother Boyanka and Peter, who are
some less-active members who randomly have a daughter/niece in Utah who
is roommates with the daughter of Elder and Sister Eames, the senior
couple working here with us. Pretty crazy. And I talked about John
Lennon to Peter for a while, and played some Johnny Cash on my guitar
for him that he wanted to hear. He was SO excited. Then we went home to
make a pumpkin pie (I promised I would) and went back to the church for
another party in which we made pizza and watched that awful movie about
the green guy who is not in agreement with the institution of Christmas,
and skyped you guys! It was so tender and sweet! I am scared of how
grown up and different everyone is, but also peaceful about how happy
you all seem. So keep being happy.
And last night, we had been given the direction to work
only until 5PM because New Year's Eve is kind of nuts/dangerous here,
what with all of the shooting guns and fireworks going off from every
single house with no laws or regulations and also drunk folks all about.
So we came in at 5 and had a nice old lady's evening in which we
crocheted for like 3 hours and I completed a scarf, and ate pumpkin
bread and pumpkin soup, and then went to bed at 10:00. And then were
violently woken up all night by fireworks EVERYWHERE. Like, off the
balconies below us and above us and across from us.
Anyway. A kind of crazy week and even crazier to
realize my mission will end this year. I love you all so much. Happy everything!
Love,
Sister Grundbag
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