Week of July 16, 2012: It's HOT in Bulgaria!

Those of you from whom I haven't heard in a long while - you know who you are. Update me on the ways and whiles of your lives or you will suffer a persistent and boring guilt that you only remember when you log onto Facebook and see something related to feminism or find a peanut shell in one of your cars!! Repent! And email me!

Anyway. Hottest Summer 2012 continues. Old ladies throughout Stara Zagora continue to ramble to us about the Turkish rule and how it's 40 degrees (C! C I tell you!). There was a red alert heat warning on Sunday (it ended up being like 43 or something) and so Bulgarians, being very health-conscious and suspicious of hidden death everywhere (as I suppose we all are, especially with the option of Internet self-diagnosing) are not likely to leave home on such days. So we had a total of 5 members, 2 investigators and 6 missionaries at church on Sunday. It was an interesting day. But it was somehow the most spiritually uplifting sacrament meeting I had ever been to. Not to be trite or anything. But 'twas true. The more you talk and think about sacrament, the more you realize why we actually do it, and how it's not just a social club/strengthening other members/seeing babies club. It's a covenant we made, and a renewing of said covenant, and a chance to have a new beginning in Christ. I looked up during the sacrament hymn and saw our stalwart member Nikolai, the only non-missionary to bless the sacrament in at least a year, kneeling on the dirty-ish Starz floor tearing up the pieces of bread he had brought in tin foil, tenderly and intently, and the reality of the covenant became more present somehow. Abstraction. But true.

We found more people this week, as is our custom. We've been searching for a new convert-immediate inactive lady this week, and we went to the address on her baptismal form and found a sweet old guy named Raiko, a friend of hers, who didn't know where she was but invited us in for COKE LIGHT (big deal; most Bulgarians only drink cheapest of cheap colas, e.g. Derby Coffee Soda, etc.) and showed us his painting and wood-carving studio, invited us back to talk about the Book of Mormon he had from a few years ago, and gave us each a wooden cross he had carved when we left. So there you go. A good metaphor for the way things go here: tender mercies, unexpected pleasantness, some smelliness, and Coke Light, if you are lucky.

We also had the chance to talk to the first person I've ever talked to in Bulgaria who wanted to talk about religion who had questions, had thought about existing doctrine, and wanted to challenge what we believe. It was actually really refreshing and cool, when most people are shocked by the idea that any kind of belief is good, to talk to someone who had a set of beliefs in mind and wanted to discuss them. And somehow I was able to communicate with her about said things. Next to an ice cream stand playing that stupid "Turn Me On" Nicki Minaj song? (Nicki, why? Can't we do better? Can I help you do better??)

It is hot. Peaches are really good. Watermelon also. They have this weird canteloupe type thing here called "pupish" that I like. This week I will be making at least 2 pies for our Pioneer Day party on Saturday (all of those words in that sentence should be in quotes, if you know what I mean). The members here are really like the pioneers: they suffer at work, at school, at home and with friends because of what they believe. They lose jobs and husbands and wives and respect. But they keep coming back to church, keep contributing to Relief Society, and keep walking (and walking and walking and walking, like in that song). I love them.

I love you guys. Wear a bonnet and churn some butter for me. And send me pioneer day food/activity ideas if you have them!

Love,

Sister Crantbul

Week of July 9, 2012: Watermelon!

Happy 4th of July! 


This week for that particular American Day, we were at the house of the English/Scottish couple in our branch, who came here to retire at three different farmhouses with seven hundred different kinds of animals. So we worked in a vineyard (metaphor for Gospel!) and played with baby bunnies and chased a goose around (had a "goose chase," you might say). And visit-taught the sister of the family. Then we ended up having to take a train back to Stara Zagora, which takes a long time (although I actually like trains a lot here, as long as it is not 100 degrees out, which it is these days) and sang the national anthem loudly and had Bulgarians clap for us in the next car, and then launched into the usual group sing-a-long songs: Bohemian Rhapsody, God Be With You Till We Meat Again (haha, vegetarians), etc. And ate a hot dog for dinner. So don't worry, I'm still celebrating America. (Although one of our elders is Canadian! But he plays along. He has no choice.)


This week I learned the true meaning of Christmas. Wait, no I didn't. Here are some highlights:


Monday: Family home evening with our one and only family in the branch, who have two kids, Vili and Petco (these are real names). They are possibly the cutest children I have ever known. I was playing with Vili and pretending to be scard of a toy Vili was holding out to me, and she very cutely and seriously insisted, "Toi HE hapi! HE hapi!" Which means, like, "He doesn't bite! He really doesn't bite!" :)


Tuesday: Two actual lessons! A miracle! 


Wednesday: Goats/train/goose, etc.


Thursday: Met the new mission president! He is unimaginably different from Pres. Roth, but also unimagineably cool and awesome. We love him and his co-president Sister Wilstead. We also had to give him a tour of the Starz church unexpectedly, and nervously kicked cockroaches under shelves, covered up dirty spots from people's celo dirt-covered shoes, ignored the bathroom, etc. Ha ha ha. :/


Friday:Two lessons canceled on us! Oh well. But had a watermelon. SO GOOD. All the fruits are so good here. But the watermelon is . . . I can't talk about it anymore. 


Saturday: Had an awesome visiting teaching lesson with Sister Ruseva (who might write you, Mom - she really wanted to write you because she says she likes to write the parents of sisters and tell them their daughters are doing okay or something), who is a less active member who is awesome and cute. What to say, really? Sorry to use the word "awesome" so much. Also 4 lessons cancelled on us . . . but oh well! Again, watermelon makes up for everything.


Sunday: CRAZY church in which I had to translate for sacrament meeting and relief society. I am kind of . . . bad at it? But I will get better, I guess. It was cool to do it. I also couldn't remember how to say "to steal," so I had to keep saying "take things from other people." Like, "The Lord has commanded us not to . . . take things from other people. Thou shalt not . . .take things from other people." Etc.


Incidentally:


1) It is so hot. SO HOT. 100 degrees and 90% humidity-ish almost every day.
2) I miss you guys.


Okay. I love you all. Keep it up, and don't forget Pie and Beer (Pioneer) Day!

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

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

Week of June 25, 2012

What do you do when you're in Stara Zagora? (Or 'Starz' as we all refer to it?) Reach for the 'Starz!' Ha ha ha ha ha. Good joke. 

Anyway, it has been a confusing blur of a few weeks. Mom, make sure to put up the rest of my letters so people don't think I'm dying or having big holes in communication or going home or anything. Or being boring. Um, so after the strange blur of mission conference and saying goodbye to our delightful Austrian mission co-presidents and Elise getting baptized and me forgetting all of her paperwork and being an idiot, I ended up in Sofia, where the 11 new missionaries were waiting for us (so many new missionaries, how do they keep coming?) and ended up getting assigned to train Sister Turnbow in Stara Zagora. And then ended up packing my three suitcases and 1 guitar and a DVD player into a bus and heading for the country (basically what our zone is - the hick and hillbilly area of Bulgaria).

It's kind of scary to be here, training, knowing as little as I know, especially to be in a new apartment where no missionaries have ever lived before, and therefore has no missionary vibes/pamphlets everywhere/Area Book/investigators. It's also weird to be the one setting an example for somebody who literally knows nothing. But I guess it's my time, or something? I just hope and pray Sister Turnbow doesn't think I'm an idiot (even though I somehow managed to leave my passport and money card in Varna, what??) and learns something from me.

I learned something this week: Mitko, the one who got baptized last time I was here, can walk on coals. I guess (as I read in our Bulgarian textbook) that coal-walking is actually like a traditional folk tradition (tradition) in the rural parts of Bulgaria? So that's cool. So Mitko will be going to a resort town near Burgas to WALK ON COALS for money for a few days. He's doing well but still pretty much abandoned by everyone in his family/friend circle on account of his baptism, and still having everybody refuse to pay him for work he does, etc. But he continues to be strong and tough, just like the soles of his feet, I guess.

We also went to an oblast conference in Plovdiv this Sunday, to say goodbye to the Roths and to eat strange egg and meat and oil sandwiches. It was a good time. It's always strange and cool for me to see more than 10 or 15 church members in Bulgaria gathered in one place, because first of all, it makes you realize that yes, people WILL actually listen to you/change their lives, even if they're hard to find, and secondly because it's cool how different/struggling/strange we all are as a branch family, but how people still manage to be members together and make communities where we all try to teach each other to be more Christlike. 

I'm looking forward to a week of a lot of contacting here in Stara Zagora. We basically have no investigators, progressing or otherwise, and very few members coming to church these days, so our work is cut(e) out for us. Cute out for us? I've never considered myself a very good contactor (shyness/self-consciousness/stubbornness, some combination of those things) but it's time for me to get over that and just do it, without worrying about my level of skill or the results. The option to cower and self-doubt just really isn't there anymore. So I guess that's a message I'd pass on to everyone this week: don't waste your time with self-doubt. You can say it and say it over again, and continue to self-doubt, as I do. Or you can sit up in your crappy internet zala chair, take life by the coke bottle, and just do it without thinking about yourself. Nike. Olympics. Sports metaphor.

Oh also this week we were with Tanya and Peter, the new converts ,and they were pouring us their traditional "under-the-table" juice (that's just juice they keep under the table, not like, a bribe or anything) and cookies, and a giant slosh of colorful blue slimemold came sloshing out with the juice too. And they pretended it was no big deal and tried to wipe it up and pick it out and hand the glass back to us. So that was . . . funny. Um.

Okay. I love you guys. I throw my hands up in the air sometimes, saying, Hey-oh, learn the Gospel. Is that a song people like anymore? I feel out of it. 

Week of June 11--Going to Kindergarten!

Hey vsichki!

Still in Varna, still trying to handle everything, still waiting for Elise to be baptized, still by the ocean. This week Elise had a first hearing for her custody of her son, and it didn't go very well, so she is worried for the next hearing (which is a few days after her baptism this Saturday). So we fasted from Saturday noon until yesterday noon, and it was actually a very good experience. Usually - I don't know. I haven't always gotten/liked/understood fasting. But the more you do it, and the more you come up with a reason to do it, the more it makes sense and is actually very refreshing/energizing. And lets you focus.

This last week was very strange and fast. We had an oblast conference on Sunday, which means that all the members from Burgas, Dobrich, Ruse, and Varna-sub-cities all came to this casino hotel in the center of the casino-tourist section of Varna, across from McDonald's, and we all walked through the McDonald's and the casino and into a room where we had a sacrament meeting. It was a very weird contrast of opposites and brain-enticing colors (red and yellow, man) and feelings. We also all watched President and Sister Roth say goodbye to these members, knowing that as they finish their three-year mission, they probably won't see some of them again, ever. It made me realize how much of life is about goodbyes, and how quickly they come - so go make your loved ones some cookies!

Speaking of which, here are the foods I prepared this week:

1) homemade spicy tomato sauce, which in this heat I usually just eat with cabbage leaves

2) chocolate chip cookies, which always somehow turn out slightly Bulgar-y

So . . . not that many. But here are the interesting foods I ingested this week:

1) Rosi's tarator, which is this really creamy thick cold yogurt/cucumber soup I like.

2) Bulgar pizza for 69 stotinki, which is a very cheap pizza involving corn and unidentified meat

3) Later, I'm going to MCDONALD's because they're giving out free EURO CUP COKE GLASSES and I WANT ONE

4) Bulgarian "burritos' from the "Mexican" "food" "place" near the church

5) A generic brand dark chocolate bar - the generic brand here is called "Clever" - which I bought with 2 and 5 cent coins

6) A vanilla milkshake from McDonald's. So proud and American.

Sister Roth gave a great talk in our oblast conference yesterday, saying how she had been a kindergarten teacher in Germany, the place where they actually have "kindergarten," for her whole life, and how in that year, children learn everything they need to know for their whole lives. She reviewed these principles with us, showing how we could all use them and know everything we need to know about being good, thinking, Christlike people:

1) When you leave the house or go somewhere new or scary, always hold onto each other.

2) We need breaks sometimes to eat cookies and warm milk, and to rest.

3) We need to learn each other's names so we can feel loved and respected and responsible for each other.

4) When you borrow something, give it back. Be honest and have integrity.

5) Everybody has to throw away their own garbage - e.g., take responsibility for your own mistakes and see yourself as part of a bigger picture.

6) Ask for help when you get scared or need it, and always say thank you.

Anyway, I just loved those. So deep/doctrinal! And yet so fundamental/childlike! 

Okay. Sorry this was a bit scattered and full of McDonald's and sarcasm. But you know, I am who I am.

I love you guys. Remember to learn each other's names and hold each other's hands.

Sister Crumble

Week of June 4

Hello aga'ain!

Welcome to another email! I am much less overwhelmed and much more prepared to explain the goings-on of my life this week! So here we go.

I'm back in Varna for 3 weeks, until June 20th, when four more greenie sisters will come in, and probably I will train one of them (I think). Until then I'm with Sister Coryell, who is a very tall and tan and awesome boat-capable lady who supports Coca-Cola and who is an amazing teacher and listener. I'm lucky to hang out with her and stand in her tall shadow.

This was my first week as a senior companion, and therefore, the first week that I actually "felt" like a "missionary." For real. The before times, yeah, but the now times, it's like, WHOA. If I don't make it happen, it won't happen, dude. I'm the one who talks to the guy fixing our washing machine and explains that "Simply, it is not being opening," (been broken for two weeks; the door won't open; we are Smelly Sisterz). I'm the one who makes sure we have stuff to do 14 hours of the day. I'm the one who writes an email to the President telling him how many receives we got this week and how our investigators are doing. I'm the one who "knows the language." What? Who let this happen? I often wonder. But then I more often notice, Oh. This is working. I like this. It is how it's meant to be. And somehow, I can get everything I want to accomplished. Thanks to all my former companions, mostly. Panti, Child, Meyers, my mother, father, and crazy aunt, respectively. How I miss them and trailing around submissively after them. But now, because of them and their awesome Examples, I can actually do what needs to be done.

So I'm back in Varna! The golden city! And now it's actually warm and summer and ocean and YEAH! It's pretty great here. The members are great and abundant and affectionate and I get to work with Elise again! She has just been doing better and better since I left. I remember feeling vaguely hopeless about her situation and scared about leaving her behind to the meddling sweaty hands of Others, but I've realized that I'm an idiot, and duh, God has it all planned out, and everything has happened the way it should. She got a job, she has a place to live (a functioning women's shelter), her son is doing 100 times better (smiley and healthy and giggly and wild), and she has an amazing, heartfelt testimony of Jesus Christ and His gospel. More heartfelt than I feel like I could ever be, especially given her circumstances. We had a lesson with her in the back of our senior couples' car the other day (it was the quietest/best place we could meet) and she wept and smiled and kissed her Book of Mormon (a kind of non-Utah-ish habit that has grown charming to me) and said, crying, "I'm glad I came to Bulgaria, because I found my God." It's easy to over-narrate or objectify experiences and stories like that, so I'll leave it to itself, but I'll just say that her faith and overwhelming willingness to follow Jesus Christ is something I feel lucky to be able to witness. And she will probably get baptized soon, either this Saturday or next, and I feel so grateful that the President had me here in Varna for this short time when this is all happening. 

I won't say too much about other Investi-reptiles (get it??) because there are too many of them and it would be too hard to explain, but I love teaching, and I love trying  to do my best, especially when I give into the fact that I'm just not able to do anything without divine help. It's cool. Something that's REALLY AWESOME (Mom!!! you would like this!!!) is that we have a recently-reactivated member here named Rosi, who has two adult daughters, one of whom is deaf, and who I just got to meet for the first time this week (even though I've known/loved Rosi since February). We had a kind of disastrous/hilarious appointment on Tuesday with Penka, in which Coryell and I were 20 minutes late due to embarrassing bus/direction incapabilities, and then in which it started POURING rain in a true Humid Climate fashion, and I kept trying to dart out of the little bus station in my stupid frump shoes and desperately wave at taxis but they all kept shrugging at me and then we finally got there and there was a GIANT puddle, like an ocean covering half the road, that we needed to get across to the senior couple teaching with us and the block we were going into. So after hesitating in a frightened manner, like in a romantic comedy about a heedless young man who teaches an uptight young lady to Live, we finally succumbed to the puddle's power and ended up with our feet completely soaked, in addition to everything else, and finally ended up in Penka's apartment 25 minutes late to find that it wasn't just her we were visiting teaching, oh no. It was her, Rosi, Rosi's daughter and two deaf friends, Nelly, the former relief society president, Penka's 92-year-old mother, and Chochi, the crazy off the wall giggly monster child. And they were all waiting. For us. With bannitza and keks (cake) and soda. And I was the only one who could really help the appointment go anywhere, since I was the most prepared to "translate" English to Bulgarian and back again while Rosi translated into jestomiko (Bulgarian sign language) for her daughters and friends. It was craazy. It was the first time I felt the full weight of being a missionary, trying to translate for everyone and teach a lesson and quiet the kid and Enjoy the Food and get important messages across.

But this is the cool thing, Mom! Rosi's deaf daughter is a member, and her two friends, who she met in what is basically the only school for hearing impaired people here, want to be taught! So on Thursday, we went back and taught the plan of salvation, me teaching in Bulgarian, Rosi interpreting into jestimiko. It was crazy and cool. And now I am learning sign language.

On some lighter notes:

1) I found out how you say "farmer's tan" in Bulgarian. Essentially, it's "collective farmworker's tan," which is HILARIOUS to me. You say "takazcaski ten," which stands for TKZC, which is the abbreviation for Bulgarian communist collective farms in Olden Times, and then just make it into tan. Hahaha.

2) We were walking down a street one sweaty afternoon, and a shirtless guy walked by us and said, very quietly and weirdly, "Sorry." I will never know why. Shirtlessness? Apologizing for his sins? Who knows.

Um, that's it. I love you guys. Keep on writin. Keep on prayin. I'm almost a third done with my mission? Yeah. THINK about it.

Sister Crambel