1st week with a new companion/Food!!!

Hey everyone!!! To be honest it has felt like the last time I emailed was a month ago but yet.... this week has gone by so fast.

The baptismal date we had fell through. We have taught a sister everything and was prepared for baptism... but now we can't even meet due to her being busy and other things. This week has been focused a lot on finding people. I have been getting more "receives" for the key indicator higher than I ever have. Elder ... is fantastic with talking to people and setting up a lesson. He used to be the zone leader for zone 1 in .... I'm in zone 3 and have never left zone 3 so far. I have so much to learn from him.

At the current time we have no progressing investigators and a few other investigators. Meeting people has been hard but the work will go forth. It's interesting how the feeling of time has changed with companions. There are some where during meal times we have a lot of "extra" time and there are some companions where it seems like we don't have enough time. To be honest, I fill like when we have no time, it feels like we're working harder and better. Really focusing on the people around us even if it means sacrificing random things in the schedule. It's not easy, but It's a good feeling of fulfilling my missionary purpose. For an example, we had no time for diner yesterday, so after planning and doing the area book we cooked chicken and ate, but even then we didn't have enough time to make other things to fill us up. Don't worry we're not starving, just well... running out of time ha ha.

Another thing we learned together while street teaching is trying to listen to people more. We had a conversation with a man that basically at the beginning just complained about money and it being hard. We actually had him talk for a while and he said he didn't have faith. We said some simple, I guess, inspiring questions and he completly changed to being a more sincere and accepting person. We plan on meeting with him, so we'll see what happens. It's not the first time that has happened and it's amazing to see how the spirit works on people and can truly change a person's attitude in such a quick minute. I'm so thankful for the spirit, it's hard work and it may not seem like things aren't working the way there supposed to but when the spirit is there, everything before doesn't matter. It's a humbling experience.

Here in ... has been well.... very, very hot. I know I said I'm used to it but basically it's at the point where if there is shade, I'll try to walk in it and clouds are very nice when they block the sun. It feels like your sweating just standing in the sun. During the middle of the day, the city almost feels empty because everyone is inside. It's interesting.

Sounds like a lot of things are happening back home. With cleaning out the basement and also Kaylie's birthday. Sounds super exciting... well the birthday part. My new companion is a lot more cleaner than my last companion so I'm not complaining. I love having a clean apartment ha ha. Each week we get an email from President ... about random things and a thing that he mentioned is based off what the First Presidency said. About having homes dedicated. It mentions in the missionary handbook briefly about how the Holy Spirit can reside in the home and where family members can find safty, grow spiritually, and other things. When the home is clean it brings more harmony. It's hard but it's worth it. It also talked about the goal of having every home for members here in Bulgaria to be dedicated. It's exciting.

Anyway I got to go but I love all of you.

Love Elder Green

Food!!!

I forgot to mention about how my companion is helping me live the actual culture of Bulgaria with food. I have tried a lot more things with him and also ate out at a sit down place. I've never had any companion do that and we order of course Bulgarian tradition things. It's so much fun. So far I have tried a cucumber with a yogurt, milk thing soup that was delicious. Also we had sushi, which was based off where a current investigator works and they happened to have it. I thought it was funny because you mentioned a Sushi place in the email. That's the first time my companion had Sushi in Bulgaria so it's not a thing here. Also this morning I had a thing that is basically a giant crape which was fantastic. Also I had fries with a SeranAd (Bulgarian cheese). I thought the cheese was ok at first but now it's super super delicious. I'll be trying more things and I'm excited for that. I would send pictures if I could but the computers that I currently use have a restriction that prevents that. Ugh. Anyway love you all!

Love Elder Green

The end of Transfers again....

It's crazy that it has already passed another 6 weeks. It seems like I just got here in ..., let alone Bulgaria. President ... was in Turkey so only companionships with changes got a call since it's expensive from Turkey to Bulgaria. So what happened... we got a call. I'm getting a new companion and my companion is leaving .... I have loved serving with him. He is a really funny companion and love telling stories. I feel like out of all of my companions I have had the best relationship with Elder .... I'm going to be serving with a person in his group and also is the current zone leader in .... He'll be district leader for ..., so I'm excited to serve with him. His name is Elder .... He's really good at chess... yea he played in tournaments in Utah, and thats about all I know. I talked to him on the phone and he says he wants to run every morning. I'm excited for that, but also I'm pretty sure everyone in the mission that I know knows that I'm a runner. It's who I am ha ha. I'll be traveling tomorrow for ...so 10 hours of bus ride... fun. ha ha.

This week has been really fun and exciting because well... whenever someone transfers, getting lessons are a lot easier ha ha. We have been able to reach our district goal or at least for the companionship with 6 lessons with a member present. I had one of the most akward lesson with a group. Originally we got a information about a family so we set up and went to the lesson. We then were told by a girl around 22 that they were at a small playground. We then talked and the mother of the family said not interested and pointed to 3 22 year old girls. We talked to them but it was just akward. It was an interesting lesson and I'll keep it at that. I've had lessons were we are standing the whole time and it just doesn't work. The enviroment just wasn't right. Other lessons have been fantastic.

There is one, actually the only progressing investigator, that we have been meeting basically everyday. She has progressed faster than any person I have ever seen. It is super exciting and she has a baptism date. Then she didn't come to church, then when we called she said she didn't want to meet. It broke my companion and I hearts. We don't know what happened. The last lesson was good and now she has a complete different attitude towards us. There are some people around her that arn't to found about her. Hopefully things can be repaired by trying to meet with her in the future. I've heard stories about people progressing and the week of the baptism everything just falls apart. It has now happened to me. It's unfortunate but the only thing you can do is trying everything you can do and keep going forward.

It has been an interesting week. I finally caught up in my journal ha ha. Now it's the end of the transfer. It only took 6 weeks to catch up or at least that's how it feels. Keeping busy with the work. I also wanted to mention that missionaries have a lot of junk to. My companion has had a hard time fitting everything in luggage. It's hard to get rid of junk and I've noticed that I have a lot more things than what I started with because of left behind things from missionaries. I actually got a nice backpack like Dad's from a left behind that I use all the time for travel. I just have to carry it by my side because it's against rules to wear it because it's not professional. Rules are necessary and good but sometimes I don't like them but I know they're there for a reason.

Answers to some quistions: The tempeture in ...is well.. hot. It's the hottest town and the coldest in the winter. We do have a clEmatEk. I don't know how to spell it so just sound it out and you'll get it. We have it on all of the time. It doesn't cool down the apartment at all but the one room. I'm used to the heat but it's still annoying ha ha. Humidity it feels the same but I don't know if that is because I'm used to it or not. It also rains in ... once a week and personally I like it when it does because it's cooler on those days. The language well... it's coming. Slowly but surely, it's easy to be a little down because of it being tricky but it's better than before and eventually I'll get it. Just need to keep being diligent in learning it.

Anyway, I love all of you.

Love Elder Green

Another Busy week with traveling

This week has been a busy week for sure. It seems like I have been doing a lot of traveling with things that are going on. This week we had Zone Conference in ... so it was fun to go there. It's a total of 6 hours to there and back for that. Also, I'm heading to ..., most likely around 2:00 my time, for my companion to work on his passport work. It'll be the first time I've gone in for that for not myself. It's a 5 hour drive there so I'll be coming back to ... tomorrow after the work is done. Today is going to be busy because trying to do the normal things for Prepareation day and leaving in the middle of it for ... is well.. just not a lot of time. We might have to shop for food during diner hour another day. 

Right now we have a baptismal date for a lady for the 26 of this month. She is well prepared and she is also older. We have had lessons in her home and outside in parks when we don't have a male member with us because of rules. We have taught her the first 2 lessons with Plan of Salvation first then Restoration based off her needs. She has had a husband passed away 2 years ago that she struggles with still. She is so sweet and she also cooks things for us to eat when we meet. She is so wonderful. She has also came to church this past Sunday and also a branch party that we had.

The branch party we had was the first time I had a "party" with a branch or group here. It was so much fun. We had a lot of food, people, games and other things. We actually had a thing called Super Saturday, when we work with the members with daily missionary work for 2 hours. There wasn't enough members for everyone to go on splits with them (1 missionary with 1 member as a companionship) so I was with my companion the whole time. It was interesting because the members have a different Idea on missionary work, good intentions, just don't know the basics of it I guess. We might start up a Preach My Gospel class to help teach the members how to share the gospel better.

We also met up with the other missionaries here about changing the zone areas a little bit because there are some problems with how it is set up right now. It was fun planning that because Elder ... made Carrot Cake, he was figuring out how to make it for the branch party, and we had a lot of snacks and food while we discussed about it. All of the Elders got DoonerE so we ate that to. It was great.

Sounds like a lot of things are happening at home, with fishing and with Trek coming up. It was a fun experience doing those things and well... it feels like forever ago since I've done either. It's also interesting to hear about the people who spoke Romanian at Dad's trip to Wyoming. There is actually one sign here that is in Romanian and that is because Romania is just next door. It's cool being able to see it from the apartment window 12 stories up. It just makes me think... Wow, I'm actually in Bulgaria. It still amazes me that I'm here, and I love it with the members and the people here. I think I've gotten to the point where things that are usually not normally seen in America that I've seen well... gotten used to it. Still an amazing feeling to see but not nearly as strong as when I first got here. But.. there's still a lot of amazing things to see here.

I've adjusted to the city. I'm familar basically with all of the area that we usually work in. Some areas not so much if I haven't been there but well that's self explanitory. I love working with my companion Elder .... He has been one of the funnest out of all of the companions I have worked with. He is also the district leader so it's interesting to see the things he has to do that I haven't seen in past companionships.

I have 3 memory cards for my camera so I'm not in need of any. I filled one up but it was the smallest size memory card. The other ones are 4x the size so I still have to take tons of pictures to be able to fill those up.

Anyway Love you all

Love Elder Green

Moo!

As usually the week passed by just like that.

Anyway, currently, well actually an investigator that was basically dropped for a while we picked up again. The thing that is amazing is that she came to church yesterday, even though our lesson fell through. We were planning on trying to set up a way for her to come to church. She has 2 kids, and one of those includes a baby. We call them the "Family" in Bulgarian of course because its 3 families living under one roof. It's suprised my companion and I at church and it was great.

I think I forgot to mention this last week but when we got back from Varna to help with the flooding there I accidentily left the keys to my companion and I apartment. We ended up having to live at the other Elders apartment in ... because no one had a spare key. I  didn't have the best attitude because of me making that mistake but we got the keys delivered from someone that was originally planning on coming to ... from Varna. Anyway, for church it's required to wear a suit coat. Well... it was in my apartment for my companion and I, so we had to wear extra ones the other Elders had. My companion it fit fine but  for me of course it was super big. I basically held my sleeves skrunched up by my side. Just a funny story, well... it's funny now but not in the moment ha ha.

Anyway, because ... is such a bigger city, the use of buses are so nice. In ... I only took the bus when I went on exchanges in that area, so only like 2 times. Here it's almost everyday. The ticket is a little more expensive here being 1 lev. It's interesting, groceries have been a lot cheaper because of my companion, but the transportation expense is so much higher.

Yea.. happy 4th of July. I still can't believe it's already July. Also transfers calls are on the 19th. I can't believe it's almost already here. This transfer is going by fast. I haven't really heard of any holidays happening here, but I never know. They happen quite often it seems.

Oh another thing that has happened was I lost my daily planner. Ugh... it is so annoying. I use it to write in my journal. I'm usually on top of it but because  of trips and also zone leaders staying at  my companion and I apartment I got behind. Then... I lost my planner so now it's not nearly as easy to try to include everthing. I'm hoping to get caught up today though. It may not happen but who knows.

Another thing we are doing is playing ping pong with the other Elders in this district with  a really really cool member named Bro. .... He speaks English and has the strongest testimony that I have ever heard from a Bulgarian. The first time I met him was on exchanges with Elder .... He loves futball or soccer and I really want to play with him but he wants to play with the whole district but because of rules here that can't happen. I wish it could though.           

Also random things. I don't know if you know how to get on my facebook but if you can figure it out, there is a member in ... that wants to be friends. If you could accept that I would like that so I can keep in touch with him after the mission.

Anyway, Cross Country camp sounds fun. I would love to be able to run in the mountains. I keep on thinking about running and training when doing random things throughout the day just because it reminds of randoms things I did while running.

Anyway...   I always love emailing and  hearing about everything that is happening. I love you all.

Love Elder Green

Heres a photo of the Black Sea from the Bus in Varna