The work, Religion, Preperation day things

Hey everyone, another week has passed by and of course its short, but in the moment is another story. 

This last Sunday we had 3 less active people come to church and it has been such a blessing. My companion and I have been really focusing on those members and trying to help them with their needs. We basically told ourselves that, yes we're trying to find people to teach, but also we have a lot of people already, they're just lost, needing to be found to see what happened. 

Since the area has doubled in size, so has the members in our area including ones that no one knows about but that they are on the directory. We also have been working with some investigators that are actually progressing and that is always exciting to. 

It's interesting to see how the major religion here, Provaslav, what people believe in God. For a lot of people here, they honestly don't know their own believe or the religion that they say they are a part of. I guess I have just realized what they really think recently. It's for sure a different idea about who God really and what he expects of us.

Today around 4:00, my time, everyone here in ...is traveling to ... for passport work. My companion and one of the sisters needs to do it. It's weird having only 4 missionaries in a city instead of 6. Personally, the more the better ha ha. Speaking of that, from this last transfer and the transfer before that it sounds like Visas to live here in Bulgaria have been getting "harder" to get. Elder ..., (him and Elder ... served here with the 4 current missionaries here) had a really weird transfer call because of expectations of missionaries not getting Visas. I'm just glad that no one in my group had a hard time with Visas. That's a blessing.

Another thing that we have been actually today is the process of closing down the "other Elders" apartment. The landlord is actually a member. Let's just say it took and will take a lot more time than what we expected. Yea.. I'll just leave it at that ha ha. When we met with him, earlier in the week, we looked at old family photos. He has photos of his parents being kids with his grandparents. The photos look so old and it's truly a treasure that he has. that's one of the things I want to do is learning about family history and looking for photos/information about them. It's interesting because my desire for the gospel, family work, and well... all of that good stuff has increased beyond what I even imagined. It's a blessing of just being a part of the missionary work with the missionary life here in Bulgaria. 

I'm wanting to print photos, or a lot of photos to be able to show people of family and other things. I know this email usually gets forwarded or posted to family all around, so If anyone has good pictures of family things I would love to print them off. Also any family history stories, I would love to hear more. I'll probably print photos next preparation day or whenever I have time on a Monday.   Usually, it's really busy on those days, just like every other day. I've been saying to myself I'll do that ever since I got here in ... ha ha. Life is just to busy, but the busier for missionary work, the better. 

My companion and I have 3 progressing investigators right now and also working with a lot of members / less actives. I think we taught up to 14 lessons this last week. It's been a lot compared to other weeks. I don't know the exact number due to me switching to a new planer today. It's been a blessing to work with so many people. 

I love you all, I can't wait until next week to hear more.

Love Elder Green

I forgot to tell everyone this with the desire of family history. My companion and I are trying to apply family history into missionary work more. I've translated info or the names and dates into Bulgarian. We're going to laminate the paper with all of the info and it's going to be really nice. I'll need to send a picture once it's completely done. I'm really excited for it. 

Guess what everyone! It looks like I'm staying in ... for another transfer which is for I think 7 weeks instead of 6 weeks this transfer. Basically, at least for the areas, we consumed the other areas, and the sisters took some of ours. Today we went into the other area and it already feels like a new city.

To be honest I was suprised since that I stayed because I expected at least 1 from each companionship would stay. I'm so happy to stay though. It's what I wanted ha ha.

Anyway this week has been a really busy/fun week.We have been using a new approach of just going up to people and asking them what they think about Questions of the Soul (on a peice of paper copied from Preach My Gospel). A lot of people read it and it's super easy to relate it to the Book of Mormon and the Restoration, since the Book of Mormon answers those questions.

We have also been given a letter (newsletter from President Wilstead) saying that President and Sister Callister and President and Sister Bennet on October 28th. It's a long time until them but I'm super excited for that. All of the missionaries will be going to ... for that. Big conferences like that only happen 1th a year if your lucky but this will be the 2nd. Yea, I'm super excited for that. Wow... that would be getting close to my year mark as a missionary. It kind of scares me how fast time is going. Honestly, the only transfer that has felt "long" was the 1st transfer here in country but I think that was because of trying to adapt. Transfers are so fast!

On the bright side the tempeture has been getting a little bit cooler. It's still hot of course but the peak is over so I'm really thankful for that. Nothing is better than being in the heat dressed up right?

I do know Elder ..., he is such a great missionary and it's so weird that he's home back in .... He was the Assistant to the President so I got to get to know him but never got the chance to go on exchanges with him but he did go on exchanges in ... with the other Elders. Yea, I love him.

It's crazy to hear everyone leaving on missions again. It's also amazing that another missionary has been called to this wonder mission. I'm so blessed to be a part of this mission. When do they come in country and it's another person from ... I'm guessing.

Right now we have some investigators that we are working with. It's better than having none which has happened for a while until now. I also got to go on "splits" for 30 minutes with a man named .... He served a mini mission and it was fun working with him temporarly. A missionary who served here returned to visit and we went on splits because she had a brother that was a priest age and he served with my companion for a little bit. It was such a good oppurtunity to experience that missionary work for that short time. The family was really fun to talk to.

It's also going to be really interesting working with a lot more members or having them in our area. The missionary work is going to be different with that also. Yea... I'm super excited for this new transfer.

I love hearing from all of you and love having the oppurtunity to write to you all. It's amazing that we have this technology. 2 members here have phones that have the gospel library and honestly, it almost feels like living in an older time with studying everything with text books for language and of course the Gospel in the Scriptures and Preach My Gospel. We also are writing at a different place in our area on older computers so it just adds to those feelings with technology ha ha. Anyway Love you again.

Love Elder Green

This week has been a busy one. I got to travel to ... again for another Zone Training and those are always great. It was the first time my companion has got to go to ... and he was super excited to see the city because well.... a lot of missionaries like ... ha ha. There are 4 zones, 3 in Bulgaria and 1 in Turkey. I've always been in Zone 3 so every month I have traveled to ....

With the transfer, well.... actually last transfer, 2 people in my MTC group are serving in a place called ... (which means loud in Bulgarian) and is in zone 3 so I got the oppurtunity to see all of them in .... It's always great plus the things that we learn. We talked a lot about using the first vision and to be honest I never spent the time to memorize it in Bulgarian. I have been studying it for the past week now and almost have it down where I can mumble through it but will continue until I can pop it out. I have been changing the way I study for things that are more important or at least thats how I have felt so things are going good with studying.

My companion and I have been changing the way we do missionary work or trying new things. It's interesting to try different things with approaching people and other things. We currently don't have any progressing investigators but have been busy with meeting with a lot of random people and teaching lessons on the street.

It sounds like a ton has been happening back home. I can't believe school is starting back up. It still feels like summer, well at least for the heat here in .... Yesterday it actually rained a little and got really cold compared to what the temputure usually is. It felt so nice and I hope it continues to be that way but most likely not.

Instead of going out to find people on the street we had a lot of phone numbers from the past couple of days. We tried calling a lot of them the other day because we had a branch activity which was themed Fiesta. It was a ton of fun. Anyway, a lot of people that we invited didn't show up so it was a little sad, but we "cleaned" out the phone a lot because of those conversations. We called about 20 numbers and for some reason everyone was willing to meet. We set up times, dates, and places. It's a blessing that we were able to set all of those lessons up. I've never had that experience before here in the mission.

Thanks for the family history stories, I just want to get everything I can get my hands on. It's one of the new approaches we're taking in trying to help the branch becomeing more strong. We planned an activity, sort of, or mentioned in Church that we wanted to have an activity of just sharing stories to help everyone bond more together. The church here is so different because of the size. It's interesting to see challenges and how big the missionaries have an impact on the branch/groups here in Bulgaria. It's a blessing to be a part of it and especially to meet the members. I love the members so much.

This next Monday is transfer day or we'll know to prepare for things the following day. It's going to be very interesting what happens here for .... We're going to be meeting as missionaries to discuss boundaries of the new area of splitting the city in half. There is already a map for 2 areas but President ...recommended in making a new one make things more effective with members.

Anyway I got to run. I love all of you a ton. It seems like everyone is growing up with the new things with getting older and also big activities. Love you again!

Love Elder Green


   

Doonuv river (Romania behind the river) and a really cool building in "Center"

Family history

Hey everyone it's good to hear from everyone. This next transfer is going to be interesting. The reason why is because well multiple factors. This transfer is a week short because of people going home for school. Also there has been 2 Elders here in Bulgaria that ended up having to go home early due to medical reasons I think. I'm not to sure but it's effecting the town here in ....

Right now there are 4 Elders and 2 Sisters in .... When I originally started living here they planned on only haveing 4 missionaries total with 2 Elders and 2 Sisters. We're now losing 2 Missionaries because of the 2 that left and the area I live in and the area the other Elders are living in are going to be combined or in otherwords the Elders area will double. I wonder who will be living and who will be staying. Either way it's going to feel like a new city wether I go or stay because whenever I work in an area that I haven't served in it feels new. An example would be going on exchanges with the other Elders. There area feels like a different city than the ... that I know.

Anyway, for the missionary work my companion and I tried being more relaxed with talking to people to see what happens. It turned out that we didn't like that. Sometimes you have to try different approaches to talk to people to figure out what works and what doesn't.

This next week will be busy. I might be traveling to ... for a baptism that my companion help taught or he might be the one baptizing and also to ... for zone training. It's exciting for both of them and it'll be the first baptism I'll see in Bulgaria. We still don't know if we're going to it or not so we'll see what happens.

I have been meeting with a lot of great, fantastic people but none of them have been progressing. I love seeing/meeting with people consistantly to see them grow in the gospel, but it hasn't happened recently.

Somethings that have happened here this week is going on Exchanges with Elder ...(from Idaho), President and Sister Wilstead came into town for district meeting and helped with some lessons, and increasing the amount of service done as missionaries. We helped paint someones house and it was a lot of fun. They bought a huge pizza, the biggest I have ever seen. It was a lot of fun and we helped carry stuff from a car to a little store. I've never done service really before because I've never seen oppurtunities here. Whenever you ask Bulgarians if they want help with something, while they are doing it, they'll decline. We actually started helping with the carrying things after the person denied us but ended up being very greatfull. It's really nice to do service and it's something different to do.

We had an activity with ping-pong and also playing Jenga. Jenga isn't here or the game isn't but my companion got it from a missionary from England. Everyone loves it and it's great to play. We do family home evening playing that game. It's always been hard to have family home evenings and for this transfer it has been happening each week for the most part. Before, it there was a lot of weeks of just trying to find a family to do it with. It's a blessing to have the oppurtunity to do it. It's truly a time for the family to have a fun time with each other in the business of life. It's worth doing for sure.

I love all of you again and will look forward to more emails. I pray for all of you.

Love Elder Green

Another thing we have been doing is family home evening telling stories about our families.

I would like to ask that if you know any stories or if other family knows stories from anyone in our family I would love to hear it. I know I haven't done really anything about it but I'm trying to learn and would like to be more participant with family history. Love you

Love your son Elder Green

Such a great week...

Wow.... it seems like a ton of things are happening back at home. It sounds great and busy. I fill like the same way. I've gotten to the point in my I guess self conversion that I really want to study all of the scriptures, books that we have. I just don't have the time for that so that is a thing that is testing my patience ha ha. I've started reading the New Testament. My goal is just 1 chapter throughout the day if I ever have free time. My personal study is more based off other things, 1 chapter Book of Mormon, Scripture Master ( I really wished I would have memorized that before but I know where all the Book of Mormon ones are :)), and topics according to people that we plan on meeting up with.

It has been crazy how many different people from different countries that I have seen here in .... ...had a ton of people from different countries but here it just seems like there are a lot more. When looking at license plates it's like playing the game, where you see another state you mention it to everyone around you and sometimes slug each other. For here you can litterally do it with different countries just walking to different places. It's crazy. One of the people that we are teaching is actually from ... (don't know spelling). He's ... which is super not common here. He only speaks English and he loves the Bible so we have been talking a lot about it. I actually learn a lot from my companion because he is really familiar with the Bible and same with my last companion. I just want to read it really bad, along with Doctorine and Covenants. The Book of Mormon I read everyday and it's of course mind blowing. I wish I had this passion for the scriptures before the mission. Well... better late than never.

The mission as a whole feels like it's changing. My companion and I have had a really good week with what we have done in general. I think we got to the point where we focused to much on the key indicators and forgeting to really listen and try to help a person become more developed in the gospel. It's hard to explain in words, but it's something that changes my perspective. The mission is for sure a roller coaster ride. When your down that's when change happens. We come to the realization that there are things we can do better. I'm sure there is a reason for those ups and downs.

It's such an exciting time for Bulgaria. I've never saw how much goals matter and being well... consecrated. My companion mentioned how bless we are to be able to be in such a great mission. Sure the baptisms are hard to get but this mission as a whole is still a pioneering country with the gospel being involved. It's interesting to learn about the history of this country with it being under communism. People really don't understand religion and have a hard time accepting anything else besides the dominant religion here. It's amazing to find those that are willing to learn and how for a lot of people we have been recently had lessons with have been in deep thoughts during the lesson. You can tell that they're truly searching their own soul and their relationship with God. Wow... it's just amazing.

It has been a really great week. It just makes me feel like I'm on top of the world. I know it's not going to always be like that but I'll enjoy it while it lasts... and like before... try to learn why things aren't working by changing.

I love all of you so very much. Sorry I actually got a lot of emails this week which I love I just don't have the time. Time is so precious for everything that we do.

Love Elder Green

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