December 27

December 27,

здрасти майка,

Christmas here was sooooo awesome. We had a talent show in the morning. One group who performed did a skit where they used Elder Bednar's picture for something, to which Sister Stratton yelled, "BEDNAR IS COMING! BEDNAR IS COMING!" (Meaning for the devotional later that day. We never know who's going to speak until we get there.) "And that's how you start rumors at the MTC," she told me. I gave her a low-five. (Which is discouraged, but probably not as much as high-fives are.) But then Elder Bednar really did speak at the devotional. It was the most awesome devotional I have ever personally been to. Which reminds me, I was going to tell you all that he spoke about but I left my notes in my room. Maybe later. It was cool because he passed out a bunch of cell phones at the beginning and had us send him questions to his iPad. The devotionals stream to all the MTCs over the world, so missionaries from other countries could ask him questions too. I remember being so impressed that he could answer everyone so well without knowing beforehand on which topic he would speak. It just shows that he was receiving inspiration as he spoke to us and that he is an apostle called of the Lord. He has a really good sense of humor, too. 

Then we went to lunch, and the food was extra good that day. We went back to the auditorium and a jazz band performed a bunch of Christmas songs. They were really, really good. And it's not like I even had to try to enjoy it, I just did. We had sack dinner and then came back again to watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance on tv. They gave everybody a big bag of kettle corn. 

The night before, on Christmas Eve, we had a devotional which wasn't that great but had a good message. We had previously heard that we would have an hour for email on Christmas, but we found out at that devotional that it would only be twenty minutes, and some people were upset about that. We watched The Nativity and Mr. Krueger's Christmas. Me and Sister Stratton were sitting in the computer lab at one point listening to (Christian) music and Sister Lefler got a package from her sister with a big headband in it. She was like, "I don't know how I'm supposed to wear this," and we told her she looked like a gangster in it, so she proceeded to do the most hilarious on-the-spot Christmas rap I have ever before heard. I wish I could remember some of the lyrics, but just know that I really appreciated it. She performed professionally in variety shows and theater stuff so she's a pretty talented dancer, singer, actress, etc. My companions are really awesome; we're laughing all the time. 

This week I did work with two elders in the TRCs. (Remember, that's when we go and practice Bulgarian with people who are usually already members. We give them a spiritual thought and pray with them and stuff.) I had thought I would be alone again but only one volunteer showed up, so we had to try and condense our time. I had prepared something on the atonement and the two elders had prepared something on prayer. When it was time to start I looked over at them and they were looking at me expectantly. So, I gave my part and then found a good transition point for them to talk about prayer. They accidentally had him read the wrong scripture and were laughing a lot and stuff, so at the very end I said to the volunteer (in Bulgarian), "I'm sorry that my companions are so funny." (I didn't know the word for 'stupid'.)

"Why?"

"There was no Spirit."

"They had it."

"Really?"

He nodded.

"Good," I said. 

"Are you saying bad things about us?" one of the elders asked me. The only word they had understood of the entire exchange was the word for 'good'. I didn't respond while the volunteer was in the room, but when he left I told him, "I just told him I'd follow up with him next lesson to see if he'd prayed and he was like ok and I was like good." The elder said to me, "You're so much better at this than I am!" Meaning better at Bulgarian. Ha ha.

Last night when me, Sisters Stratton and Lefler were at the vending machine we ran into two sisters from my mission! Adriatic South. They were both going to Albania and Kosovo and are leaving Tuesday. That was the first time I'd ever talked to someone from my mission, and I don't know if I'll see them again once I'm out in the field. It was really cool though, and a blessing.

I've really been praying a lot more and I'm seeing the hand of the Lord in my life. I feel really at peace a lot of the time. I learn so much from reading the scriptures and I can see that Heavenly Father directs me to what I need to know. Scripture study is powerful. I know that God blesses us when we do it and when we savor His word. The Book of Mormon is true, the Bible is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

 

I love you and I miss you.

Сестра ридъл

December 25

December 25,

Merry Christmas! 

John 8:12, "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life," and D&C 6:21, "Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I am the same that came unto mine own, and mine own received me not. I am the light which shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not." These scriptures testify of the truth of Christ, that He came to the world for the world. I love the allegory of Him being like light in the darkness, because so often when I read from the scriptures or pray sincerely I feel like a light of hope, love, and peace touches me. It's like I didn't realize how much in "darkness" I had just been. I know that as a missionary I will be rejected just as Christ was rejected. The Light that I stand as a representative and witness of is unfamiliar to many people.

I know that God knows me personally. I know that He knows you personally. The Lord came to the earth to atone for our sins, but also to suffer our sorrows. He came to enable us to return to our Heavenly Father, but also so that we would never walk through this life alone. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I love you, talk to you soon!!!

December 20

December 20,

I only have an hour on P-Day to check email, so yeah, I can't check it during the week. We're smart though and print the emails to read them back at our place, so all my email time is strictly for writing and we don't waste the hour with reading. The District Leader is supposed to check the mail twice a day, so I can get letters throughout the week. With packages he gives me a note and I go down to the mail office and pick it up. I like it better that way, though, it's more fun.  

Yesterday we had our first TRC's. (Training Resource Center.) Basically what that is is when we go and talk to people, usually return missionaries and Bulgarians, who we can practice the language with and share a spiritual message. I don't know if you remember but I did that once or twice when I was eighteen with missionaries going German-speaking. So it was interesting to be on the opposite side of it. Sister Lefler, Sister Stratton and I were talking about how it kind of sucks that none of us have a companion to practice our languages with, since Sister Lefler is learning Croatian and Sister Stratton Polish. We are the only three sisters in our zone now and we're a tri-panionship. We all kind of agree, however, that it's nice that we get some time away from each other, when we're each in our respective classes.  ANYWAY so at the TRC I was the only one who talked to someone who wasn't an actual Bulgarian, he was just a return missionary. I'm jealous that all my Bulgarian elders had companions to work with and help fill the time. I mean, when we talked to our fake investigator I worked alone too, but this time our teacher told us not to write out whole lessons or whole sentences in our notes. I think mine went well, though, especially when I talked to the elders afterward about how theirs went.

"I think at one point I asked him if I loved Bulgaria."

"No, you pointed at him and were like, 'Does he love Bulgaria?' and he was like, 'Who?'"

"Man, going to Bulgaria is going to be the most painful experience. It's gonna be six months of 'Do I love Bulgaria?' 'I'm a church and you should join me.'"

One of our Bulgarian elders left. He was contemplating just going home but then I guess his mission president suggested he try switching to an English speaking mission and see if it was any easier. So, we'll still see him around the MTC for the next little bit, but he's already moved into another residence and going to different classes. Lots of jokes in class about "only five remain" and "who will be next?" 

So far in the MTC I've run into Sienna Hawkins, a girl I was a YCL over years ago at girls camp, and Karyn Iforgetherlastname, who lived at the German house the year after I did. They were both going to Brazil. And Nicole Connor is here somewhere, but I haven't seen her yet. And this guy Spencer who works in the bookstore lived in the Spanish house with me. 

Oh man, I have to tell you about this experience I had in the laundromat last P-Day. It happened like as soon as I finished emailing you. I didn't think the story was that great initially but Sister Lefler has retold it so many times since that I guess it was pretty funny. Elder Boyce, who I think is going to the Czech Republic, was talking to Sister Lefler about this Harry Potter journal he was writing in and how he was a huge fan. This English-speaking elder sitting nearby overheard them and said, "You're talking about Harry Potter? What do you want to know about Harry Potter?"

"What do you wanna know about Harry Potter?" another random elder retorted.

Elder Boyce starts telling him about how he has a Hogwarts tie and had met JK Rowling before.

"Do you have the Hogwarts sweater though?"

Elder Boyce: "No."

"Because I have the sweater and the tie. I have Harry Potter pajamas, Harry Potter uniform, I ordered it online from the same guy who made the costumes from the movie. It cost me a FORTUNE."

At this point Elder Boyce was just kind of nodding, and the English-speaking elder was like, "Did you read the backstories on all the characters?"

"Yeah. I really liked Professor McGonagall."

"Well, I really liked the one on Lupin."

It kind of died down and then Sister Lefler decided she needed to get it going again. "So you read the backstories, huh?"

There was some more going back and forth, and keep in mind that the laundry room is full of people as this is happening. Some within earshot are just laughing, some shaking their heads and trying to do other things. I decided to interject, "Yeah, you guys might be pretty dedicated, but for me it's in my blood." I gestured towards my nametag, 'CECTPA Riddle'. "Voldemort doesn't die," I told them. One elder from our zone pointed at me with a big grin on his face from his seat at a computer. The English-speaking elder didn't have a retort, but looked at my nametag enviously. Sister Lefter later said he probably went to get the papers started to change his name. Long story short, the wizarding duel ended with the elder saying, "Oh yeah? Who's the bigger fan now??!!" He stood and ripped off his hoodie to reveal a t-shirt that said 'I'm a keeper' with three of the Quidditch goalpost things. One of the times when Sister Lefler reenacted this story, one of my Bulgarian elders was like, "Was this real life? This actually happened?" Yes. Yes it did.

Before Sister Mahe left, she was pretty sick and one day they pulled me out of class so I could go down to her residence and make her go to her doctors' appointment. When I got back an elder said to me,"What was that for?"

"They told me I was the best missionary at the MTC and had me do a victory lap around campus," I told him. Too bad I started laughing when I got to the words 'victory lap' because he said up to that point he believed me. WELL WHO WOULDN'T.

Not everything here is all fun and games, however! We just keep each other in good spirits. We have a devotional every Sunday and Tuesday, and we have scripture study in the morning, companionship prayer at night, etc. etc. I feel myself becoming closer to the Savior and understanding more my purpose as a missionary to help other people do so. I know that God listens to my prayers and answers them. I know that He loves me. I know that His word is in the Book of Mormon and that Christ has the power to deliver us from any affliction, from any sin. I really have a long way to go as far as my knowledge and faithfulness to the doctrine of the Lord's church, but He's going to help me. He wants me to come unto Him. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

With all the fake investigators and TRCs and stuff, it makes me more aware of all that I have because of this gospel. I really hope I can be a tool in Heavenly Father's hands to help people experience the love and joy that I have. 

Just keep me updated on you and everything.

Ciao,

CECTPA Riddle

Lauren's email and Provo MTC address:

lauren.riddle@myldsmail.net

For anyone who would like to write a real letter (not email) to Lauren while she is still in Provo (until Feb. 5), here is her address:

Sister Lauren Riddle
FEB05 ADRTCS
2007 N 900 E Unit 36
Provo, UT  84602

December 13

December 13,

 Are you getting in the Christmas spirit yet? Apparently we are going to have TWO apostles or something like that come and talk to us on Christmas. I'm super excited.

So, I actually have spent the money they've been giving me weekly, like I wanted to post signs in my room about Bulgarian verb conjugation and stuff. But yeah, other than that and laundry detergent, everything is completely free. We do have to slide our ID cards when we eat, but it doesn't charge us, it's for "statistical purposes only." And in class we're never given tests or anything like that. How communist.

My linguistics major is helping SO MUCH with Bulgarian. Everything is pretty straightforward, just like learning any other language. A lot of the grammatical concepts aren't new either because they're the same in Spanish and German. I thought I would be having a much harder time. Maybe I'm speaking too soon, but so far I just think it's really fun. We are in the classroom 3-6 hours a day learning Bulgarian, not counting our study time on our own, so it does get pretty tiring. 

There are missionaries from all over at this MTC. I think which MTC you go to has more to do with where you're going and how much space they have at other MTCs than it has to do with where you're from. The other day me and Sister Lefler were walking somewhere and there were these pacific-island-looking people standing in the snow taking pictures of it, sticking their hands in it and laughing. I heard one of them say, "I love it!" When new missionaries come they get a green dot on their nametag if they don't know English very well, but all the Europeans I eat with and stuff (the Slavic language-learning missionaries) speak perfect English.

My favorite companionship of elders in my class is Elder Slinker from Kentucky and Elder Calderon from Finland. Elder Slinker mentioned how he had milked cows twice a day every day for the past fifteen years of his life, and I asked, "Are you from a small town?" and he was like, "Yeah. Well, we don't live in the town, we live near a small town. We live in a farming community." I had to put my head down on my desk I was laughing so hard.

Elder Calderon was talking to us all about Finnish grammar one day and he wrote something on the board which I referred to as a "really long sentence". He was like, "That's not a sentence that's two words." Then he tried to teach us all some saying and we asked him what it meant. "Is it an uplifting message?" someone asked. "It's not uplifting, it's Finnish," he said. He also expresses that he thinks the English way of describing things is nonsensical, for example, he said in Finland you would never say someone came through the door, you would say someone came through the air inside the space of the doorframe, or something like that. One day I accidentally said "si" instead of "da" (meaning yes) when we were practicing Bulgarian and so now whenever I talk to him he says "Como?" to me instead of "What?" To be honest, I at first didn't even notice and just answered the question, but he started laughing at me so I got it. The other day he hurt his foot playing volleyball and I guess he got sick of explaining it to people so when he left to ice it during class and the teacher asked how it happened, he was just like, "I fell down stairs," and then as he left he said, "I did not." They crack me up. For some reason or another Elder Slinker got a horse mask in the mail and he showed me a bunch of pictures of himself wearing it like, in the bathroom stall and stuff. Last night when we were in the classroom he looked at something written on the board in Bulgarian and was like, "What are all these stupid triangles!!!" in frustration.

I feel like the whole Bulgarian: head shake for yes, head nod for no, is just allegorical of how learning the alphabet is. The D sound can either be written as a "stupid triangle" or a g. Not to be confused with a triangle with only two sides, which makes the L sound. The G sound can be written as something that looks like r, or a z. The P sound is written as a "box with no bottom" and the R sound is written as a P. There's one character that can be written like three different ways, but I forget right now.

We practiced teaching lessons to an "investigator" in Bulgarian for a few days last week. We would leave class and go knock on some other classroom door and talk to him. They had already told us all the investigators are paid actors who are actually members, but this guy was pretty good. Apparently he's going to be one of our Bulgarian teachers now.

I'm out of time.

Love you bye!

December 6

December 6,

Hello everyone!

 I thought we wouldn't be able to write until Monday, but turns out our P day is today. I forgot to bring my camera to upload a picture of my nametag for you, so I'll send a separate email later. 

     So, news. I'm a "solo sister", which means I'm the only new sister missionary learning Bulgarian, so I'm the only girl in my classes. There is one other girl here learning Bulgarian, but she leaves in a few weeks and is more advanced than me. She's actually going to Bulgaria. It's also nice because I don't always have to be with my companion. I always have to be with at least two elders though. It would be crazy trying to find my companion, Sister Lefler, for every meal and stuff, so I can just go with the guys from my class. She's learning Croatian.  Let me just tell you about all the girls in my district now since I'll probably mention them from time to time. So, there's my companion, Sister Lefler from St. George going to Slovenia (we think) learning Croatian. Sister Mahe is from Australia and she's the other Bulgarian one. Sister Zander is from Germany, she's going to Croatia. Sister Stratton is from Salt Lake and she's going to Poland. We're all solo sisters. I'm the only one at the MTC going to Macedonia. Apparently me and my in-field companion will be the first companionship of sisters in Macedonia. She left the MTC a few weeks ago and is serving in Serbia until I come, apparently. All these girls who were at the MTC before me say she was really cool. They say she was pretty nervous about opening the country for sisters, though, and I must say I feel much the same. A few people have come up to me and asked me if I'm the one going to Macedonia. No pressure.

     The other day we started learning the Bulgarian alphabet, and by that I mean I opened my textbook and started teaching it to myself. It's surprisingly unstructured here. The teacher gets the discussion going and answers any questions we have, but it's mostly up to us what we learn. So now I can read my nametag out loud correctly if I go really, really slowly. Also, instead of teaching us first how to say stuff like, "hello", "how are you?" "what's your name?" months, days of the week, colors, numbers, normal beginning language class stuff, we've started out with how to say "question?" and "I don't understand", and words like "God", "Jesus", "church", and how to bear our testimonies. A Bulgarian "investigator" is going to come in tomorrow and so yesterday we were preparing a lesson for him. Each companionship worked together, but since I'm a solo I'm on my own. It took, not exaggerating, three hours to write a one paragraph lesson (because it has to be in Bulgarian) and I'm not even done yet. My brain hurt so bad yesterday. And in addition we all have to prepare a 3-5 minute talk for Sunday in Bulgarian and two of us will be called at random to speak each week. We are asked to keep our talks even if we don't end up speaking though, so we'll have eight prepared talks by the time we get to the mission field.

   Sad news: I won't be able to call you on Christmas since I'll still be in the MTC. I know, I know. :(

The food here isn't high-quality but it's not bad and at least there's lots of variety. It would be hard to go hungry here. We each get $8 to spend each week but I don't know what it's intended for since everything except laundry detergent is free. Maybe study materials. Maybe it's for if you have a craving for more non-high-quality food and it isn't mealtime. We all get a free haircut at some point, too, so I'll go right before I leave. 

     Everybody here is super nice and asks me about five thousand times a day if I'm ok since they know I'm new. I am ok. Some people are struggling more with homesickness than I am, even ones who are from nearby. 

   Some weird rules: no hands in your pockets, no using the word "guys", just "elders" and "sisters". 

Love and miss you,

Sister Riddle

Write me letters

lauren.riddle@myldsmail.net

Sister Lauren Riddle

FEB05 ADRTCS

2007 N 900 E Unit 36

Provo UT 84602

Mission Call

Dear Sister Riddle:

You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to serve in the Adriatic South Mission. In addition to your calling to share the gospel, you will be assigned to serve in the Bulgaria Mission Region. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months.

You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, December 4, 2013. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Bulgarian language.