Hi Mom,
Talking to you on Mother's Day made me so happy too. I seriously do not remember the last time I smiled so much. And it like, rolled over to the next day.
I'm going to copy and paste from one of the emails I got this week from my friend, one of the Bulgarian elders from the MTC. He was talking about the things he sees there and it's pretty much what I see here: "crazy people talking to us. an old guy started telling us the story of his life and how we need to have protection and he started pulling his pistol out and waving it around everywhere. being offer a woman to marry. people drunk all over the place. 12 year olds smoking."
This morning we played soccer again and Sister Schofield also wanted to run laps. I yelled out the lyrics to "Eye of the Tiger" to her since we can't have headphones. I would have run with her, only I didn't want to. Later at home I ate a bunch of starbursts with the wrapper still on to get on her nerves.
The Zone Leaders came down this week to give us more training on member present lessons. They were mostly talking to us about the importance of it, and finally Sister Schofield raised her hand and made the comment, "Ok, like, I get that it's important but it is so awkward to bring members to a lesson and then we don't have a building to teach in, the investigator doesn't want to go into a cafe because they're too poor to pay and they don't want us to pay, so we have to sit on a park bench. And how are we supposed to sit four or five people on a park bench and have that not be awkward? We did this the other day in the park and it had just rained and so nobody wanted to sit on the benches, so we had a standing lesson." They made some good suggestions after that, for example the Nelsons offered to let us have lessons at their house, but I just thought it was reflective of how the rest of the mission has no idea what we're up against. It is so aggravating that they prepared this lesson about the blessings of having these lessons, when the whole time we're just sitting there thinking about how our circumstances frustrate the work we're trying to do. The time would have been better spent talking about what we needed to facilitate member present lessons rather than just talking about how we needed to have more of them. I guess that's why as missionaries they tell you to teach to the investigators' needs.
The Fords came down on Wednesday night to interview us. We had them at the one of the elders' apartment. This is how part of my interview went:
"So, Sister Schofield tells me you're doing marvelous with the language!"
I laughed, "No."
"And she told me you'd probably deny it, but that you were in fact doing very very well."
"No, not really."
"Perhaps you could look at it this way. Don't you think you've made a lot of progress since coming here?"
"Very little."
"Do you think you may not be giving yourself enough credit?"
I thought about it, "No."
Apparently he made the conclusion to one of the elders after all the interviews, "Well, you all seem to be very depressed."
Yesterday while contacting I got this comment, "You're the one true church and you meet at a hotel?" (I responded by telling him that it was new in Macedonia.) Elder Barber told me, "What you say to that is, 'What, your church doesn't meet at a hotel? Never? In our church we're so cool we use a swimming pool as a baptismal font!'"
While group contacting on the same day, me and Elder Gierisch were standing together on one side of a street while the others were together on the other side. An American man came up to me and Elder Gierisch and asked why we were alone together, then he turned around and saw the other missionaries. I thought it was pretty funny because he wasn't even a Mormon.
President Ford forgot about transfer calls last week. Then he called this morning and shocked Sister Schofield with the news that we will stay together. Elder Gierisch and Prince are a companionship now, and Elder Krajnc and Barber are a companionship.
The investigator we had on baptismal date, Simon, appears to have dropped us. He didn't show up to our lesson on Saturday or when we offered to pick him up before church on Sunday.
Sister Schofield got kissed by an old man, not on the mouth, but like an intense sucky kiss apparently, and she also saw a little Roma boy peeing in a fountain. I don't know where I was.
Mormon 8: 38, "O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God? Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies—because of the praise of the world?"
Love,
Sister Riddle
1. Shopping in Shutka
2. Playing Risk on the grass in Shutka with an audience.
4. Happy 21st Birthday!
1. Shopping in Shutka
2. Playing Risk on the grass in Shutka with an audience.
4. Happy 21st Birthday!
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