February 17, 2014

Hello everyone,

I knew you would want to hear more about the food. Elder Prince and me got some TOCT ("toast"), which is ham, cheese, french fries and ketchup smashed between two pieces of bread. It tasted about how you would expect, so I don't think I'll have any cravings for it in the future but it was fun to experience. I also got a salep (it won't let me type in cyrillics in this internet cafe, ironically, but that's how it's pronounced) which is a drink that is pretty much rice pudding without the rice, or at least that's what it tastes like. It's served hot with cinnamon. At the grocery store here there is an entire section of fruit that I do not recognize. Some of it's spiky or hairy or just weird-colored. I've been terrible at remembering to bring my camera places, but I'll try and send you a picture of something next week. I think they must not have preservatives here, because all the fruit is bruised and/or already starting to go bad when you buy it. The chicken tastes so much better here though, and is even a different texture from back home. Everything is CHEAP. But the other missionaries told me not to think of everything in American dollars.  I'll see how I feel once my card arrives. I don't know why they didn't have it ready when I got here, but in the meantime they just put extra money on Sister Schofield's card and she's been paying for everything. The money here is denar. We went out to an Irish pub one night and my meal cost $1.60 (80 denar. To find the price in American dollars you multiply the number in denar by two and then move the decimal point two places over). It was a sandwich and fries, and granted it was a smaller amount of food than they'd give you at an American restaurant, but it was quite tasty, especially considering a sandwich alone at a gas station in America is more expensive. I'm told that in the summer here the fruit is awesome.

Every Wednesday we go to another part of Skopje and teach English to Roma kids. I decided to teach an older group of teenagers. Elder Krajnc (the one from Slovenia) taught them months and days of the week and then I broke off and helped this girl one-on-one when we realized she didn't speak any English at all. I spent over an hour just teaching her the alphabet and at the end she wanted to learn the days of the week too.  She said she had bad vision, so that hindered her learning a lot. In Macedonian the alphabet is all phonetic and so if you ever ask someone how something is spelled they just say each sound individually. It can sound quite condescending. So to her, I had to explain that even though I was teaching her the names of the English letters (A, B, C...) they didn't always make the same sound. Like in the word February you don't say Fe-Bee-ruary. She asked me to write her name in English, Idafet, and I wrote down two possible spellings of it. I asked her if she understood the principle of English letters having names but different sounds and she said no and buried her face in her hands. It's a foreign concept to her. She seemed genuinely interested in learning though, which was great. She asked if I would be coming back next week and if I had any books or anything written in both Macedonian and English so she could look at them and compare. Oh, do we have them. I'll probably bring her one of our pamphlets which mercifully we do have in Macedonian, not Serbian or something, and English. We give the pamphlets to our investigators to help them understand certain gospel principles and commandments, like The Restoration or The Word of Wisdom. I told her to practice the alphabet. I did have to get Elder Krajnc to help me out a few times to be able to understand each other.

I feel a little frustrated because I feel like I haven't spoken very much Macedonian. Normally new missionaries are paired with older missionaries who know the language, but my companion has only been here for two months.  I do understand the things I hear them say that I've learned, but I still have so much to learn. I need to get better at studying during language hour. At the MTC I focused a lot on grammar and verbs. I need to study more nouns and phrases. The other day I realized I had been here for less than two weeks and needed to be patient. I really hope my contacting skills improve.

The other day when we were out contacting with the elders again a lot of people were out and Elder Krajnc said to me, "I love when people are so busy staring at us that they bump into another person. It's awesome." We get stared at all the time, just because of our nametags, and when we're contacting we get a lot of dirty looks and confused faces. Let me share with you my favorite contacting moment from this week:

"Hi, how are you?"

"Bad."

"Bad? Why?"

"Because there are children in Africa dying from hunger."

I laughed. First joke I have understood in Macedonian! A lot of people get sucked into talking to us because they don't have very assertive personalities, and all eventually pull out their phones to look at the time/pretend to get an important message and tell us they have to go. I tried calling the few people we got numbers from and they all hung up on me. I imagine I would do the same if I got a call from someone speaking horrible English asking if I wanted to meet up and talk about Jesus. Some people do call us because our number is on some of the stuff we pass out, but if the Elders aren't around to help interpret what they're saying our hands are tied. And a lot of them are just creepy old guys asking Sister Schofield out. We tease her a lot for that. I tend to talk to more girls, but last night I offended some guy's girlfriend because she thought I was hitting on him by saying hi to him. It's a funny story but I can't adequately tell it over email. 

We have found investigators through contacting, though. This week we were walking along some residential streets, headed somewhere, and Sister Schofield said hi to another old man (ha ha) and we ended up talking to him for a bit, and then his friends came out and talked to us too. The man we initially greeted was quite intoxicated but gave us his number, and so did one of his friends, whose name is something like Otsen. He wanted to meet and talk right then, but we couldn't because we were busy (and alone) and he pressed for us to meet later that day. We waited outside the mall with the elders for a long time that evening, and were about to give up and go home when they both showed up. We sat at a table in the food court and did a first lesson with them, and Otsen was very interested in what we had to say and said something to the effect of, "I feel very spiritually enlightened," at the end. We gave them each a Book of Mormon and we'll meet with them again. This week, three of our investigators came to church! Including Kate, so we were so happy about that. She even brought her boyfriend and said she wants to bring her brother next week. There are plenty of people here ready for the gospel, and it really isn't us that converts them.

On Valentine's Day both companionships of elders gave us a box of chocolates, one came with a card and one with a cookbook compiled with recipes from former missionaries in our mission. So we got stuff from four boys this Valentine's Day, which beats my previous record of zero.

Yeah, when the elders transfer it's just between the four of them. They just transferred a few days after I got here, and I think they do it every three months. So I don't know if that's less frequent than normal. I imagine so.

The guy I told you about who was the first man to receive the priesthood since the time of Paul is named Elmaz, he's Albanian and he was also the first member in Macedonia. He's in the hospital right now and so we all went to visit him yesterday. I was told several different things as to why he's in the hospital, but he's only there for about a week so hopefully it's nothing serious. Your prayers would be appreciated. 

Every week me and Sister Schofield go visit the Macedonia's two female members, Ana and Gordana. We do have about twenty people coming to church, some are members living in Macedonia so I don't count them as Macedonian members. My first week here they announced in church that we have enough attendance to form a branch. Righteous. It'll be even more solid when we can baptize them someplace other than the hotel swimming pool. Ana and Gordana are roommates and I really like them. Converts are still taught for a year after they're baptized, so usually we just go over and share a thought with them, but end up staying longer because we talk so much. A lot of Macedonians don't really like Macedonia and try to migrate when they can. We've run into a lot of people who were born here and now live elsewhere, and come here from time to time for vacation. A lot of Macedonians tell me about the war in the 1990s that involved Kosovo/Yugoslavia. That was what Gordana was telling me about last night, how in America life is easier because you grow up learning a language you can rely on your whole life, go to school and find work in your own country. 

There's also a castle here that has been here since before Paul, and the other missionaries told me they'd take me one P day. Today we went to a Mother Teresa museum (she was born here) which was free. I took a pamphlet as a souvenir.  It's at least not as smoky in here this week. When we got back from emailing last Monday I could really feel it in my T zone. 

Love, 

Sister Riddle

3 Nephi 14:21, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven."

February 10, 2014

February 10, 2014

Hello everyone!

So, when I left Tuesday morning it was snowing pretty hard, and I was worried my flight would be delayed. I rode the shuttle from the MTC in the front next to the driver because I didn't want to talk to anyone. About six people going to Ukraine were the only ones riding with me. I really struggled with all my bags, but luckily I got helped most of the way through all my travels. Like, one of the Ukrainian elders helped me take everything to the counter to get checked. My carry-on was super heavy and I was worrying about what to do with it, and then somebody from the back came up and told me they were out of room, so they'd check it for free. It worked out even more because they checked it to New York, so when I got to Dallas I didn't have to worry about it. If I had I would definitely have missed my flight. God was really looking out for me. Once I got to New York there were two sisters waiting for me out by the baggage claim. I should have bought an I <3 NY shirt, but maybe I'll do that someday when I take an actual trip there. The first thing I saw/heard in New York was a shoe shiner talking to somebody in a thick Brooklyn accent, so that was cool. Me and the sisters went back to their place, and then to the church which was right next to it where they have their mission office. They mostly worked on lessons and stuff and I tried to help, but it was hard since I don't know their investigators. Some of the elders bought us all some chicken sammiches from the local deli, which tasted awesome compared to MTC food. We taught a lesson on forgiveness to a recent convert. This was all in Queens, by the way. I went to bed early because I was super tired, and the next day we went to Manhattan for my visa. They said it was pretty exciting for them to go to Manhattan since it wasn't part of their mission. We rode the subway there because there had been an ice storm that night and they were afraid to drive. Walking to the subway we ran into some of the elders shoveling slush in their yellow Mormon Helping Hands vests. So, Manhattan is the part of New York City with all the skyscrapers and stuff.  I saw the Empire State Building and the Trump Tower. We ate some Chipotle and then they took me to the airport.  I was sitting at a mostly empty gate, and when I got on they made me check my bag again!!!!

I sat next to a Macedonian guy! He was Muslim and asked what I was doing in Skopje. He didn't really understand the concept of a missionary and when I talked about the church it didn't seem to ring any bells. He asked me if I was a nun. I took off my nametag and showed it to him. He was like, "What are you going to do? It's with your school?"

"No. I'm going to help people come to Christ."

"How sweet of you!"

Later when they brought around food he asked, "You prayed before you eat?"

"Yes."

"Strange to see someone as young as you already headed in the right direction. You are a joy!" I thought that Muslims couldn't drink, but that must not be the case because he had a few beers on the plane. He slept through a lot of the flight. Lucky. I tried to sleep but couldn't at all. When I got to Austria he for some reason felt like I needed help finding my gate. I remember thinking to myself that we were a weird pair, some mormon missionary girl and a drunk old Macedonian man. I bought an Apfelsaft, fizzy apple juice, in the airport. The most german I said was "danke" because I was too shy to say anything else. I understood the cashier though, when I'd paid and started to walk away, she was like, "Wait a minute, you need to sign." It was SO FOGGY that morning and the airport was virtually empty, so I couldn't see anything past the airport and it felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. Or maybe the Truman Show. It just didn't feel real. In Austria the airport had places you could lay down, which was awesome and I slept until everyone started shuffling around to board. I heard people speaking around me and was filled with dread as I realized that they were speaking my language. I could only pick out a word or two. There's a joke at the MTC that once you get into your country, you realize they don't speak the same language you learn. (I guess referring to the speed with which people speak, slang, dialects, etc.) But for me that is literally the case. After we gave them our boarding passes we got onto a bus which took us to the plane. I thought it was symbolic of how I'm going to Buttville, Nowhere. Everyone looked the same. Dark hair, thick eyebrows, dark eyes. I slept on the plane next to a German guy. I think when I was asleep a few women noticed my nametag, because when I woke up three of them were staring at me. They didn't look away when I looked at them.

A couple of guys from that flight who said they worked at the US Embassy in Skopje asked for my number at the baggage claim and invited me to any of the parties they supposedly have there. Lawl. At this airport the carts you can use to help you with your luggage were free, thankfully. In New York they charged $5! My President, his wife, and my companion met me outside and helped me with everything. I secretly call the Fords the Dursleys in my head, because they have these prim, perfect little English accents. First impressions driving into Skopje: dirty, run-down, reminds me of a movie. Lots of street vendors. I was feeling really inwardly upset, just at how dirty it was. I think though, that was just how my nerves were manifesting themselves in my head, because now when I walk around it doesn't feel that way to me at all. Our apartment is NICE though. We each have our own bathroom. The Fords offered to order a pizza, but I wasn't hungry. They weren't there for very long. They just said to me, basically that a lot of missionaries were freaking out at the beginning and felt like they couldn't do it, but with time they all became confident and effective. They did talk about Kosovo and the sisters who were attacked there by some Fundamentalist Muslims, but told me it was not normal for people to feel that way about us, and that the violence also wasn't normal. Me and my companion are to never leave or come back to the apartment at the same time of day, and to vary our routes. That's cool though, because it means we can spread out our studying throughout the day and don't have to do it all in the morning. Just to get into our apartment complex's lobby you need a password, and we live on the second floor.  Kosovo is part of our zone so at some point I will do exchanges with the Sisters there. So, either me or Sister Schofield will go up there for about a week at a time, while one of them comes down here to work with one of us here. That will be interesting as I don't speak Albanian. The numbers I gave you before were wrong. There are 6 members in Macedonia, they've had four in the past year. Tracting isn't allowed and when the missionaries were here before, they could only talk to someone on the street if they were approached first. But I guess the law allows us now to contact. That's why the work has been so slow for so long. Church is held in a hotel conference room. It's a nicer room than I was expecting when I saw it on Sunday. The mission officially opened in 2011, I think they said, but missionaries have only been here since 2012. "There are no expectations," the Fords told me.

Sister Schofield was in Bosnia for a month but has been in Skopje for the past two with two different companions from the Adriatic North Mission. "But they don't count," she told me, "we were the ones who were actually called, we're the first two sisters called to Macedonia." I'm still special, ok???

I'm sending a postcard when I can. It will take some time getting there. There are things written in Macedonian, Albanian, Croatian (which I only recognize because it's what my MTC companion learned) and English. There are lots of street beggars, shoe polishers, stray animals, etc. New York was pretty dirty, but Macedonia's poor. There are a lot of Muslims here, so I've seen both churches and mosques. There's call to prayer 5 times a day. They come over the loudspeaker in a certain part of the city, praying/singing in Arabic. Just like in the movie Not Without My Daughter. There are some new statues and buildings which apparently they put up trying to get tourists to come here. When we first got here I thought, "Anyone who would come to Skopje for vacation is retarded!!!!" But it's amazing how much my feelings have changed in just these past few days. It's crazy I haven't even been here a week! Sister Schofield told me all the people were mad that the government was spending money on that instead of fixing the economy. The shiny statures do appear out of place next to the dilapidated apartment buildings. Most apartments, like ours, have sensors that turn on the lights when you go into the hallway. We buy our groceries at the mall near our house. The only food I've gotten here that was a little more ethnic was when I ate at a Turkish place there (in the mall). It was bread and chicken with raw red cabbage and onion. I ate it, even the raw onion was good, different from here. I can't even stand a small bit of uncooked onion on a sandwich or something here.

At church, since pretty much none of the church's printed materials are available in Macedonian, they announce the English hymn number, then the corresponding Serbian and Russian ones. When we all sing together it sounds super pretty. I introduced myself to everyone at the beginning, including a Russian couple who are investigators. I don't know if they spoke Macedonian or Russian to me, but we understood each other. I met one Macedonian member, who's name I forget, who was the first man to receive the priesthood here since the time of Paul. And church is only two hours because there aren't enough to split into Relief Society and Priesthood. Sister Schofield spoke, but since it was in Macedonian it was quite short and we got out 20 minutes early. So that's an hour and forty minutes of church as opposed to the usual three. We ate dinner at the senior couple's house, the Andersons. They're from Ogden and are leaving in a few months, but they'll be replaced. My second day here they brought us cookies. They do a humanitarian mission and work a lot in soup kitchens, doing community service, and with the Roma community/"gypsies". Sister Anderson said to me when I asked her about what she liked/would miss about Macedonia, "I was so intimidated by the people when I first got here, especially to speak the language. But people are pretty much the same everywhere. They all need a smile, and to feel loved. We're so sad that we're going to have to leave and never come back. But we miss our children and our grandchildren."

I like all the elders. They're all from Utah except for one from Slovenia who's also a bit older, 26. Today we played capture the flag and ate pizza with our Zone Leaders who are visiting from Kosovo. I spoke German! Lots of people speak German here. I guess tourists. It was only like three sentences, but still. I'm so glad I have my German Book of Mormon. 

We had a lessons with an an investigator, Kate, the first day here. "You look confused," she said to me when I first walked in her house. She's a very nice lady, she teaches aerobics and has a baptismal date. She never is able to come to church though, and she has to come to at least two before she's baptized. She speaks English pretty well and we've so far only had one lesson in Macedonian, so we had to get the elders to come with us. "You're learning one of the most useless languages in the world," said one elder, Elder Barber, to me one day when we were studying the language together in the mall. We have no teachers, and we all have a copy of the same grammar book, because it's the only Macedonian grammar book anyone's been able to find. There are Macedonian-English dictionaries though, because a lot of them learn English. We also teach Natasha, who is my age. She loves the Book of Mormon, according to Sister Schofield, and she knows the gospel inside and out. She gave both of us long hugs after my first meeting with her. She is very sweet. She's another one who speaks English, and she's a genius. I forget what she's in school for, but it's something science-y and I looked at her notes and they gave me a headache. She is also fond of calling us at night and talking to us until we have to go to bed. The other night she asked to talk to me

"Why did you learn Bulgarian?"

"I don't know. They're similar."

"Do you know how to say, 'I like you' in Bulgarian?"

"Ob-ee-cham tebe."

"Do you know how to say it in Macedonian?"

"Sak-am tebe."

"See? It's different." She laughed very hard after that.

I'll tell you about contacting last night. We joined up with the elders, which was great because there are the two here who have been here a while and know the language better. We set up at a little place with signs to try and stop people. They said I'm at an advantage because the women aren't as afraid to talk to another woman, but/and every guy you talk to thinks you are interested in him. We get asked out a lot. It wasn't too bad cold-wise last night but one little Roma boy found it hilarious to come up to me and twist my fingers as hard as he could. They all like the missionaries, apparently we're the only ones who talk to them. One of the elders gives them granola bars when he sees them. I plan on doing the same. I think they are fed enough but still. What parent lets their five and eight-year-olds run around a big city at night to beg for money? Sometimes you see the parents watching them, but a lot of times they are nowhere in sight. That same little boy stole Sister Schofield's nametag and had her chasing him around as he wore it. It was pretty funny to watch.

I love you and miss you,

Sister Riddle

January 29, 2014

Здравейте пак майка,

Guess who got travel plans? Hint: me. We got them earlier this week. It was so exciting. I have to be in the travel office at 2:30 AM Tuesday morning. I left the itinerary in my room but I will get back on to let you know all my flight info. I fly all by my wee little self to Dallas, then to New York, where I will pick up my visa for Macedonia and stay there a day and work with the sisters there!!! How awesome is that! I'm my group's travel leader, ha ha. Then the next day I fly to VIENNA and then straight into Skopje. I get there on the 6th.

This morning was our last visit to the temple for a year and a half!!! It was so sad. We did sealings though, which was awesome and I'd never done before. We started packing when we got back, and tomorrow we have in-field orientation all day and then I think on Sunday we have our departure devotional. Sister Lefler leaves the day before me, also at the crack of nothing o'clock but not quite as early as I'll have to get up. I'll be in a tri-panionship with the two new croatian sisters for a day. The only other one in our zone who is traveling alone is Elder Frahm, who's going to Leeds, England, Slovak-speaking. I told Sister Lefler a million times how it stinks I won't see any of them while I'm on my mission! All of them except for me and Elder Frahm will get to see each other at conferences and stuff. 

A lot of cool stuff has happened but I always remember after I send you an email. Last week three elders in my class paid one of my teachers $60 to eat a banana with the peel. It's kind of weird because all of our teachers are more or less the same age as us. Two of my teachers, Brother Huish and Sister Tate, got married. I was talking to Brother Huish in the classroom yesterday about my mission, including how anxious/nervous I am to meet my companion, and he said, "I'm not gonna lie, you and her are pretty different. We were talking about it the other day. But when I went into Turkey" (he was one of the first missionaries when Turkey opened, he went there part way through his mission in Bulgaria and then went back to Bulgaria afterwards) "the four of us were all so different, but we are such good friends. We had a great companionship."

Deciding to come on a mission was seriously the best decision of my life. It was God who brought me here and God who will lead me here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-3nN9-C1yKU

Love,

Lauren

Sermon on the Mount: Treasures in Heaven

January 22, 2014

Hello Everyone!

Our friend from Vanuatu left yesterday. She came and found me as I was about to get in the shower right after gym and told me she was going. We hugged and she told me, "Thank you for encouraging and supporting me. I love you." I told her I was so glad to have met her and wished her luck. She started to walk away and then turned back to say, "You are my eternal sister." She said the whole thing with a lot better English than normal.

This morning we went to the temple again. We made friends with this lady who works in the clothing rental area, who has a daughter serving in the same mission as Sister Lefler (Adriatic North). Apparently she'd also talked to my will-be companion (whose name is Sister Schofield), because she already knew everything about Macedonia when I told her, and this morning when we went in she grabbed my hand and said she'd told Sister Schofield she'd met me. "I told her you were cool! She says hi and that she's excited and waiting for you. She's been shuffled around so much, I think she'll feel like her mission has officially started once you get there." I told her about how I had started my mission papers in June, and it had taken so long to get them in because of doctors messing up my records and stuff, and how if I'd have gotten them in on time we could've been in the MTC at the same time as one another. "I wonder why the Lord wanted it that way," I told her. She gave kind of the same theory I'd thought of myself, "Maybe something will happen or you'll meet someone or move on your way in or out, or her way in or out, who knows."

The temple is such a good place to be. I was thinking today while we were there for an endowment ceremony. Before I had ever been to the temple I remember hearing about people learning things at the temple, and now that I've gone to the temple myself I see what they mean. The Spirit of the Lord is in such abundance there. I've been able to think deeply about ideas I've received in the temple that I would not have thought of otherwise. The scriptures make more sense to me now. Next Wednesday will be the last time we'll be able to go for a year and a half almost, which makes me so sad. Anyway, after the endowment ceremony we (some of the others from our zone who were in our same session) ate in the temple cafeteria. Easily the best food we get all week. Me and Sister Lefler split a huge waffle and I ate some real eggs. 

We should get our travel plans soon, and I'll be able to email you again and let you know when exactly I leave. 

Well, no one's really "replaced" the Polskis, but we did get two new Croatian sisters and one Slovene elder. They're cool and I like them. I have heard from Sister Stratton and one of the Polish elders, too. Sister Stratton sent us the coolest email this morning, though. She has Celiac disease and always has to be really careful about what she eats. Her last two weeks here were really rough because she'd been accidentally ingesting wheat and felt really sick. She normally brings her own piece of bread for sacrament and just has to remember where on the plate it is so she can eat it. She said one week in Poland she forgot to bring bread, but she really felt like she needed to take the sacrament that week and just prayed that it wouldn't make her sick. She ate it and was completely and totally fine. She was super happy, and decided to see if she could eat other things without feeling nauseous. Basically she's now been eating pizza, kebabs, and chocolate muffins out her eyeballs and has been completely normal. The subject line of her email was,"I'M HEALED!!!!!!!!!" What a miracle. It really is amazing and everyone in our zone thought I was being sarcastic at first when I looked up from her letter and said, "Sister Stratton has been cured of Celiac disease." I wanted to copy and paste a scripture, Alma 38:5, which is about the Lord healing us of our afflictions if we have faith, but the computer is being dumb. That story helped my faith so much. And receiving so many letters from the people I love every week, it was just awesome this morning with everyone sharing their news. One of the new sisters said her friend emailed her and said she'd started praying again, after eleven years of not doing so.

I have to go soon but I wanted to tell you something funny/sad. So, at the MTC they hire actors and actresses to talk to the missionaries about the church. They told us all on the first day that they wouldn't entrust real investigators' salvation to us, but I guess three elders in our zone didn't get the memo. They came in our classroom yesterday and started energetically telling us about how "a guy who's girlfriend sent him to the MTC to learn about the church" had talked to them and that they'd been able to get through to him and set up an appointment with him. None of us yet have had the heart to tell them he isn't real.

обичам тебе!

Сестра Ридъл

Missionary Pictures--Yay!!

January 8, 2014

There's us at the temple on our Sunday walk, and the second one includes some of the Polskis who are gone now.

January 8, 2014

January 8,

I'm trying to think of what news to tell you, but it hasn't been a full week since I wrote last. Our P-day changed since it's a new year and we have a new schedule. I am so anxious to get to Macedonia. Scared, yes, but anxious.

I gave the closing prayer at Sunday devotional, and Sister Stratton had given it at the mission conference earlier that day, so for both meetings I sat up on the stand. So that was cool. 

I think I haven't told you yet about the crazy people that live on our floor of the residence. They stay up really late and make a lot of noise. Mostly screeching in foreign tongues.  We did make friends with this one girl from Vanuatu (I think I'm spelling that right), which she told us is an island near Australia. A lot of people have all their friends write them a goodbye note in a little book or something when they leave, and we met her a few weeks ago when she knocked on our door and asked us to sign hers, even though she won't be leaving until the end of the month and even though we'd never spoken to her before. She is really sweet. Her English isn't very good but her pronunciation is great. She said her native languages are French and something else. She'll be serving in South Provo when she leaves. I can't spell or pronounce her last name though. We feel pretty bad for her because she's always having problems with her companions. That first night we talked to her, she told us, "When we came in on the plane, it was so cold! We thought we are sick! But no, it's just the weather." She showed us all her gospel references in her language and told us she missed speaking it, and that she wished we could visit her there. I did actually find her island on a map when I was waiting for Sister Lefler in the health clinic one day. It was just a black speck. We run into her still from time to time and say hello.

I would write more but nothing eventful has happened.

I love you, and here's my favorite scripture lately:

Ether 12:4

Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with ^asurety ^bhope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which^chope cometh of ^dfaith, maketh an ^eanchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in^fgood works, being led to ^gglorify God.

с любов,

Сестра Ридъл

January 3, 2014

January 3, 2014

Hello everyone!

This morning we got up early and went over to the temple to help clean it. We spent three hours just cleaning lockers. When we got there the lady said we were redoing the work that some previous missionaries were supposed to have done, but did a bad job. I was pretty confused because they looked clean to me. But then some of the cleaning tools they gave us in addition to rags and soap included toothpicks and q-tips. I'm not kidding. By the time we were done the lockers were immaculate. It kind of reminded me of this scripture as we were doing it:

Isaiah 55:8-9

For my ^athoughts are not ^byour thoughts, neither are your^cways my ^dways, saith the Lord.

 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ^aways^bhigher than your ways, and my ^cthoughts than your thoughts.

Sister Stratton is leaving on Monday with all the other Polskis and we are so sad! I'm going to miss her so much but we're of course going to write each other. Sister Lefler apparently is a sky-diving fan and asked me and Sister Stratton to join her post-mission, so we said we would. 

They seriously are the best companions ever. The other night we were sitting in our residence and I started telling them how apprehensive I was about serving in Macedonia where there were so few members (2, + 6 missionaries will be 8 once I'm there), where the gospel is so new to everyone, where so much is expected of me and my companion, who won't know the language very well. (Since she's in Serbia she's speaking Serbian, which is only similar to Bulgarian.)  Sister Stratton said to me, "It speaks so much to the truth of this gospel that there are over 80,000 teenagers out there right now, giving up their lives for this." I'm not sure if it was then, because Sister Lefler had been telling us she'd been stressing about her language a lot during her lessons, but we committed to each other that for each of our next lessons, we would focus on following the Spirit rather than worrying about our grammar or anything. Sister Stratton later said, "They tell us that the most righteous were saved for the last days, and not to be prideful, but that it us. And when we chose sides, we weren't the ones like, 'Hmm, I don't know, I think God's plan is a better bargain for me,' we were the ones like, 'Yes, God is who I'm going to follow. Please come with us, please be on our side.' We have been fighting the war of good and evil for millenia, and look at us, we are still fighting." My next lesson(s) were during TRCs again and I took their advice, prayed, and it was the best lesson of mine so far. And this time a bunch of volunteers came so I was able to be on my own again. The first group I taught was three return missionaries who had gone to Bulgaria, including the one who'd originally told me that I was probably going to Macedonia. How cool is that? Nate Garrett is his name. I was really nervous when I went in because I had been expecting to teach the guy I always had previously. They all advised me to speak as much of the language as possible, and to "forget about English, forget that you speak it." The real Bulgarian guy that I taught said to me, "That's what I had to do when I was learning English. And I just asked all my companions to correct me a lot, because when I served in Chicago I thought I knew English, and then found out that I didn't." They were like, "You just have to put your foot down and always speak your language, and you will grow so much, so quickly."   I told the people I taught and I'm telling you that God is helping me with the language.  At the MTC they tell us to pray for the gift of tongues, and that if we work our hardest at the language that God will help the missionaries and investigators understand each other. One of my teachers, Brother Hammond, said it would probably manifest itself in ways we weren't expecting. I know that God answers our prayers, and that when we do work hard and try to follow Him, He will bless us so much. He wants us to have success and be happy in this life. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. I really enjoyed sharing my testimony with them as well. This is a very purposeful, good, and satisfying work.  Oh yeah, guess what? I memorized the missionary purpose in Bulgarian this week. I know this is repetitive, but the Lord is the driving force behind this work. He wants so badly for His children to come back to Him. As we express thanks and are grateful to Him, He blesses us even more. He loves us. I was working on memorizing the purpose in English, and when I said it out loud the first time I felt the Spirit pang in my heart. I think He wants us to understand how sacred and important what we're doing is. I even feel a little weird sharing that emotion with you, because it was such a tender emotion. I think God is really just boosting my confidence, in my abilities, and in Him, in His power, in the truthfulness of His church.  I am so happy here. I hope you are happy. 

D&C 6:32

Verily, verily, I say unto you, as I said unto my disciples, where two or three are gathered together in my name, as^atouching ^bone thing, behold, there will I be in the ^cmidst of them—even so am I in the ^dmidst of you.

til later

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