February 20th 2012

Dear Mom and Dad,

Yeah I was pretty happy to call and let you know I arrived. I didnt know i would be able to do that until I got here! Wow, so so much has happened since I have been here, I don't even know where to start!

So the trip over here was long and tiring and I got a bit of jet lag..but that is normal and boring so I am not gouing to talk about that. My mission President and his wife are so awesome! Sister Roth is such a good cook! They are from Austria so I got a lot of yummy Austrian food when I got there mmmm so good! I got to start of my mission by saying a prayer in a big park in Sofia. It is the same park where Russell M. Nelson dedicated the mission. It was amazing but it was pretty cold. There was about 3 feet of snow and I didnt relly have much warm clothes so I just knelt in the snow with my knee length skirt and regular church shoes haha. After I got to go contacting for the first time! We got so incredibly lucky because everyone we asked to listen to us did and I stopped someone and in my sad broken bulgarian testified of the Book of Mormon and he wanted to take it! So I was the only one who gave away a book of mormom :)
Later, we went back and had dinner. Then they let us go to sleep. After an hour of sleeping I thought it was time wakr up but then the other sister missionaries saw me and informed me that I had only been asleep for 1 hour...haha it was a rough night to say the least.
We had a good orientation in the morning and I founf out I would be serving with Sister Child in the city of Sliven. Sister Child is amazing. She is from Layton, UT and goes to BYU-Hawaii she played on the soccer team for Byu-hawaii and is slowly convincing me to want to go there! She loves sports and being outside! We are a rocking team haha.
So, we jumped on this little bus (like a big mini van..) that was pretty crammed with bags under our seats and rode for 5 hours and arrived in the cute town of Sliven :). The apartment is pretty nice. We have all the essentials...good bathroom, a washing machine, no dryer...they dont have dryers in Bulgaria so we hang up our clothes, and a decent bed, we have a few extra friends as well... yup we have cockroaches those are fun to find thorughout the day haha.
Since I have been here in Sliven I have met some pretty amazing people. I have met people who have nothing but seem as though they have absolutley everything.
We have met with quite a few people and teach them various lessons about the gospel and they are so sweet and listen. They always apologize to me for not talking to me because I dont understand. I smile and tell them I I actually do understand somethings that they say, I just dont know how to respond haha.
I just smile at everyone and say the small things that I do know... I feel like most of the time they are kinda shocked I am speaking Bulgarian because I kinda stand out...A LOT. Pretty much no one here in Bulgaria has blonde hair... so i get constant looks/stares daily haha.
Yesterday at church I introduced myself and bore my testimony, I was pretty nervous but did it anyway! The sister missionaries are in charge of teaching the primary for now. It is crazy but pretty fun there are about 5 kids from the ages of 4-11... so it is hard to meet all of there needs. There was this one girl who was infatuated with my hair and played with it the whole time. She would always ask me questions and I had no idea what she was saying so I just said yes and she would get a big smile on her face and give me a big hug....It makes me wonder what I said yes to...uh oh haha!
After church in Sliven we took a bus to Yambull...(dont really know how to spell it in englich...) which is about 30 mins away to have a sacrament meeting for 4 members there. I bore my testimony and introduced myself there as well and it was funny because all of them knew I had only been there for about 4 days so as I was talking all of them were smiling at me like I was this little cute baby and that they wanted to squeeze my cheeks haha.
later that night we went over to visit a family in the branch in Sliven. They are so cute. They were baptized a few noths ago and the husband is the 1st counselor in the branch presidency. they have a little daughter named Annie (well in english) She is 11 and is awesome. Before we went over my companion warned me about Antuinetas(mom) cooking and how she makes you eat a lot of food... I was way nervous! Well we went to there house...they rent a room from a house and it is smaller or maybe around the size of our fromt room and that is there WHOLE house. they have a little kithchen thing and a small table and a couch that folds out to a bed that they all sleep on. They dont have much but they are so happy! They re in our english class and so they were practicing some english with me it is pretty funny. Anywho...she made us a lot of food. I dont really know how to describe it... ok, I dont want to sound like a snob but it was awful. I held my breath the whole time and would just swallow. I didnt even want to know what was in anything I ate. (My comp says most the food she has had is bearable, but nothing antuineta makes is!) The worst part is that they have nothing and make all this food for you so you have to eat it. I would stop for a second and she would motion her hand from my mouth to the plate saying in her broken engllish, "eat, eat!" There I am doing what she says but crying on the inside. I had to try so hard not laugh because My companion and I would make contact and smile knowing exactly what the other was thinking haha.
After dinner we shared a spiritual thought and they wanted us to teach us some fun activites from America. So we taught them a couple girls camp songs and they absolutely LOVED it. They are so cute.
Anyway today is my first pday here in Bulgaria and I am so excited!! We are going to go hiking up this mountain with a huge cross on it. Plus I am going to try my first "duner" and drink called "boza" apparently a duner is this flat bread thing with meat, cheese, cucmbers, and french fries or something... i have no idea but its happeneing. Oh and the Boz drink is something that a lot of Bulgarians drink but it is awful...it just has everything disgusting imagineble in it and they blend it all together to make a ddrink. So I have to drink it to become a "real" missionary in Bulgaria. I am pretty nervous...but it is happening haha. Oh yeah and in the city of sliven there is just my comp nd I and two other Elders. Elder Dropla is from South Carolina and is really funny, Elder Olmstead is from Chandler, AZ and is really funny too. They are coming hiking with us today!

To answer you questions- I am having the hardet time with the yes and no of nodding your head. I get confused by people all the time and they get confused by me. I have to change my ways fast before I cause too much damage haha!
Oh and about the smiling thing...not to many people smile, but I do all the time. I also laugh a lot just because of how serious people look all the time. They probably think I am so weird....blonde girl, speaking like a baby, and laughing and smiling all the time! Oh well :)

Sliven is about 2 hrs away from the Black sea. For the most part everything is a little cheaper than America... Its hard to tell exactly because they use the Lev here. I got some bright pink wool gloves that are nice and warm but they shed on everything! My boots are really nice and are lined with fur :)

Oh and I got this hand made knitted socks/slippers for my feet in the apt because they dont really have carpet here and the floors are pretty cold. So they are nice.

Anyway, I hope everything is going well with you all! I show everyone my pictures of you all and they always say how beautiful my family is and I agree!

I love you bunches and bunches!!

Love, Jodi :)