May 6th 2012

Hey mom and dad, The rest of Sister's conference was pretty good. After our hike we had dinner and FHE with President Roth and Sister Roth. It was so nice to have all of us there and learning more about the Roth's. They shared many stories with us and it was very interesting hearing about their childhood in Austria and their conversion stories. The next day we had small workshops and then went on splits and contacted in Sofia. It was crazy being in a big city. I feel like such a small town girl...I am not used to tons of people everywhere and traffic. But being in Sofia was great it makes me really want to serve there because there are so many people there and you can find new places to go everyday! One thing that happened very fast here is summer! Just 2 weeks ago it was still chilly sometimes but now it is all heat. It is so Mediterranean here, very warm and humid with lots of trees and plants everywhere. They are different trees than in WA. They are really good climbing trees and the flowers are beautiful. The only downside is I am dying of heat. I only have a few summer outfits...so I need to try and find some other things to wear. Also my allergies are really bad here. I am in need of some benedryl very badly.Other than that I love it now. It's nice not feeling cold all the time...now I just feel hot all the time haha. Something cool that happened this week is how Sister Tate and I made this really big goal going on in our mission right now. We are supposed to talk and get numbers from a certain amount of people for three weeks in a row and this past week was our second week. We were really nervous because we are in a small city and we were not gonna get back until late Wed night. So, we prayed really hard and the next day went out and contacted and within two days we got the goal plus some! We were so happy. Anyway, if we get the goal for all 3 weeks we get to have a mission wide conference and a full day p-day! We will all stay in a Hotel in Plovdiv. We are all excited and this will be one of the last big things we get to do before President Roth leaves. So in a couple weeks I get to pick up my Bulgarian card. It's almost like a citizenship card that lasts for 1 year. I took my picture for it last Wed and I look pretty intense because they don't let you smile or anything. Oh yeah! We had a Cinco de Mayo party on Saturday! It was sooo GOOD! They loved it. We had tacos and a taco soup and guacamole and salsa (even though none of it was hot because Bulgarians hate hot/spicy food) it was so yummy! All of us missionaries planned the whole thing and got decorations and food and Latin music. Oh Sister Tate and I made a pinata!! We didn't think it was gonna work out...but it did. The only sad part was when we got out the pinata all of the kids were scared of it and didn't want to hit it. Fortunately after some of us missionaries showed them what to do, they went all at it! It was a big hit and so many people came. Oh also I taught some of them how to "latin" dance....really I was just making things up as I went and they loved it! They thought I actually knew what I was doing. Now everyone thinks I am a great dancer..haha :) Well, you asked me a lot of questions So I will just have to answer them when we skype!! I am so excited...I will probably cry...that's how excited I am. I will probably skype here around 5 pm which I believe is 7am there. I hope that's not a problem since you like being up early anyway. Just turn your skype on when you get up and leave it on loud so you will hear it when I call. Make sure you test it to make sure you remember how to do it before Saturday. That would be sad if you couldn't get it to work! Well until Saturday!!!!!!!!! So excited :) I love you a big Fat Giant Panda! Love, Jodi