May 21st 2012

Hey Mom and Dad,

Thanks for your emails this week! I really enjoyed them! It's so good to hear that you are going to the temple often. That is one thing I will look forward to when I get back home. People here save up all year for there yearly Temple trip to the new Ukraine temple. Thank you for the package you sent! I will be sure to let you know when I get it!

So many things happened this week! Last Monday I had a great pday celebrating some missionary's birthdays! We went up the mountain and had a picnic!

Also, I was able to ride a train to the outskirts of the city I am in. However, there was some confusion and the train started going again when we were supposed to get off!! I tried to jump off...but they wouldn't let us. So 10 mins later we got off at the next stop in the middle of nowhere!! There was only train tracks...no road. We found out that another train wouldn't be coming for 3 hours. So we walked 6.5 miles on muddy dirt/train tracks for 2 hours...it was quite the adventure!

This week we have been having crazy weather. So many thunder/lightning storms! We will be out and talking to someone and then all of a sudden it down pours like crazy and we get soaked from head to toe! Yesterday we were on our way back from Yambol's sacrament meeting and whenwe are about 10 mins away from Sliven it starts pouring so much. Once we got into the city it was so bad that cars were stopped on the side of the road. The roads were flooded over. It looked like everyone was driving in a lake. Only the bigger/taller cars could get around. We made it home nice and soaked ha ha.

On Saturday there was a baptism. It was technically the Elder's but we both helped a bunch to get ready for it. We had to put together the portable font and fill it with water. The bad thing was we did not have any warm water at all. My companion and I felt bad for the man being baptized so we boiled lots and lots of water in pots and poured them in. Our efforts didn't do too much but the man being baptized saw our efforts and was grateful for what we were doing. The spirit was so strong there at the baptism. The next day a lady who was at the baptism came up to me after sacrament meeting and told me she wanted to be baptized and wanted to meet with my companion and I. Crazy huh?! We still have our other investigator Vesko. He has had a baptismal date but they keep having to be changed. He says he has the desire...but he is not changing. It is really hard because he knows so much and believes it all, he is just is having a hard time with the commandments.

Well I am off to Sofia today to go get my ID card. I hope you have a great week!!

Love you,
Jodi