Dear Mom and Dad,
Hey thanks for the packages you sent! I got both of them and they were great! Thank you, thank you. Yay! School is out! I am happy for you! Thanks for all of the updates.
I am now in Ruse. It is very beautiful here and I can see Romania from my apartment! It is interesting being the senior companion and trainer now! My new companion is Sister Walch. She is from Santa Cruz, CA. She is really cool and loves soccer and movies so we get along just great! We have been doing a lot of contacting here since we got here just trying to get to know the city. There is this beautiful park by our apartment that is miles long that is alongside the Danuv river that separates Bulgaria from Romania. We have been going there to contact a lot. It is so beautiful, covered in flowers and roses of every color.
The people that we have met here so far have been really nice. The members are great but they are pretty dependent on the missionaries here so we are going to try and fix that so they can be more stable. As for my language skills...I feel as though I am going through the refiner's fire right now. It is hard right now but I can already tell that I am improving a lot faster than before. So after this transfer hopefully I will be very comfortable with everything.
Thank you for all of your prayers and support! I hope to get some more pictures to be able to send to you soon!
I love you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love, Jodi
Monday, June 25, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
June 18th 2012
Hey Mom and Dad,
First, Thank you so much for my birthday package!! I got it when we were at Mission conference on Thursday and Friday. Wow, I can't believe that today is my last day of being 21! I am getting so old!! Anyway, Mission Conference was great! We had an all day p-day on Thursday and I got to go through Old Povdiv. It is the oldest city in Bulgaria. I went through some museums and saw some old Roman ruins/theater. It was pretty fun! The next day we had a conference. The last one before President and Sister Roth leave on June 30th. Everything was amazing. I loved being able to see everyone! While at the conference I found out that I will be training in Ruse and I pick up my greenie this Wednesday in Sofia! I cannot believe the time has come already! I am nervous but excited. You should look up Ruse. It is the very north part of Bulgaria and apparently I can see Romania from my apartment. I heard it is one of the prettiest cities in Bulgaria. The thing seperating Bulgaria and Romania there is a river. Pretty cool huh?
Other than that, I had to say all of my goodbyes to the sweet members in Sliven. It was sad saying goodbye because you don't know if you will see them again or not. Also the cute family that we visit with often with the girl named Annie left this morning to Greece. Their husband/Dad works there for the summer. It was hard saying goodbye, but hopefully we will see eachother again!
We continue to teach the man named Boris. He is so ready for his baptism on July 7th! Even though I will be in Ruse, I am pretty sure I will be able to travel down to be there for his baptism. I am so excited for him! It is such a great excitment knowing that you hae helped someone change their life.
It's so good to hear from you and that everything is going well! Only 3 more days left of school, that's exciting!! Hang in there :) Good job to Keith for all of his hard work!
Have a great week!!
Love,
Jodi
First, Thank you so much for my birthday package!! I got it when we were at Mission conference on Thursday and Friday. Wow, I can't believe that today is my last day of being 21! I am getting so old!! Anyway, Mission Conference was great! We had an all day p-day on Thursday and I got to go through Old Povdiv. It is the oldest city in Bulgaria. I went through some museums and saw some old Roman ruins/theater. It was pretty fun! The next day we had a conference. The last one before President and Sister Roth leave on June 30th. Everything was amazing. I loved being able to see everyone! While at the conference I found out that I will be training in Ruse and I pick up my greenie this Wednesday in Sofia! I cannot believe the time has come already! I am nervous but excited. You should look up Ruse. It is the very north part of Bulgaria and apparently I can see Romania from my apartment. I heard it is one of the prettiest cities in Bulgaria. The thing seperating Bulgaria and Romania there is a river. Pretty cool huh?
Other than that, I had to say all of my goodbyes to the sweet members in Sliven. It was sad saying goodbye because you don't know if you will see them again or not. Also the cute family that we visit with often with the girl named Annie left this morning to Greece. Their husband/Dad works there for the summer. It was hard saying goodbye, but hopefully we will see eachother again!
We continue to teach the man named Boris. He is so ready for his baptism on July 7th! Even though I will be in Ruse, I am pretty sure I will be able to travel down to be there for his baptism. I am so excited for him! It is such a great excitment knowing that you hae helped someone change their life.
It's so good to hear from you and that everything is going well! Only 3 more days left of school, that's exciting!! Hang in there :) Good job to Keith for all of his hard work!
Have a great week!!
Love,
Jodi
Monday, June 11, 2012
June 11th 2012
Dear Mom and Dad,
Thanks for all the updates! It is good to know what is going on back home.
As for me, I had a really good week! I don't know what happened this week, but so many people were nice to us! It was weird...but nice. We ended up getting so many lessons in this week! It felt so great.
We are still teaching our investigator named Boris. He is amazing we talked to him about baptism and he committed to be baptized on July 7th. He is very excited and has been coming to church and has started to become friends with some of the members. Every time we meet with him the spirit is so strong. These are the times when I realize how even though I talk to people everyday for months and nothing happens, finally I get one person like Boris to teach and it is all worth it.
We continued to have another Young Women's with Annie. We taught her about talents and decided to teach her how to make "no-bake" cookies. She loved it. We ate them after we finished the rest of our lesson and they were so good! She was so happy they turned out good since she made them by herself.
Also yesterday was the first Sunday in Bulgaria I didn't have to do anything. Normally we teach primary but President had us go to gospel principles and then I went to Relief Society for the first time in months. The Sister's here are few but they are so strong! We had a great lesson about he holy ghost. There was a part of it when they talked about the "gift of tongues" they looked at us and explained how we have the gift of tongues right now and it is amazing how we can understand everything they are saying and can respond. That lesson really helped me because I sometimes feel as though I am not doing well with the language or am not learning it as fast as I want to. However, I am doing well. I can understand and say things that I want to say so that people can understand. It may not be perfect, but I can do it.
Another thing, I have been reading the book, "Standing for Something" by Gordon B. Hinckley. If you you haven't read it, you should! There is a chapter devoted to talking about gratitude. After reading that I just couldn't stop thinking about all of the things that I am grateful for, and the list is endless. Sometimes when I get caught up in my own troubles I don't really see all the amazing things that I have in my life. I have the best parents in the world, the best siblings in the world, such amazing friends, great missionaries to serve around, strong members here in Bulgaria to know and come to grow close to, and even the nice people I see everyday in their shops on my way to church and they always say hello to me. I know that I have been blessed with so many things in my life and I want to make sure I express how grateful I am.
I am still having a great time with Sister Tate is Sliven. We have become great friends and enjoy being companions.
I hope you have a great week! I love you.
Love, Jodi
Thanks for all the updates! It is good to know what is going on back home.
As for me, I had a really good week! I don't know what happened this week, but so many people were nice to us! It was weird...but nice. We ended up getting so many lessons in this week! It felt so great.
We are still teaching our investigator named Boris. He is amazing we talked to him about baptism and he committed to be baptized on July 7th. He is very excited and has been coming to church and has started to become friends with some of the members. Every time we meet with him the spirit is so strong. These are the times when I realize how even though I talk to people everyday for months and nothing happens, finally I get one person like Boris to teach and it is all worth it.
We continued to have another Young Women's with Annie. We taught her about talents and decided to teach her how to make "no-bake" cookies. She loved it. We ate them after we finished the rest of our lesson and they were so good! She was so happy they turned out good since she made them by herself.
Also yesterday was the first Sunday in Bulgaria I didn't have to do anything. Normally we teach primary but President had us go to gospel principles and then I went to Relief Society for the first time in months. The Sister's here are few but they are so strong! We had a great lesson about he holy ghost. There was a part of it when they talked about the "gift of tongues" they looked at us and explained how we have the gift of tongues right now and it is amazing how we can understand everything they are saying and can respond. That lesson really helped me because I sometimes feel as though I am not doing well with the language or am not learning it as fast as I want to. However, I am doing well. I can understand and say things that I want to say so that people can understand. It may not be perfect, but I can do it.
Another thing, I have been reading the book, "Standing for Something" by Gordon B. Hinckley. If you you haven't read it, you should! There is a chapter devoted to talking about gratitude. After reading that I just couldn't stop thinking about all of the things that I am grateful for, and the list is endless. Sometimes when I get caught up in my own troubles I don't really see all the amazing things that I have in my life. I have the best parents in the world, the best siblings in the world, such amazing friends, great missionaries to serve around, strong members here in Bulgaria to know and come to grow close to, and even the nice people I see everyday in their shops on my way to church and they always say hello to me. I know that I have been blessed with so many things in my life and I want to make sure I express how grateful I am.
I am still having a great time with Sister Tate is Sliven. We have become great friends and enjoy being companions.
I hope you have a great week! I love you.
Love, Jodi
Monday, June 4, 2012
June 4th 2012
Hey Mom and Dad,
Can you believe it is June already?! Time is going by so fast! Wow, only 13 more days of school? That is really nice.
So I found out on Friday that I recieved the package that you sent me! My friend in the office, Elder Dropla said he would call and let me know if I got anything. By the way he wanted me to tell you "hi" from him.
Let's see, this week was really good. On June 1st we went out on the Glav to do our normal contacting in the morning, but something was different this time. It was covered with balloons, candy, and kids! It was swrming with children and their parents! My companion and I were so confused. I have never seen this many kids in Sliven before. Well we finally found out that it was "kids day." So, there was no school and parents got to spoil their kids all day.
It is really funny how many holidays Bulgaria has. Normally it is fun, but for some reason people are less receptive to us on holidays. The next day we were out contacting and pumped up to talk to people and then around 12 pm there was this loud siren noise and everyone froze. People who were walking just stopped were they were and didn't move. The people sitting at the outside cafes stood up and froze. No one was talking. This lasted for about 5 mins. It was weirdest thing to see. We had no idea what was going on. Later we found out that it was another holiday. It was their Memorial day. So whenever they hear the siren they are suppost to stand, stop and be silent to remember those who died for their country.
We have been teaching this man who is 32 and his name is Boris. He is really cool and he seems to be getting everything that we have been teaching him. He came to church for the first time and I thought it was neat that he could hear all of the members bear their testimonies about the church. We will keep teaching him and hope for the best!
We did another Young Women's with Annie. She is so cute. I really like helping wer with personal progress. I think it would be a lot of fun to be a Young Women's leader. we talked about the plan of salvation and drew pictures for all of it. Then on Sunday she taught primary about the plan of salvation and she did such a great job. We are the primary teachers in our branch and each week we try and learn a new primary song so that we can have a primary program during sacrament. This sunday our primary kids sang a song during sacrament meeting and I felt like that proud parent in the back smiling and mouthing the words with them, it was great.
Also, we have been meeting with this guy named Jiri (the j is pronounced like a Y). He is from the Czech Rep. He is 24 and is and electrician who is working here for the summer. He only know Czech and ok english. He met with missionaries when he was in czech. We hang out with him on p-days and during our dinner hour somethimes. He is really cool and so nice. Hopefully we are planting some good seeds so when he goes back to Czech he will be more interested in the church.
Well that's all I can think of for this week! Love you lots!
Love, Jodi
Can you believe it is June already?! Time is going by so fast! Wow, only 13 more days of school? That is really nice.
So I found out on Friday that I recieved the package that you sent me! My friend in the office, Elder Dropla said he would call and let me know if I got anything. By the way he wanted me to tell you "hi" from him.
Let's see, this week was really good. On June 1st we went out on the Glav to do our normal contacting in the morning, but something was different this time. It was covered with balloons, candy, and kids! It was swrming with children and their parents! My companion and I were so confused. I have never seen this many kids in Sliven before. Well we finally found out that it was "kids day." So, there was no school and parents got to spoil their kids all day.
We have been teaching this man who is 32 and his name is Boris. He is really cool and he seems to be getting everything that we have been teaching him. He came to church for the first time and I thought it was neat that he could hear all of the members bear their testimonies about the church. We will keep teaching him and hope for the best!
We did another Young Women's with Annie. She is so cute. I really like helping wer with personal progress. I think it would be a lot of fun to be a Young Women's leader. we talked about the plan of salvation and drew pictures for all of it. Then on Sunday she taught primary about the plan of salvation and she did such a great job. We are the primary teachers in our branch and each week we try and learn a new primary song so that we can have a primary program during sacrament. This sunday our primary kids sang a song during sacrament meeting and I felt like that proud parent in the back smiling and mouthing the words with them, it was great.
Also, we have been meeting with this guy named Jiri (the j is pronounced like a Y). He is from the Czech Rep. He is 24 and is and electrician who is working here for the summer. He only know Czech and ok english. He met with missionaries when he was in czech. We hang out with him on p-days and during our dinner hour somethimes. He is really cool and so nice. Hopefully we are planting some good seeds so when he goes back to Czech he will be more interested in the church.
Well that's all I can think of for this week! Love you lots!
Love, Jodi
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