After that we went to the bus place to see why the bus was an half hour late. When we got there they called the driver to find out that he was still asleep. Well he came and we finally got on our way an hour late which threw our whole day off. Well we started to drive up. On the way we listened to Michael Jackson and just had a blast talking and parting. We first hit the golden temple in shipka. I took some pictures and walked around some more but other than that it was just all fun and games. After the golden temple we went up to shipka monument. It was incredably foggy which was cool because you are walking up and you can't see any thing and then there it is, but it was terrible because you can't see the amazing view from on top of the monument. Me and Sister Rogers were left behind because we are both a little out of shape when it comes to climbing stairs and there were a ton. Once we got to the top me, Spencer, and Rogers decided not to go into the memorial but I did get some cool pics on the cannons out side. After the monument we went back down all the stairs and had some soup at this soup place that made really good soup but I didn't have that much of an appatite so I couldn't finish mine. We then went to boozlooja. We first stopped at the flame statues at the bottom and then spent about 20 minutes convincing the bus driver that you could drive to the top. Once we got him convinced he took us to the top and then we spent time exploring and taking some pics. The light was better so I could finally take some pictures of the mosaics don't worry they are on there way. It was really cool up by the windows because if you waited for the fog to clear you would see that you were on top of the clouds and you could see a mountain or two poking up in the horizion. I am sending a picture of that too. We also went down and explore the basment. It was cool though a little creepy.
After all the exploreing we went back to the bus and drove back to get dinner ready and eat. When we got back we paid the drive went and bought our ten pounds of potatoes and every thing else. After we got all the food we split into teams and cooks and gofers I was the gofer with Elder Walker for the sisters in the church but the didn't need anything so we just watched Stardust with bulgarian subtitles. When the dinner was finished we all went up to eat. There was a bunch of stuffing, about a truck load of potatoes and a half chicken for every one there as well as a ton of pies. I managed to eat my half chicken and a good helping of potatoes and stuffing. Offcourse I had pie too. My tranier Spencer ate 3 and a half chickens because nobody could finish their own chicken. After the dinner we talked and sister Or showed us a neat trick. You put whipped cream on your hand then hit your arm. The whip cream flies up and you catch it in your mouth. It mad a mess if you didn't catch it or if it didn't go up all the way but it was a ton of fun to try it. I couldn't do it though. After eating we cleaned up and then every one had to run to catch there buses back. They didn't catch them so the sisters got a hotel room and all 12 of the elders slept at our apartment. It was a riot but it was still fun and I enjoyed it very much.
Now onto Tuesday. After every one got back home in the morning we started to have a normal day. First we went and payed our bills and then we had lunch. After lunch we went and met with a guy that me and Bennet had found when we were on greenie splits. He was really cool and seems really interested in what we have to teach and agreed for another meeting. After that we went up to Evan's house to teach him the last half of the plan of salvation which we call the three pillars (The creation, Angency and Fall, and the Atonment.) The lesson went really well except his little puppy would not calm down no matter what I did. After Evan we went to meet with Marko at the church to teach him the Titanic Three commandments (What I call the Law of Chasity, Word of Wisdom, and Law of Tithing. For just two of those three I call it the Terrible Two and then if it is just one of the three I call it the Back Breaker.) The lesson went great. The reason why is that we had told him before that we had to teach all of the lessons before he could be baptized. So he went home and reachered all of the lessons and commandments and basicly said I make 1000* lev a month how much do I need to pay (*number has been changed for saftey of owner?) We told him that he had to then pay 100* lev and he said alright thank you. We then took care of our zone fund and then had dinner and went to bed.
On to Wensday. We woke up got ready and then went to district meeting were we were having speaclized traning from President and Sister Roth. The meeting went really good and President Roth was impressed with how much me and Bennet had progressed in the languge. The traning was on how to start of the first lesson and he gave us some really good advice. He said the biggest thing we need to worry about was to make sure that everyone was comfortable and than ask them a question that would lead into the lesson no matter what the answer was. After that the President took us out to dinner which was fun and delicious. We than went back to the church so Elder Racker our district Leader could interview Marko for his baptism. The interview went great and afterwards Marko went and bought some Coke and Cookies to celebrate with us.
After celebrating we went and caught our bus to Sofia so we could go and do the second third of our passport work for our lichna carta. We got into Sofia found the Center apartment and went to bed. Thursday We woke up I had 9 biscutes and gravy which was delicious and then went out to the passport place. When we got there we had to wait an hour for them to look over all of our information so all of the nine missionarys there went to a nearby Dunkin Donuts and hung out for an hour. We than went back for a wait from 11:00 Am to 2:00 Pm for a chance to get our pictures taken. It was a long wait. After the passport work we went out to Chinease food which was really good especially the fried Ice-Cream.
We than went and got a bus back to Stara Zagora. On the way back Elder Spencer accidently punched a girl while streatching and then she started talking to us saying that there was something different about us (Yes! My angle light was on.) She was really interested and we set up a meeting with her on Sunday. Once in Stara Zagora we went back home (it was around 9:00 Pm now) and went to bed. We woke up on Friday and did our normal morning routine. We then went to meet a member at church to help them with a couple things. We then went up to Evans but he wasn't there so we talked with some store owners nearby that were interested in our message and set up a meeting on Sunday. We than came back home had lunch and then went to the church for a language our with Lily. She had us read and translate a poem and then a recipie for Mysaca. I got a ton of vocab from it that I now have to memorize.
After the language hour we had one more meeting with Marko were we covered the rest of the commandments and went over how to reverantly say a prayer. After Marko left we went up stairs and set up the font. We had to go find duck tape to attatch the plug to the drain but it went well. We then hooked up the hose to the sink and started to fill it up.
While hooking up the hose we got our transfer calls. I am going to Payson, Utah in 1 year and 10 months and Pleven for now with Elder Pattinson who is Cannadian. My companion Elder Spencer is going to Blagofgrad and he is cleaning up my grouping Jensen and being the new Branch President their. He is excited. After getting the calls a guy came up and wondered if he could meet with us. We took him down stairs and watched the restoration video with him and invited him to the baptisim. At first he thought we were going to baptize him and said he wasn't ready yet and still need to be taught but we told him that wasn't the case and that we were baptizing somebody else (Marko) and that we needed to teach him before he could be baptized.
When we got back up stairs we found out that our font had a leak and spent the next hour fixing it. In the end I ended up under the font holding a chair up with my back so that we could actually find the leak (it was on the bottom with about a half foot of water in the font) while Spencer made a fancy patch out of duct tape with a little of my grunted input. After that was fixed we said a prayer that it would hold, had some coke floats, found out were everyone else was going, put in the heaters and then at 9:30 Pm turned off the water and went back home. We ran to the church Saturday morning to do our excercises and put some more water in. When we got there we found out two things: our patch held, and the heaters had worked. The room looked like a steam room because of all the steam. Sad thing was only the top layer of water was hot. At least the font wouldn't be freezing for the baptism. We than turned off the water and went back home to eat and get ready. We than came back to the church for English class. We turned on the water and then went down stairs to teach. My lesson with the bulgarian that doesn't know any english went really well. We told our enlish class that we were both moving and they were all really sad to see us go.
We than went up stairs to find out that the font was a little too full so we drained a little of it and then ran around Stara Zagora buying all of the reffeshments and getting the programs made for the baptism. Despite all the hecticness the baptism went great. And here is the really cool news I got to baptize Marko in the font. I had practiced the prayed all Friday night and all day Saturday and it payed off because I didn't have to do it twice. We had a good turn out and the guy that came last night was there as well which was really cool. After the service we went home and went to bed I am so happy that Marko finally got baptized.
Now onto the last day Sunday. First the Branch President wasn't there because he was at Haskovo which is part of our branch. So me and Spencer were all by ourselves getting church ready. Only fifteen people came but that was alright because Marko was there and got confiremd and Evan finally came to church. The girl from the bus (Annie) couldn't come because she was away so we are going to have to leave her to the next pair of Elders. After church we went home and packed and tried to get the Area book up to date so that way nobody was lost between the cracks when the new Elders come in which are Myric a office elder and another greenie that is going to be interesting. We than went and met with Grandpa John and then to the two store owners by Evan. Their names are George and Jacob. The lesson went really well with them and they are willing to meet more with us. We then went home had dinner and went to bed. Now I am writing to you on a Monday morning. I am out of time so enjoy the letter sorry it isn't as detailed as normal and that it isn't spell checked and have a great time.
Love,
Austin James Ewell
Austin James Ewell
So fun to hear about your adventures!
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