January 23, 2012

Okay this letter is really long and I have some big news in it.
Monday:
After writing you guys we hung out at the church with the other elders most of the day.  In the evening we prepared for a trip to Pazarjik the next day.
Tuesday:
We got ready to head to Pazarjik in the morning.  We had a route planned out to see all the members as quick as we could (we can't contact in Pazarjik,) so we wouldn't waist time.  All we needed was some Liahonas to give to the members.  so we headed to the church to grab some.  While there we ran into the Zone leaders.  We told them what we were doing and they vetoed it. We are going to go over our plans on sunday because they didn't want to us to meet with people they had just met with.  So hopefully that will work out and we will be on next week. So for the rest of the day we attempted to contact but my energy was gone.  We did get a meeting though with a member and her less active friend so that helped end the day well for me.
Wednesday:
Today we were on splits with the District Leader adn his companion.  I was with Elder Furtado.  First we had district meeting and then lunch.  After district meeting and lunch we had a language study and then a meeting with a real estate lady.  Elders Furtadao and Brown are getting a new apartment and this meeting was to go over the contracts and see if everything was on track.  We then contacted and tracted the rest of the day until dinner.  This is were the big news comes from for this week.  Elders Furtado and Brown were staying at our place because their sink was broken.  So while we were eating dinner Elder Brown was talking with Sister Loss from Stara Zagora and we found out that four of our missionaries had been called that day to serve in Instanble, Turkey.  Thier names are Elders Huish, Chiristainsion (I think I spelled that wrong,) Seymour, and Redpath.  It is so exciting and it is so cool I am here to see church history happen.  They go at the end of this transfere (Feburary 14th) and will serve the rest of their missions there.  They can't openly proselite on the streets, but that isn't a problem because the branch president there has about 1,000 refferals of which they need to teach, so they will be busy.  For about half of the day while they are there they are going to learn Turkish at the university and the second half teach lessons and work with members.  This is so huge adn we are all super excited.  The four missionaries going are hard workers and amazing at the language so tehy shouldn't have to many problems.  Elder Redpath and Seymour have more than a year left and Elders Huish and Christaintion less than a year.  That is the big news and lets just say it was hard to go to sleep that night, but we managed.
Thursday:
Thursday was a normal day.  We surveyed in the morning as normal did some tasks in the afternoon and had Enlgish in the evening.  We did get lost in the after noon though trying to find Elder Young some new shoe laces.  During English I also learned some Bulgarian idoms that will help me a ton.  After English we had dinner and went to bed.
Friday:
Friday was a lot of fun.  Most of the day we were visiting a member in her Selo (village.)  We almost didn't make it though because Elder Young had written the Selo's name down wrong.  We figured it out though and got to the Selo just fine.  The members name is Gulabinka (means Pigeon or Dove) and she is around 80. She is a very sweet smart lady and can't come to church only because of distance and cost.  Other than that she is a very spiritual lady.  She also had 15 cats!  I I would make the cat call for food and they would all swarm me.  It was hilarious.  Dispite all the cats her house didn't smell like them at all.  We also helped her chop some wook and had a nice lesson with her.  We left after the lesson and once we got to Plovdiv we hurried over to another members house and had dinner with them.  Then we came home for bed.
Saturday:
Not much saturday.  We had Enlish in the morning and I helped with 1st level because I had no students in 3rd.  We then cleaned the church had lunch, weekly planned, contacted, cleaned our phone, had language study, dinner and went to bed.
Sunday:
Really just church and contacting.
Love,
Elder Austin James Ewell