Week of May 21, 2012: Mini Pool!

Hello loved ones!

We had three baptisms this week! Nai na kraya! These people have had dates for SIX MONTHS. Anyway, it was very satisfying to see that there is a way of progress for these processes, and it was also very satisfying to make 2 pies and cookies and these German truffles I learned to make. (Pies: fresh cherry (cherries are in season here now SO GOOD) and chocolate pudding with dark chocolate ganache and a biscuit crust). 

The baptisms were beautiful, though. Very Bulgarian. Our church building in Starz is actually just the fifth and sixth floors of an apartment block, like a normal apartment, so we had to climb to the sixth floor and set up this mini-pool, fill it over the course of a day, heat it with special heating tongs we leave in rigged up with a broom, and wash the baptism suits ourselves. Very much a hands-on experience. But I feel so lucky to have been able to be here and take the credit for other missionaries' work. Just kidding!  Anyways, I decided that if I don't have any white jumpsuit pictures by the time I leave here, I'll be fine with it. As long as I have a picture of me FEELING THE SPIRIT. Or something.

All of the four oldest sisters in the mission go home in a week, which is very bizarre for me. My "mother" (trainer) (missionary slang) is "dying" (slang). Not in real life! Sorry! Okay, that got too confusing/morbid. My trainer is going home. There, I said it. And now I have to . . . train someone? It's weird. Everybody send me their thoughts on that.

I love all of you. Go listen to some Nsync for me.

sister campbell

Week of May 7, 2012: Eliza turns 22 (our little Taurus)

Kak e vskichko?

Hm. I'm struggling with this weekly-letter format. So easy to fall into laziness, disrepair and even showiness, much like how sitcoms often go wrong. Therefore, I will switch up the format with: a top ten list of interesting things that happened to me/Bulgaria this week, in no particular order!

10. Sister's Confrince (misspellings encouraged). ALL of the sisters in Bug-laria (there are 11 now, and there will be 14 this year, which is a huge shot up from the usual 8). We all went hiking in the Stara Planina and had a question and answer session from President and Sister Roth, our Austrian mission couple (SO COOL AND CUTE! we got to ask any questions we wanted, and duh, I asked about man/woman equality dealies in the church, and President Roth said something to the effect of, "It has always made me ill to watch a husband treat his wife in an inferior or macho way," and even did a little shudder, hee hee he's so Austrian!). And it was awesome. I also met all the greenies, including the one in Varna now, my old hometown. Apparently I have become known in this mission for several things: 1) Taking the underdog's side in arguments about breastfeeding, 2) Being a good cook, and 3) Being prone to sneaking off/disappearing/being by myself a lot. Cool! I'm a weirdo!

9. Spent the day in Sofia with Sisters Child and Farnsworth, while we had passport work and picked up a package of mine. I have a lichna carna now! Like an ID card. Because our visas actually only last about 2 months, we eventually have to apply for temporary citizenship here. And I have it now! I'll show you the card later. But suffice it to say: it is PINK. 

8. Oh MAN. Package time. This was my second-ever package in the mission filled (thanks Mom!!!!!!). The APs actually told me about it about three weeks ago, calling me sounding slightly ill and mad at me, and informed me that my package had been marked at customs as being worth over 200 dollars, and that was causing havoc at the CRAZY Bulgarian customs office, and therefore, I would have to pick it up IN PERSON in Sofia. So we went. And it made me kind of realize why the old Soviet Bloc is still so messed up. It was this kind of records-customs-assorted bureaucracy office, falling apart, about 5 floors tall, full of crazy offices with FLOPPY DISCS (they still use them here) and people smoking and giant reams full of records lying in piles on the floor. And it literally took over 3 hours to sign about 30 documents, take those documents to 30 other offices, pay a lot of leva, sign more things, stamp more things, put things on a floppy disc, and FINALLY get the package. So. I will definitely be using that experience to write a political science paper someday about the diminished social trust and bureaucratic havoc of the former Soviet bloc. But everybody can continue sending me packages! Just put their value as less than 30 dollars, okay? Okay.

7. Peter and Tanya, our delightful baptismal dated couple, got married! On Saturday, we headed up to this little municipality chapel, where about five other couples were waiting around in line, and waited while they had a little ceremony, put rings on each other, drank Sprite (Peter was so cutely excited to explain why it wasn't champagne), and then ate a giant lunch together! It was so cool. It's just so exciting to see these two people, who are pretty normal Bulgarians who love each other, etc., actually do something to change their lives and make commitments. I never really understood the importance of marriage/chastity until I saw how messed up things are when people who love each other don't make promises to honor each other outside.

6. Mitko and Svetla didn't end up getting married yet, because you need a BLOOD TEST to get married in Starz, but they will soon! So I got to have an eye-rolling complaining session about the Bulgarian bureaucracy, IN BULGARIAN, with an actual Bulgarian! It was cool. Wish: fulfilled.

5. It is officially summer here, and it has been in the upper 80s (what is that in Celsius?) for about 3 weeks. So. Sandals: bought.

4. Had a Cinco de Mayo party (I know) at the branch, and made a pinata for said event. I'll show you it later.

3. At this party, one of our English students brought some friends from a celo (village) near Nova Zagora, one of whom took an unfortunate fancy to me, and stood near me staring at me until he asked for my email address. I said, "Uh...chakai za moment!" and ran into the other room, and never came back. Well done, me.

2. A woman lifted up her shirt to her bra in sacrament meeting to show us a scar she had gotten from an operation that week.

1. The greenies that were supposed to come in a few weeks ago still haven't, and we found out that if they don't within two more weeks, they'll wait until next transfer. I.e., the June 20th transfer when I will be receiving a greenie. To train. Therefore: there will be more greenies than trainers, and the rest of the non-trainers will still be less than 2 months in-country. So it will be chaos for the sisters! Ha ha ha ha I'm scared. :( But also excited. :)

Okay, I love you all. Campbell out!!!

Week of May 30--Mulan in Bulgaria

I will never pass for a perfect bride, or a perfect daughter. Can it be I'm not meant to play this paaaart? Stirring words from the full-length Disney film "Mulan," featuring a sassy black dragon. I suspect that every missionary has once felt that same question stirring in their heart as they look at themselves in their pond outside their Chinese house: when will my reflection show who I am inside?

The point is, we watched part of "Mulan" the other day in Bulgarian. Culture clash! Currently, I'm in The Mission Home, Ul. Marin Drinov, Sofia, Bulgaria, Eastern Europe, Europe, Eastern Hemisphere, World. We're having the first-ever "Specialized Sisters Training" (a.k.a. SISTERZ CONFRINZE) so all 12 (twelve!!) sisters of the mission, including the three newbies from two weeks ago, are here. I must be brief in speaking because we're going hiking in a few minutes for pee day with President and Sister Roth, but we came here yesterday and we'll be here in Sofia until Wednesday.

Here are some items of interest:

 1) If you want to send me a package (if?? more like, WHEN), DO NOT put a value above 20 dollars or so on the customs slip. Also, DO NOT . . . not send me a package. I couldn't think of another thing for you not to do.

 2) Tanya and Peter are getting married this week! Oh man. So Tanya is this really sweet, bubbling lady who is divorced and has two older kids and lives alone and had an abusive husband (who DOESN'T have those here?) but moved to Starz to find work, and ended up living with this older divorced guy named Peter. And the sisters started teaching them two months ago or so, and at first Peter didn't seem interested, but now he IS! And they're both getting baptized! And they have to get married first, obviously, but that is finally going to happen (the ridiculousness of the Bulgarian obshtina red tape paperwork is kind of hard to imagine).

 3) Also, Mitko and Svetla are getting married! They're this really sweet couple from the celo who moved here recently for their son's schooling, and our senior couple here has agreed to drive them in their car to their village, far away (100 km or something) so they can get married there! So yeah!

 4) We got a new apartment this week! And moved in! I have a queen-sized bed??

Also, it is officially summer in Starz. Like, Seattle summer: 80 to 85 degrees every day, sunny, humid, green. It will only get worse from here. I am out of time, hiking calls me. But I love you all. Thank you for the letter, Erik! And Annie also! I write back to you soon! Chakam sus neterpenie (I wait with impatience).

Week of April 23--Bedbugs!

Sdrasti priyatelite mi! Another week in Starz (...zagora). This time, I'm in a threesome companionship with Sister Meyers and Sister Child, since Meyers is waiting for her new missionary to come from the States, where she's waiting now in Virginia for her visa. So we hang out together! It is fun! Makes me feel like we are Charlie's Angels or something and nobody will escape! (e.g., not hear the Gospel). But anyway. THAT means: the missionary who I will train, in June, has entered the MTC by now! OMG. Guys. I really don't feel capable in any way or form to be a missionary on my own (meaning, work with a companion who is more clueless than me). But I guess it will just happen? Okay? Oh well? :) This was kind of a weird week for rabota (work). (Are you annoyed of the condescending translating-in-parentheses yet?) Firstly, because we have decided it is time to get a new apartment. The one we're in now is right on the glav (main street), but in a really, really old building, so with super old pipes and mold EVERYWHERE and the implied fumes from those things. And . . . this week we got bedbugs. So. Good. We're just wandering around on the street going "Join our chuuurch!" while we're all gross and diseased and bug-marked. The church of bugs of latter-day bugs. So a lot of this week was taken up with the slightly surreal task of apartment shopping in Bulgaria. We went to this one broker? dealer? guy who helped the elders find their apartment, and thought it would be normal, but it WASN'T. They were CRAZY. Like this mother-father-son business and the dad was all "charming" and "wearing white shoes" and "singing Tom Jones" and drove us in their car to this 20 story commie block on the edge of town (everything we told them we didn't want) and showed us this terrible, terrible apartment with a TV from the '60s in there (and everything else from the '60s too, it seemed), but kept going "It's so beautiful! We'll get you new furniture! So that was kind of funny. But the search goes on! Also, we went to a Chinese restaurant this week with the following dishes printed in their menu, clearly mistranslated (Chinese/Bulgarian?): "Fryed rice with hiney" "Simmer sea delicacy, under metal tile" "Srewed vegetables" "Simmer duck on a metal tile" "Sea gifts, with duck tile" ALL REAL. ALL TOO REAL. EXACT TRANSCRIPTIONS. Also this week, we found out that our mission prez, President Roth is going to pay for our investigators' weddings! So OMG! We get to be witnesses to Tanya and Peter's wedding, and then drive Mitko and his family out to their celo to get hitched! Also, in Bulgarian, when you're married, you say you're "womaned" if you're a man or "manned" if you're a woman. Interesting! Grammar! Finally, I gave a talk in church yesterday. Man it was weird and hard and scary. I got the call to do it on Wednesday, and almost refused, but in the end did it. And since our branch president is actually an elder (the Starz branch is kind of struggling), and the elders weren't there on Sunday, it was all Brother Major, the American guy living here, conducting, while being interpreted by Sister Child, and he demonstrated the idea of wrestling on the stand in sacrament, since nobody knew how to say it in Bulgarian. (He was talking about Enos wrestling with his guilt) But I gave a talk! Scary! 15 minutes of Bulgarian! But I did it? Something I've learned from my companions who have been here a long time is this: the Lord doesn't want shiny fast racing ponies who are geniuses and can braid their own tails. He needs steady, sturdy, plodding workers who will endure to the end and get it all done in their own time. So that's what I'm trying to work on, and you all should too. I love you. Sorry my emails are of low quality. Bsichko hubavo!

Week of April 16, 2012

Hello everybody!

Easter is over. Does everybody know that Bulgarian Easter is a week later than non-Bulgarian Easter? I think it might be that way for all the Orthodox bros, actually. Also, does everybody know that Easter is a BIG HUGE DEAL here? Like every holiday? I think it's the ole communist work ethic here or something, but every single holiday is a huge deal here, and there are holidays, like, every other day. All full of various blandy baked goods with cute names, people telling you to have good health, and giant beer bottles everywhere. And things being CLOSED. Remember when I was supposed to go to Carandila last week? Yeah, the little lift thingy was CLOSED because "of the holidays." (Praznitzi). That was a week ago. People take, like, two weeks for Easter, and that affects the Work (missionary Work) too.

Also, quickly, there's a fair/carnival thing set up on the glav here where I am right now (near our apartment) with a ferris wheel and a little roller coaster thing and bumper carts. And it's hilarious because everybody who gets on there looks so bored and Bulgarian. Even the kids. Everybody just sits on the ferris wheel or bumper carts looking bored and angry and smoking cigarettes. Hahaha.

On Friday, we went out to the house of a couple in our ward who are from Scotland (the husband is from Utah, the wife is Scottish, they met on their mission in England and lived in Scotland for 30 years and decided, like many English couples struggling to make ends meet, to retire in a dirt-cheap village in Bulgaria for some reason). They're great/crazy people, kind of like the Canadjun side of me. They live in a celo (village) about an hour from Starz, and have a farm with chickens and goats and rabbits and dogs and a horse and a frisbee and piles of garbage/food everywhere. So we did service (planted corn and dug the earth and blah blah blah) and ate hot dogs over a fire we built and went to teach an investigator who lives out here. And fed a HORSE! I had a flashback to when I was young and ambitious and loved horses. Then I found out that the world is a cruel, car-filled place and quickly started reading Baby-Sitter's Club books instead of horse books and forgot about everything. But oh the horses!

So for Easter, we had an activity at the church (which is located on the fifth floor of an apartment building - the church is, I mean) in which we did a traditional Bulgarian thingy: dye Easter eggs (the dyeing isn't the fun part), and then have little wars where you try to crack someone else's egg with your egg. And I think it symbolizes health/strength/communism something something? I don't know. It's all a rich shmorgasbord of health and traditions and beer around here. Then on Sunday, we had the mission president here with his wife, which was fun, and then got to watch conference AGAIN (it takes four weeks to finish around here). On Easter Sunday, everybody goes up to everybody and says, "Isus vuzkrusen!" and then the second person says, "Boistina vuzkrusen!" Which is literally like: Jesus was resurrected! And then, Truly resurrected! Kind of like, "He sure was!!" It's cute.

Then, last night, we went to an eternal investigator's house for dinner. Her name is Maria, and she's delightful little lady who used to be a professional Bulgarian chef (I know right???) and loves to feed missionaries, but just won't get baptized quite yet for some reason, even though she wants to. So me and Sister Child and the three elders went to her house, already full from being fed by other investigators/Easter cookies of the day, and had the following:

1) Lettuce yogurt salad (actually really good, I'll show you how to make it) with boiled eggs
2) A plate of lamb liver, stomach, and lung
3) A bigger plate of meat casserole (don't even know what was in there), lamb liver, lamb kidneys, lamb stomach, and probably lamb brain
4) Bread
5) Kozunac (special sweet easter bread you eat with kisalo mlyako, which is yogurt)
6) Korabi (little special Easter cookies, korabi meaning "boats")
7) I forget what else because I was dead with meat coma

Oh man. That was one of those ones you get to write home about! As I am doing right now. But ohhh man. That LAMB. I am a vegetarian for the rest of my mission, man. I just will never forget the texture of that lamb liver. I knew, with every fiber of my own liver, that I was eating the vital organ of a baby lamb. I also sneaked some chunks of the meats into my purse, so as to not offend/eat them all, but it was pretty intense. Wacky adventures!

We're really happy to have some families to work with here, like Mitko and his son and girlfriend, and Peter and Tanya, but both sets of them need to get married before they can get baptized, which is a common problem with Bulgarian investigators. People just shack up and have kids for years and years and years and own block apartments together and share slippers, and then they're 56 and never got married. Different around here. So hopefully that will happen soon. Both of the families want to be baptized really badly, but are struggling to make the marriage possible. But I believe in them!! And we also have an investigator from Congo, who escaped during the 1990s and came here? Good choice. He speaks Bulgarian and French and a dialect from Congo, which makes speaking to him kind of interesting but fun. He's great. I also found out this week, that since the new missionaries coming in are having some visa delays, we'll have to have one of the trainers come and be companions with me and Sister Child for a few weeks until her greenie can come. So I'll be in a threesome? It will be cool.

Write to me, all of you! Also, email shout-out of the week to BAM (Patricia Asplund) for her sudden slew of emails she had been sending to a wrong address (my fault) but which were all so delightful! I love accounts of family get-togethers like that, and I appreciate you telling me about all the meals. I miss those meals. I love you, Bam. Also email shout-out to Rachel Wise!! For sending recipes. Rachel, can we go on a road trip to a museum when I get back?

Okay. I love you all. Send me packages! I'm excited to get my first packages one a these days. The Atonement is real! You read it here.

Love,

Sectra Campbell

Week of April 10, 2012--Stara Zagora!

Here is a weekly emailllllll!

I am currently in Sliven, Bulgaria, Eastern Europe, Earth. Sliven is a
tiny-ish gypsy town a while north of Stara Zagora, where I am
currently serving. We (Sister Child and I) came down today for pee day
to see the sisters who are here (Sister Farnsworth, my old bud! and
Sister Tate, my new bud!) and to, you know, chill. I am in the
country, man. Varna seems very far away and strange and long ago. This
is officially a New Transfer, and in a week, we'll have four new
sisters in country (along with some elders). And then,
after this short transfer, which will end on May 29th with my trainer
going home (what?), I will be training. A new. Missionary. What??? But
let's not think about that for now.

To get more specific: I'm currently in an internet zala in a
downstairs area that smells like a combination of a zoo, a petting
zoo, a crapping zoo, and a smoking zoo. I'm drinking a Coke Light.
(Wayyyy different from Diet Coke.) It's pretty cold here, actually.
Later today, we're planning to go up Carandilla (SPPP!!!) which is a
little hike/lift thing that takes you high into those Bulgarian
mountains everyone's always talking/singing about.

But! Stara Zagora! My new hometown! I actually love it. It's a pretty
small little city, the fifth largest in Bulgy, and we live right on
the glavnata ulitza. Each city has a main street called a "glav,"
usually, with no cars, which is all pedestrian traffic and
stores/cafes people wandering around/missionaries walking up
and down or streetboarding. We can't streetboard in Stara Zagora,
because the obshtina (municipality? I guess) hates the Church and
comes out with all kind of weird laws and restrictions. So we have to
either survey or superman contact, the first being where you ask
people to take a short "survey" about God (as a way to get them to
talk to you) or where you just go up to someone and ask them if they
believe in God and get right to it. So we've been doing a lot of that
- like 6 hours a day sometimes. WAY more than in Varna. Generally, the
smaller cities have a lot slower work, fewer investigators, and more
contacting. So it's been a big adjustment.

BUT. I love the vibes, man. So chill and small. It's really warm
there, too, now, like 70 or 75 degrees (F...I still can't think in C)
and really summery-feeling. The other day we were walking around
neighborhood contacting and two babas with headscarves and little
knitted booties for shoes stopped us basically by saying, "Momicheta,
kakvo pravite?" Which is SO CUTE. It's like, "Hey, girls, what are you
doin'?" But a little cuter. So we said what we did and she thought it
was SO CUTE and invited us to hang out/eat gross food with her. It was
a nice little Stara Zagora ("Stars") experience.

Let's see. We're teaching a few families in Stars who are currently
about to get married so they can get baptized, so that's cool. People
here just, don't get married pretty much. They'll live together for 40
years and have kids and share a block and slippers but just never get
married. Oh, Europe.

Easter is also a very big Deal here. Nobody will meet with us these
days, because they're all "getting ready for Easter" (baking kuzanac, Easter bread, and sitting around worrying about if
their grandkids will come or not). It's a little annoying, but I guess
Easter is worth it.

Also, I FINALLY got to watch some English conference! So good. I
understood most of the Bulgarian one, but in English it was just a
little . . . more clear, I guess. I don't know. The whole time I kept
going, "Ohhh, that's what he was trying to say!" And the stories all
made sense.

Anyway. My birthday is soon, in mail-years (mail here takes like,
three times the amount of time, and sometimes gets stolen), so if
anyone wants to send me a BIRTHDAY THING they should probably do it
soon. And I'll send you my heart. In a cooler.

Okay. I love you guys. I miss you. Send me pictures! Vsichko hubavo!

Sister Campbell and a Bulgarian pony!