July 9, 2012

Mom!
          Yeah that is so crazy that Scott is coming home! I bet he is so excited! I can tell my companion is! Also I forgot my camera today so I can't send you pictures again.. :( Next week I will have more though! Karl made the snares huh? If I was him I would have said no and just kept on the snares :) nah I’m just kidding but that is pretty cool! Tenors are fun too! I have been watching a lot of DCI stuff on you tube on p-days because it is allowed here and it is so exciting! I had a dream last night that the Mission President allowed all his Missionaries to go and do DCI for the summer then come back. It was pretty cool and I played the baritone! It is so hot here! I actually sweat completely through my white shirt it is so hot! And yes humid! The people here call it the Jega. They say the Jega is here! Which means, the HEAT has come. It’s really funny. I also got my first two potential investigators! My companion was not even around and I had to do all the talking and listening by myself! It was really scary but it is good to know that I can actually speak enough to be a missionary! I also have taught the first lesson all in Bulgarian (the restoration) I don't know if I told you this but we only have one progressing investigator right now and she speaks perfect English. She is super cool! Tony is her name. I’m trying really hard to think of what else cool happened but I can't! The craziest thing I have eaten is called tortatal soup. It is literally sour milk water and sliced cucumbers. It was so nasty I could hardly stomach it. They love the sour milk here! I have seen a whole lot of homeless people and stuff but I will have some sweet pictures for you next Monday! I do need to go exploring though so I will write you next week! LOVE Elder Petersen

Monday July 2, 2012

Hello Mum!                                                                                                
I’m super jealous that you get to go to the DCI competition again! It sounds super fun! Dad was right that we get up at 630 every day. I actually get up a 6 though, and run to the church and play basketball with some other missionaries. I don't remember if I told you but I am in the City of Plovdiv. I live on Boulevard Bulgaria in building #9! It’s a block (apartment building) and our church is Boulevard Maretsa 138. It is the only actually LDS church building in Bulgaria! It is very nice! I have not had a chance to meet the new Mission President here in Bulgaria yet but I will have a 30 minute interview with him on Thursday and I will get to know him then! Should be good.
            The language is hard, but I know  most of the words people usually say to me, I just can't put them all in order fast enough to know what they are saying! I should be able to talk to people by the end of this transfer though! That is the hope anyway! I try to talk to people every day even though I know I will not catch everything they say! They are usually very patient with us, or they are calling us a sect and keep walking. We try to contact every day. Sometimes we are on the Glav (mainstreet) for up to 4 hours just trying to get people to talk with us, about 70% either ignore us completely when we talk to them or they say nymam vremey which means I don't have time. Then 20% will stop and take our survey but will end up saying they are not interested in learning more. So we are looking for the 10% who will be willing to give us their number and want to learn more. Half of those people make it past the first lesson so we have to try a lot to get any investigators!
            We only have one now, her name is Tony and she is an English teacher in high shchool. Pretty much the best investigator possible for a greenie to have! She speaks English to us always and she always wants to help me speak better Bulgarian! She is our only actual investigator but we have about 10 names we are going to call later today and see if we can get some times set up! Hopefully we pick up a couple more so we are not on the hot street looking so much!
            I am pretty much in love with yogurt here, they have flavored yogurt that is the brand Activia. It is sooooo good! But they also have keeslo mlyako which translated literally means sour milk. It is very good if you mix it with myooslee which is like sweet granola, and put some chopped up bananas in it! Also they have juice for every type of fruit here! Like cherry and apple and banana and cactus and pear and peach! It is so awesome! Banana juice is so good! I didn't think it would be possible to make banana juice but it is so good!
            We come to this little online gaming cafe thing to e-mail and everybody around us is playing world of warcraft. It is really lame because it would be so easy to just start playing all the games they have on the computers. Some missionaries do play the games, usually they are the ones near the end of their missions and we call them dying. I guess the mission is like a whole life. You are born into a city and your first trainer is your father. Then your life is the city where you spend most of your time on your mission. Then you die in the last city you are in before you go home. When you train someone they are your son, and you have grandsons and stuff. It is weird! So when older missionaries talk about another missionary sometimes they will say he is dead and that just means he has gone home. The goal is to not start dying before you actually die. My trainer has started to die with only 4 weeks left. He is already registered for college and has his travel itinerary for going home. CRAZY! He is a good guy though and I love him.
             Every Thursday and Saturday I teach the English class we hold at the church. There are 3 classes and I teach level 3 which means they are pretty much fluent. Last Thursday this crazy lady came and I guess she was baptized a long time ago but now she is going to a Catholic church. Sometimes she comes to our church and steals stuff out of the bathroom and kitchen! Anyway we got in an argument with her about our church and how we are not a sect. A lot of people here believe we are and it is kind of sad. They will believe anything crazy they hear about us!
           What else do I have to tell you.... get Karl to write me! I want to hear about band and stuff! I miss playing so much it is crazy! He will probably be better than me by the time I get home! Well I need to go and I have run out of stuff to say! LOVE you mom!!

1st letter from Bulgaria

Okay well, I am in a city called Plovdiv for my first transfer! I don't know our exact address but it is on Boulevard Bulgaria! I will have to find that out and let you know! My companion is Elder Walker and he hadsabout 4 weeks left in the mission, so he has started to die a little bit but we are still getting solid work hours in! I did not tract after I called you because there just wasn't enough time left! It was so crazy! I have been out a couple of times since then though. Mostly we survey people on the Glav (the main street) and that is pretty fun! I actually do understand about 85% of the words people say but I just need to put together the sentences they are saying faster! I like talking to little kids because they don't have a huge vocabulary! and they are fun to tease.
          Our new Mission President comes in this Friday and takes over on Saturday! He seems really cool though. Our church building, which is the only actual church building we have in Bulgaria, is on boulevard Mareetsa #138. I don't know if you will be able to find it! I have not actually taken out my camera yet so I will definitely do that tomorrow! I have seen so many stray dogs and cats, and a lot of Gypsy people taking things out of garbage cans and begging for money. We gave 37 Stoteenkee to a guy this morning. That’s about a quarter. Plovdiv has the biggest concentration of gypsies in the world they say! It’s so crazy! Also the food here is so good! I love Boneetsa and Keeslo Meelako which literarily means sour milk, but it is soooo good! I don't know how I lived without it before, and they have juice here that is sooooo good!
            We missed our flight from Frankfurt to Sofia because the air conditioning broke on our 747 when we were trying to take off from DC. It was soooo hot for 2 hours!! So half of the group flew to Vienna then to Sofia and the other half waited for 8 hours in Frankfurt then flew to Sofia! I got to go to Vienna! it was super awesome!
            I have an investigator whose name is Tony. She is so good! She asks questions about just about everything you can imagine! we were trying to  teach her about the restoration but she got it so fast and started asking questions about the plan of salvation, like about the pre earth life and after death, and she is actually reading the Book of Mormon. It is so weird that we only ever really teach people in the church and usually lessons are really really short, but our lessons with Tony are usually 2-3 hours! She asks so many questions! She also came to church this Sunday! She said she enjoyed it!  I’m so excited to teach her some more! Oh, she also is an English teacher so she speaks perfect English! :) In this cafe thing I am in, everybody is playing World of Warcraft. It is ridiculous!
            Well I think we are either going bowling or go-cart racing today! Maybe both, or chasing cats? We do that every day anyway though! Well I’m about out of time so I love you mom! Have an awesome week!

June 4th

Hey mom!
Yesterday was the craziest Sunday of my life! So, it was Fast Sunday as you know, and we have Sacrament Meeting at 8 am. At approximately 7:45 they asked me to be the District Leader for the rest of our stay here in the MTC! It’s pretty crazy! I get to pick up the mail now, and go to meetings and stuff! Then about 5 minutes later, they asked ME, out of about 1500 missionaries to say the opening prayer on Tuesday the 12th for the devotional! That is the one that is either an apostle or a member of the 70! Super cool, but I will not get to sing in the choir that week which is our last Tuesday here in the MTC so that sucks, but I will practice with them any way because I love singing.
          Also I don't know if I told you, but mail has a hard time making it to us while we are in Bulgaria, BUT our teachers have never had a problem getting and sending packages! They said that if you have to do a customs thing and declare how much it is worth you always just say about 80$ dollars. If it is more than that then it will get stopped and searched and then you have to pay over 200 dollars to get it through! Some things I want before I leave the MTC... spicy hot Cheeze Its! A chess set, flavored water packets, you know the ones you can dump into a water bottle? Thousands of those!
          Uhhh, it sounds like Karl is having a very good time with marching band! I met a guy who marched with the Blue Knights! He was really cool. I have met a lot of other people that were in marching band. Actually one of my roommates is a baritone player! He is kinda strange though. I have been wanting to play my trombone so bad! I want one of those p-bones! They are so cool!
           I’m so excited to go to Bulgaria! The food sounds amazing and so do the people! I don't remember if I told you but the zoos are crazy because nobody really cares so you can reach out and touch like the tigers and stuff! So crazy. Maren used to send me a dear elder every Sunday but I haven't heard from her in a little bit, but I wrote her again last week and I hope she writes back! I have heard from you and Dad and Kaitlin and Maren and Lisha and Sharolyn and Jensen.
          I’m pretty much the man around here now. I’m a beach volleyball champion that you would be proud of. We play against the Cantonese elders every gym period and it is so much fun! I wish we would have played more volleyball because I love it! We rock the Cantonese! :)
          There is a really big Tongan elder standing right next to me singing and he is soooooo good! Really cool. I’m struggling with finding things to say because my weeks have started to run together a little bit! It’s so crazy how fast time is flying! I’m going to write you my testimony in Bulgarian!

знам че книгата на мормон съдържа словото божие. знам че църктвата е истинна. аз вяра че можем жевот с небесен отец пак. ние сме негови деца. той обича вас. знам че джозеф смит е пророк на бог.

I don't know how well that will translate in Google translate, but you could try it! I may have spelled some things a little bit off! I will give you my translation!

I know that the Book of Mormon contains the word of God. I know the church is true. I believe that we may live with Heavenly Father again. We are his children. He loves us. I know that Joseph Smith  is a Prophet of God.

Well I need to go eat some lunch! I’ll let you go! I hope to hear from you soon! Your letters and everyone else’s are very welcome! Sorry I have not written back to your deal elders from last week but if you send more I will write back! :) I love you Mom and let everyone know the same for them! Especially Dad! He is THE MAN!

Love, Elder Petersen

Memorial Day

Mom!
The weeks go by so fast! We figured we only have 3 Sundays left! Then we will be headed to Bulgaria! (българия)! The computers here have a sweet program so I can change the keyboard to a Bulgarian keyboard! It is super fun to just play with! I am really excited to get a letter from Karl! Did they get the stamps I sent them? I want to hear all about marching band and stuff! Also I’m going to buy some more SD cards here so that will probably pop up on the debit card, just so you know. They are actually very cheap because we get like a 45% discount on everything in the book store and they give us 6 dollars every week on our access cards just for vending machines and buying stuff from the book store! This place is so amazing! Did you know it is one of the largest language facilities in the entire world? Super crazy!  Today we did not get to go to the Temple because of the holiday but in a way it was nice because I got to take a nap in the morning. I needed it!
          The work we have been doing is very mentally draining! Our teachers told us we are behind the other groups with actually speaking the language, but we are sooooo far ahead with the language rules! So once we actually get there we will learn quickly! Or that is the hope :) He told us a story and he said his companion had been out for a month, so he didn’t understand anything! He also told us that we won't feel fluent and comfortable until about 2 weeks before you come home! That is crazy! We should go on a trip back there because it is so amazing! And everything is really cheap! Also you can barter with everyone to buy anything! We should definitely go on a family trip back to Bulgaria and I will show you all the awesome places! :) Our teachers told us a story about a zoo in софия. (Sofia) apparently they don't really have fences or anything so you can pretty much touch the animals and they said it was really sketchy, but it sounds like it would be awesome! It is crazy to hear so many things about Bulgaria! They say they have the poorest people and some of the richest people in the world. There is not really a middle class, so they say we will see the nicest cars in the world there all the time, and little clunker junkers as well!
          You need to give Mark my e-mail address and tell him to write me! And, I want to know why I never heard ANYTHING about the MTC! I had to figure it out all by myself! But, I am pretty much a pro right now! I hope my Visa comes so that I don't have to wait in Virginia or something! But maybe they would send me to N.C. and Scott would train me! :) Wouldn't that be crazy? There is a place in Bulgaria called the river of rocks! You should look it up! It sounds really cool! I don't really know how to explain it so I won't even try.
           I have like 10 minutes left to type but I don't even know what to say! I’m getting a haircut tomorrow! That’s pretty exciting I guess... also tell people to send me mail! I didn't get any letters last week! Even if it is just a little dear elder! They come the same day and it is just nice to hear how people are doing :) I sent you some pictures today, they won't leave here until tomorrow but I have already put them in the mailbox! Well I gotta change my laundry and I can't think of anything else to say! If I do, I still have some time and I can write it later!  Anyway... I do have to go now. I love you Mom,have an awesome day! OH yeah we had elder Rasband, the President of the 70 come and talk to us! It was really very good!

Love, старейшина питърсън

Called to Serve

Elder Petersen & Elder (Devin) McOmber on the day Elder McOmber leaves the MTC for Samoa.
Wasn't it just yesterday that they were in my Webelos Den? They grow up way too fast! What great Missionaries they are gonna be.

LDS.org - New Era Article - Missionary Mail

Here is an article that I found about writing to a Missionary.

LDS.org - New Era Article - Missionary Mail