Email: December 12th

Dear family, friends, loved ones and random people!

How are you all doing? I received some pretty crazy emails filled with all kinds of news. Thanks for keeping me updated ya'll. Its so fun to read emails and be like, "What the heck??" Hahahaha. I love it. Im doing well over here in Varna, Bulgaria. Life has picked itself back up unlike the past 3-4 weeks for me here. Its hard, you know? We got transfer calls this past friday. I will be STAYING here in Varna and will be serving with, yes, Sister Pantigoso. She is one of my MTC groupies as well. She was born in Peru, lives in Switzerland and knows FOUR languages. Spanish, French, English and Bulgarian. Will she make me feel like crap when I serve with her? Probably. Will I have fun serving with her? Hopefully. Were kind of 2 different people. We'll see how it goes, I guess *shrugs*. Its sad to see Little Child head out to Sliven, a little town in the middle of no where, Bulgaria.

On that note, Sister Child and I went to ANOTHER doctor this past week for her back. This has been our third doctor we've seen about her back. We found out that she has bone spurs in her back and they are pinching her nerves. not good. We think shes going to need serious medical attention for this (Physical therapy, a chiropractor, lots of running/swimming). She was really upset when she found out. She tried to hold back the tears but as we were making our way from the doctors office to the church she just bawled to me. We will find out soon whats going to happen. Mission Doctors from Ukraine and Russia will give us news soon. Im not sure if she will stay on the mission if she needs help right now before anything else gets serious. :/ The mission can really wring you around. For sure.

Diana is leaving for Spain tomorrow. Im not sure how I feel about it but whatever. Child and I have been playing mom a lot with her. She had no way of getting to Sofia to catch her plane and then she told us she had no way to get from Barcelona to Escala where she will be working. Those 2 cities in Spain are a good 3 hours apart. She kept calling and calling for us to help her. It was draining. The members here REALLY use the missionaries as a crutch. The missionaries are super heros! They have powers to get anything done! HAHAHA. NO! If you are abusing a missionary in your area and having them do your calling or making them get stuff done for the baptism or not even helping them with anything they are in need of? STOP IT AND DO IT YOURSELF. I HATE WHEN MEMBERS ABUSE THE MISSIONARIES. Its really not cool. GAH. Sorry, end of my little rant... Anyway, we got ahold of Pantigoso who has family in spain and they will be picking up Diana and getting her to where she needs to go. Thank goodness for contacts.

Diana took us to this Dolphin Show and the Varna Zoo on saturday. The dolphin show was epic. Ive never been to SeaWorld and if I have I dont remember but it was so FUN! I couldnt understand a lot of the bulgarian but the dolphins were so fun and now I have a goal to swim with dolphins sometime in my life time lol. The zoo was so sad. The animals had nothing in their poorly made cages and looked very ragged. None of them were happy. The bear wasnt in hibernation. He was so nervous and anxious that he just walked back and forth. It was sad. We saw the tiger....thats missing his one of his paws. He limped around and I just wanted someone to shoot him out of his misery. He put his face up to the cage while we stood there and he had this look like, "Please just kill me...please?" I wanted to help him out but...ugh. It hurt my heart for sure.

I taught primary yesterday for the whole 2 blocks. This time Im dealing with kids who range from 9-12 so I needed to have a lesson and some singing and what not. I taught them some christmas songs because they dont know any christmas songs here in Bulgaria. I gave them a lesson on prophets and why we need them. I showed them pictures and asked to know all about Joseph Smith. Before I could even ask some of the questions the kids were answering and dang gina, they KNOW their gospel. I was so proud and I really enjoyed being with them. Child came second hour to take over so I could go to RS but I told her I wanted to stay with the kids. Lol. At the end we played hang man and it was real fun. We sang, said a closing prayer and the kids taught me how to folk dance HAHA. As the kids were leaving primary, I was talking to Elder Patterson and one of the kids passes us and says to Patterson, "Shes really cool! *points to Kinkead*" LOL. It made my day. They were very patient with my bulgarian and would gently correct me. LOVED IT.

We went over to Gabbys house this past week. Gabby is an investigator that the elders are teaching. I think I may have mentioned her? Gabby is in her late 40s and really cool. Her and I really clicked even though she knows no english. I only seem to click with people who can speak english but Gabby and I have so much fun together. I asked her if we could come over. have some tea and talk like little girls. She LOVED IT. She had us come over, had tea, fruit, bread and some bulgarian desserrt. Oooh she loved it. We laughed and talked for a good hour or so. The elders came over and they were worried because Gabby was so happy that she looked drunk. Hahahaha. Gabby says she wants to skype with me when I go home. I love her.

Yesterday I read a great talk from Elder Uchtdorf called, "Pride and the Priesthood" I love that talk. Its powerful and it has a lot of stuff in it that really stuck out to me. Read it if you can. Its good for anyone. Its a lot about how we compare ourselves and beat ourselves up when REALLY we just need to serve others and discover our OWN talents and self worth. Its helped me a lot with my feelings towards bulgarian. Go read it. www.lds.org

Well thats about it! 13 days and then we are SKYPING IT UP. I guess if anyone wants to see me they can head over to my moms house? Not really sure what the christmas plans are for everyone but yaaaa.I love you!!!!

-Sister Kinkead