Bumpy road of visas

Well, I am excited to say that this past week was much better in regards to language and I really appreciate all the prayers.  I was able to get back into the swing of language Wed. and had no trouble in class following along and understanding what was being said.  Again, I praise God for this!!! 
The only down part about the week was our visas.  Man, it is hard to get visas into this country!  You would think a country with a negative population growth would be encouraging people to live here, but it seems very much the opposite.  Or, they just make you work for it to make sure you really want to live here.  When we went to pick up our visas on Tues. they gave us a paper indicating we had not turned in a background check. Well, after three days of runnning around Sofia getting the background check translated again, and turning it back in, we now wait to see if they will accept it.  If not, we will have to spend hundreds of dollars to get an FBI background check that can take up to six weeks.  Did I mention that our current visas expire on Monday?  You would think we would be stressed and worried about the outcome, but we really aren't.  We did all we could, so now we just have to wait and pray!  I know that God has this and that all of this is no surprise to Him.  Through all of this we were able to establish a friendship with our translator.  He is a college student studying linguistics, and we really enjoyed getting to know him.
Apparently most of the people in Sofia go on vacation during the month of August, so we planned a little family trip of our own out of the city next week.  Our teammates are loaning us their car and we are going to drive to Bansko. It is a little town about 2 1/2 hours southeast of Sofia.  We are going to stop at Rila monastery along the way and just take our time to see what else we find.  We are really looking forward to it though.  This will be our first big trip out by ourselves, with just our limited language knowledge to help us.  Bansko is in the mountains so we are also planning on doing some hiking.  We also found out that the hotel will arrange outings for you, from horseback riding to white water rafting.  I can't decide which one I want to do more, but I have a feeling Steven would not be up for taking the entire family white water rafting.   I'll post pics when we get back.