Dear Family and Friends,
We've had another busy week filled with all kinds of new adventures. Monday is our P-day and as a district we all went to lunch at Barack Omama's. It's a restaurant with American food. We had fajitas, hamburgers, fries, pasta, pork chops, salads and coke with ice. What a treat! The Russian food isn't bad here, but it's nice to have American food once in a while. After lunch we did some site seeing through the center of town. We started at Lenin Square, which has a big statue of Lenin, a huge Christmas Tree and a big outdoor ice skating rink. It's all very beautiful in the snow and still everything is all decorated for Christmas. Then we went to a gorgeous Orthodox Church (I don't know the name - everything is written in Russian, which I can't read yet). We took pictures of the outside, but inside no pictures are allowed. The men have to uncover their heads and the women have to cover theirs. The pictures, walls, ceilings, floors and architecture are exquisite. I'm just amazed at how beautiful the buildings are here. I love looking at everything. Even the old run-down buildings you can tell were once very ornate and beautiful. We then had our first FHE at the Branch with the new members and investigators. We had a lesson and played games that were very fun - even in Russian. We understood enough to sort of keep up. Everyone is so friendly and kind and patient with our not understanding anything.
Tuesday was our first experience teaching a discussion with an investigator. Norm and I both helped teach and bear our testimonies (in English). Luckily our investigator also speaks English. It was a great experience for me. Of course Norm has taught missionary discussions before, but it was a first for me and actually I was quite nervous. But it all turned out great and our investigator - Natalya - loves us. So we couldn't do much wrong. That night one of the Branch members, Marina and her daughter Natasha, came to our house and taught us how to make borscht. It's a vegetable soup that has grated beets added to it so it looks like red soup. We were a little hesitant at first, but when we ate it, it was delicious. We loved it! I had heard lots of rumors about beet soup but this one was really good. Later that night while I was checking facebook, we had our first skype session what Shaleen and the kids. Wow! How fun is that?! It is so fun to see everyone while you're talking to them. Love this skype thing!
Wednesday we got to skype with Lanae for her birthday. To our surprise, Kaia, Kylin, Pete, Kira and Kaleigh were also there. It felt like my birthday present instead of hers. As much as I struggle with computers, I love this aspect of it. Happy Birthday to my Lanae!
Thursday we spent the day with our interpreter, Irina. She's back from her vacation and ready for work. She ordered our computer lines with wifi - Yeah! We get that installed tomorrow and then we will have two computers to work from instead of just one. (It's hard to share). Then we planned our strategy for our projects (sounds serious). We have one project that the Lowrys left for us to close, which will be on Tuesday. I'll let you know how that goes next week. We've never done one so thankfully we have Irina to show us how. We have another project that she is going to help us try to start and then we have a wheel-chair project that we need to get going on in Moscow. So it looks like the humanitarian work is going to start now. Most of that work is done on the computer and that scares me because I don't know how to do that part, but eventually we'll learn it.
Friday we had our District meeting and we're going to start a Branch 40-day fast. The missionaries are really excited about this to help with referrals and also have the members help to reactivate inactive members. Our Voronezh Branch has the most members, the largest attendance of any Branch in Russia, and the most baptisms for 2010. We want to increase the membership here and keep things progressing. This is a wonderful Branch and the members are great at volunteering to go out with missionaries and helping to fellowship the new members. We are learning so much and love watching this young Branch flourish. We had another lesson with our investigator, Natalya, and she committed to be baptized. It was amazing. After putting off the missionaries for about 6 months, she all of a sudden said, "OK, I want to be baptized." It was hard to keep myself from "whooping" when she said that. But there were lots of hugs to go around. English Club that night was a lot of fun. We played "catch phrase" where they have to describe a word, without saying the word, and everyone has to guess the word. That was pretty hard with some of the words, but it was a great learning game for them. They really enjoyed it and asked to do it again. (Success!) After English Club we have a Gospel English reading class. Everyone takes turn reading from the Gospel Essentials book in English and then I get to explain what they are reading. Wow! I didn't realize I had to be a Sunday School teacher too. I just hope that I'm not teaching false doctrine. I'm not really an expert at teaching Gospel Principles so I'm going to enlist some help from the other missionaries next time. While I'm doing that, they are all in the gym playing volleyball. I think I'd rather do that. Oh well, I'm here to learn, right? I made my homemade salsa and guacamole for everyone to try that night. The Russian people don't really like spicy food so we didn't know if it would go over very well, but - THEY LOVED IT! I had to start writing down the recipe for everyone. Another new experience - Mexican Food at English club in Russia! What next?
We're getting so much better at getting ourselves around. Yesterday we went back to Lenin square, all by ourselves, and walked around the town for a few hours looking at the shops and buildings and outdoor markets (renuks) in the freezing and the snow. I figure if the people can work out in this kind of weather, we can walk around in it. We got ourselves back without getting lost and had a fun day.
I think I am the designated piano player for
Sacrament and Choir because I've done it every week since we've been here. But I don't mind, it's easy and fun (and I don't have to sing in Russian). The Branch Presidents wife invited us over for dinner next week, which will be great except that they don't speak English. The other missionaries will be with us, so it will be fine and very fun to get to know them. They are a young couple with no kids. He is a great Branch President and she is very cute and very well liked in the Branch. It's feeling more and more like home. Well, that's not really true, but we are adjusting better each week.
We do love you all. We love hearing from you and thank you always for your love and support. Have a wonderful week.
Love,
Elder and Sister Frost
Oh Michelle, I am totally loving these posts! You can really start to feel the spirit of your mission in your writing! I don't want to dispel all the good spirit, but I am anxious to hear nuts & bolts... what food do you eat, do you cook it yourself? What are you going to do about haircuts? Have you been warm enough? Did you buy things to decorate your apt. at a local store? Do you need space heaters? elec. blankets? or are things a little more primitive?
ReplyDeleteWhat is your schedule on a regular day? or IS there a regular day yet? Just wondering.. We think we'll put in papers in May to leave Mid-July! Keep up the great posts... still waiting for the photos... love you guys.. Diedra