Where to start....
Well first off I am writing to you from inside the church on a TV that we hooked a keyboard and a mouse up to. We start p-day at 8 a.m.. We can finishing shopping in about 30 min. which leaves us with an hour and half of free time that we don't know what to do with. The library opens at 10 and almost nothing in Russia is open before that besides flower shops (which are open 24/7 for absolutely no reason) and grocery stores. So we decided that we would just go right to the church. lt is a lot better idea, we should have been doing this before. For one it's free and secondly we always have to come here anyways afterwards to send pictures (....I guess not always, sorry mom...). So here we go.
For some reason we have been meeting so many "interesting" people lately. I was starting to think that everybody in the city was nuts until Sister Kaprolava who is a native Russian said that before her mission she thought everybody in Russia was normal. I guess back home I didn't go on the streets everyday trying to find someone, anyone who would listen to me. For example we met this man on the streets who seemed really cool. We were busy at the time he wanted to meet, so the sisters met with him but we came in on the end of the lesson. He claimed that he is the Holy Ghost and that in some of us were reptile people and then he proceeded to cast them out of us. I probably should have thanked him for his service. He came again on Sunday and wouldn't you believe it that the Sunday School lesson was on the Holy Ghost hahahaha!! I'm not sure but that has to be ironic.
Also we have been meeting so many good, sincere, cool people! For example we met S 2-3 weeks ago at a chess club, he speaks English. When I first met him we played chess, I ended up losing but not doing too bad. Turns out that he is a chess teacher and was just letting me do alright not to crush my feelings haha. We went over to his place today to teach him about the plan of salvation. He had been keeping his commitment though of reading the Book of Mormon and had so many questions about that that we didn't even have any time to teach him about the plan of salvation. He is smart and asks good questions. It's cool he will ask a question for example about polygamy or some other things that seem strange to those who are not members of our church, then he will attentively listen to our answer and understand and accept it and then move on to the next question. And as a bonus after every lesson he teaches us something cool about chess! This time he had me and Elder Lawrence play each other in chess and he would make comments on our moves whether they were weak or strong and what we could have done that would have been better. I made a lot of dumb moves but somehow came off the victor. He didn't make it easy though, I had to kill all his pieces before it was over.
We finally bought a USB adapter that hooks up to our TV and ever since that we have been watching Bible videos and listening to talks every night. It is actually really really nice but crazy how much faster the time seems to fly. Also last Monday we went bowling with the sisters. We ended up playing 3 games. The first I was rusty and was mediocre, the second I was on fire but ended bad and the third game I shouldn't of even played - it was awful! Also something fun the branch put on production where families in the church dress up and act out parables. We as a district had the parable of the ungrateful servant, I'll try to send some pictures it was really fun!
My beloved Alaskas (my boots) are ruined. They are full of holes and have some paint on them from when we painted the Book of Mormon ice sculpture. I am going to buy new shoes today hopefully for a good price at the market. It is starting to warm up so I won't buy more boots. I want a dress shoe that I can zip up so that I don't have to tie them. We finished the challenge of sewing 35 blankets! They are now all packed up and ready for delivery. Nikolai came and helped twice before his trip to the north of Sakhalin to see his family. He is going to be gone a month. Transfers are this Thursday and I think I might be leaving so that might be the last time I see him in a long time. But hey there is always Facebook!
The Argyles had us over for lunch yesterday, we had BACON!!!! If I leave I am going to deeply miss this place.
Love,
Elder WildingWell first off I am writing to you from inside the church on a TV that we hooked a keyboard and a mouse up to. We start p-day at 8 a.m.. We can finishing shopping in about 30 min. which leaves us with an hour and half of free time that we don't know what to do with. The library opens at 10 and almost nothing in Russia is open before that besides flower shops (which are open 24/7 for absolutely no reason) and grocery stores. So we decided that we would just go right to the church. lt is a lot better idea, we should have been doing this before. For one it's free and secondly we always have to come here anyways afterwards to send pictures (....I guess not always, sorry mom...). So here we go.
For some reason we have been meeting so many "interesting" people lately. I was starting to think that everybody in the city was nuts until Sister Kaprolava who is a native Russian said that before her mission she thought everybody in Russia was normal. I guess back home I didn't go on the streets everyday trying to find someone, anyone who would listen to me. For example we met this man on the streets who seemed really cool. We were busy at the time he wanted to meet, so the sisters met with him but we came in on the end of the lesson. He claimed that he is the Holy Ghost and that in some of us were reptile people and then he proceeded to cast them out of us. I probably should have thanked him for his service. He came again on Sunday and wouldn't you believe it that the Sunday School lesson was on the Holy Ghost hahahaha!! I'm not sure but that has to be ironic.
Also we have been meeting so many good, sincere, cool people! For example we met S 2-3 weeks ago at a chess club, he speaks English. When I first met him we played chess, I ended up losing but not doing too bad. Turns out that he is a chess teacher and was just letting me do alright not to crush my feelings haha. We went over to his place today to teach him about the plan of salvation. He had been keeping his commitment though of reading the Book of Mormon and had so many questions about that that we didn't even have any time to teach him about the plan of salvation. He is smart and asks good questions. It's cool he will ask a question for example about polygamy or some other things that seem strange to those who are not members of our church, then he will attentively listen to our answer and understand and accept it and then move on to the next question. And as a bonus after every lesson he teaches us something cool about chess! This time he had me and Elder Lawrence play each other in chess and he would make comments on our moves whether they were weak or strong and what we could have done that would have been better. I made a lot of dumb moves but somehow came off the victor. He didn't make it easy though, I had to kill all his pieces before it was over.
We finally bought a USB adapter that hooks up to our TV and ever since that we have been watching Bible videos and listening to talks every night. It is actually really really nice but crazy how much faster the time seems to fly. Also last Monday we went bowling with the sisters. We ended up playing 3 games. The first I was rusty and was mediocre, the second I was on fire but ended bad and the third game I shouldn't of even played - it was awful! Also something fun the branch put on production where families in the church dress up and act out parables. We as a district had the parable of the ungrateful servant, I'll try to send some pictures it was really fun!
My beloved Alaskas (my boots) are ruined. They are full of holes and have some paint on them from when we painted the Book of Mormon ice sculpture. I am going to buy new shoes today hopefully for a good price at the market. It is starting to warm up so I won't buy more boots. I want a dress shoe that I can zip up so that I don't have to tie them. We finished the challenge of sewing 35 blankets! They are now all packed up and ready for delivery. Nikolai came and helped twice before his trip to the north of Sakhalin to see his family. He is going to be gone a month. Transfers are this Thursday and I think I might be leaving so that might be the last time I see him in a long time. But hey there is always Facebook!
The Argyles had us over for lunch yesterday, we had BACON!!!! If I leave I am going to deeply miss this place.
Love,
Completed Blankets
Cool Russian Bible
My Alaskas (boots)
Cool Russian
Car on a roof
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| Horses
*Moms' Note: I am adding a little excerpt from his former companion Elder King's email because it will be of interest to some of you:
The top 10 most common words in Russian:
1) и -- particle, it means "and" in most cases. Can also be used for emphasis
2) в (во) -- "in" or "into" (preposition)
3) не -- "not"
4) на -- "on" or "onto" (preposition)
5) я -- "I"
6) он -- "he"
7) что -- "what"
8) с (со) -- "with" or "from/off" (preposition)
9) это -- "this, that, it"
10) быть -- to be (verb)
I'm not going to explain cases. I don't want to open that can of worms.
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