February 22, 2011

Halfway to Russia!

Hello! Happy P-Day! This has been such an amazing week! Really. Being a missionary is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I can't remember being happier, which is saying a lot.

So, I guess the week since you last heard from me started with a GREAT devotional. If you are ever in the MTC (Matt...and anyone else I guess), take advantage of the devotionals and firesides. This week we had Elder Pearson from the 70 come talk to us. He spoke a lot about truly becoming a missionary--and not just a missionary, but a full disciple of Christ.  It was so great and definitely changed my outlook. It's not that any of us here are doing bad; we're all striving to do our best. But we need to be doing better than our best. This week I've been trying to fully focus on the Lord's work and Russian, and it has made so much of a different. The devotional really just changed something inside of me, and in our entire district.

Russian is really coming. It's amazing how much we know already. I still fill in German words when I don't know a Russian one, but I think of Russian first now. I love singing the hymns in Russian. We're so much better than we were six weeks ago. On top of that, we've taught multiple first lessons all in Russian now. In the TRC, when it was our first official one, oh my goodness. It was a lot harder to teach to their needs, but we were teaching 2 really fun girls who had been mission companions in Samara. One of them even asked a question that I was able to understand and answer that was pretty complicated! It was super exciting. The best part was the Spirit--it's great how it doesn't matter what language you're speaking, the Spirit will always testify of truth. When we're praying we always say it doesn't matter if you get everything perfect, because God speaks "I'm learning Russian" and he's fluent in both that and actual Russian. It's the same with the Holy Ghost. The Gift of Tongues (Darom Izickov) is truly real, and is really blessing our lives. In addition, we Russian-ified our names for our Russian tags this week. When we get them I'll take a picture and show you, even though we're not supposed to wear them until we leave. I guess people in the MTC still want to be able to read our names or something. Apparently not everyone speaks Russian?!

After the older district left we went and stole all their nice desks, so now we are much more comfortable when we're in class. It's the circle of life. We're the older ones now--all our new missionaries come tomorrow. There are 22 of them, but only 3 sisters (one of whom is Ukranian speaking and was in my BYU ward!). There are a lot of internationals though. One of them from France is already here, but since he doesn't have a tag yet, no one can remember his name. Oopa (That means oops in Russian). We also got new District and Zone leaders. Our ZLs are in the district next door, and since our entire zone is pretty close we love them. Ct. Homer (one of the ZLs) and I always salute each other, now that he's ZL. Anyway. Yep. We are halfway done. Saturday was the exact halfway mark between when I came in and our estimated departure date. And tomorrow I'll have been here 6 weeks! Crazy. I can't believe it. Really, even though the days are long, looking back it doesn't seem like that long at all.

This week has also been a week of seeing people. Thursday I ran into a good friend from my BYU ward from Spring and Summer, Kyle Borcik. He was originally supposed to get here the week before me, but ended up serving a transfer in Florida before he came to the MTC to learn Spanish (he's off to Mexico). It was so great to see him. He came up to me at lunch and we talked for a while and we see each other at meals all the time. In addition, on Friday or Saturday, I really can't remember, we were having MDT in the middle of the day and Cectpa Clark and I had to run back to the room to grab something. On the way back to our classroom, lo and behold I saw my friend Jordan Holmes walking into the TRC with his girlfriend. He had just flown into town--I hadnt' seen him since August. It was great to see him, and tell him to tell all my roommates hi. But yes. I love randomly running into people I know while being here.

Our teachers are still great. This Saturday was Bpat Storey's last class with us--he's going to teach one of the new districts this week and will be with them. That was kind of sad, but since we're all in the same hall, it's not like we won't see him around. Also, two Italian districts have invaded our floor. Weird. Tolka pa-Ruski v korridoria! ([speak] Only Russian in the hall!) But alas, now we have Italianos who are throwing things off. Maybe I'll pick some stuff up to teach Mike though. You can tell him that Elder in Italian is Anziano.

Sunday was great, as always. Really, Tuesdays are favorite because of P-Day and letter writing and laundry and the devotional and our devo reviews, but Sundays are not far behind. Seriously, they're so great. Ct. McKinney from our district gave a great talk in Russian. Luckily I didn't have to this week, but there's a 1/3 chance that I will eventually while I'm here so I'll keep you updated. During the temple walk, the 4 of us sisters in my district, plus 2 others in our zone all had scarves, so we spent the entire time with our scarves wrapped around our heads, pretending to be Babooshki (emphasis on the first syllable, not the second like Amerikanskis usually say it), and taking pictures. I didnt' have my camera, but I've been promised copies, so I'll send a few out when I get them. They're great, and it was sooo much fun. I love the Sisters I'm serving with. Cectpa Clark and I taught the district meeting, which went really well. We talked about our calls as missionaries--talked about what it was like to receive our calls, to be set apart, what our responsibilities are and what blessings we've noticed just in the first 6 weeks. It's amazing. The Lord truly does bless his servants. The 7 months that have gone by since I started my papers have been the happiest of my life, and even more so the 6 weeks I've been a missionary. Not that they haven't been hard, but...wow. In addition, the call letter says that you will be blessed with increased knowledge and testimony of the Restoration and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is so true. I've always known this is the true Gospel, but the sheer importance, reality, and drive behind the Restoration and the Book of Mormon has really clicked for me since I've been here. Not that my testimony was weak before, but in the past 6 weeks, it has grown tremendously. Sometimes I look back and wonder how I ever knew anything before. Of course, my testimony is starting to be Russian now. Soon, my testimony will be all Russian.

The fireside on Sunday was also epic. It was lead by President and Sister Nally and we just sang hymns the entire time. We ended by actually having a basic choir arrangement of Called to Serve. That song always gets me as a missionary, singing it with 2000 other missionaries. We truly are the Lord's army. We ended it by singing the Army of Helaman. Also wonderful. I just love singing so much, as you all know, and this fireside....AHHHHH. So great. Called to Serve, Army of Helaman. There's nothing quite like it. I wish everyone could have seen and heard the Lord's army standing and singing those two songs.

Anyway, my time is almost all out. But everything here is going so well. I love it and have never been happier. Please keep sending mail. If you haven't sent the package yet, please do, and if you have, I'm sorry for bugging you about it (there wasn't any mail yesterday because of President's Day). Anyway, Love you all. Be safe. learn Russian. Serve missions. Read the Book of Mormon (Kaneega Marmona)

Love,

Cectpa Rachel

February 15, 2011

AHHHHHH! ARGENTINA!!!!! That's not what I was expecting at all! It's not quite as cool as Russia, but I suppose Espanski (Russian for Spanish) is pretty cool, and I'm soooo excited for Matt! Seriously, a mission is the best thing ever. I'm hoping to run into some missionaries going to Argentina, maybe even Mendoza, so that I can tell them about my awesome brother who's going there too. I even hung out in an uber-crowded mailroom to read my letter, since we're not supposed to read them in class. And yeah, I cried. It's just that awesome. It's where he's supposed to be and he will love it and it will be amazing!

Um. So yeah. This week has been crazy, but what's new. Tuesday night we had maybe the best District Devotional Review ever. I don't know how to describe it. These wonderful missionaries that I'm serving with have truly become family, and they will work miracles in Russia and Ukraine.

The TRC last week was kind of an epic failure, at least for me. But we had fun failing and laughed a lot during the Russian task. This week I actually feel surprisingly confident for it tomorrow, even though it's time to TEACH THE FIRST LESSON IN RUSSIAN! AH!!!! But really, it will all go okay. We know a lot more than we think we do, and I feel like we've all been growing a lot faster with the language over the past few weeks. Which is a good thing, seeing how we have to teach tomorrow. And also, starting this past Sunday, all of our talks in Sacrament meeting are supposed to be in Russian. Luckily, none of us "new" missionaries had to give our talks this week (we have to write one every week and then they randomly call on us), but next week it's a sure thing. It's pretty scary. I'm fine with it in English, but Russian....man. It's tough. I've got it lucky though. Russian is tough and there are some days I get frustrated, but for the most part, it's a lot easier than I thought it would be and I'm picking it up really well. I'm getting it a lot faster than other people in the district. I am so blessed. I have my struggles, but the language isn't really a major one, which is really nice. And, despite what Matt thinks, it'll be super useful later on. Apparently Russian is like the 3rd most wanted language for the CIA. I could go really be a Russian Hitman and make bank.

The really crazy thing about this week was that on Wednesday Ct. Clawson when home to American Fork to get shoulder surgery. He came back yesterday, but we all really missed him, and his arm has to be in a sling pretty much until we fly out. But we're super glad he's back. He's hilarious and is kind of the one who keeps us all going with his jokes and sayings and impersonations.

Some day this week there was a camera crew here filming a special about the MTC for inbetween conference sessions. They interviewed one of the natives in the cafeteria and also filmed a few minutes of our older district singing and in class. I don't think I'm in any camera shots, but if you want to you can look. You should watch it though--it'll probably be really awesome, plus, any Russian-speaking missionaries you see in it, I pretty much know them. Speaking of the older district, they're gone! Well, not all of them. Those going to Ykaterinberg don't leave for another hour, and those going to Dnipropetrovsk don't leave until tomorrow, but they'll all be gone by tomorrow. It's so crazy. We get new missionaries in a week, and then we're the people who know everything. Shto?!?!?! (What?!?!?!) But yeah, since they're leaving, that means that we're just about halfway through. AND they rearranged all our zone/district leadership. Cectpa Clark is senior companion now! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! Not that that means much, but it'll be great for her. She's pretty shy and I'm not, so it'll be an interesting role switch. Oh, we also got our new branch presidency member this past Sunday. It's Brother and Sister Cranny, who apparently just returned in July from serving as the mission presidency in . . . MOSCOW! I'm super excited. They seem great, and I'm stoked to hear more about Moscow and it's going to be wonderful. One last note about Sunday/Russian that I think is really cool. In Russian, Sunday is Vos-kre-cyen-ye, or Resurrection Day. Isn't that cool?!

Hey! Good news! I'm going to fit right in with Russia culture! Apparently they cannot physically eat a meal without bread in one hand! True facts. Bpat Savage said he had a companion who would get sick if they didn't have any bread and was physically unable to eat anything without bread. haha. I'm super excited. I love bread. Also, literature. Check check. Also, due to some Grasshopper cookies sent to me by Sarah Snow, Cectpa Bullough and I introduced our district to the concept of TimTam slams at dinner one night. That was fabulous. I love grasshoppers.

I got to practice some Deutsch this week. I'll often speak a little when I run into the German missionaries, but this week Ct. Whittemore wanted to hear Ct. Rodriguez-Vargas and me speak some German together, so we talked auf Deutsch for like 20 minutes. My German is sooooo horrible now, and I kept saying "ee" and "da" instead of "und" and "ja." Which I suppose is a good thing. But then it threw me off and I wanted to start saying German words in Russian conversations! Oh well. Soon I'll get to the point where I can separate my languages more fully (it's getting better) and then I can come back and study more German and continue studying Russian and then I'll be trilingual and then I'll meet Pres. Uchtdorf and speak to him in all 3 languages. Yes. But it was really cool. Ct. Rodriguez said that my Deutsch is better than most missionaries when they get out to the field. I'm not sure whether that means that I'm pretty good (despite my horrible vocab and grammar skills), or whether that means that the missionaries going out to the field are really bad at speaking German. For everyone's sakes, I hope it's the first, but who knows.

Happy Valentine's Day! It was pretty interesting, being here for Valentine's. Ct. Woodruff's family sent us all little goodies, so we had balloons in our classroom and blew bubbles all day. Cectpa Peterson gave us all candy, and Ct. Clawson's mom sent each companionship brownies. So we definitely felt love. And there were definitely like a bajillion more packages received than usual yesterday. It was a pretty great day, all-in-all. Besides, finding out about Matt's mission call was the best thing ever. Even if that was the only good thing that had happened yesterday, it would have made it the best Valentine's Day ever. :)

Well, that's about it. I'm almost out of time, so I need to go, but I love you all!

Love,

Cectpa Rachel

February 8, 2011

The Life and Times of a Missionary:  Volume 4

AHHHH MATT'S MISSION CALL IS AT THE HOUSE?! HE HAS GOT TO OPEN IT RIGHT NOW! AHHHHH! I AM GOING CRAZY! He's gotta come Russian speaking. It's really funny how excited my entire district is for it. I was freaking out yesterday since I thought the letter telling me about it was coming, and so everyone was freaking out, but the USPS let me down. Oh well. Also, yes! Rebecca was right--Cectpa Clark is Mr. Howard's niece. She's awesome. And HAPPY  BIRTHDAY ELIZABETH! Thanks for your letter--how did you fix Fred? And have fun on your first date. Also, Elizabeth: get onto my school email. In my inbox should be a message from my mission. Open the attachment and print it out and send it to me, kay? There's an Elder in my district going to Moscow with me who didn't get it and we'd all like to have a copy just for reference. And I am really wishing I had more knit shirts, because button-up ones are great, but...yeah. So if you could send me my gold shirt and then the blue-ish-gold-ish flowery one, that'd be great. Also maybe a pair of jeans, because we can wear them here. I'll probably be sending some stuff home before I leave for Russia, but it'd be really nice to have it while here! OH! Also, if you could go through my music bag that I left out by the piano and send me at least my sheet music for "Savior, Redeemer of my Soul," "My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee," and "Clair de Lune" and maybe some other churchy/classical stuff that'd be great. They've asked us not to listen to music here, but we can play piano and do other things whenever we have free time during meals or on P-Day or Sunday, so it'd be really nice to have.

Highlights from the week. It's a good thing I write everything down on a sticky note, or else I wouldn't be able to remember anything. All the days run together and are so long; sometimes the only reason I know something happened that morning is because I'm wearing the same clothes. But the weeks are just flying by. It seems like it was just P-Day. And next week our older district will be gone, and us three "new" districts will be the older districts when the new Ruskis come in the week after that! Crazy! We feel like we don't know anything. But then I realize that we're trying to cram 2 years of a college language education into 11 weeks of classes and don't feel so bad. But a week from tomorrow we have to teach a 35- minute Restoration lesson all in Russian. AHHHHH. Um. I don't know how that will happen. Lots of prayer and help from the Lord. But really, we're all being really blessed. We've taught for about 10 minutes in really broken Russian to each other in class before, so...yeah. Mostly it's just memorizing vocab for me. I just don't have the words to say what I want to say. But this week I learned that President Uchtdorf's second language was Russian. I thought that man couldn't get any cooler. But he learned Russian and then thought it was impossible to learn English, so...it gives us all hope. Plus, now when I finally meet him (because I will, because he's my favorite) I'll be able to have a conversation with him in 3 different languages! But really. This week I feel like I've learned so much Russian. It's crazy. I'm so much better than I was this time last week. Lots of it was that Saturday was changed, and is now forever changed, to Sata-Ruski. We're only allowed to speak Russian all day. Okay, so we actually spoke quite a bit of English, but just trying to force yourself to speak and remember and be in that mindset all day helps you learn so much. Immersion really is the best way to learn a language. And really, Sataruski was a lot of fun, even if it was frustrating at times.

Cectpa Bullough (who was Michele Porter's roommate at BYU-I, yeah, small world) calls me the "scarf queen." Haha. I guess I do wear them a lot. I'm wearing one right now. Wednesday we were getting ready to teach people and Brat Savage sat on a little metal tv shelf and broke it! Luckily he caught the tv behind his back, but it was hilarious. Best thing that happened all day that day. This is going to sound pretty arrogant and selfish, but one of my favorite things about Cectpa Clark is that she thinks I'm funny. It's great. We laugh a lot together, which is really important. :) Our whole district actually laughs so much all the time. Sometimes we feel like 10-year-old boys, but it really is hilarious and it is super important to find at least one thing to laugh really hard about every day as a missionary. Another really funny moment was when C. Johnson, our Elder from Georgia, was pretending to be an investigator couple with his companion. I guess he got to be the wife and we asked him what his name was because Cectra Clark and I were teaching him and he said, in a high southern drawl, "Menya zavut Nan-cy." Hilarious. You'd have to hear it. But C. Clawson was laughing so hard he was crying. Great. :)

The other day I wasn't feeling well around gym time and it was also right after lunch, so I pulled out Jesus the Christ to read. It was so great. I felt like I was reading some lit crit while the other kids were at recess. Sound familiar? ;) AND our workshop yesterday we talked about getting people to read the BoM AND Russian literature in one class. So awesome. I felt kind of like my old self again, but in a good way. Not in a returning-to-Babylon way. Also, pretty sure one of the reasons I got called to Russia is beacuse of the literature connection/history there. Yeah. But Friday nights are always fun. Bpat Savage has "Story Night" and we look forward to it all week. It's great, and hilarious. Also, Ctareyshena Clawson gave us all bird names this week. I'm apparently a kiwi bird. Although he started with peacock and then moved to penguin and then finally decided on kiwi, so I'm not sure how accurate that is. Also, it was my half birthday this past whenever it was. Friday? No, it was Sataruski. Which doesn't really mean anything, but I thought it was crazy that it's been 6 months since my birthday. Really...wow. Doesn't seem like that long ago at all.

Sunday like always was great, although we starved. You see, we eat dinner at 4:30 every day except Sunday. When we have dinner at 5:45. And it was fast Sunday. So we had over a 24-hour fast. The MTC food has never tasted so good. But we also had mission conference, which was awesome. We heard some great talks and then went to Sacrament meeting. President and Sister Nally from the MTC Presidency were there, which was cool because we got to meet them. AND THEY'RE FROM TWIN! Well, not from-from Twin, but they lived there years and years ago for a while. He served in a bishopbric with the Dodds's grandpa. So that was fun. On a sadder note, one of the counselors in our branch presidency got released. We'll miss them a lot--it's amazing how quickly people can become like family.

On a last note, last night we watched a talk by Elder Holland from an MTC devotional like 10 years ago. It's AMAZING! If there's anyway that everyone reading this can get their hands on it, do. It might be kinda tricky to hunt down, but try, especially Matt. It's called "the Miracle of a Mission." Super awesome. Please please please watch it.

Anyway. Time's about out. I'm heading over to the bookstore to buy a tape recorder so I'll probably send you guys one sometime soon. But yep! Love you all! Write me on DearElder or snail mail me. It's so great to get letters. Yes yes yes. And food. We're always starving at night since we eat so freaking early.

Love,

Cectpa Rachel

February 1, 2011

Okay, well. Hi. Thanks for all your letters. :) It was really exciting to get the notes from Danny, Mike, and Leah. Tell them to look for something in the mailbox sometime soon. I don't think you should go to Disneyland for spring break. I think Dad is anti-Disneyland because I'm not there. ;) Also, they've (our branch presidency) asked us not to listen to music while here at the MTC, so that's the music situation. And for pictures, I don't have a computer to download them to. When I want to, I go to the bookstore here at the MTC and print some, and I've decided that when I get prints to send out to people/to keep, I'm just going to get an archival CD that I'll probably send home. I'm not sure what I'll do for pictures when I'm actually in Russia. I haven't thought that far ahead yet.

This week has been really exciting, but we're all really excited that it's "the weekend." Sunday-Wednesday go by really fast because they're our days that are different/have exciting things happening, but Thursday-Saturday go by so slowly since we just sit in class pretty much, so it's so nice when Sunday and then Tuesday come around.

This week started out with a great lesson in the TRC (Mom, this stands for Teaching Resource Center, I think, but it's basically just where we go to practice teaching volunteers. That's all you need to know. We just call it the TRC). The Russian part wasn't even that bad, mostly because we had a very nice native speaker. Her name was Idina, she's from Belarus, served a mission, and is studying graphic design at the Y. She was very very nice and gave us lots of encouragement with the Russian and said that it would come. Even better was after the actual lesson she said that we helped her with some things that she needed, which was so wonderful. It was really cool. The Spirit is real, and we have the opportunity to share it with everyone--even those who have had it for a while.

Every Thursday we do service, which for the Sisters in our zone usually is cleaning the bathrooms on our floor in the residence halls. This week, after we were done with the bathrooms, some sisters and I got to take some linen down to the bins on the first floor where all the dirty stuff goes. We're on the 4th floor, and didn't want to carry 20 beds-worth of bedding down 4 flights of stairs, so we dropped it down the crack between the railing and had a contest to see who could make it all the way down all 4 flights of stairs. It was lots of fun. Being a missionary is awesome, in more than just the spiritual way. That same night though, us 4 sisters in District 9A were doing some MDT, and this teacher knocks on the door and asks if we have a minute. he comes in with an older couple, who were going to serve in the Rostov mission, where some sisters in our zone are going to serve. They were leaving for Russia on Monday, and he wanted them to practice bearing their testimony to us. It was so cool. They had been here a week, and then had been being taught via Skype for about 5 hours a week for the past 2 months. That's about the equivalent of 4 days of our class time here! Granted, not all of our training is language, but still. That, plus the fact that we would be leaving this week if we were English speaking and we are not prepared at all, make us very grateful that we get to be here for so long, even if there are times we are jealous of those who are leaving so soon. Anyway, it was so great to talk to this older couple and then to listen to their testimonies and understand them, and then to bear our own testimonies pa-Ruski. (P.S. I hate transliteration-ing. I wish I could just type in Russian, but I don't know the Russian keyboard and then you would really have no idea what I'm saying).

Other random things from this week: Our teacher Brat Savage wants to name his first son Tiberius. We are now doing 3 meals a week where we only speak in Russian for SYL (Speak your language). It is so hard, but it's really good and the older district helps a lot. They leave in 2 weeks and it will be so weird when we are the older districts. Our Elders trade ties all the time, and on Friday they had "retro tie day" to show off all the really hideously cool ties they've gotten from the tie market. Brat Savage also complains about the chalk a lot because we had horrible chalk in our classroom, so Cectra Bullough and I swapped all the horrible chalk in our classroom for all the great chalk in the hardly ever used classrooms in the main building. They NEVER use the chalkboards, and so it was justified and really funny. I'm getting used to eating dinner so early at 4:30, but we still really often accidentally call it lunch. And I have been craving Cafe Rio all stinking week. People aren't supposed to send us things like that though. Basically if the people in the mail room can smell it, they'll open the package and give you a note that says, "You received an item you're not allowed to receive. Sorry." And so Cafe Rio is a no-go. But if anyone has any great ideas on how to get me some--please let me know and follow through because I really, really really have been craving it this past week. ;) Oh, we also have a district goal to teach 15 lessons a week. (Lesson=prayer, at least one principle taught, and a commitment).

Sunday was so great that it deserves its own paragraph. It always starts with great personal study, where I'm usually writing the talk that we all have to write. They just randomly call on us from the pulpit. Luckily, they only have to be 3-5 minutes long and are on basic gospel principles. That's because once you're here for 5-6 weeks you're expected to give talks po-Ruski. Then we sisters get to go to Music and the Spoken Word, which is so fantastic, especially since we have the whole no-music thing. It's so rejuvenating for the soul. Relief Society rocks, as I believe I've mentioned before. And then we didn't have to go to a New Sisters' Meeting this week, which was great! An extra half hour, and we're definitely not new anymore. It's kinda weird. Sacrament meeting was the best. Top 3 sacrament meetings I've ever been to. The talks were just great. I got to sing, which was really great. I have not sung that well in such a long time, and the Spirit was definitely helping me. Plus the song I was singing was beautiful. It's called "Look on Him and Live" and is a Sally Deford song. I borrowed it from Cectra Bullough, who played for me. I don't know. The Spirit was just so strong the entire meeting and it was truly beautiful. The temple walk was gorgeous. I love getting to go outside and it was actually really warm on Sunday. Unlike today; it feels like Russia. We were freezing walking to and from the temple this morning. However. The day did not stop there. Our Sunday fireside was great too. Our speaker is from the MIssionary department and is one of the people in charge of gettting everyone's visas. Let me just tell you, I am so glad I'm not going to Brazil. Anyway, he talked about how the MTC is sacred ground, which was awesome and just what I needed to hear, since I had kind of been getting tired of it. The Spirit was so strong, and the closing hymn was the Spirit of God. I can't describe that to you. 2,100+ missionaries singing the Spirit of God after a talk where the Spirit was so strong and you are one of those helping bring to pass the messages in those words . . . it was one of those things you just had to experience. That was probably my favorite moment this week. Singing the Spirit of God. Then we watched the Joseph Smith movie, which is always great. It was such a different experience from the last time I watched it. It takes on a new meaning as a missionary, especially when I've now taught the Restoration about 5 times.

Anway, my time is almost out. I have a few extra hours today, so I'll hopefully get more things sent out, so everyone should expect letters. This church is true, and this is the Lord's work. He lives and loves us.

Love,

Cectra Rachel Ashby

P.S. MATT GETS HIS CALL THIS WEEK! (I'm probably more excited than he is). HE BETTER SEND ME A DEARELDER THE SECOND HE KNOWS, BEFORE HE EVEN CALLS ANY OTHER FAMILY OR ANYTHING! Just sayin'. Russian speaking all the way!