Wednesday, April 27, 2011

April 27, 2011


So. More communication miracles. Russians, especially members who know how missionaries can struggle with the language, very often tell me that I speak Russian well for only being here a month. What is great about this is that Russians are very blunt and honest. They say exactly what they mean, and they don't say things unless they mean it. So. That's nice. I even tried to give a lady an invite to English Club on the metro the other day, and even though she said no, at least she understood what I was saying. 

Borsh is so good. Just saying. And it seems like spring has finally come. After freezing in the wind while playing frisbee last week, ever since then it's been really warm. No more jackets, except maybe at night, but even then not really. It's been so beautiful, and everything is so much greener than it was last week.






So Happy Easter! It was pretty great. Here on Easter, everyone says "Christ has risen" and then whoever you said it to responds "He is truly risen." Except it sounds a lot cooler in Russian. After church I went and got my jacket and found a little cake and 3 eggs that people had put in my pockets. All day Saturday, we saw hundreds of people lined up outside every Orthodox church we saw (and there are a lot), waiting to get in for the all-night mass they have for Easter. After Church, our district went over to the Craythorns (they're the senior couple in our branch) for Easter lunch. So it was geat. 

Other cool Russia experiences. We took a taxi to get to a place we'd never been before the other day. We were dropping off a Book of Mormon to an internet contact. She wasn't there and the man who answered the door tried to tell us there was no way she had ordered our book, but we left it anyway. We were kind of like, "Yeah sure. We just happened to have your address and her full name...yeah..." But we also left a prig with our taxi driver. And also with the lady we bought potatoes from, who seemed really interested but works all day, every day at her little produce stand. Saturday we cleaned up the church yard with some members after winter. And one of our common activities is prigging. A prig is a flyer/invitation, it's short for the Russian word for invitation. We stand at metro stations and prig for English Club. Or we'll just go contacting along the street and give people prigs to English Club or Church. It's basically the Russian equivalent of tracting, since it's tough to do that with the apartment buildings here, except you know who you're going to be talking to before they open the door because you see them there before you talk to them. 

That's about it. I've been here pretty much a month now. That's really crazy to believe. I'm glad Nicole's wedding was great. I can't wait to hear about it. 

Love,
Sister Rachel

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