January 2, 2012

S Novyim Godom! 2012!

There you go, I tried to transliterate Happy New Year into English letters for you. It's hard to transliterate though. It's really weird that it's 2012, though. What was really weird is when I was talking with the Elders about making New Year's Resolutions and realized that I might as well make goals for only half the year because sometime in the summer my life is going to change super drastically. That's weird weird weird. It doesn't feel like a year ago that I was getting ready to go into the MTC. 

Well, this week has actually been pretty uneventful. A lot of people have either been working a lot or just didn't want to meet with us, due to the holidays. However, we did hear some great WWII stories (Russian POW escaping from German camps) from a member (true stories about her husband). And we also had an inactive member (mostly inactive just because she's old, but her health keeping her away from church has also affected her testimony) tell us that in the 14 years she's been in the church, and even after going to the temple, that she's never had anyone ask her to pray about the Book of Mormon! And that she thinks it's just made up but the church is still true...hmmm...

Went through the Area Books this week too. Just organized them. Oh man. There is nothing worse than a messy area book. I mean, I know I may not be the best at writing in them, but at least keep it organized! And today we cleaned the apartment. I know that I'm messy, but usually it's organized and this had gotten past the organized mess point. We also went English Prigging this week, which was my first time going prigging in a long long time. That was exciting. C. X2 was excited because it was her very first time, and we also had Ksusha with us, because we were originally supposed to have a lesson that she was helping us with, and Ksusha had never been before. It was so fun to watch them, plus it had been so long since I had gone English prigging myself that it was actually kind of entertaining and not just so mundane and routine.

The weather here has been up and down. On New Year's we had the prettiest snow. All Moscow and Zelenograd and everywhere in between looked like a fairytale. But now it's just kind of all wet and slushy outside. 

Of course, the main part of this week was New Year's! I feel like a bad missionary saying this, but it was my favorite part of the week because we got to watch HARRY POTTER 7--2! OH MY GOODNESS! IT WAS SOOOOOO GOOOD! IT COMPLETELY MADE MY LIFE! When I found out that it had actually been approved I got so excited. Sister Bullough drew a lightning bolt scar on her forehead, and I wore my Deathly Hallows charm that Sarah Snow sent me. All the sisters had gathered down at the mission home, because we had to be off the streets by 5, and so we all watched it together (in English, with Russian subtitles) with President and Sister Sorenson. It was a lot of fun watching it together, plus it was sooooooo good. Oh man. Plus, the Elders gave me the DVD that they watched on New Year's, so now I can watch it in Russian when I get home! We also ate a lot of good food, and at midnight on New Year's the Russian President always gives a speech, so at midnight, President gave a little speech/talk/spiritual thought (which he incorporated Harry Potter into...I love President Sorenson). And then after that, some went to bed, some stayed up talking, and we also watched another movie--Charade. :) Was it last New Year that we watched the movie with you Mom and Matt didn't want to but in the end he admitted that it was good? Anyway. It was fun. In the morning, Sister Sorenson had made a breakfast casserole really similar to yours Mom and it was good and then we all went home for church and stuff. Church yesterday was only 1 hour--New Year's is the biggest holiday here. Everyone is drunk and stays up all night and there  were fireworks going off all night on the 31st and yesterday. It's been really cool. 

And now it's 2012. Crazy crazy. I still can't believe it. It feels like 2011 never really happened because since I was on my mission it was just like an extension of 2010. But 2010 feels so long ago. Time is weird. Well. Happy New Year! And Merry Christmas (I can still say that, because the Russian Orthodox church celebrates Christmas on Jan 7, so it's coming up this week. Unfortunately, it's not really a super big deal).