April 2, 2012

Вперёд, Святые‏
(That is the title of Come, Come Ye Saints in Russian: Forward, Saints. You can say it v-pe-riod svia-ti-yeh. Kinda. Just go learn the Cyrilic alphabet? I can't transliterate worth beans.)

Well, well, another week has come and gone. I really don't have all that much to report on this week. It's been a pretty normal week. Things are starting to pick up. More meetings, etc. Still not really any new investigators. Mostly people have just been saying "ne nado" (Not needed). So the usual. But we have a few promising potential investigators from members. Yulia is frustrating me, but that's just me and my low patience (can you believe that after 22 years of practice, and a lot of trying to improve and get better and studying it countless times on my mission that patience is STILL my worst Christ-like attribute when I do the little assessment in PMG? Every time patience has been my worst. At least it's gotten better...) and I just need to look at how far she has come in the past few months. English Club was GREAT this week. I had 5 people in my beginning group (usually I have 1-2) and they were all great, some even new. And we had 11 new people total. It was the biggest English Club that I can ever remember. We are really trying to work with the members, and I really really really love our ward here in Zelenograd. I have been reading Conference talks from the past 2 Conferences to get ready for conference and I love it. I love General Conference. I can't wait until we get it here. I love my companion, and I love Russian. The weather has been beautiful the past 2 days, but it was pretty gross all week long. I'm hoping it stays beautiful, but I don't really have a lot of faith that that will be the case. I remember how the weather was last year. But at least right now the sun is shining, it's not too cold and the pavement is actually DRY in some places (not many, but at least some. :) President gave me permission to register for classes, and they opened up on Tuesday, so I've been spending time doing that. It's super super weird. Being on a mission is like an eternity, but it goes by so fast at the same time. I can't believe that it's been a year since I got to Russia, and that I only have such a short time left. We had district dinner last night, and we all were looking at each other's pictures, and it is weird to think that most of my roommates and friends are either home from their own missions or married--or both.

Anyway, that's about it, I guess. Sorry that nothing really exciting happened this week. Just the same old, same old. It is such a honor to be a part of the Lord's work, especially here, even if sometimes it feels like I'm not really doing anything successful. The Church is true! President Monson is a prophet! Russia is the best! Иисус воскрес!

Love,

Sister Ashby