Привет всем!
So. I'm actually emailing to you from...Moscow! Yes. It's a long story. Basically, we have zone specialized trainings this week. Our zone's is on Thursday, but that is when I'm in Kiev on visa trip, so President Sorenson told me to come to the other zone's, which was yesterday. So Sister Martyanova (from now on C. Marty) and I came down to Moscow Monday night for training on Tuesday and then we just stayed here for P-Day since I have to be back here tonight for my visa trip tomorrow, so it's been kind of a crazy week. So I've been in Moscow almost as much as I've been in ZGrad since transfers, and tomorrow I'll be in Kiev.
Zelenograd is awesome! It is just the change that I've needed. The actual transfer process was pretty crazy, mostly because the Elders were late to help me take my bags to the metro, so Sister Mordwinow and I got them to the stanzia all by ourselves. Who needs Elders anyway? But we were about 10 minutes late to transfer meeting, so we missed most of that. But otherwise, things went really smoothly. My new apartment is really nice, with a great view, and a roomy study area, which is super nice. We didn't really have one of those in our last apartment. But ZGrad is so nice. It's still a pretty big city, kind of a suburb of Moscow, but it's like an hour train ride away and has a couple hundred thousand people I think. So still bigger than Twin. But I've been out and doing a lot. It doesn't take too long to settle in when you only have two suitcases and a backpack. :p You can't really take a lot of time doing stuff like that when you're a missionary anyway. But it's so nice. There are trees everywhere. I still have no idea where I am half the time, or how to work the buses (no metro, just the bus). But it's awesome The ward is great, and the town just feels...special, like home. It feels like I'm supposed to be there, plus the work is great, and it's been a nice change from the slow past few months in Kahovski. I can't say what a great blessing it's been so far.
C. Mart is awesome! She is from St. Petersburg and is super sweet and funny. After we had been companions for less than 3 hours, she already knew all of my siblings' names. Michael is her favorite, because he looks like (and I told her that he really is) a hooligan. She loves to laugh, and has a super contagious laugh. She is also a great missionary--I have a lot to learn from her. She's been out on her mission about a transfer or two longer than I have, but she just came straight to Moscow instead of going to the MTC, so it's kind of weird, because she's been here longer. She's been helping me a lot with Russian, but being in ZGrad has actually made me realize how well I actually am doing with the language. But I'm hoping that with her, I will be able to really get all the little nuances down pat and learn more words. Basically vocab is my main problem.
Yes, sometimes (rarely) the STEERING wheel for Emerson would do that, but not often. You just have to keep trying to wiggle it and turn the key. I can't believe I remember all that though...It feels like forever since I've driven a car. It kind of has been. You can go ahead and use my iPod, just please don't make sure that any music gets deleted off of it. One of the reasons I didn't bring it is because I wanted to make sure that I still had all of my music, just in case my computer was dead-dead. (How is my laptop doing, by the way? I hope it's working and that it will still at least be alive enough to get stuff off of it when I get home).
Anyway. ZGrad is awesome. We are working with two people who are getting baptized on the 1st of October. One of them is a 17-almost-18 year old girl named Ksenya (Ksysha for short) who is a miracle and whom I absolutely love. There are a few crazy (but fun) people we're working with. And every few days we go visit a babushka in the ward who can't leave her house and we read the BoM with her outloud, which is great practice for me. Plus she is just wonderful. We have a lot of really great potential investigators who we are hoping we can turn into really awesome actual investigators soon. Our goals that we set for this next week were kind of ridiculous, but in an awesome way, but we know that we can make them with hard work and the Lord's help. The only problem is that we weren't up in ZGrad yesterday because of training. But C. Mart will be up in ZGrad tomorrow while I'm in Kiev with Sis. Rasmussen. She's companions with one of the sisters I was in the MTC with and served in ZGrad a few transfers ago, so she's going up there with C. Mart. But anyway, we're hoping all of our goals are at least mostly achieved and that we can see a lot of miracles this next transfer.
Random side note: every once in a while this computer does spellcheck underlining on every single word that I type and it's getting pretty obnoxious. But it only does it about every other paragraph or so.
Basically I think the only thing that is left to tell you about is the musical fireside! Saturday afternoon we went down to Moscow, so that I could get some practicing done with a few people before the actual fireside. Sister Mordwinow and I were kind of freaking out, because 10 minutes before the fireside was supposed to start, there were really only missionaries there, not a lot of people. Oh, not to mention that 3 people bailed on us either that day or the night before. We were so worried that it wasn't going to be good. However, you have to take into account Russian standard time, mixed with Mormon standard time, and realize that a lot of people will show up 10-15 minutes late. In the end, there were quite a few people there--it was almost full and there were quite a few investigators or non-member people from English Club and such there. Not to brag or anything, but I think all in all it worked out really well. And Sister Mordwinow and I rocked "For Good." A lot of people said that it was their favorite. I know that C. Martyanova took a video of it, so maybe next week when I (finally) have the ability to email you pictures I can also email the video.
Anyway. Life is SO WONDERFUL. I love my mission--both as a mission that I'm serving and as a group of people and an area that I'm working with. I love this Gospel. I love my companion and my other sisters and my district and my ward and my investigators, old and new.
Oh! Speaking of old investigators. Here's a little miraculous story for you. Remember Sofia, the girl I taught who got baptized in June? Well. One, she's awesome. Two, C. Mart. served in Kahovski right before I did, and she was actually the one who first met Sofia. Sonia wandered into the Central building and C. Mart could tell she was special and got her phone number, but was never able to get in touch with her or meet with her. So fast forward a bit and C. X calls the number not knowing who it is, just feeling like she should invite her to FHE or English Club. We start teaching her and all these miracles happen and she is baptized, despite disappearing for like 2 weeks due to work and all that jazz (you probably don't remember everything, but it was super miraculous, everything about her). Anyway. Back at the ranch, C. Mart is wondering about her, thinking about her and what happened to her. A few days before transfer she even was thinking about calling us in Kahovski and getting her phone number so that she could call her herself. So we're on the metro and C. Mart asks me how the Sofia I taught is doing. I answer great. And then we're at the musical fireside and C. Mart runs into Sonia, and realizes that it's the same Sofia she met months ago and that she's the same Sonia I taught and baptized! Man. So cool. I love missionary work.
Well. Yep. That's about it. Next week I'll send pictures from the past few months, I hope. I love you all! Remember to post stuff on my blog. :) The Church is true! Пока пока!
