April 8th 2013

Way to go on the emails everyone. :) You have no idea how good it is to hear from you. Keep it up. These have been some of the most difficult weeks of my life it's a relief just to hear about home.    Although this basically is home. From the minute I stepped on Russian soil it was home... in a weird completely foreign way... yes, that's an oxymoron if I have my english grammar correct. But like I told dad, I'm basically already Russian personality wise, and I've also been told by the people here that I look and sound Russian (and when I say that I mean my American accent isn't unbearable). Which can be a burden because people talk to me thinking that I know what they're saying. And I don't. The other day we went by marshootka to the prehode (Branch). A marshootka is like a van/bus/taxi. They come by the bus stops, you get on and sit on the 10-12 seats or stand in the aisle. They're usually pretty packed, warm, sweaty and smelly, even when it's cold outside. When people get on they pass their money to the front and get a ticket back. Sometimes the money will pass through five hands before it finally reaches the driver. This is a standard system that plays out with very little words so it's fairly simple to do without knowing Russian. Now, we had taken marshootkas many a times but this day I happened to end up in the front by the driver. That meant it was my job to handle the money transactions. This was the most confusing, frightening marshootka experience ever. Handfulls of money were being trust in my direction as they spoke the desired number of tickets. I then passed it forward to the driver who knew seemingly instinctively returned to me the right amount of change and tickets. Before I knew it I have 4 different sets of money and tickets that I had no idea to whom they belonged. A few strangers took what they knew to be theirs from me but I was still left with money. A blonde-haired lady yelled at me and I handed it over. Being free I desperately found a seat further back. I saw a coin on the floor and after the 5000 ruble incident last week I picked it up and put it in my purse. That same lady, or maybe another, it was all so confusing, started getting angry with me and I could not understand a word other than ruble. I tried to find it but it was lost it my purse. She got off and now I live with the fact that some one here thinks I'm a thief. Great. So that's how I learned not to sit or stand in the front of marshootkas or to pick up money off the ground.
There's my trivial story of the week. By the way of other news and events, we had our first cultural night last monday. We went to the nicer part of the city and went to the philharmonic. It was like a piano/opera concert. I thoroughly enjoyed it and also very much enjoyed seeing the other missionaries and a few of their investigators. For the first half hour I was a bit uncomforable because it had been so long since I went to something soley for the purpose of enjoyment, yes, fellowshipping too. We also got to host the Orenburg sisters who stayed at our apartment on their way to a visa trip. They both have been here for over a year so it was cool to go on splits with them as wise, experienced sister missionaries. ;) We taught two new investigators this week. Pavel and Olga (another Olga). Pavel is a super cool student in his mid-twenties. Sister Pierce translated for me and it was really cool the things he was saying. Very doctrinally correct and insightful. He was excited and wanted to learn more. Hopefully we'll get to meet with him again, he hasn't much answered us sadly. I'm not sure if I've told you about Olga yet but we met her on our way home at night. At first we weren't really going to talk to her and just handed her an invitation to church. But then she started talking about how she wanted to start going to church and talk with us more. She gave us a big hug and thanked God right there for sending us. When we met with her the next day she told us her life story and said that she wants to return to God and get baptized. :) That's always fun to hear as a missionary. haha but we hadn't taught her anything yet so we still have a long road ahead of us. And judging by her life story, the things she's dealt with and the smell of cigarette smoke on her, it might be a hard road as well. She came to church yesterday and bore her testimony in sacrament meeting. We also taught Vadeem yesterday. Each time I see him he looks happier and he told us that whenever he sees us or meets someone from the church that he sees a light in them. Gosh, he's such a cool guy. We're finding and teaching a lot of real awesome people. I just wish we could see them more, I feel like we have a hard time getting a hold of people and making return appointments with them.
Well I don't have much time left. Keep me in your prayers! Love you!!!

сестра джонсон