Another week is over

Hey, everyone, it was so good to hear from so many people this week. I was beginning to wonder if anyone was alive! Well, let's see, I don't know how much time I have because we are meeting our district at the mall to eat lunch in a few hours, and unfortunately it takes a long time to get there. (Left - reenacting the rock, paper, scissors showdown on P-day) But, I will write what I can. First, I wanted to make a little correction about something that I said earlier. It has to do with transportation. There really is no difference between a маршрутка (marshrutka) and a газель(gazelle), I personally just differentiate them in the way that I described earlier, but other people use them interchangeably, probably because they use the same vehicle, one is just a private газель and the other is public. Though a gazelle isn't necessarily a marshrutka.
Now that I got that taken care of, I have a favor to ask of everyone. Hopefully everyone is really creative. Well, it seems like I'm not. Every week I have to teach English, and even though I teach the advanced group who know English really well, I still have to make it fun. So, I was wondering if everyone could tell me any ideas that they have for fun games that involve a lot of speaking. I wanted to play Taboo, but I didn't have the cards, so I was also wondering if, maybe mom, that might be the best, if you could buy it and either type the cards or have someone else do it. That would be a lot easier and a lot more fun than the ones that I made which turned out to be really easy for them. Anyway, that would be great, but I don't want to have it here because that is just a lot to lug around, but then I can make my own cards. If there are any other games you can think of, please tell me! But remember, at least for the advanced group, it needs to involve a lot of speaking.
I was also wondering, how did you go about getting a temple recommend before Bismarck became a stake? Here, the members have to talk to the Mission President, and I didn't think it was like that before, but maybe it was. You should know, though, since you lived there.
Other than that, we've been working really hard. I am still always tired, but funny things always happen.
We've had a little more luck with our investigators this week, though I think one decided she didn't want to hear us anymore. (Right - Lena's baptism) We have tried contacting her, both over the phone and by stopping by, but we never get a response. If that is the case, it has something to do with us asking her to invite her husband to listen as well. We explained how the church is family oriented and that we would like to give him the same opportunity. She wasn't very happy that we wanted her to talk to him about it, and since then she hasn't come to any activities, and we haven't been able to reach her. I hope there is some other circumstance, but I highly doubt it.
On a happier note, we seem to have gotten a lot more work. We did some service raking leaves at a kiddy park near the mall last week (that was fun) and some of the women who work there were really impressed with us and told the member who coordinated it all that they wanted to hear more about our religion. Also, we got a referral from a member. This woman is 62 years old and told her neighbor that she wants to be baptized. That's exciting, huh? So now we just need to teach her about the gospel. Also, one of our old investigators said we can start meeting with her some more, we were able to meet with a contact that we met on the street, and a lot of good things seem to be starting. Hopefully it will stay that way, and I know it will with the Lord's help.
We were finally able to watch conference last week. It was really great and exactly what I needed. I felt so much better about a lot of things afterwards. It was really nice because I could hear the English, and then for the last session I had an English copy to follow along with. I felt a little bad that the Russian was a little harder to hear because of that, but there was nothing we could do. (Above - A beautiful little children's park on a rainy fall day) Just the same, I really needed to hear conference. I think that is the first time that I've really felt that way. I mean, I've enjoyed conference before, but maybe it was because I had to wait for it that it just really filled a thirst I had. It was great. I was also glad to hear that I am ahead of schedule for the reading. I was a little worried about that, but I should finish close to the beginning of December. Hooray!
I bought winter boots today. They weren't too expensive, though I wish I could have spent less. Oh well, they should keep my feet warm and dry when the snow falls. I keep waiting for it, but they say it won't come until close to the end of November, that's too bad.
Mom, real quick, are you checking my hotmail account still? I haven't gotten any of the emails from my friend Beth that go there, so I really hope you still are. I would like to be able to read those. They come from her mother (with the last name Wilson).
Anyway, we have to get getting, so I guess that is all for now. Keep writing!

Love,
Сестра Атвуд

another week has come and gone

I can hardly believe that I have almost been here in Russia for an entire month. That is such a long time, but at the same time I feel like I have been here for much longer. So, I wanted to tell a little more about life in Russia, more specifically about life as a pedestrian.
(Left - Lunch on P-day at the Komsomolski Prixod) There are many dangers when you walk. One of the most prominent are cars. They don't care if you are walking, they will run you over if you don't get out of the way. It seems like the members are always pulling me out of the street (not that I was close to being hit, but they get really protective and nervous when cars are around their missionaries). It is really only a problem when the drivers are drunk, but that happens a lot. Driving itself isn't safe and can be a little scary. Another danger are man holes or any kind of metal grate in the ground. No one walks on them here because if you do, you could fall through. I don't think they ever replace them, so when they get old and rusted, you just gotta hope that you don't miss one and step on it.
We went to this restaurant last week called Техас (Tehas or Texas), it's supposed to be Mexican, but the food didn't taste like any Mexican food I ever had. It was a very interesting experience. I guess the place is owned by the Mafia, so it was a little nicer than some, but we had to wait for over an hour and a half for our food. It was insane. Sister Vernon and I ordered nachos, so they brought out this dip with beans and cheese . . . and pringles. Yeah, that's right, pringles. Who ever has seen pringles used for Mexican food? There were a few other interesting things, but probably the biggest for me was finding this weird Russian sausage in our nachos. Oh well, I hope we don't ever eat there again.
We also went to the birthday party of one of our investigators, or rather the daughter of the family. It was very interesting. They went through all these rites of passage for every year. It was rather fun, but I didn't understand a lot of what was said.
We get to see conference this weekend. That should be good, but it is in Russian, so I won't understand very much. Luckily, they are going to bring me an English copy so I can read along. That probably won't make sitting in a dark room for 4 hours straight any easier. Oh well. We also have another baptism this Sunday. I'm really excited about that because the girl is great. I really enjoy talking with her.
I am so tired here all the time. It seems like I am in this vicious cycle that I can't seem to get out of. Working makes me tired, but I can never get enough sleep to make it so I can work really well, so sometimes I feel like we aren't getting anywhere. We are still working hard and we have 3 new investigators. Hopefully something will happen soon. One of them talked to us when we were buying something in a store. She has met with the missionaries before. We are really excited about her, and it sounds like her mother wants to listen to us too. (Right - Anya's birthday party - that is the little girl in the red dress with bows in her hair) They are both excited to meet with us, too.
Sister Vernon is amazing at getting people to talk to her. She has already uncovered a couple of doubts that people have. One involves the family I mentioned earlier (the one with the daughter who hard a birthday party). They have been investigating the church for three years, but have yet to be baptized. They come to pretty much every activity, but they haven't accepted the baptismal commitment. Now we know why. I guess they don't have very much money and so they think they don't have enough money to pay tithing. The father is about to lose his job because the company he works for is going out of business. He is 48 and when he turns 50 he won't be able to find work anymore, but he hasn't been able to find another job yet. So, what will they do if he is out of work for 2 years before he can get his pension? So, we are working with the members to try and find him another job and we have plans to teach them about the blessings that come from paying tithing. We need them to realize that it's not about the money, it is about trusting in the Lord so He can bless us with even more.
I bought a new coat last week. It only cost 1500 rb. That's about $50, but I also need to get boots and all that fun winter stuff. I haven't taken money out of my account yet because I didn't know if anything was in there, so hopefully there is because we are going today and I can't get into USbank online to find out. Oh well, what can you do? I guess that's about it for now. Things are going well, despite the way it may sound. I am hoping that we can really help the people here, to strengthen the приход (branch) and maybe even get them a real chapel. Right now they have a nice building, which is better than meeting in the homes of the members like they used to, but it would be nice to have benches and all that good stuff to use and not just chairs. They need to have 15 active priesthood holders, and I think they are really close. We are working on it, as our the other 4 missionaries in our branch.
I bought a new coat last week. It only cost 1500 rb. That's about $50, but I also need to get boots and all that fun winter stuff. (Left - Me with Togliatti in the background) I haven't taken money out of my account yet because I didn't know if anything was in there, so hopefully there is because we are going today and I can't get into USbank online to find out. Oh well, what can you do?
I guess that's about it for now. Things are going well, despite the way it may sound. I am hoping that we can really help the people here, to strengthen the приход (prixod - branch) and maybe even get them a real chapel. Right now they have a nice building, which is better than meeting in the homes of the members like they used to, but it would be nice to have benches and all that good stuff to use and not just chairs, but that might just be a Russian thing. They need to have 15 active priesthood holders, and I think they are really close. We are working on it, as our the other 4 missionaries in our branch.

Love,
Сестра Атвуд

Hello!

Hello, family,
This last week has been crazy busy. I don't even know where to start. But I guess I will tell about the things I wasn't able to tell about last week. We still haven't seen conference yet. I think we will be able to in two weeks, but of course it will be in Russian. Oh well, maybe I'll understand better by then.
But, that means that we had fast Sunday on that day. Well, we started our fast early on Saturday because Sister Vernon likes to fast for 24 hours and one of the members wanted to feed us after church (I thought that was нельзя, nilzya, that means sort of like not allowed, but I guess that isn't the case. Sister Vernon told me that is because our mission president is Russian). Anyway, so that means we started our fast at 4:00 the day before. (Right - Lida's baptism!) Then we did a little bit of contacting Sunday morning before church. Then we sat through 3 hours of church. Well, after about an hour, which would have been over 22 hours since I had last eaten, I started to feel really sick. I felt like I was going to puke, and I felt really light headed. It wasn't fun, but I still had two more hours to go. I resolved to be able to get through it, but it just kept getting worse.
Then, after church, our meeting didn't pull through, so we weren't going to be fed, and we had to sit through a meeting with one of the members who just got a new calling so that she would know what to do. By the time we finally got home, I thought I was going to die. Sister Vernon and I quickly ended our fast, and she made me drink lots of сок (sok - juice). That made me feel better, but being light headed and dizzy for that long made my head hurt. But, all's well that ends well, right?
So, we thought it was нельзя to watch movies, right? WELL, let me just tell you, we watch movies here all the time . . . well, normally on P-Days. Of course, not anything bad, we just watch movies like The Best Two Years, The Other Side of Heaven (that was interesting because it was in Russian), The Prince of Egypt, and such like that. But, they used to be able to watch other movies. They watched Madagascar here, but now we are not allowed to do that. That's alright though, I didn't come here to watch movies. But, it is fun on P-Days to watch movies with our district. We normally order pizza from Papa Peckers. It's alright, just really greasy.
Last P-day, my companion decided she didn't like me . . . and, well, let's just say that she used her elbow to give me a black eye. It was an accident, of course, but she felt so bad about it that it is fun to bring it up all the time. All the elders always point it out, too. It is very funny. It wasn't really a black eye, either, just on the side of my eye. It kind of looked like I put eye liner along the side of my eye. It is much better now.
Now, I want to tell you a little bit about life in Russia. Let's see. We will start with transportation. There are seven basic ways to get around the city. I will start with the cheapest and go from there. #1-Walking - we do a lot of this, sometimes more than 10 miles everyday, and a lot of Russians walk everywhere in order to save money #2 - the bus, this costs only 5 rubles (which isn't very much money when converted into American money). I have never ridden on one of these. #3 - trolli bus - I have never ridden on one of these either, and I don't know how much they cost, but they are either the same or barely more than a normal bus. #4 - маршруткаs (marshrutkas - I can't spell Russian in roman letters, it just doesn't work) - we use these all the time. They cost 8 rubles to go anywhere within your area of the city, and 12 between areas. They are faster than buses and don't get as crowded. #5 - your own car - obviously we never use this and it may actually be cheaper in the long run that маршруткаs because gas is really cheap here. I think the most expensive I saw was 17 rubles, probably for a liter, though, so I don't know what that comes to. It is about 30 rubles to the dollar, so you can probably figure out how much that costs. Maybe it's not as cheap as I think. #6 - Taxis - in Russia they have some cars that are real taxis, but if you call for a taxi, you never know who will stop to pick you up. We have only done this once. (Left - In the woods around Togliatti) It cost 40 rubles, and it got us to our appointment just on time. Otherwise we would have been at least 25 minutes late. So, they are a lot faster. #6 - gazelles - I don't really know how much these cost, but basically they are a hired маршрутка. Thus, you get there fast because you don't have to stop to pick people up or drop them off.
Let's see, what else is there. The streets are very dirty here, I don't know if I mentioned that before, but they are. That means we get dirty when we are on them. It's rather gross, but I guess you get used to it after awhile. Most people live in apartment buildings. Each apartment building has many подезъдs (padezds) (stairwells) that lead to certain numbers of the apartments. They are mostly all locked and if you want to get into an apartment building, you better hope the people you are going to see have a дома-фон (doma-fon - house phone). Then you punch in their apartment number on a keypad, it rings there and they can decide whether or not to let you in.
Once you get in, there is usually an elevator, though it doesn't always work. Even if it does it is usually dirty and smells bad, but when you have to go to the ninth floor, it is worth it. It is funny, though, you never know how many floors there are by the number of buttons in the elevator. For example, our apartment has 9 floors, but we have 15 buttons and the lights over the door that tell you which floor the elevator is on, they go up to 17. Sometimes the buttons don't even tell you which floor you are choosing when you punch them. But, they work, so what can you do.
Our apartment is one of the few that has a washing machine. We just barely got one and only because President Давыдик (Davydik) says we all have to have one, and the lady we rent from didn't want to lose us as tenants. I guess it must be nice to have a consistent income coming from reliable tenants. We have 3 rooms, which is nice. I was in one apartment that was only 2 rooms and the rooms they had were incredibly tiny. I don't know how 3 people live in that apartment, but they manage somehow. They also have some really large, nice apartments. They seem like they would be in America, some of them. But only on the inside, the outsides are always worn down and dirty because people just tag them anyway, why waste money keeping them up?
We also teach English every Thursday. The elders aren't allowed to teach English right now because a while ago one of the girls that came to English wrote a letter to an elder telling him that she would kill herself if he didn't pay her some attention. Well, President Давыдик decided it was better if they not even come. So, English isn't as much fun as it would be otherwise. That should be changing, hopefully. They are coming up with a new program and President said the Elders could start coming again when we have that. I am looking forward to that. For now, we have to have both beginners and advanced in the same room and we teach by ourselves. It really just isn't very much fun.
They also have many other activities for the members and investigators. They have something everyday of the week. Mondays they have семьеный вечер (cemyeni vecher - Family evening, it just doesn't look as good when not in cyrrilic) where everyone invites others to their home (we have a lot of single members), Tuesday we have молодёжный вечер (molodozhni vecher - youth night), Wednesday they have choir, Thursday is English, Friday seminary and institute, Saturday is sports, and of course Sunday is church. They really work hard to give the members good things to do. I think that is great. We go to everything, except sometimes we don't go to choir. They really like it when I come because I can sing alto and they don't have many people who can sing, at all. But a lot of times we are the ones leading the activities, so we have to be there. That's alright because we have a lot of investigators come to those activities. For FHE, we always drink tea. Never fear, it is only fruit tea, but I don't like it just the same. Sister Vernon and I always add lots of sugar so we can choke it down. They really like hot drinks here. They also have this drink called компот (kompot). It is sugar water with fruit heated up. It is actually pretty good. I tried it for the first time yesterday.
Well, that's all that I can think of for now about life in Russia. Oh, the members always yell at me for not having a coat even when I am not cold. So, we will hopefully be buying me a coat soon, maybe on Saturday.
Thanks to all those who wrote to me. I don't have much time left, so I will just have to answer everyone here and you will need to pass this on to Elizabeth. First, mom, you should be happy to know that I got your letter. We get mail probably every 3 weeks, so if it gets to Самара (Samara) before that time than we get it. It is whenever anyone comes from Самара that we get mail. I got your letter yesterday (Tuesday). That means it arrived at least by Monday. That's a lot faster than I thought it would come. But I'm glad. I also got a letter from Erin. She sent me a picture of her baby. Everyone really enjoyed seeing that.
By the way, did you get my stuff when you were in Salt Lake? If not, dad will need to do that when he goes down for Joey's wedding. DON'T forget! Elder Theurer's family was nice enough to take it, but I don't want it to sit in their house forever. (Right - also in the woods around Togliatti, Bush is making leaf ears on Day and Boster is laughing in the background)
Dad, thanks for the email, and thanks for doing all that stuff with my website. I hope that means that other people will start writing me soon. I think it's pretty pathetic that my friends on missions can find time to write to me while my friends (namely all my roommates who told me they would write) can't seem to manage it. Oh well, the less mail I get from other people, the less letters I have to write.
Elizabeth, sounds like things are going great for you. Working hard, huh? But what about a job?
Sorry I can't answer any more than that. My companion doesn't write as much as I do, and she is almost ready to go. Plus, we only have a little time before we have to get back to work. Ура (Urah! - that's hooray in Russian).
Anyway, let me know how things are going and tell Sara to write me. Also, tell Becky to write me and make sure they know about sending emails to both this address and my gmail account. I think grandpa McGee sent one just to this one, so I will have to forward that on. That's just a big hassle when it's not needed.

Love,
Сестра Атвуд

Hello, everyone

Hello,

This last week has been a really long one. But I will tell about that in a minute. First, just to let you know, I can't use this email anymore, but I still want my email to come here, so here's the deal. The new one is the one I will be checking, but since I want all my email to be in my gmail account, when you email me you will need to send it to both this address and my new one. I know that sounds like a pain, but it will be easier for you to do that than for me to have to forward every email that I receive. So, please do that. It will make my life a lot easier. Then my mom will be checking my other email accounts so they keep working and she'll be sorting all that stuff. Thanks for doing that! (not that anyone but my family and ONE of my best friends has emailed me yet, but if you do, please follow this).

Ok, now for what happened. We did a lot of street contacting last week because our pool of investigators thinned out. Some of them we dropped because they have no desire to progress, but other than that, they just got baptized. That's good at least. But, that meant many hours on the street. That is not the easiest thing to do because we walk everywhere anyway, so to be outside on the street for that much longer just makes me more tired. It really wore me out, but rather than helping me to sleep better, it made me start having really weird dreams. I've noticed that before, when I work really hard, my dreams are so strange! (Left - FHE with Valentina and Tatyana, Valentina's son Valentin is in the front) But, at least we were doing things. As a result, we have 4 new potential investigators.
We also received a referral from a lady in St. Petersburg who was baptized earlier this year. Her daughter lives here in Togliatti (Тольятти) so that is really nice. We started teaching her on Saturday. She came to church on Sunday and also attended Family Home Evening with us at the apartment of one of the members here. That was good because they were able to tell her some of the blessings they received from following the gospel, especially in regards to following the word of wisdom. Here, you are really strange if you don't drink at least some of the time. So, she had a little doubt about that, but I think that really helped her to hear things from Russians.

I had an interesting experience in church on Sunday. One of the members was asking me if FHE was held at the помешение (pomesheniye - that's what we call the building where we meet for church) and I was confused. I understood what she was saying, but I didn't understand why she was asking me that, and why she would think that. So, I gave her a puzzled look and didn't respond. So, she said, ah, she's a greenie! (In Russian, of course). It was so funny because I understood every word! Oh well, she can think what she likes.

The members here, the ones that are active anyway, are amazing. They have amazing conversion stories. We are going to see if we can get them to write them all down. That would be so nice to have. For example, one lady Валентина (Valentina), found a Book of Mormon. I don't know where, but after finding it, she wanted to know where it had come from. She tracked through several people until she found a lady who gave her the number of the missionaries. She was baptized not long after. Or, there is Агнесса (Agnessa), she was a Seventh Day Adventist's Witness before, she and her entire family. Well, one of her sons met the missionaries, took the discussions, and was baptized, all behind her back. When she finally found out, she wanted to meet with the missionaries, and she, too, was baptized not long after. They are so strong. Those are the kind of people we want to find. Not the lukewarms who have since become inactive. Though, as President Hickley said, there is no compulsion in the Lord's work, but there must be opportunity. So, that is what we are doing. But still, we want to find those who will remain strong.

I think I need to go now. My companion is done. Hopefully I will have more time to write next week when I won't have to be setting up accounts and all that. From now on I will be sending email from my new address, but, as I said above, send emails to both.

Love,

Сестра Атвуд