It's been a month!!!

mom and dad,the shift key on this computer doesn't work so nothing will be capitalized. oh well!i loved your emails!!! they were so awesome. thank you so much. thanks dad for the travelogue i just loved it. i'm so glad you were able to save the world from imminent destruction from the wildfire. it's a good thing you were there. i was also very impressed with your anniversary surprise. you alway come up with the best things! thanks mom for all of the news and keeping me updated on missy. i haven't heard from them so tell them they're all bums. i'm sooooooo jealous you get to go camping with aunt cindy! that will be so awesome, have fun! think of me and party it up. i'm super excited to get a package, they are always nice no matter what is in them. i love them!!! i wait anxiously everyday for the mail;)Anyways things here are good. i'm just waiting for my laundry to be done as i type this. my companion has been sick for about a week with a really bad stomach virus so i've been doing A LOT of personal study this week. right now i'm on splits with a sister in my room so that i can get my laundry done. Last wednesday we had the TRC as usual and it went well. we had to do the first part in russian which is always a little intimidating but luckily our "investigator" was really nice and had actually just returned from his mission in samara. luckily through a lot of hand signals and acting he was able to convey what he was trying to tell us. we had to ask him about the "commitments" we had left him with, how his prayer was going, what he thought about the book of mormon etc. all in russian. then we taught the 2nd lesson in english which went well. it is all about the plan of salvation which is such a cool lesson. it truly is a plan of happiness and that is what i tried to stress while teaching it. it was a good experience. tomorrow we have the trc again and have to do even more teaching in russian. we will start by teaching our investigator to pray in russian which seems a little intimidating. we also found out last night that this week we will be going on splits, meaning i will be teaching with one of the elder's from our distrcit. i think it will be a crazy experience to a. teach with an elder and b. not be with my companion but im excited to see how it goes. we had about 20 minutes last night to plan for our lesson. we are again teaching lesson 2. Next week we teach the whole lesson in russian and i am freaking out. it is going to be so crazy but luckily its not the missionary that teaches its the spirit. we also will start speaking only russian on wednesdays for the next couple weeks and then eventually all russian all the time. pray for me. ive had a lot of time to study this week so i am starting to understand russian grammar more and more and so that is good.thursday is our service day and we cleaned a building which was good, then class and all of that. friday and saturday were also pretty uneventful. i did have a neat experience saturday night at the rc- the call center. each district is assigned a few hours they work in the call center and ours is saturday night, meaning we hardly talk to anyone because they're all gone! we were about to leave because it was almost 9 and i hadn't talked to anyone all night. all the sudden my phone rang as i was standing up and i answered it. it was a guy from indiana calling to get a free bible because he just saw the commercial on tv. after i got his contact information i asked him why he decided to call. he started to cry and said that he just felt like there were some mistakes in his life that he needed to change and thought that the bible might help him come closer to christ. i was able to bear my testimony that it would and that we could come closer to christ. i was able to invite him to have the missionaries over and he said yes. when i hung up the phone i worried i had said the wrong things, hadn't said enough etc. but had to realize that the spirit was there and know that the missionaries would bless him and his life. it was a neat experience overall and it made me realize that we are teaching real people who need to hear this gospel! they need this message and they need to know that someone does love them, that they can repent, and like he said, come closer to christ. Although i wasn't as bold as i wished i would have been im glad that i stayed to the end and got that call. it made me excited to go back and talk to more people.sunday was pretty normal. church was good and we were able to watch the joseph smith movie agian. we also were able to have a great devotional on charity and how having charity for the people is going to be the most important thing we do. it was really good and again got me ready to go out and serve.this week has been pretty uneventful like i said. just trying to learn russian and learn to teach in russian. everytime i teach in the trc i just have to laugh when i dont know a word and mess up. last week i couldn't remember the word to niece and nephew. we were showing pictures of our family and talking about them and i just started to laugh. like i said luckily the guy was really nice and just laughed and said it for me.there are 6 people in our room total, me and my companion, Sis. larsen, sis. walker, sis. burke, and sis. clark. They are all really nice and i have really enjoyed getting to know them better. WE have had a lot of fun. I am still doing my pushups every night so tell patricia im up to 38. awesome. she would be so proud of me. Also my room has been doing two weeks with no sweets and so that has been killer. woorst idea ever! they have ice cream sundaes every sunday and i couldn't have one the last two weeks. luckily it ends on sunday! woohoo! everything here is good, the church is true, missionary work is hard but definitely worth it. i love hearing from you and heairng about what you're doing. mom if you could send me ashely erickson's address from her blog that would be great cause i have a letter i need to send her. i got some great letters this week from katie, sara, and andrew so that was happy. I hope all is well and if i think of anythingi forgot ill let you know in a letter. i love you guys a ton a ton! Whitney