Mother Russia

FAMILY and Friends!!!
OH WOW! I am in Mother Russia as many of you pointed out! Weird? yes Awesome? yes
So I thought I would briefly mention the first few things I love about Russia and then give a run down of my first week here. Things I love:
• All of the boots I see
• The produce and food- really good
• MY COMPANION
• My mission president
• the “Fall” weather (more like winter)
• My apartment—очень nice
• Our landlady—she is crazy and nice and motherly all at the same time
• The PARKS
• The juice—that one is for Devin, I know he will be jealous with all of the juice I get to drink
• The Marshutka’s (van’s like buses)
• The church here
• THE PEOPLE—everyone we have met has been very friendly and nice
Rundown of my week:
Well we got here and got of the plane and it was about 10 at night. The plane ride wasn’t too bad but I can definitely say I am grateful for the Native Russians we had with us when we got to Russia to help us understand the baggage people and all of that. Elder Kazakov (I think he was from NovoSibirsk) was awesome at helping us deal with the airport people. When we finally got to Samara the Bennett’s picked us up and took us to where we would be staying. My companion and I stayed with a Senior Couple, the Perry’s in their home. It was a short night for everyone because we didn’t get settled til around 12 and then were up at 6 to go to Zone Conference. Zone Conference was in Samara and all of the missionaries met at a really nice building there. It was really neat to be with everyone from the mission and to see what it was going to be like. We had some workshops and conference about preparing food, eating healthy etc. Then we heard from our Mission President. He is AWESOME! I really really like him and his wife and think this is going to be an awesome mission. He is very convicted in his feelings for missionary work and is very intense when speaking sometimes. I can definitely see how he threw a shoe He loves this work and loves the missionaries and I feel completely safe with him as a president and trust that he knows what is best and what we should be doing. We had lunch and then got our new companions. I definitely won the lottery with this one! MY companion is completely and totally amazing!!! Her name is Sister Pike and she is from California. The sad part is that she leaves in less than a month to go home. She leaves October 31! AH! I have just a little time to learn as much as I possibly can. She is super cute and super nice and just so full of energy and happiness. I love it! So we had more conference and then that night we went out CONTACTING. WHAT? First real night in Russia and I was contacting? Yep. And I did it! We met a lot of great people and got some phone numbers. We stayed that night at the sister’s apartment in Samara and then went to Zone Conference the next day as well. We had more talks and then heard from Elder Hurst. He and his wife are missionaries for the Eastern part of Europe and he goes around and talks about relationships, stress, eating, sleeping, depression etc. He was really awesome and cute. I really enjoyed everything he talked about. Then we got on a bus and went to… SARATOV. I am in Saratov this transfer in the Oktabrasky area (I don’t know how to spell it in Russian). It is a new area for sister’s but I am really excited to start serving here. WE had a long bus ride to get here and it was fun to see the Russian countryside and look at all the little towns on the way to Saratov. We stopped at a bathroom on the way and it was…interesting. Little did I know that bathrooms here are holes in the ground. Awesome! It just reminded me of camping and I LOVE Camping so Huzzah! We got to our apartment and it is super nice. We were also really lucky because one of the prominent members of the Church here helped us to our apartment and came with us in our taxi. Then he carried my luggage (not an easy task) all the way into our apartment! He was aweomse! Sis. Pike later told me he is in our ward and he is the first Russian to be in a quorum of the Seventy. Mom, you’ll have to look him up, he is an awesome guy! We are near a really nice park that we like to contact in and by a hospital and some other things I’m not sure what they are yet. We have a lot of really great fruit stands right by us so that is nice for carrying groceries. We also have a hilarious landlady. She is a perfectionist and comes in and tells us where to put things etc. On Friday night we had tea with her and her husband who is SO cute (don’t worry, they are OLD). The table was set so nice and everything was perfect. He plays the accordion and he was so excited to show us, he got it out and started playing all of these old Russian songs. It was so fun! She started singing and we had a good time. We taught them a little about what missionaries do and shared a thought from the Book of Mormon with them. It was really fun! We hope to keep teaching them about the church!
Our schedule here is different than I thought it would be but I have liked it a lot. We are out everyday from 7-9 because that is when people are headed to work. Then we go in from 9-12 to get ready, eat , do our personal study and companion study. Then we are back out from 12-2. At 2 we have our lunch and then language study and then are out from 4-9:30. It is a good schedule but the 4-9:30 block gets long but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. My companion has been amazing and prepared all of my meals for me. She reminds me a lot of Sarah P. She loves to cook beans and rice and stuff so we have had a lot of that but I have liked it. I have also had a lot of каша which is like oatmeal or any type of hot cereal. She also made me borsht which was really good. I liked it. I have eaten a lot of hot cereal, lentils, rice, borsht and fruit- it is so cheap here and really good. I have also tried the yogurt and juice which I really like and of course the CHOCOLATE. Delicious.
As far as clothes have gone I have been wearing my longjohn things (wintersilks) everyday and Sis. Pike has let me borrow a pair of her thick tights. I wear that and my wool skirt and I am pretty warm. When we go out at night I put on a pair of thick wool socks which is really nice. I have been wearing that blue coat that Grandma gave me everyday and I can’t even explain how grateful I am that I have it! It has been so nice and keeps me warm. Sis. Pike has also let me borrow a pair of her warm gloves so I have been fine. It gets cold walking around at night and sometimes in the morning but the day time is really nice.
So Saturday we went Tracting for the first time and it was…intimidating but okay. Sis. Pike is so good at being encouraging and pushing me to do “scary” things. In order to get into a building you have to call someone in the building to let you in so I talked on the domaphone for the first time and it was funny. It took about 7 people before someone let me in. No one understood me the first time I talked on the phone and they would always ask “what?” multiple times. Oh well. Then we would go up to the top of the stairwell and work our way down. Out of two stairwells we only got a couple people to talk to us but that’s okay. It was a good experience. We will go again tonight and hopefully I will be more brave! Saturday we also contacted a lot which was good. It is just a different experience to be a missionary and try to get people to talk to you. We met a lot of really nice people and a couple people who gave us their phone number so hopefully we will be able to meet with them sometime this week and teach them the first lesson.
Sunday was awesome! I met our Branch and the Branch President etc and it was really cool. I LOVE my BRANCH! They are all amazing. It was Fast Sunday here because they will watch conference this coming weekend. We were all encouraged as missionaries to bear our testimonies in church and tell the people of the reality of a temple here if the members will work with us. We are trying a new program where the members go on splits with the missionaries every night from 7-9 and teach and contact with us. People can also sign up to have their house open and if you have a lesson you can go straight to their house. There is a HUGE push here to have every lesson with an investigator with a member and I think it will be great. I bore my testimony and told them how excited I was to serve in the Branch. It is a big branch and everyone was so nice! I loved it. The member of the 70 was there and also bore his testimony. They also blessed two babies in the ward and it just made me so happy to see that these cute babies were born into the church and the church truly is growing in Russia. This Gospel is so great! It brings so many blessings into people’s lives. I love it! Well I’m almost out of time but everything here is good. I love Russia, I love the people, I love my companion, and I love all of you! Thanks for your love and support and for all you do for me. Keep praying for the missionaries and that people will be ready everywhere to hear the Gospel! It changes lives!
Love you all,
Whitney