A Month in Russia!

Dear Mom, Dad, and Family,
Thanks again for all your emails. I have loved hearing about what’s going on and what you have all been up to. So good to hear about AMI! CONGRATULATIONS! And Congratulations Conrad. This week has been really good. I can’t believe that I have been in Russia one month!!!! I made it!!! Can you believe it? It seems really weird that I can say I made it a month in Russia, hopefully I’ll be able to make it…a few more;) It is definitely getting colder and occasionally you look outside and see small flakes of snow falling, I am just waiting to wake up to a white wonderland but if that is the case, we will be okay. Sis Pike did leave this week but fortunately I have a great new companion. Her name is Sis. Semikolenova and she served a mission on temple square. I don’t know how long she will be with me but it has been fun to have a native Russian companion. She has also cooked me some yummy Russian food and so that has been fun. Mom you will be very surprised and happy to know that I eat tomoatoes every day and love them! Ha, who would have thought. It just amazes me that someone, who already served a mission, would agree to come out and serve again, in the cold, etc. etc. etc. It shows the strength of the Russian members and their desire to serve the Lord. Cool. Well this week has been pretty uneventful. We have walked A LOT and been to some interesting places, including our fun little village up in the mountains of Saratov (and dad it does change color, but is changing everyday to more bare and gray).
Monday was P-day and we picked up my new companion. We then did our grocery shopping and headed home for the day. I made onion soup (thanks mom) and apple cobbler. It was pretty fun to think that on Monday night you were all eating onion soup too for Octoberfest We then went out contacting. Tuesday night we had a really great lesson with our investigator Natalya, who I am in love with! She is progressing so well and we are so excited to see how she is doing! We had a lesson with Valentina (our landlady) on Monday night and read from the Book of Mormon with her and it went really well. We had tea and cookies and ate the apple crisp I had made (she loved it!) She then came into our apartment and started doing our dishes, what? She is so funny! She has to know everything we are doing and how we do it and help us do it… I love her. Because we were in a threesome for a few days we had to put our mattresses on the floor and all stay in one room. In the morning we were running a little late and so were not able to put the mattresses away before we went out. When we got back in we were making breakfast and all we heard from the other room was “PIKE”. (Valentina loves to say “PIKE”) She was so mad at us for having the room in such a mess, as she said “our beds weren’t even made”. Needless to say we apologized, cleaned up and had her come over to check again. She luckily said that everything looked good, gave us hugs and kisses and said “I don’t know why I didn’t yell at you, I must love you or something.” Love her.
Fortunately I have not gotten spit on or anything this week so that is good. My boots are working well and I inherited Sis. Pike’s awesome winter coat so at least I’m warm in the cold weather. I have to give a shout out to Kubo for the line “It’s okay I’m rich”. I never knew that I’d say it in Russia, but I did. We were on a lesson with a really really cute member of our ward who is about 20, Rita. She is awesome and so sweet and nice to come with us when we need her. We were getting on the Marshutka to go out to a different area which was pretty far away and we were getting out our money to pay. Because she was coming with us we decided we should pay for her ticket there and so as I got out my money and she got out hers I just said, “it’s okay, I’m rich.” Good times. We laughed pretty hard.
So not much else to report which I guess is a good thing. The church is true, missionary work is HARD but really good. Help the missionaries in your area (you’re definitely going to sick of hearing that) and go to the temple. I miss being able to go to the temple but look forward to going when I am back lots (that means you Jill, Katie, etc.). I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week! thanks for the love and support! you are all awesome! Love,
Whitney