Lots and lots of really great and hilarious things happened this past week. Hopefully I can remember it all:
-Two weeks ago, during weekly planning, we decided that we should plan very specifically who we were going to find when we went teaching. (When I say teaching, you know that it holds the same meaning as contacting, right?) I for some reason kept thinking that we should plan to find someone named Daniel even though that's not a super common Russian name (I'd never met one), so we wrote it down. We didn't find him that week, but then last week we were walking and stopped this kid who was about 18 because we're trying to find priesthood for the branch. Anyway, he agrees to meet with us for a lesson and then when I asked for his name, he was like, "Daniel."
Whaaaaaat?
-The next one happened about fifteen minutes after we found Daniel. We continued on our way to a street called Tiimanni because we had planned to find a man named Sergei there. So we turn onto Tiimanni and the first person we talk to? Sergei.
-We had planned to find a guy named Aleksander on Kangelaste, specifically near a store called Prisma. I had the feeling that I was going to like his coat, so we were also looking for a young man whose coat I liked. Haha I realize that this sounds weird, but it was so rad because we went down this random street by Prisma and found Aleksander! And yeah, I liked his coat. He was such a cool kid and we're prayin' real hard that he'll give us a call.
-Two nights ago, we only had an hour of teaching time and in order to meet our weekly goals, we had to find 3 new investigators and teach 9 lessons in that block of time. I don't know about other missions, but that was kiiiind of daunting for us because we have a hard time finding 1 new investigator a week. And 6 lessons a day deserves a major pat on the back, in my mind, because hardly anyone stops to talk to us, let alone gives us the time to tell them about the restoration before telling us that they're Russian Orthodox and then not letting us get in another word. So pretty much, we had no idea how we were going to do it. We started walking along the same place that we found Aleksander and happened to find Yevgeni, a nice guy who was walking his dog. He became a new investigator because he agreed to meet on Sunday at 6. 1/3 with only twenty minutes to go. We walked for a little bit and ended up right outside our apartment and pretty much abandoned the idea that we would get 7 more lessons in the 15 minutes that we had left. We decided to cross the street and walk a little ways, then we would turn back and go inside. So right after we crossed the street, we stopped these two guys who seemed to be around our same age and immediately they were like, "We're not believing people." One of them was super sassy and the other was totally willing to meet and talk more about the Plan of Salvation, but the other was like, "You believe in the kingdom with the sun and the moon and the stars." I was about to respond without really processing that but then I paused and was like, "Wait, how do you know that?" He said that his aunt is Mormon, and proceeded to tell us that her name is Maarika Valling.
Again, whaaaaaat? Pretty sure I've raved about how solid Maarika is before, but we were so surprised. He agreed to come to the meeting with his friend on Saturday.
So we met our goal of three investigators! 3/3!
-The branch has a monthly activity where Sister Ermohhena makes soup with the Relief Society (her, Maarika, Ksenja, and occasionally Sister Ivanova) on Saturday and then we eat it after church on Sunday. So this last Saturday we helped her make borsht. As I sat in the kitchen chopping up the beets and potatoes, I was listening to Sister Ermohhena sing old Russian lullabyes while she shredded cabbage and stirred the soup. Life is unreal sometimes.
-We ate that soup yesterday after church. The whole branch fit into the kitchen (there were 12 of us) and we all ate together. There were two really hilarious things that happened from that. First, Elder Hansen is probably one of the most dramatic people I've met. He paid for most of his mission from his money earned playing professional Pokemon and he's a national champion for clogging. He's hilarious, pretty much. Anywho, Sister Valling wanted us to sing a classic American song, so Elder Hansen closes his eyes and just serenades us for four minutes straight. I died. He was so serious about it and I loved every second of it.
Second thing was that Sister Dalley grabbed the last sweet roll and even though I didn't want any, I ripped a piece off because I love doing stuff like that to her. She's impossible to annoy. I try so hard, haha. What I didn't realize is that everyone watched me as I did it slowly and then stuffed it in my mouth all cross-eyed and idiotic looking. Everyone was so suprised that I would take her food--I don't think it's polite to do here. Haha they all laughed really hard though. Slightly embarrassing.
So yeah, I'm still me! Doin' my me thang, speaking Russian and stuff. I'm actually doing a lot better this week than I've been doing for the past two months because I started taking vitamin D3 again. I thought that it wouldn't really matter if I took it or not because I'm a positive and happy person in general, but my goodness there is a difference when I don't! It literally felt like a fog lifted from my brain, haha.
Sister Dalley and I are doing really well. I've had the chance to get to know her a lot better this transfer and I am so lucky to be serving with her. She's taught me a lot lately about serving others,especially when it's inconvenient. I have always tried to be service-minded, but she takes it above and beyond. She told me an experience from her life that has really changed my mindset. When she was younger, her family didn't have a lot of money. She remembers one time a family in the ward didn't have enough food, so her mom prepared a huge lasagna and took it over to them. When she got home, she went into the pantry and pulled out their food storage of rice and beans, then made that for her family. I don't know about you, but it would not have been my first inclination to do the same thing. Sister Dalley is just like that, too. She is always asking if she can serve other people and it's a really cool reminder to me that when we say that we should serve in the church, we are not just talking about serving when it's convenient. We aren't just talking about the people who have in abundance. We're talking about each individual, because we all have something to give. You know, the Widow's Mite and all.
I hope that you all have a really great week. Send me more pictures, because I need to assemble a photo album at the urgent request of many members :) LOVE YOU!
-Sister Gooch
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