"Soooo I'm here :) The first day that I got here, we very fittingly landed in the Seattle airport with a light drizzle going on and there are pretty much constant puddles from what I have seen. There is sometimes a light drizzle or mist going on, but usually it's just overcast. I know this because we spend hours every day in the car and only occasionally do we have to turn on the windshield wipers. The freeways are really busy and there is a lot of traffic and so we have to spend a lot time planning lessons and role-playing in the car, which is interesting to get used to.
Our area covers the bottom half of the Seattle mission and
the Federal Way mission and we go to church in Bothell because the Russian
group goes to church there. It's about an hour drive to church and all of the
other meetings that we have to have in Bothell. Time Management has been the
hardest thing to adjust to! I mean we have several hours of study in the
morning and then usually some type of coordination or zone meeting that we have
to go to and so then we only have 4 or 5 hours to actually be out contacting
people and so it's hard to plan. I guess that's why planning takes a long time
every night. We whitewashed into the area and so there were no current
investigators or anything. All of the Russian people who are investigators are
in the Russian North area that covers the Everett mission; however, we have
been able to find some people who are interested! Sometimes it's frustrating
because we will find this awesome person, but we have to refer them because
they are English speaking! There are seriously a ton of Russian speaking people
though. There are entire complexes and apartment buildings that are filled with
Russian people either from Armenia, Ukraine, or Russia. Ukraine seems to be the
most common, probably because it is the easiest place for people to leave, but
I don't know. Also, people keep asking us if we are Ukrainian or not. They
don't seem to believe that there are American girls that know Russian haha!
I forgot my journal, and so it is actually hard for me to
remember everything that happened this week! Basically, the day of travel to
get here was the longest day I have ever experienced. getting to talk to some people on the phone
was so awesome though! I was temp companions with hermana Lee, and then when I
got there I found out that my companion is Sister Orr! She is awesome and she
has been out for about a year. She is from Utah and her Russian is amazing!
Before she was with me, she was actually serving in an English area and I
learned that it is inevitable that I will eventually be doing English for a
couple transfers which should be fun! I just hope that I don't forget Russian.
Speaking of, the people here are so hard to understand! They talk so quickly
and under their breathe and mumble random stories that Sister Orr says have
nothing to do with what we are talking about. Because they're from all around,
it's hard trying to understand a bunch of different accents! There is a Sister
and an Elder here that are from Ukraine and I feel like I'll probably adopt
their accents and sound like I am from Ukraine (hopefully, I won't always sound
like an American).
Everyone here is so nice! We don't get to really eat with
members because of the far drive to our ward and so some random ward had a ton
of food left over from Trek and gave us a TON of food. It was a blessing. We
got to give some to Sister Slava because she just got evicted from her home and
doesn't have very much food. She is one of the Russian members of our ward that
lives close to us. her faith is so strong! There are only a few Russian
members...Brother Slava, Sister Slava, and an Armenian couple. There is a
family that will be baptized in a few weeks. Missionary-wise, there are 4 of us
at the moment. There is also an Elder that speaks Russian, but he is English
speaking. His English is so good! There is also a Senior couple that served in
Russia and now is helping out with the Russian work here. I rjust realized that
I am telling you a bunch of useless information. Now I will tell you the
miracle that happened!
So we had a cool experience where we were trying to contact
a referral, but they weren't home and so we were leaving and I felt like we
should pray to bless the family and the home. After we prayed, we walked away
and ran right into this really nice man named John. He wasn't Russia speaking,
but he was totally interested in what we had to say and wanted English
misisonaries to come and visit him! I know that if I hadn't followed the
feeling that I had to pray on that doorstep, we would have already been in the
car driving aqway and never would have met John! It's absolutely insane how
much Heavenly Father cares about the little instances and interactions that we
have in our everyday lives.
President Schofield and his wife are totallty awesome. They
are so supportive and always send nice texts telling us to work hard and have a
great day. It's hard to walk up to random epople and it's hard to face the
rejection that comes most of the time, but that just makes the times that
people actually want to talk to us so much sweeter! Sister Orr is doing a
fantastic job of showing me the ropes and telling me about all of the sketchy
places that we don't go so that we wont't get kidnapped. Today we are going to
Pikes Place/ the actual city of Seattle and I am really excited! Normallly missionaries
can't do that, but since we are Russian and our area is so huge we can almost
go anywhere that we want to go and it is awesome.
Love you all so much and love getting updates.
2 Ne. 4:14-35
Sister Jenne"
Unfortunately, there were no pictures this week, but I'll be sure to remind her for next week. :)
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