"So many things happened this week! Sister Orr broke the vacuum at the car wash...we went and did some very "Seattle" things... the space needle...glass gardens! It was an awesome experience. I know that a lot of missionaries don't get to do so because it's not in their area. I feel so blessed to be in the Russian work, sometimes. The view from the Space Needle was incredible (pretty sure we saw Canada). You could see Pugent Sound and all sorts of cool lakes and skyscrapers and such.
Tuesday I got to meet Sister Drake! She is the sweetest
person ever and invited us to Snoqualmie Falls to meet her Russian speaking
house cleaners! Such a great experience, I loved getting to meet my 1st cousin
once removed, finally! Now I know that I have a house to stay in when I come
back to Seattle after my mission ;)
This week one of our goals was to speak Russian to each
other when we are having normal conversations every day. It's like in the MTC
when they tell you to SYL and then no one actually does it because you
literally don't know how to say anything in your language besides a prayer and
a testimony. (I know a little more than I knew in the MTC, now though haha) We
have had this goal for probably about 10 weeks now. It never works. We never end
up actually doing it more than about 10% of our conversation because it's just
sooo much easier to express myself in English. However, this past week we were
thinking about how we can change the goal to make it something we would
actually do because if you just do the same thing over and over and expect
different results, you won't get them! (which is super logical, but it took us
10 weeks to figure out...) Anyways, we made it into a game/fun competition
where whoever speaks English when they know how to say it in Russian gets a
tally. Then at the end of the day, whoever has more tallies has to give the
other a neck/back rub. Works out really well, and I can testify that it has
already helped my conversational Russian a ton! I'm more at ease just talking to
people now. It's kind of amazing! I can see God's hand in the past few weeks
trying to push us toward doing more of speaking in Russian with each other, but
I just haven't had the desire to do it! Now that I have some motivation, I am
doing it and seeing the blessings! So awesome; it's a lesson that I won't
forget in making future goals.
As far as food goes this week, we tried a new Russian food
called Halva. It's sunflower seeds crushed up and sugar (essentially). Sounds
really weird right? It looks absolutely disgusting. It's so good! It's such an
interesting taste. We found a cute little shop that is full of Rusisian and
Ukrainian foods. I can't wait to go back on Pday sometime and try everything.
We also tried something called a "beef samsa" that was pretty yummy.
Russians love to stick things inside of bread like meat and mashed potatoes and
then eat it all of the time. (I am not complaining!). I also ate Falafel. Very
yummy. My eating experiences have expanded a whole lot.
Yesterday we didn't get a transfer call and so that means
I'll be sending Sister Orr home and so I'll have been with her for 3 transfers.
That's the second longest amount of time she's been with any companion, which
makes me probably her second favorite ;) She also just got called this morning
as a sister training leader and so we will have a ton of exchanges in our area.
Exchanges are when a set of sisters comes over to our area for a day/spends the
night and we switch companions for the purpose of learning from each other. That
means I'll be going out to do Russian work with companions that don't speak any
Russian at all. Lemme just say that I am super nervous about that.I know that
it will be a tremendous growing experience.
Love you all! Have a fantastic week.
Sister Jenne"
Stay tuned!!! :)
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