Что?? (means WHAT??)
Crazy crazy week!
WEDNESDAY: Not a super eventful day, but we did go to the temple which is always a highlight! Also, we met a girl that entered the MTC that day who is from Ukraine! She spoke to us in Russian, and I was very happy because she told me she liked my dress (in Russian) and I understood her because I learned how to say dress a few days before.
THURSDAY: Wow, Thursday has a story. So, we all come out here on missions right, and a whole section of the mission rules is devoted to no flirting and things like that. WELL, some Spanish speaking sisters apparently didn’t get the memo. We have two British elders in our district, and when these three hermanas heard their accents, they would not leave them alone. This week they took it too far, even if we weren’t in the MTC. They decided it was smart to look through the desks in our classroom to figure out what room the British elders are in and write a little message on the board (attached below). The poor British elders did not know what to do, so when the hermanas came up to them again after this happened, another elder in our district held out a glass of water and said “do you need a drink? Because you look pretty thirsty.” They left us alone after that.
FRIDAY: I’ve already told some of you this, but I read the best talk on Friday called Beware of Pride from the April 1989 General Conference. It changed my whole outlook on pride, what it really means, and how we can be more humble. One of my favorite lines is “Pride is a damning sin in the true sense of that word. It limits or stops progression”. I think that is so interesting to think about. Not all of us are super prideful people in our own eyes, but everyone does have some amount of pride. It’s something that we can always work on. If we learn to be more humble, we can progress further, avoid contention, and just lead happier lives. I focused a lot on being humble this week, and the progress I’ve made and the happiness I have felt makes me so excited to continue to work on being as Christ is.
SATURDAY: Saturday I was sad. I was running with a cute girl in my zone from Germany, сестра Richter. We were just talking about our week and everything and then I found out that she and her companions are leaving for Russia this week! So now I’m sad:( But I’m also so excited for them! They actually get to go out and do the thing, not just learn about doing the thing!
SUNDAY: We sang the best song in choir called “A Marvelous Work”. It has such a strong missionary message, and also has a little part with the words from “The Spirit of God”. It makes me really excited to be here and to be gathering Israel! We also got a new MTC presidency which is pretty exciting!
MONDAY: So Russian is confusing! We were talking about all the different cases for Russian, and there’s a case called dative case, the refers to indirect objects. In Russian, instead of saying “John needs a car”, they say “to John is needed a car”. Because they say it like that, the “to John” becomes an appendage, or the indirect object, and the subject changes from John to the car. Half of the things we ask our teacher why? And she just tells us to embrace it so I’m embracing it. Also, numbering things is weird. If you want to say 1 book, you say 1 книга. But if you want to say 2-4 books, it’s 2 (or 3 or 4) книги, and if you want to say 5-20 books then you say 13 книг. I don’t understand why there needs to be so many words that mean the same thing but oh well.
TUESDAY: We had such a great devotional on Tuesday. Elder Gay from the 70 and his wife spoke. Sister Gay talked a lot about her and her husbands experience serving as mission president and wife in Ghana. Over and over again, she talked about how we need to love the people. We are going all over the world to change peoples lives and bring them joy. We need to teach them, serve them, and love them. Elder Gay mentioned that none of us are here by accident. God is aware of ALL of His children individually, no matter where in the world they live or how invisible they think they are. He knows all of us and He loves all of us with a most perfect love. Because He loves us so incredibly much, He has a plan for each of us. His plan for us may not seem perfect, and we all have many trials and things we are struggling with, but God does not give us any hardship that we can’t handle. He gives them to us so that we can overcome difficulties, and learn how to be better than we ever thought we could be.
I hope you all had an amazing week!! Я очен люблю вас!!!
Сестра Jones
1. Me and сестра Murton (from the Netherlands)
2. Love note for the British elders (see Thursday)
3. Proposal printed on a Vitaminwater bottle?
