Hello hello everyone!
I still love it here. This week, we placed 3 loaves of zucchini bread and 1 Book of Mormon!!!!!! (half reference to the Best Two Years)
I'll start with the Book of Mormon story. So, a few weeks ago, we ran into this cute girl that Sister Bybee met when she was serving here like a year ago. Her name is Lada and she is 17. She's very spunky and full of energy! She has a bit of a hard life. Her mom left her with her 12 year old sister and 4 month old sister for 6 months while she works in Moscow. She is also very addicted to smoking, and she started smoking when she was 7 years old. We met with her to make snickerdoodles on Sunday night, and she smoked 3 cigarettes in the hour we were with her. She doesn't think that she is a very good person, but Sister Bybee and I agree that she is a good kid. Since we can't have people in our apartment, we made the cookies at the church. She was pretty interested in getting "the grand tour", so we showed her around it. She believes in God, and she's read the Bible, so at the end of our meeting with her, we said "Here, we want to give you this book". She said "really? ok, thanks!". And then she took it and said she would read it! We'll see, but it was exciting anyways:)
This week, we met with an English teacher, and let me just tell you, I am so glad English is my first language. OUR LANGUAGE MAKES NO SENSE. But Bayarma (the English teacher) speaks English very well, and she wanted to practice with us. We just drank hot chocolate at a cafe. We showed her our pictures, and talked about everything about our lives. She was very interested in us, and specifically in church. She thought it was very interesting how much we think about our future (jobs, families, etc) forbeing so young, and we explained to her that families are a central part of our religion. We talked for a while, and she told us a little about herself. She has a son that is our age, and she says she's really far from religion right now. But she wants to talk with us again! Even if nothing comes of it, it's really cool to share what we believe and how it's blessed our lives.
We also had zone conference this week, and I have some WAY pretty pictures of the sunrise from the train:) Zone conference was wonderful as always. One thing that stood out to me was how we need to be bold. This gospel is something that has blessed my life in every single aspect, and that is something that I've especially realized while being a volunteer here. I have literally seen miracles, and they are all around us if we look for them. This is something that I want to share with other people. That is why I am currently writing this email in the middle of Siberia. The gospel of Jesus Christ is special, and I know it changes lives.
I love you all! I hope you had a wonderful week:)))
с любовью,
Сестра Джонз
Pictures:
Tea (чай), Irkutsk(where we have zone conference), a Stalin wall, and two of our Elders on a tramvay(it's like trax in utah).
