Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Week 2

So sorry but this email is going to be short. I was having computer issues and wasted 10 of my 30 minutes trying to access my email. Argh. Two brief letters but hopefully next week will be better and there will be no issues.
 
So I will start with last Preparation Day. It was an interesting day to say the least. We get to go to the Provo Temple in the morning and I was really excited because I love the Provo Temple. As a distrinct we walked to the temple and we were on the temple grounds when my companion realized she had forgotten her reccommend. We bid adieu to our distrinct and walked back to get it. I'll admit that I was a little bummed, especially since the previous Sunday due to meetings Sister Thrall and I were not able to go on the Sunday temple walk with the district. But I tried to stay optimisic because I figured voicing my disappointment would only bring Sister Thrall down. However, the trip turned out for the best because we ran into a lady who had some names she needed done: Chinese names from the 1500s!
 
That was only the start of our interesting preparation day. Later when we tried to access our email Sister Thrall forgot her login account and began to panic and freak out a little bit. Calmly, I told her we should go to the ITO and I logged out, losing some of my time, so we could go. As we were heading back from solving that dillemna we ran into our Branch President and he had the new native sisters with him. Two of them speak English! My prayers were certainly answered. Then later one of the sister did not show up for the meeting that night. So Sister Thrall and I searched the MTC for close to 40 minutes but eventually we found the lost Ukraine sister.
 
I realize that I did not write much about my companion. Her name is Sister Thrall and she is from Utah. In our companionship I am the more outgoing one, which is a little different not to be the ultra shy one. Since she does not speak as much I have to work hard to get her to vocalize her opinions and make sure that I don't just take over when we teach. She is very nice and patient with my Russian practice because she took Russian in high school. She helps me a lot. Right now we are striving to get to know each other better and teach with unity.
 
Here is something that may surprise you. Sister Thrall and I taught "investigators" last week. The rooms have video cameras so our teacher can watch us and comment later. Among the compliments our teacher complimented us on our bold testimony. Bold has never been a word I would apply to myself.
 
Gah! My time is almost up! Russian is coming on. I think I am catching on pretty quickly. The grammar makes sense and cases were surprisingly not hard to understand, at least in theory. Sometimes the words take a while to form because of so many consanants next to each other. But I did dominate during a game we played in class where you had to translate an English phrase to Russian and it was a race to say it so your companion would tell the teacher what the original English phrase was. I was one of the best who was able to say the phrases the fastest correctly. Bet that does not surprise you. My favorite words to say are blasphemy and parrot in Russian. I try to say blasphemy as much as possible now because I figure it would not be a good idea to say it around Moscow all the time. We have also invented our own Russian slang.
 
Oh! We went to the temple today as a Branch because an Elder from Moldova and a sister from Lithuania had not been through the temple. Gah. 30 seconds. Next week then.
 
I love you all and appreciate all the letters I have recieved.
 
-Sister Daniel

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