Four months on a mission as of Saturday, and today marks the beginning of week 6 in Russia. Crazy. For the record, missions go much faster from this side. Sister Ivanova keeps telling me to make the most of it because I haven't got much time left, but she's one to talk. She goes home in March. We found out today that we're here on the island for at least one more transfer, which wasn't much of a surprise for either of us. Apparently sisters tend to stay in one place for a very very very very very very very very very long time in this mission. At least this is what I hear from the Senior Companion. We shall see.
Today Sister Jones, whose husband works for Exxon (of course), needed to go into town to buy groceries and so she invited us missionaries along. The place she shops is really cheap (relatively speaking, of course. We are on an Island in Russia, after all), but it's difficult to get to without a car. I must say it's nice to have somebody to speak English with once in a while, because I'm beginning to feel like I'm committing a minor sin every time I speak with one of my fellow missionaries for more than 10 seconds in English. We're supposed to be 100% Russian when there are members present, and invariably (except for Zone Meetings on Tuesdays) if we're all in one place it means there are members nearby somewhere. Obviously too much English isn't much of a problem when it's just me and Sister Ivanova, because although she understands more English than I do Russian, she still tends to revert back to Russian after one or two words in English. With Sister Jones on the other hand, anything but English is a no-go, because she speaks almost no Russian. Huh. Who would've thought I'd miss English? (I'm pretty sure I've said that before too. I'm getting predictable in my old age).
While we're on my favorite topic of languages, here's an amusing-ish story that happened a couple weeks ago in church: Brother Noble, the Branch Mission Leader (who also happens to work for Exxon, go figure), is very gung-ho about his calling, and likes to meet with the full-time and branch missionaries at least weekly. So every Sunday afternoon at promptly 1:00 we're all gathered in the Priesthood room, ready to talk about how to make the work go forward faster. Like Sister Jones, Brother Noble also doesn't speak much Russian, so of course he conducts the meeting in English. However, because the majority of the people in the room are native Russian speakers, we as missionaries give our reports in Russian, because it's usually the natives who need our information most. Usually what ends up happening then is that we, the non-native American missionaries are speaking Russian and the native Russians will do the translating back into English for Brother Noble. It's highly amusing.
In any case, I'm all out of town (or time. Whatever) again. I love you all, stay safe - I MEAN IT! - and have a better week, please.
Sister Read
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