July July July July July July

Something tells me that Cyn's got a birthday coming up tomorrow. I'm not really sure what. Maybe it was the email she sent me with 50000000000000 exclamation marks. I dunno. In any case, pass along a happy birthday pleaseandthankyou.

 

In any case, and just in case you're wondering, we had a Finding Week this week. Hooray! It's a good thing the weather's warmed up somewhat. People hate talking to us in the rain. Incidentally, that reminds me of one of my favorite "I Can't Meet" excuses that people give us when we try to set up appointments with them. This one was used by a potential investigator with whom we've been trying to meet for the last ten centuries at least: "Meet? Today? It's raining! I can't! It's bad news to go out in the rain!" Mind you, this is a people who, when the weather has dropped to about 30 below and there's a blizzard going at full blast, will bundle up their 2- and 3-month-old children and go out walking. Just for the heck of it. And they stay outside for HOURS. Of course. That's just snow. But once the rain gets started... oh no. No. Rain is dangerous. Ha. Oh Russia. I love these people. Needless to say, we didn't meet with her that day. But we did go out in the rain (against all sound advice) and we seemed to have survived... ish. I dunno. Maybe all our hair will fall out in 50 years as a result of this. Ha.

 

So we've got this investigator from one of the -Stans (that's another one of those amusing things about serving here on Sakhalin - the vast majority of our investigators aren't actually from Russia. A few are from the -Stans, one is from China, and we found another one this week from North Korea. He doesn't speak any Russian, and his English is so-so. Teaching is a lot of fun with him. And my charades are getting better.) who is really excited about our message. He came to church a couple of weeks ago and heard a talk about eternal families. Obviously this is a topic he likes, because he spent a lot of time telling us about it when we met with him again. He's also good at doing missionary work, at least in his own way. Almost every lesson we've had with him he's invited somebody else along. I don't know what he tells them to get them to come, though, because every time we ask if they've heard anything about us they respond with something like, "no, not really. I was just invited along." Welp. Works for me. We do a lot of first lessons with this investigator. And I'm okay with that.

 

In any case, apparently that's all you get this week... ish. Try to enjoy yourselves back at home (or wherever you happen to be) and remember that I love you.

 

-Sister Read (I've forgotten how to write that, apparently. It kept coming out 'Red.' Basically the same thing, right?)

Happy 19th

Today's got to be a holiday somewhere, even if it isn't in Russia (for once). In any case, To my dearly-beloved-and-travel-worn family:

 

I hope you all managed to enjoy yourselves on the extensive trip into the wildernesses of Utah and California. Dangerous places, from what I hear. Or possibly the only existing states (along with New York City, which is either a state or a city, nobody's really sure which) in the United States, if I go by what people on the street tell me. Utah's where all the Mormons live, right? Isn't that somewhere next to New York? I guess I can't really blame them for a lack of geographic knowledge, though. I know where Moscow, St. Petersburg, Omsk (that one is thanks to Sister Kovalevskaya. Every single English Club she'd introduce herself thus: "My name is Sister Kovalevskaya. I am from Omsk. Omsk is ze center of the world."), and vaguely where Vladivostok is... maybe. Everything else is just located somewhere to the west-ish.

 

I've told you about our Guard Babushka's, right? That's another one of those Russian Things. They all go out and gather around the entrances to the apartment buildings as soon as first light hits each day, and then they spend the whole day just standing around - sometimes alone and sometimes in groups - giving everybody who goes in or out the fish eye and,if he happens to be an unfamiliar face, demanding to know what he thinks he's doing here in OUR building and giving him a stern warning that he'd better Watch Himself. Or else. We've got about 5 who gather outside of our entrance on a daily basis, and luckily for us they've officially declared us Approved, at least as long as we don't go trying to do something ridiculous like trying to go out without a hat on or taking only a light coat in the summertime. Poor Sister Tolmachova had a run-in with one of them this week though, and although it was extremely hilarious, I didn't dare laugh out loud because I knew I'd risk certain death that way. Most of our Babushkas think that we're the sort of religious people who take confessions, so we spend a lot of time trying to tell them as politely as possible that of course we're grateful for their trust, but this just isn't our business; repentance is an individual matter.The other day one of them started telling us about how she'd gotten into an argument with the lady down the row, and as a result she'd been cursed with an unfortunate disease. We told her that it was unfortunate that she was going through this trial at this time, but we didn't think that it was divine punishment. Then Sister Tolmachova suggested, "but maybe it would be better for you to go and make up with that lady all the same." Oops. Obviously not the right words. "Me?! Make up with HER?! SHE's the one at fault here! SHE's the one who started it! I'M NOT AT FAULT! I CAN'T UNDO HER WRONGS! How DARE you suggest that I might be in the wrong!" Ah, well. Okay then. Guess there's that problem solved. We told her we'd pray for her and then walked away. As politely and non-threateningly as possible. Haha. I love Babushkas. They make my life entertaining.

 

Oh yeah, I got the package with the new memory card on Tuesday, which, needless to say, was a little surprising. I mean you'd only sent it less than a month before. In any case, thank you and Hooray! New pictures! Brother Noble went home for a couple weeks on Wednesday, and he before he left he kindly offered to send off (through the American Postal System) anything we wanted to get home a little quicker (and possibly a little safer as well). So I copied all my pictures onto my thumb drive and sent the flash drive with him. You should be getting it within the next couple of weeks, I hope. Of course it'd be extremely ironic if my flash card got lost, not in the Russian system, but in the American. I'd laugh, at any rate.

 

I guess that's all you get this week. Get some sleep, try to enjoy yourselves at home, and remember that I love you.

 

-Sister Read

A whole year gone by... almost

Welp. It's July again. I hope there's sunshine around somewhere.

 

I realized (ish. I can't exactly say that this is something new for me) this week that I've officially been in one area too long. We made a goal to start working with some of the investigators in the "Formers" section of the Area Book, so at the beginning of the week we looked through it to see if there was anybody with some potential. As we looked through it I made a very interesting discovery: the vast majority of the teaching records in there (and I mean the vast majority. There were only about six that didn't) had my name on them somewhere - either in the "Missionaries who began teaching" section or the "Reasons why the investigator chose to stop meeting with missionaries" section. Oh man. I'm amused. So of course we decided to start Round Two... at least with some of them. It'll be interesting, I'm sure.

 

I've decided that there are several benefits to working in a threesome, but I haven't quite decided if the benefits outweigh the negatives. Maybe they're equally balanced. On the plus side, when an investigator calls and says, "Let's meet in 10 minutes,"  we don't have to either (a) scramble to find a member who can get out to the church building in that amount of time or (b) tell the investigator "no" and then spend another ten years after that trying to set up an appointment that'll work for him and for us. In addition, when we go contacting, things are a whole lot more amusing, because when people see us coming we get the look of absolute terror a whole lot more than we used to than when it was just two of us. On the other hand, we get the look of terror a whole lot more than we used to, and people go farther out of their way to avoid us than they did before. And our living space is a little cramped. But that's okay! We're losing the apartment anyway, haha. Our landlady decided she wanted to move into the apartment herself come September, but of course she can't do that with a bunch of missionaries hanging around. Of course I laugh because, as you may recall (unless I didn't actually say so), keeping the apartment here was one of the reasons President sent us to Sakhalin in the first place. Life is so ironic.

 

So it sounds like you're all having lots of success in various and sundry parts of the world. Hope it isn't too hot. I'll be thinking about you all as I walk around in my coat again this week. Ha. Actually it isn't quite that cold. Not yet anyway. I think we've still got another week or so of summer before the temperature drops again.

 

But that's all you get today. I love you, enjoy yourselves, say hello and happy birthday to all who deserve it from me (incidentally, happy birthday tomorrow, grandma!), and try not to do too much relaxing. See also: give referrals to your local missionaries!

-Sister Read