Lady Bugs and Falling Down Stairs

Whoo. I finally made it. Just got back from having a lovely cinnabon
next to the internet cafe here and walking down the sketchy stairs to
this place I completely biffed it. And i scraped my arm. And currently
while I'm typing this letter there is a lady bug crawling all over the
keyboard next to me. Want to know something funny? The lady bugs here
are backwards! It's black with red dots! There are a ton of them right
now. I'm not sure why. But they fly in my face while I walk around.

This week has been good. lots of appointments lots of contacting and
tracting. It's great fun. Even though I get 8 hours of sleep every
night I'm exhausted! But I guess that's good right? It means I'm
working hard?! If you've ever wondered what it's like to be exhausted
try waking up and it's pitch black outside and saying your prayers and
then you wake up 20 min later cause your knees hurt and your arms are
still folded..... haha. I'm trying though! I've moved to the kitchen
to say my prayers when I wake up. But it's rough. haha.

Well here's a list of this week's adventures.

1. Found two more cockroaches. They look different than the first two.
So we got some magic cockroach chalk and drew lines all over the
appartment.

2. Had a wonderful meeting with Iris! Iris is amazing. I met her
contacting for english and she showed up the first week. She's from
china and is here on exchange promoting culture or something. She
speaks really great english. She came to english and had so many
questions about God. Only problem is she's only in Novo for one more
week! So we finally got a meeting set up and it was the day before she
left back to Russia. We found a book of mormon in chinese in the
office and we gave her the restoration movie and finding faith in
christ cause they have it translated to like 20 languages on a single
disc! We had a really great discussion and she just talked about how
its kind of interesting that we believe so strongly because she's
never had religion. She doesn't know what its like to believe. But I
really think that the spirit spoke to her and she's going to read the
book of mormon and I know that as soon as missionaries are in china
she's totally going to get baptized! She lives in the town where the
terra cotta soldiers are and she gave me this really cool terra cotta
soldier pen. Shes sooo great! I was very sad to say good bye.

3. Last night we had an appointment fall through so we went and
knocked some doors in our neighborhood. I like knocking doors. Time
flies and you give everyone a check mark! (there's a theory that
everyone will say no at least 9 times before excepting the gospel. So
when we knock on a door and they answer that's one check!) We knocked
on this one guys door and he told us to leave. We happily left and
rang the door bell to his neighbor... He heard us and opened the door
and told us to leave. He started talking to us really fast and we had
no idea except for the fact he wanted us to leave. So we did... He
walked us down 6 flights of stairs to make sure we were out of there.
I'm not going to lie I was really scared but then I realized he didn't
have a gun or a knife or anything he was in his slippers. So it was
all good. But that's dedication. He must really not like us. I would
not walk down 6 flights of stairs!

4. Went to Tatiana in beerdsk again. She is sooo amazing. She's a new
convert and just so wonderful. We talked about the plan of salvation
and how this life is a time to prepare to meet God and how we need to
do good on this earth and then she told us how she feels bad cause she
cant serve everyone. She thinks she's being a bad person because she
can't give all the beggars on the street a ruble when she passes them.
I told her that by her example and by her smile that can be her gift
and it doesn't have to be money. But isn't that sweet. She is soo
kind. She made us food again.... but this time it was good. She made
is shhhhhee. It's cabbage soup with potatoes in it and thyme. It was
delicious,

I've had several requests about the food I eat here and what we cook.
We have studies for four hours every day so we eat breakfast and lunch
at home and then usually hit the streets and stay busy so we don't eat
dinner. The members aren't required to feed us. There isn't a calendar
or anything plus they are very poor so we don't expect anything. But
Russian hospitality usually requires a cup of tea. There are lots of
different good herbal teas here. At first I didn't really like it. But
it's growing on me. I had a cup with my breakfast the other day! What
is happening to me!?

They love soup. Borscht and Shhhheee. Borscht has beets and it's red.
And Shhhee is yellow. But both have like cabbage and potatoes and
carrots. They eat alot of cabbage and potatoes here. They also serve
it with mayonaise or sour cream. They love those here. The sour cream
is really good. I don't know why but it's different. They also LOVE
sweetened condensed milk. They put it on crackers or bread and I like
it in my tea. It sweetens it up and it's good.

Everyone here has a dacha. It's like a cottage on the outskirts of the
city and they all have gardens. you call to meet with someone and they
say they are "on the dacha". (they are ALWAYS on the dacha. a little
frustrating) So lots of people try to give us tomatoes or tea leaves
from their dacha. or these weird mini apples. they are very squishy.
you know about me and squishy apples.

They have very good breads and bleenie. Which is like crepes. I had a
meat bleenie the other day and it was really good. They also have
pirogies- like the kind we had in seattle. Just good fattening bread
pockets. haha filled with a lot of things. That's the sketchy part.
There's like fish ones and liver ones and rice and potatoes and
hamburger ones and vegetable ones. I like the rice and potato ones but
they are very greasy and sometimes my stomach doesn't like me after I
have all of the fried pirogies and other stuffed pastries.

But basically the best thing is chocolate muesli. It's granola from
the grocery store but it's chocolate and has almonds and cashews and
it's delicious. We eat a lot of cereal here and cook rice and chicken
and do eggs and toast. Nothing too fancy. We don't have a lot of time
so we just cook regular american food sort of.  The pastries and
desserts here aren't very good. It's very sad. They have really coarse
sugar here and so it's hard to bake with. It's not as much sugar is
like an american cup of sugar. If that makes sense. And so I find
things very bitter here and not very moist. But who knows I'll
probably get used to it.
Also the ice cream here is amazing. And people eat it all the time.
Even when it's cold. There's little stands everywhere. It's like
thicker but fluffier. That makes no sense but you'll have to try it.
It also comes in a roll. Like not a carton to take home but like a
roll. So you cut it with a knife. It's great.

Anywhoo. The work is going well. It's transfer week and we live in
Novo so we're going to have lots of travelers in our house this week.
Stay tuned. I have a feeling this week is going to be epic. In many
ways.

The church is true and Jesus loves you!

Sister Carling

No comments:

Post a Comment