Siberian Fiesta

Hello! It's been a very cold rainy day today in Siberia. But all is well!

It's been a long and very busy and exciting week. Tranfers happened
this week and at one point we had 7 sisters in one little russian
apartment! Needless to say it was very fun and nice to get to know
everyone. We had 5 new sisters come in this week and by the end of
December we will have 22 total! Which is huge! And who knows now that
the mission age is lowered who knows how many girls will come!!!

I hope you all enjoyed conference! We don't get to watch it untill
next week but the senior couple stayed up late and watched the first
session on the internet and then told us at church on sunday! It's
unreal! 18 and 19! Isn't that kind of dangerous? All the elders here
are kind of scared of younger girls. They have so many russian girls
flinging themselves at them they don't want missionaries to do so
also! But maybe they are just full of themselves..... haha

Another very exciting thing happened this week on Thursday. Sister
Barlow and I received new roommates/ companions. We currently have
Sister Talakh from Ukraine finishing the last 3 weeks of her mission
with us and a "mini-missionary" Sister Elena from Kazakhstan staying
with us. We're switching every other day and also with the sisters on
left bank Novo twice a week. Let's just say this just got real. haha.
My russian understanding has been improving leaps and bounds. It's
very hard though. Sister Elena is 39 and doesn't quite understand what
it means to be a missionary... She also kind of likes to tell me what
to do. But she's hilarious. She just laughs and laughs and says the
funniest stuff and then she gets mad when we don't understand and then
we just all laugh. She also likes to cook. Which is scary. They both
just laugh at what we buy from the store and we laugh at what they
buy. Maybe that's not necessarily courteous but it's all understood.
They are only going to be here for 3 weeks so hopefully I can learn
the Russian Language soon : ) haha. Sister Talakh has had a lot of
american companions and understands English but doesn't really speak
it so she kind of translates for us and she also has this amazing way
to translate russian into simpler russian I can understand! But it's
fun and it's nice to have them here and help connect with our
investigators and maybe have a better understanding of how we can help
them. We have 3 amazing progressing investigators but they all are
afraid to commit to baptism. Jenya is waiting for her answer but has
been coming to church and reading the book of mormon for 6 months and
knows everything is true but feels like she hasn't gotten an answer
about baptism. Svetlana is up and down we've pretty much taught her
everything and yet she thinks she can't get baptized cause she takes
pills for her depression. She thinks its against the word of wisdom
but then the other day she tried to give me money for her tithing!
It's so cute! Gamid has been coming to church for a long time too and
loves meeting and learning but he's Muslim and is afraid to get
baptized and thinks that we teach truth and so does the Kharan. So we
shall see. But they are all so great! You would love Gamid! He knows a
little english and every time we call he says "HELLLLLOOOOOOO!" in the
funniest voice! And good BYYYYYYEEE! And if you ask him how's he's
doing he says FINE! Just fine! He told us that he read an article and
that american's always say fine even if they aren't. Which is true.
But here in Russia be warned if you ask someone how they are doing
they will tell you bad and everything along with it....

Saturday we had a mexican fiesta at the branch! Our district wanted to
provide a missionary opportunity for the members to bring their
friends and to invite our investigators to have fun and get aquainted
with the branch. It went really well. I was scared it was going to
flop. Because the members didn't really quite understand the activity
slash they have never had mexican food Sister Barlow and I and the
senior couple did most of the preparation. It was crazy. We bought a
ton of tortillas and hamburger and we made rice and added spices and
Sister Barlow and I made a whole butt load of salsa. The elders loved
it. They haven't had mexican food in like a year. The members however
were not very fond of it. I think they thought the salsa was too
spicy. Or I don't know what but luckily they brought a bunch of random
russian food to add to the table. We also made a pinata and cut out
some cacti for decorations. I have some pictures. It was all pretty
creative if I do say for myself. Especially when there is nothing like
hobby lobby here and we are thousands of miles away from mexico. We
even set up a photo booth and had a sombrero, poncho and made a ton of
mustaches on skewers! Everyone kept asking "why mexico?" I don't
really know why I just love throwing fiestas! We had music in the
background as well as a program. Elder Walker played guitar. The AP's
did some mexican history and especially tied to the church (like how
many temples/members are there) Elder Hogan did a dance-he used to be
on the folk dance team at byu. And I taught the whole party how to do
the mexican hat dance. It was pretty hysterical. No many of the
members joined but a few investigators and a whole lot of missionaries
danced. haha. And then we missionaries sang I am a Child of God in
spanish. After that we had a cool tour set up and a member of the
branch presidency spoke in one room about sacrament meeting. In the
nursery room we talked about the auxiliaries and primary and such and
opened the tiny little room called the "family history center" and
talked about that. I think it was a success. It was a lot of work but
hopefully we touched somebody!

Okay time for a russian fact and russian word of the week!
Fact: Russians are obsessed with their shoes. You take them off the
first second you enter somebody's house and sometimes they give you
slippers. Second they have all these brushes and tools to clean their
shoes and they always look So nice! Whereas after a long day of
tracting in the mud mine look like crap and I feel terrible. They also
get mad at you when you are simply wearing shoes when it's fairly cold
and you need to be wearing boots. But it's all good. We're going boot
shopping today : )

Russian Word: ладно pronounces like "lahd-nah" It has several
meanings. Most of the time it means okay, or alright. But sometimes it
means whatever. But people say it alll the time and I sometimes am
afraid they mean like whatever! i'm not interested but usually it's
just like ok alright see you at our meeting! I've started using it all
the time. It's kind of bad. I lahdnah everything. haha.

Well I hope you are all doing well! I love you all!

Sister Carling