Monday, December 21, 2015

Russia Week 3 - Oranges, Christmas Campaign Cards and the Primary Program in Russian

13 December 2015

Another week with no pictures. 



Ok cool, so here is how this week went...we basically spent all our time street contacting, but we met some cool people.  We went walking around a lot of Vlad and I got to see like submarines and stuff so that was pretty cool.  We taught a couple of lessons with the members, and that was a lot of fun, because the grandmas give us fruit after we give them a lesson.  It’s fun to talk to the members and get a little bit of their story.  There is this half paralyzed old lady that we give the sacrament to every week, and she gave us oranges after, and another woman gave oranges after we taught here that she just pulled out of her desk.  I guess it’s kind of like a thing that old people do after you teach them, I’m not really sure.  

Saturday was a super fun day.  We went to Russian Island (Russky Island) 


which is like the size of Vlad, and it took like a full 2 and a half hours to get to where we needed to be for our contacting that day.  Turns out though, that we were able to actually tract, in Russia!  It’s pretty hard to do that in this area because of the way the apartments are made, but we were able to and I got my first taste of what it is like to say that you are missionaries and then someone just slams the door in your face while rolling their eyes.  It was just too cliché to not laugh at.  Elder Riggs said that he had never went tracting before, so it was his first time too.  After that we found this old lady just standing outside in the middle of nowhere, so we talked with her for a really long time.  Some other guy then came up and just started talking to us like we were already friends, and Elder Riggs thought that he looked like a branch president and we decided that we were going to come back to talk with that guy.  We then were walking back and found shells in the middle of the forest, so that was kind of weird....as we were coming back, there was at least a hundred people all ice fishing. and so they were all heading home and kicking up the dust in the road, so that was kind of on the less fun sides of the day.  Then Elder Riggs asked if I wanted to wait for a bus, and right when he finished saying that, this bus rolled up, so we were like, yup I guess we were supposed to take a bus now. 

We made it back to the mainland, and set up around a grocery store and handed out at least 50 of the Christmas campaign cards that the church is handing out.  And there some people who stopped and read it and nodded with approval, and some people who then came back to talk to us a little bit more about our faith, and how to find out more, so hopefully we were able to get a few more investigators out of it.  Sadly, when we were going home, we found a few of them on the ground, but out of the 50 or so, we only saw 2 so that isn’t bad at all!  We then wanted to get sodas to celebrate, so we went to this pizza drive thru place, but we didn’t have a car, so we felt awkward waiting in line.  We went around the back, but there was no door...it was just a drive thru line!  But they took our orders on the other side that had a window for some reason.... the girl who took our orders spoke English and had been to the US.  It was really surprising and kind of fun because she was so good at it.  We then invited her to English practice, and she said that she would definitely go, so here’s to hoping that she is able to go tomorrow, and we are able to talk to her some more about the gospel.  Lucky for us too because we teach the advanced class and that is the one that she would definitely be put into.  She was way nice, and it was funny, because when we gave her the invitation to English class, we were like, we don’t want you to get into trouble, but we want you to have this, and she was like I actually probably will get into trouble and took it and snuck it into her apron.  She was one of the only people that I have ever met here who can have a full conversation in English, so it was kind of weird for me at first. 

Anyways, Sunday was fun too, because it was the primary program!  It was sooo cute to hear the primary children bear their little testimonies in Russian...it was awesome!  Love you all, and hope for the best of weeks to be coming your way!

Love,
Elder Vincent

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