Hello Family!
I love getting everyone's emails! I never fully appreciated communication with family... until I could't remember what they look like. Just kidding, obviously I remember... some of you.
So this week has been really nice in the fact that although it started off terrible because of the heat, it has gotten much better because of some rain. SO GRATEFUL!! I love rain now, even though it makes it harder for people to stop and talk to you, it feels so nice! The Russian habit of drinking hot tea when it's scorching hot outside is never going to be something I will adopt. They think it's good cuz it makes you sweat more , which cools you off... I think it's... ostrobogulous.
So Laziz, one of the best members here in Penza is leaving back to Uzbekistan. I love the kid so much and he is so sad because he's really scared about loosing his faith. Pretty sure I'll be skyping with him a lot when I get home to help him keep strong. He's going to be learning Japanese so that he can move there after a few years in Uzbekistan. In fact, he wants to to live with him there, so I probably won't be coming back to America anytime soon. haha! Not really, but they got me a japanese dictionary so that I can learn Japanese through Russian when I get back home. The members here are so funny! And it's awesome because now I can ditch Russian and study Japanese! just kidding... I'll save it for when I get home.
This week, we made cookies and gave them to our neighbors, well, we put them in front of their door. They didn't get touched for three days. We figured they were just at the dacha for the weekend, but then we came home from church and they had moved to cookies back in front of our door... Rejected. It was pretty awkard. haha! Also, fun fact! Russian windows are designed to open two ways. They they can swing open to the side for full wind coolage, or you can swing them down from the top a bit for partial wind breeze. I don't understand how it works, but I have no interest in finding out, I just thought I would tell you because there isn't really any other exciting news... it's frustrating. We would have had exciting news that Stas got baptized, but he didn't come to church again, and we can't let him get baptized if he doesn't have good church going habits. So sad! I'll probably get transferred before he get's baptized. We all feel like I am the one who'll get transferred because I've been here the longest. oh well. If he get's baptised, I'll know I helped him on that path! Which will be such a blessing!
We don't really have any investigators that are doing to great right now in regards to preparing for baptism, other than stas. We are working hard, but it seems that the Lord is still trying us. We are definitely having more success than I had last cycle, but things still aren't really picking up. The fact that we had stas was a miracle, but since it looks like it's going to be a while before he can get baptised, the work suddenly seems so slow again. haha! I wish there was something I could do to shake things up so that we all got fired up again! It's just irritating because the government forbids like... everything here, so we can't do things that other missions can do for finding and stuff. Oh well, The Lord sent me here to work, not complain, so there's no point in getting irritated about something I can't change. The mission is definitely the refiner's fire and theres no way you can come out of a mission like this and not be changed. Well, maybe someone has succeeded in doing it, but you've got to try pretty hard I would say. I'll definitely be different.
Hey, I've got to go! I love you all! I'm so glad to be here, even though it seems like time is stopped at times, other times seems like it can't seem to slow down! I'm loving my mission!
Elder Skvortz!
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