June 28, 1997 - Saturday

Wow - this week went pretty fast.  We had a pretty wacked D with Николай и Татьяна [Nickolai and Tatyana] on Friday.  We had it without Володия [Volodiya] and she [Татьяна] mentioned this book again called "The Gospel of Peace from Essen."  It's way false doctrine.  In there they pray to God in the name of Heavenly Father and then they pray to Mother Earth.  Also it says that you have [should] not eat meat, eggs and fish.  Well they [Николай и Татьяна] believe it is scripture.  So obviously they have a concern there.  So we will probably put off there [their] baptism for a little longer.

Well to catch you up on the rest of the week.  We played a North vs. South Gatorball match on P-Day.  The South lost in overtime.  I whined too much.  Then we came home and made lunch for Сты. Reegan and Nelson.  It was spagetti and fries.  It was pretty dang good. 

Then they left and Ст. Schwartz wanted [to go to] Арбат [Arbat] street to see it for the last time.  Well we had quite a metro ride.  We were on the metro and this hot girl got on showing off long legs and breasts in a low-cut shirt.  Well she wasn't anything compared to what we saw next.  This other hot girl got on and she sat across from us.  Well she had on a short pink dress.  So short that I would have to say that white is a good color for panties.  I was stunned, it was my first flash, well almost.  Ст. Schwartz covered his face and studied his words and I looked away.  When we looked up next time, just to see if uh, uh - what the next station was, she had covered up her indecency with her purse.  I looked her in the eye for a while.  I don't know if she did it intentionally or not.

Thursday we went and played with the kids [service at the orphanage] and then tried to find tinfoil after we got jaked by Евгения [Evgeniya].  We didn't get there in time so we went back to the reenik, on Пролетарская [Proletarskaya],  Friday - after service and in between o[u]r D with them [Николай и Татьяна].  After the D we ate and then made a whole lot of calls, mostly talking with the District Leader, Ст. Reegan.  He gave us some good ideas - have a D with the Spirit so we can tell them straight up without upsetting them, get them to pray about the existence of only one true church - ours.

Okay, so what did we do today.  We got up so freaking early and went to Речной Вокзал [River Train Station] we met up with Ваге [Vageh - by the way - I think this is the dude who kicked me in the leg while playing gatorball - when I was companions with Ст. Gammon] - if that's how you say his name and bought potatoes and onions and met up with everybody else in the metro and then got on a bus to Зелененград [Zelenongrad].  There we met our match - the rain and so many freaking mosquitoes.  We started a fire - a чудеса [miracles] in itself and cooked boyscout foil dinners.  Yep it tasted just [like] I remember - when you['re] that hungry anythings good.  Then we did a little play about the Restoration of the Priesthood and came home.  All in all it was a fun time.  After the fire started and the rain stopped it was definately better.  Not something I really want to repeat.  I whined a lot before the fire started, but then I went to work and made the dinners.  Man that new Strawberry Zuko is good.  Well night.  I'm so freaking tired.

June 24, 1997 - Tuesday

Today was a pretty full day.  We had собрание округа [District Meeting] and then we went to Лариса's [Larissa's] where she jaked us.  But we talked with her daughter  Саша [Sasha].  We also watched the Simplsons.  We waited a half an hour or so and then we left.  We came home and dropped off our books and stuff and travelled to Stockman's to get milk.  Well we came home and ate some potatoes and then rushed off to our D with Николай и Татяна [Nickolai & Tatyana].  We were in there [their] apartment and they have a lot of mystical stuff.  They have all these pictures of people that were supposedly prophets or had some kind of power to heal people.  It was strange. 

But then we walked to the metro with Николай and Володия, and Володия talked to him a lot and just did cool.  If I can say that.  Then we stood in the metro, Ст. Schwartz, Володия and I and talked about Николай & Татяна for a while.  Then we talked on the ride home about the gospel and sat outside the metro and talked about the Gospel some more.  He's a stud and has such a firm grasp on the Gospel.  He has such a testimony.  I keep teasing him about getting married.  He's under a lot of pressure at work and he said he was sorry for just taking over our discussion.  Today I felt the Spirit a lot and it made me want to set goals to do better and stuff.  One was to read the BOM [Book of Mormon] an hour a day.  The other was to just study more and basically be a better person/missionary. 

While we were talking about the Gospel, I just thought that one of the most important things I'll learn on a mission is to always go to Church.  I'm very grateful that I always went to Church before my mission.  Sometimes 6 hours a Sunday.  We also talked about how we will go home and see things that are different in America than we saw.

June 22, 1997 - Sunday

Today was so freaking busy.  It's really nice to have goals you can accomplish.  Like speaking your language.  This last 4 days we have spoken about 49 hrs of SYLing.  We had better win that award.  2 DPs had better be waiting for me.

[mid-journal chat - Remember from the MTC - SYLing is Speaking Your Language - ie. 1.  Speaking in Russian to everybody who can understand Russian - that means to each other most of all because we are almost always together.  2.  When you can't express yourself in Russian - you first ask in Russian if you can speak English, and then you can say it in English. 

Toward the end of my mission my last companion (Elder Andrew Wright) & I SYLed for about 2 months.  The only times we didn't SYL were when we were at English Class - and then we only spoke English to those in our classroom, and to the Senior Couple Missionaries that didn't understand Russian much at all.  It was actually pretty fun.  But sometimes a little boring.  At one point Elder Andy Wright and I were speaking in a mexican accent - in Russian.  We did others too - Irish, British etc.  They weren't very good, except for the Mexican - the Mexican accent was AWESOME - I mean it actually sounded hispanic.  Ahhh Andy - where are you?]

Well we had our [D with the] Залыгин's and the girls pretty much talked among themselves and we listened in.  It was pretty cool.  We also had a D with Николай и Татяна [Nickolai & Tatyana], but Володия [Volodiya] asked at the end if they had a date with babtism [there I go again mispelling things - baptism].  It was suppose to be last Saturday - yep Yesterday - well thanks for letting the investigators know about it.  Well Володия scheduled it for next Sunday.  We won't be able to accomplish everything this week, so I had to call them and tell them that we would have to do it через воскресение [next Sunday - literally through Sunday]. 

Other than that, nothing except Ст. Jurvelin wants to go on splits.  Well night.