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.

June 20, 1997 - Friday

Okay we pretty much screwed off today and yesterday.  We went signboarding today and I freaking suck.  No I did alright but I need to do it more.  Oh I almost forgot but when I called Лидия Залыгин[а - Lidia Zaligina] to talk about her birthday.  I said "Что - тебе двести лет да?" [What - you're 200 years old right?  - Instead of 20 years old.]  She got a good kick out of that.  So did Ст. Schwartz.  In fact he teased me unmercifully. 

Tomorrow we have a pretty full day already.  If everything falls into place.  And we might even have a D with Дима [Dima] the guy that speaks English.  That will be weird to see how we do that.  Service today was draining because the kids were really freaking wanting.  They don't get love or attention very often so they want all they can get.  One little girl, Катя [Katya] (the not so nice one) kept grabbing  me in the balls and they told me пипсик & баначки two words that I don't exactly know what they mean.

[mid-journal chat - pipsik & banachki - hahahaha - two words that I still don't know what they mean.  Both words are shortforms - meaning small versions of the normal words - so I assume that they were calling it little - the picture below is of service, but with the companion after Shwartz - from left to right are Elders Steve Nelson, Ken Bassett, Ben Erickson (my companion) and some really awesome dude from Idaho!  Look at how freaking cool the little kid is sitting off to the side on his own.] 

I had one good contact Васили Филипович [Vasili Filipovich - I'm probably talking about when we went signboarding earlier in the day] - he lives outside the city in Подолск [Padolsk - a city just south of Moscow - almost a suburb - an electrichki - an electric train - carries passengers in every day - about a half an hour ride to Moscow].  It would be cool if we could go out to Подолск and give this guy a D and then go over to a member's house and eat and have a little family home evening!   Well night!