June 15, 1997 - Sunday

Today was pretty cool.  We went to Church and after we were going to leave but there was a problem.  Володия Кабанов [Volodiya Kabanov] has these two friends that he is helping teach the Ds to.  Well he scheduled a D this Sunday (today) after Church and Сты. Reagan & Nelson already had something going on so they couldn't make it.  So they asked us if they could give us the investigators.  So we now have 6 investigators, two of them being at Church.  It's cool!  We are slowly building up our investigator pool.  Then after the D we came home and ate the rest of our chili and then I took a nap.  I was so freaking hot.  Then we went over to Wright's to plan the семеный вачер [Family Home Evening] tomorrow night.  We got home kind of late and so now it's time to sleep.  Night Dude!!

June 1, 1997 - Sunday

Another week started.  Well we managed to plan this week, at least.  I'm so tired.  Church today was pretty cool.  In the meeting we had some pretty weird testimonies.  I guess it was pretty good.  Then we stayed after for Institute.  Жанна [Zhahna] does a really good job.  She's pretty cute.  She likes to add all these little очка's [ochkas] on the end of stuff.  Like спасибочка [it would be like saying thanx] and shortens all the stuff.  She's really outgoing and has a nice voice.  In Sunday School I was in a regular member class.  This guy named Владимр Кабанов [Vladimur Kabahnov], in was there and in Elders Quorum [I think that I was trying to say "was in there"].  He answered so many questions.  It was cool.  He's in our area plus Олег Гарбус - who used to serve here in Moscow.  Well брат Кабанов plays the piano like a pro. 

[Post journal chat - брат Кабанов playing piano is great because it was always hard to find someone to play the songs in Sacrement Meeting.  In the first branch that I served in, we would play a cd with the songs on it and sing along.  It was never loud enough.

Plus when we missionaries sang by ourselves our tempo was nice and fast and we always sang with gusto.  So from a cd in sacrement meeting that played a lot slower than I was used to...it wasn't the best singing I've ever heard.]

May 18th, 1997 - Sunday

Hey how's it going Diary Reading fans.  We had a busy day today.  Church was from 8:30am to 2:10pm.  Well that's how long we were out of the house.  After church we ate and I took a nap.  I had a killer headache and I was just plain tired.  That was an hour and a half. 

Then we went to a беседа [besyeda - discussion] with this cool inactive family.  The father Юри [Yuri],  was really friendly.  The wife - Таля [Talya] was pretty pessimistic about things.  It sounded like she was mad at Брат Woolsey [one of my MTC teachers] for taking away Катя [Katya - Брат Woolsey's now wife] or just the fact that some of the females go to church to meet men from America.  Right now it's time to go to bed & I'm listening to the "Humpty Dance" really loud.  bye

April 21, 1997 - Monday

Well Sunday has come and gone and I'm still here.  I had a dream last night that I was getting off my mission and Ст. Woolverton was still stuck here for 10 days or something.  Then I woke and felt "Crap I'm still here".  Also Gilbert wasn't to be found when I got home.  It was weird. 

Yesterday we left at 8:30am, walked up to Евгений's [Yevgeniy's] house and together - the whole family, stroller & kids to Калужская [Kaluzhskaya], where we caught a trolley bus to Конково [Konkovo] and walked to the помашения [Pomasheniya - meeting house].  Well we walked in the door and the lady at the front desk started yelling at him not to bring in the stroller.  Said something about not needing kids here in the building.  So he left and went back home. 

We talked with her for a while and just asked her why she didn't want the kids here - explained to her that our church believe[s] that families are the most important part of the plan.  So we ran back to Евгений, but he went home anyway.  He said he couldn't sit there in church and enjoy the meeting because he'd be thinking of that dumb (my word) lady.  Ст. Gammon said he felt like crying.  I felt like hitting her or something.  Nothing real violent but I felt pretty mad. 

We also had a meeting last night with Слава Балтовский [Slava Baltovski ].  He's a stud.  He's the branch mission coordinator.  We went over our investigators and then we had a letter, that Ст. Gammon wrote, for Слава to proofread.  Then we took the letter and a cake to Евгений & Марина [Marina].  They seemed really delighted to see us and they - Евгений gave us this little book about...a против Книга Мормона [Anti Book of Mormon] actually.  It has a lot of American books as it's bibliography, like "Have you witnessed to a Mormon lately?"

8:30pm - just went signboarding - it was so cool.  I got three phone numbers and I didn't have any fear to talk to anybody.  Then I just called Алла [Alla] and she talked my ear off.  I also called Людмила [Ludmila] and she did the same.  [Alla & Ludmilla must have been members in the ward].

March 16, 1997 - Sunday

Today was church and we had institute after church.  night

[Post journal chat - Not much for today's post is there?  Evidently nothing really important happened.  So let's recap where I'm at on my mission.  I've been in Russia 4 months and a couple of days (6 months on the mission).  Ст. Woolverton is my 2nd companion in the field (4th overall).  I'm serving in my 2nd apartment, and I'm still serving in my 1st branch. 

Up until now I haven't been too active in the mission field - partly because of that my Russian hasn't progressed very far either.  Well that will soon change - within a week or so are the next transfers and I'm going to get a new companion, Ст. Dennis Gammon from Vineyard, UT.  It's pretty close to the Provo area (I think).

I don't like change either now or then, so I'm not really excited to start working hard.  Well - we'll see how it goes.]