Hello Again!

Why, hello! It's true, your favorite person has indeed survived another ENTIRE week in Russia. Are you shocked? Are you amazed? Aren't you so proud of me? ;)

This last week we had the Sister Leaders come and do splits with us. Sister Robbins and Sister Hatch. They're awesome and super ecstatic missionaries. They're AMAZING at contacting. I actually don't mind contacting but I hate it because it's hard to know what people are saying back to me. I went on splits with Sister Hatch, and she's super awesome. We went to a bunch of less-actives' houses and shared 1 Nephi 17 with them about how with God, all things are possible-- we just need to ask for help like Nephi did. The interesting thing about being here is that there are SO MANY LESS-ACTIVES. It's nuts. If we never proselyted at all, we still would never have time to go visit all the less-actives here. They're less active for a variety of reasons: they're either old and so they don't have the energy to take the (sometimes) 2 hr bus ride to church, they're poor so they can't afford the bus, they've fallen back into old habits, etc. It's really sad, but I guess that's life.

President Christensen is really awesome because he has developed a technique for contacting that is AWESOME. It's "finding by using the Book of Mormon." Basically, we go up to people, say "have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?" and then shove the Book of Mormon into their hands, flip through the pictures while telling them:
1. a 1,000 year overview of the Book of Mormon (It starts 600 years before the coming of Christ.......it ends 400 years after Christ)
2. the geography (It takes place on the American Continent-- where they were led through revelation)
3. it's written by prophets (just like the Bible) and has their written testimonies of Christ and prophecies of His coming
4. it answers questions of the soul (What kind of questions in life do you want answered? Why are we here? Where are you going?)

It's an awesome technique because it gets them interested in the story and they're holding the book RIGHT.THERE. and they can feel it in their hands and flip through the pages themselves. It's awesome. Then we have them read some verses for us (for example 3 Nephi 11 etc.) and commit them to having another meeting with us. If they say yes, we give them the book and give them a reading assignment for next time. If they don't say yes, we try to talk them into it or just give them an invitation to church. This technique has worked so well that the mission has run out of copies of the Book of Mormon, so the president ordered 2,000 a month (instead of our old 300-ish a month). While doing splits with Sister Hatch, we did 2 street lessons this way. We met back with one of the people already, but she didn't seem too interested but we let her keep the book and told her it would always answer questions we have. The other person (it was actually a couple) we did a street lesson with, we're calling tomorrow to see how they're doing. Also, the man (in the couple) asked me to marry his 23 year old son. ;) hahahahahahahaha. Apparently it's not uncommon to just randomly get proposed to here, but it was my first time. It was pretty funny. I asked if his son spoke English (apparently he does) and so I gave the man an English card for our English group. haha. Flirt to convert right? I'M JUST KIDDING. Geez Louise people. 

Something that's really cool about Ufa is that everyone here is Muslim (most people). In the MTC, they prepared me to talk to "preglaslavian" (orthodox [also, I don't exactly remember how it sounds....but something like that]) people, but they didn't prepare me to talk to Muslims! I can hardly speak Russian as it is (the grammar is difficult....oh my heck...and also the vocab) that I never know what to say to them. And apparently neither does any other missionary here! So we're going to figure that out. In Ufa, there's also a kind of people called Bashkirian that are from Bashkyrgistan. It's basically been explained to me that they're kind of like the Native Americans in America. They originally settled this region, and they still live here. All the signs here are bilingual Russian/Bashkirian. Bashkirian basically looks like Cyrillic until you look closely, and you're like "that's not Russian!" so yeah....it's fun learning Russian in a bilingual city. :) Maybe I'll come home trilingual?

Something else that I think is funny here is how English is also EVERYWHERE. Everyone listens to American music (stuff that was popular about 8 months ago....like Gangnam style) and wears shirts with English on them. The best part is, is that NOBODY speaks English. Nobody knows that their shirt (with English) makes no sense when read. haha. It's really funny and always cheers me up to read a shirt that says "cath the wave" and that's it. There are a lot more funny ones that I can't think of right now.  We saw a guy on the bus yesterday (who kind of speaks English...we tried to give him an English card) and his tattoo said "Keep it real." It was spelled right, but SO funny that in the middle of Russia, there are people with English tattooed on them.

There are billboards all over town advertising coats and boots, and it's only AUGUST. It's freaking me out a little bit, and Sister Hatch told me to pray that I stay in Ufa for the winter because it's a milder winter here. I'm really nervous for this winter thing, and I've heard some crazy stories already about getting around in the winter. Nuts. Apparently moms just pull their kids on sleds. funny, huh?

Life here is just peachy. Ufa is a huge city (I can't wait to send you pictures!!!), and there's a lot of work to be done. Being here brings a lot of scriptures to mind, especially 2 Nephi 9:28:
"O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think the are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish."
Everyone here is just too prideful and lazy to change. It's really frustrating but that's agency! There are 8 missionaries here (the mission is so big that it's not called a District...it's just our Zone). 4 sisters and 4 elders. We're spread really far out and it takes most of us about an hour to get to the church for meeting and whatnot. This week we have zone conference and the Christensens are coming! I love them so much, and I'm excited to hear from them. Another city of missionaries is coming to Ufa for zone conference (our mission is so LARGE that we have to have 2 zone conferences because of the distances), so we'll be having more sisters staying with us! And Sister Christensen will be doing splits with us on Friday. It's just a fun and exciting week around here, and I'm super excited!

Dad, you'll be proud of me-- I've been baking bread this week! I bought some foil bread pans from the grocery store, and I've been using those. I've perfected the recipe that I have, but it's still not as good as yours. SEND ME YOUR RECIPE. Gosh. The bread here in Russia is REALLY good, but Sister Galli and I eat so much of it that sometimes it's more convenient to just bake it instead of tromping all the way to the grocery store.

Also, if you could send me an email that has a bunch of Russian roots (not the vegetable) and definitions, that would be nice to start learning. 

Other than that...I'm doing fine. We walk a lot, but it depends on the day. We walk anywhere between 6-10 miles a day I would estimate. But my shoes are holding up fine. The roads/sidewalks here are really bad (actually, there aren't sidewalks, just dirt and rock paths by the side of the road) so my shoes are getting pretty worn already. 

I've been reading from the beginning of the Book of Mormon and it's so cool to read about the tribes of Israel being gathered again in the last days (1 Nephi 22:11-12, etc) and how it's talking about RUSSIA. Totally. Every tribe of Israel is represented in this country, but they're just being a little stubborn. Which means Sister Brown is going to be just as stubborn as they are. :)

Sister Brown's goals for the rest of training:
language: be proficient to talk to people on the street. Speak Russian 100% on the street by the end of training.
companionship: keep it going great!
teaching: be a scriptorian. make flashcards of key verses.
finding: be a fearless finder. be stubborn.
personal: choose another Christlike attribute to work on.

I love you! Thanks for praying for me and all that jazz. You're such a great family, and it's awesome to hear about all the adventures you're having.

have a good week!
Cecmpa Brown