Hey!

I can officially say that in Russia, it was snowing like cray-cray (crazy) this morning. Oh.my.gosh. I have never heard the wind howl compared with what I heard. I turned to Sister Galli and said "I don't want to go anywhere today." she then said, "hm...what do we even have planned?" opened her planner and said, "oh my gosh! It's P-day, and you don't want to do INTERNET?!!?" 

Ha. Well, needless to say, I am now here. I am also the proud owner of the fluffiest, poofiest coat in the entire world (maybe not the entirrrrre world). I wore it today and even though I looked like a well-dressed homeless person (gigantic hat, glasses, huuuuuuge coat, gigantic side bag), I at least knew that I looked like a very warm, well-dressed homeless person. 

Speaking of my sense of style (of which I have a lot!), at conference yesterday I was wearing my Scottish kilt skirt, a pink t-shirt, a pink flower scarf, and a grey sweater. I thought it looked fine, but the sisters in the other area came up to me and said something like, "we don't know how you do it but you wear stuff that we never thought would 'go' together and it looks so good!!!" Apparently they talk about my sense of style a lot? Ha. Either way, apparently I'm an eccentric dresser-- thought I toned that down for the mission though-- but I'm flattered! :)

This week was interesting. I'm not going to lie, but I was kind of in a downer mood Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It's honestly just probably my personality combined with the weather here. It has rained every.single.day. and lemme tell you, my white coat looks a little muddy.It's also gotten considerably darker here too, but that's just part of Russia! I started getting really excited towards the end of the week because we had Zone Conference on Friday with just our zone (not combined with other zones as is the usual). The President and his wife and the Assistants came, and it was a great day! It was a little stressful because the night before we were told to be at the church at 9 am on Friday but then on Friday morning at 7:15 am, we were texted by our zone leader and told me needed to be at the church in an hour. Talk about stressful since Sister Galli had just taken a shower (luckily, I had taken one the night before) and it takes an hour to get to the church. Yay hectic mornings!

Zone conference was great and President really emphasized using Preach My Gospel in everything we do, including language study. He wants us to memorize every "medium lesson plan" at the end of the lessons and also every single follow up question in Russian as well as any other "zinger sentences".  He said the speaking profiency for Russian has steadily gone downhill since they got rid of memorized lessons, and he promised us that if we memorize these things and get all of our vocab out of Preach My Gospel, we will be incredible missionaries. Russian is so hard that memorizing these sentence patterns and case patterns will definitely be beneficial. We have the best mission president. He's a genius. In his setting apart blessing, he was promised that any promise that he gives us, the Lord will fulfill, so he's really careful in giving out promises. His promise to us was: "

By so doing, you will become master finders and teachers who consistently teach powerfully with the Spirit. You will receive clear spiritual guidance every day. You will feel overwhelming love for your mission and each other and for the Russian people. You will lose your appetite for anything that might distract you from your purpose. "

Also in zone conference we talked about what it means to be absolutely consecrated and not just obedient. To be consecrated means: there are no loopholes in the rules, the rules are a part of who you are, you are dedicated, there is total surrender of yourself, and your Divine Nature has triumphed over your natural man.

"Consecration is the only surrender that is an actual victory." --Neal A. Maxwell

Anyway, life here is dandy. I LOVED general conference. Every talk was amazing. Inbetween sessions on Saturday and Sunday we had a lunch with ward members. On Saturday we made American pancakes (an Elder had maple leaf extract, so we made syrup-- the members went nuts over it!! they started putting it in their tea and just plain drinking it....I'm not kidding.) Sunday we made chili and scones with honey-butter. The Russians also went nuts over the honey-butter. They'd never had that before either, but they loved it!! 

I loved Elder Cook's talk on Bondage and also....well, everything. It was all great. These were the main subjects that I noticed were hit upon: 
tithing
Don't set your heart upon the things of the world.
CHASTITY
Missionary Work is a Member's Work too
God will ALWAYS love you and will always take you back.
ATONEMENT
Keeping covenants and how important that is
Live what we believe.
Conversion-- what is true conversion and why it's important
TAKING ON THE SAVIOR'S YOKE
Women/Family Proclamation/Gender Roles
The Apostle Paul
Search the scriptures diligently. 
Good, better, best.
Legalized sin is still sin.
I know that's a lot but every talk in the 12 hours of conference fit into that somehow. Oh! Also, I saw Amy McGreevy singing in the sister missionary choir at the Relief Society Session. I'm so proud of her!

Being an obedient missionary has been great because as Sister Galli and I have prayerfully set goals, we always have opportunities for those goals to be fulfilled (such as a street-lesson), so that even if we start teaching a street-lesson and the person rejects us, we know that we still planned for that opportunity but ultimately it was that person's free agency that kept our goal from being completed. That did happen to us this week when we were street-teaching people. We planned for one street-lesson, but hadn't had any success. There was one man that was willing to start talking with us, but he wasn't willing to meet with us so we parted ways. Even though we didn't fulfill our goal that day of street-lessons, we superseded our goal of invitations given out, and I know that the Lord blessed us. 

Sister Galli and I always try to teach from the Book of Mormon in every lesson we give, whether it's an investigator, a less-active, or an active-member (and of course, a street-lesson). We're hoping that as we ask the questions "What do we want them to feel?" and "What do we want them to do?" that we can continue to help bless people's lives through the Book of Mormon. I think as I continue to memorize killer lines from Preach My Gospel that I will be able to talk about the Book of Mormon much better and participate more in street lessons. 

Basically, I love Russia. I love it here. I'm so excited every day that I get to help build up Zion in this beautiful country. I know the church is true, and I really loved conference this year. Don't forget the messages you learned there. I really felt the Spirit as the apostles testified about the importance of women making time for their children. I know they're prophecying the future where we won't be able to "juggle three balls" anymore-- one of them is bound to drop.

I love you all! Have a great week in America. I dreamed I went skiing with the family last night, so tell Eric to have fun for me this season. :)

Love,
cecmpa Brown