Another week in the Neighborhood......:)

Hello All!

 

Thanks for all the emails! haven't read them all but i will :) 

 

Had a great week and it was full of interesting great things.  AND FREEZING!!! haha it is below negative 30 here! haha BELOW!!! oh man! they told us that it was done being cold but i think that they were joking. This week they said that it might get down to negative 40! oh man oh man. its hysterical!  we seriously dont know what to do sometimes. We just randomly start laughing! and sister sanford asks, "whats funny?" and i say "its cold!" haha it will be a winter to remember. The funniest is that when we talk to people they look at us like we are crazy that we are trying to talk to them!  There is a very significantly less amount of people on the street this week.  but surprisingly alot alot of people at church. we have such great members who are so valiant! 

 

as you can see in the pictures on monday we went to the ice city! it was sweet! and really cold so no one else was there! haha it was great! and alot more fun than we thought it would be! and we already thought that it was going to be fun.  i was nervous to go down the slide at first but it was sweet! we were all like little kids again!  after we went to carls jr and ate burgers...mmmmg good!

 

Tuesday was our last english club for awhile which was interesting but kind of a relief. we are going to revamp the whole thing and make it better and funner and more effective.  elder topham gave a huge great spiritual thought and just killed it!  seriously! the spirit was so strong you could have swam through it. and like half of the missionaries got one or more contacts.

 

grandmas cookies came and they were the best in the whole world!  soft still even!  if you are home you only get 1 haha if you are in russia you get 6 or so! haha im stayin! haha jk :)

 

wednesday we had fun in snigory. it was sad to say bye to elya though. i love her so much.  and then this one lady we met on the street one time who came to music night wanted the recipe of one of sister webbs treats but instead we invited her and her daughter over and had a cooking night. it was alot of fun and i think she will be willing to do more activites and learn more in the future. she is way nice. her name is elena.  all about all of us being brothers and sisters and just doing good in the world. she is great.

 

saturday we went to bed with only thoughts of plans because nothing was going through, no one was answering etc etc etc.  and we went out in faith hoping and praying we would be contacting in -30 degree weather!   we did for a little while which was craziness. couldn't move my face...but then some one called back and another answered their phone and some one else let us in when we dropped by! it was a miracle!  sometimes you just have to trust in the Lord and walk out into the snow.  He will make things happen, AFTER we exercise our faith.  sometimes the fact that it is AFTER is the hard part.....

 

sunday was tough saying bye to everyone. i have come to love these people so much. just like my family. they were all telling me that it was a good thing president gibbons didn't come to their branch this week because they would talk to him and not let me go :) they are so sweet. i realized that it is a little bit sad for the members here.  and i realized more why they have a hard time becoming close to us sometimes. because we become friends and family and then after we are all realy close we get transferred.  its sad. and they are sad. and someo f them say  stuff like i will just leave and forget all about t hem and find new people to love and then i will go home to america and not even remember my family in russia. 

 

 It has been really good for me to be with sister sanford. she is so positive and if we mess up she just says...welp, can't change it now. we can just repent and do better next time! its alot healthier than always just focusing on what you should have done.. you can't change the past, but you can determine the future....this may sound similiar....i think i may relearn the same things over and over every couple weeks. i hope that they get deeper and deeper engrained in my heart and soul each time :) anyways, Sister Sanford has helped me change the way i think so that even though the stats dont show alot she has helped me see what good i have done here and how i have helped.   And i am really grateful to her for that.  

 

cut my hair today again....i feel way more like myself when i cut my hair haha but also its weird cut....i think ann will be worried a bit. but i will just cut most my hair off anyways when i get home.

 

i studied alot about doing missionary work with members.  its so so important. the only way for missionary work to work the way that we want it to. but its hard.  BUT i had a revelation.  There is a story about Member refferrals in the Book of Mormon! you can find everything in there! its Lamoni's father!  he was referred by Lamoni, and then Lamoni referred his whole household and THEN his WHOLE KINGDOM! and you know what? they became the type of members that never did fall away but always had faith!  If you get converts who have friends in the church they support each other and they are already interetested and know you aren't crazy. AND when you ahve members teaching and sharing they strengthen their testimonies and have more friends to support them. its just a great awesome cycle!

 

i have also been studing all in the doctrine and covenants! its all about missionaries and missionary work! or...maybe everything just is because i am a missionary.... :)  aren't the scriptures great?

 

my transfer is focused on light.   We decorate our planners every transfer and i have begun making themes for my transfers.   The front Cover is Christ with Mosiah 16:9 and the back is lanterns with 3 nephi 12:16.  great verses that have been helping me to remember to let my light shine and to bring light to other people. and also to remember where that light comes from.

 

there was a great fireside all about the difference between just being an active member and being converted. it was incredible.  its a good thing to thing about. it includes letting the gospel change us and our hearts. living the doctrines. repenting, studying. changing. its hard. but worth it i  would think.

 

welp, thats about all of my time this week. I am glad you liked last weeks letter haha. the rules about how long we can be on internet were changed and so we give ourselves more time and its less stressful and i am not freaking out trying to write haha. its nice.  I love you so much!

 

The gospel is true. Study it. Share it. Live it.

 

Sister Trottier

Pictures of Heather and other Missionaries

Privet!!!

Hey Guys!

 

its pday again! i know! its weird! crazy how fast pdays come, i don't even know what to do with myself.  There is lots to tell you today.  Last week was FREEZING!!! seriously!  Sister Sanford and i wore like all the clothes we own and held on to each other and RAN home! oh man it was crazy!  One of the elders said "In america Jack Frost nips at your nose in Siberia he rips your face off!!!"  haha oh man it was so funny and so true. YOu cant move your face just after a few minutes. I think the coldest we felt was negative 35 celsius ( i really need to learn how to spell that) But that is pretty cold. what was really fortunate for us is that we went to Finland when it was the coldest!  haha lucky lucky us huh? and they said that it supposedly will just get warmer from here on out.  the "MOROZ" aka "FROST" as they call it or "FREEZE"  only stays for about a week. and then it goes back to a balmy negative 20 with wind. which sometimes is worse. and did you know they ahve like 100% humidity here or something like that?  so the cold like sticks to you. haha oh goodness. a winter to remember.   hey mom, elder topham said that you and his mom are friends on this missionary mom page on face book. she was excited. she told her topham haha!  that is so great!

 

so on tuesday we had a great day. One of the inactive ladies is really great. Her name is Raiesa.....can't spell it in english. She is an artist. she invited us to go to her gallery opening which was way fun.  and really cool.  she paints.  and the people there were so great and open. she gave me a painting!! don't know how i will get it home but...its cool.  and anyways one of the old guys there LOVES our church and loves the missionaries and so he asked us if we would speak...i of course said yes.  but then i was nervous because i din't know how much i could technically say. so i gave a little spiritual thought about using the talents that God gives us and coming closer to him. it was great. and then he got up and introduced our church more and where we meet and was a missionary for us! haha he invited everyone to come talk to us to learn more about what we believe. we talked to a few people and it was a great opportunity.  that night we had our music night and actually quite a few people showed up!  it was a great program. we have a concert saxaphone player, violinist, guitarist, pianist and all sorts of singers so it went great! we had one of our favorte contacts come with a promise to meet us again!  SWEET!

 

We had the russian sisters stay over with us one night and we met the new sister, I would tell you her name but i don't remember, Russians cant even say it... abiduliziva or something like that.  she was trying to speak to us in spanish and stuff cause she stayed at the spain mtc. i forgot all the spanish that i didn't evern know!haha i couldn't even as waht time it was. i can only think in russiabn and english. :)

 

wednesday was the FREEZING day.  and i wanted to tell you about the buses. you get on the bus and it is so cold that the bus has turned into this ice box. you cant see out or in and you have to scrape of the ice in order to see outside so you can tell where you are.  and it is so cold its like a freezer. its crazy.  and every day sister sanford says "its the coldest day of my life" haha she is from vegas.

 

thurs.- so we woke up and went to the palace aka the office elders house and met the 19 elders that were going to finland with me and sister sanford and margolies.  we took the two mission cars and a taxi to get us all there! it was craziness!  holy cow.  22 missionaries all together haha we were the talk of all the airplanes we were on of course and got alot alot of attention which was actually good. after all the elders past this one ladies stand that she was selling at she asked us about our church and we had a great conversation with her. she just felt that there was a good spirit about all of us. she wants to meet this week!  sweet!!!  it was alot of fun getting to knwo all the elders that i didn't know. there are alot of new ones and all of them are awesome. everytime a new group comes in they are better than the last. our airplane from moscow to finland got canceled from a snow storm and we were stuck in the airport forever. but no worries we just played games and entertained ourselves.   we got to finland late and just had time to buy food and go to bed. the next morning we had 19 elders at differnt times ask us how long it took girls to get ready in the morning and all had to tell the same joke about eating all the food :) haha they are so great. but then we go down and they had made us pancakes and eggs and bacon and saved it on 3 plates for us. they are so awesome.   we have the best elders, i am positive of it.

 

in the temple i recieved revelation about 3 things that i would like to work on and focus on in order to get me to where the Lord wants me to be by the end of my mission.  1. Keep and apply the temple covenants i have made to my missionary work.  3. Work on INVITING people to do things. to change, to come closer to christ and also on HOW to invite them. and 3.  treat everyone as my brothers and sisters and children of God. I have thought alot about the third one. Just one day i was sitting on the metro and watching people and i realized that there were so many people just sitting in there trying to pretend that they were the only ones there. its like we walk past peopl in the street and buy things from cashiers etc etc and pretend that they aren't human.....make sense?  maybe im not explaining myself well.   But you know its like we are sitting on the metro facing a whole row of people and either people look everywhere but at you or they look straight at you with out seeing you.  its like we forget that everyone else is SOMEONE  and has feelings and hopes and dreams etc etc. Our whole lives we have been taught that we are Children of God and so is everyone else, but i think that we, even as church members who know this realy KNEW it we would act alot different. I have been trying to act this way and to apply it to my missionary work. Just talking to people as if they are important. But its harder than it sounds.   Its even hard to do with people you know and are close to such as other missionaries etc. we take advantage of the relationships that we have and then we ignore the people we don't know...weird....i don't know if any of that makes sense...but it has been in my thoughts.  

 

the funnest thing about finland was that i kept trying to speak to everyone in russian! haha funniest thing.  they don't know russian. but its like in my brain, if they don't know english then they know russian right? haha no. it doesn't work that way....unfortunately. 

 

So we got home and it was like 5:40 in the morning on saturday and president was at the airport and he told us our transfers!! WAY too much information after 48 hours of almost no sleep!  But i am leaving Novosibirsk and goint o TOMSK!  not Omsk, but Tomsk.  with a T.   and i am going to be with Sister Margolies again for her last transfer.  I am sad to be leaving Novo and that me and sister sanford had only one transfer together. but i feel like it is right and where i am supposed to be and who i am with so i am excited! but i don't leave for two weeks until after the sisters conference. 

 

Sunday-  Anya and her family came to church again! it was so great. I love her so much. she sat next to me the whole time and i put my arm over her chair and she just held my hand the whole time.  She is the best. all through sacrament we read the verses people quoted together and after she wanted to talk about what a few of them meant.  She is so incredible. we had dinner with them and the webbs that night and it was great to get to knwo them more in a relaxed setting.  i sent some picturs.   I want to be here for her baptism but we are afraid of freaking her mom out and asking if she can be baptized in less than two weeks. but i might call and talk to the mom about it tonight. pray for me. 

 

i had a great opportunity to serve my companion yesterday haha it was so great. we were at a babyshkas house and she saw that sis sanford had a hole in her sock and she gave me a needle and thread and told me to sew it up haha. I love the people here. they take such good care of us.  its great.

 

So i got two packages again! haha everyone thinks i am spoiled! one from you and one from the georges! i was so so happy! thanks so much! and i am so happy when you send me junk food from america but i have to tell you to stop! haha i can resist the temptation of russian stuff here but not all the stuff you send and i would like to be a reasonable size when i get home.  so no more ok! :) but i love you! and thank you cause its really good :) 

 

Well anyways.  The church is true, I love the gospel, I love my mission, I love my Savior and I love my Heavenly Father. His plan is perfect. His gospel is perfect.  Its all we need. Now we just have to apply it to ourselves and our lives and we can become perfect too.  :) i hope you have a great week!

 

Love Sister Trottier