well....family i think if i calculated right you are currently sitting on a red eye on your way home from Kauai! How was it? what did you do? was it all that we ever dreamed and hoped for audge and jake? did you rent motor bikes and ride around the island? haha SEND PICTURES! this is important! the weather here can't decide if it wants to get warmer or be freezing haha but its not bad at the moment. around negative 10 or so. Tomsk is greati love it. and i love being here. People are nice and open....most times :) well sometimes haha i have alot to say and i wrote down alot to write to you, but i have a bad confession. I feel like those elders that right one paragraph home because they have nothing to say :) haha or just because we are too lazy..not sure which one it is. but at the moment i am listening to that song that i told you i loved the My soul Hungered. its on lds.org under youth and then music and its the last one..if you want to listen....its good. :)
we went to a russian village this week! ya it was pretty sweet.my first real russian village and it was cool. it was just a 20 min bus ride or so outside of Tomsk. we have two cute new young girl baptisms. They come to church with their newly baptized aunt. their family are all members but inactive, but actually they are being great examples and their mom has come to church two weeks in a row!!! it is great! These girls are so amazing. one is 9 and one is 12 and we drew and read the dream of lehi and they had all these great insights of what each of the symbols could mean to them in their lives right now that i had never thought about. Young people now really have great capacity to know and understand spiritual things. they are so close to Heaven.
Speaking of Lehis dream. I love it. i think i have said that twelve million times, but it makes me so so happy. We read it with everyone and i learn more and more as we analyze it with more and more people of all ages and testimony strengths.
Last week i hit my one year mark in Russia. Can you believe it?! I can't. I feel like i have been here for forever! but at the same time i can't believe a year has gone by! so much has happened to me and to others and everything in the time i have been away. craziness.
so we went to a new members house, a mom and grandma and 15 year old boy. They are so strong and great i had no idea that they had only been members for a year! anyways haha we asked for their story and you will never believe this, but this is how it happened! So this kid he watched South Park, you know that dumb tv show? ya well there is an episode about the book of mormon and mormons in general and he loves to read and he just said he just felt this HUGE desire to read that book. and he said to his mom, i want a Book of Mormon and his mom didn't know where to get one and he just kept buggin her about it and so not knowing, where do you get a book? a book store of course! and they went in and ask and the lady said "ugh. we don't like them and we don't have one. but you can find one on Mira 10A"!! haha she gave them our address! so finally after the boy bugged her some more they went to the address and asked for a Book of Mormon! haha crazy huh!? after they were baptized the mom went to the book store and thanked the lady and the lady was somewhat horrified that they joined....haha but people do missionary work with outeven knowing it! haha so thank you to the writers of South Park. If for only this one family they helped them find everything they needed. haha
we have found and refound people that used to have lessons with the missionaries. all of them are great. i hope that some of them we can help. There are two young girls named Lida and Masha that are just great and a babooshka named Zinaida and a family! The mom is Elena and she knows english. She has two little boys 4 and 4 months and a great husband named Artor. They are like no other family ihave met so far here. strong and happy and loving and have hopes and dreams. it will be a slow process but i hope a forward one :)
so there is this weird thing that they do in Russia. They have their hot water pipes in the bathrooms on the outside of the wall, i don't know why...maybe to like hang your towels on or something so they are warm or something, dn't know. but ours is SUPER HOT! and they aren't supposed to be that hot. just luke warm our is scalding and it is right next to the sink and in the way. so my first day here i had no idea about this danger in our house and i almost burnt my whole arm off! and got blisters and everything! and like a week later i got my shoulder and yesterday i got it again on my arm but in different place. I told sister margolies i was going to tell people it was part of companionship inventory haha. but anyways....kinda funny but not....we are trying to think of something to cover it with but we are worried if its a towel it will catch on fire or something..have any ideas?
The Parable of the Pomello
Background info: I have fallen in love with a fruit called a pomello that is like a grapefruit but not as messy. the way to tell if they are ripe is how orange they are....or so Sister Sanford told me
Story: we were at the grocery store and i was going to buy a pomello and so i looked for the most orange one! i was so excited! it was a beautiful color of orange. so the next day i get it out to eat it, and i take off the mesh wrapping and guess what else was on there!?!! orange cellophane! ya! thats right! ORANGE! andi took off the cellophane only to find that it was sickly pale yellow color!! tricky tricky huh? The people that wanted to sell that pomello knew what i would look for
application: alot of applications you can find her of course. don't judge a book by the cover. the world makes things look different from what they really are. more and more. think about it.
I had another parable to tell you about being lost but the time just told me that i am alsmost up! So quick run down.
yesterday we had a meeting with a lady and we thought we kinda knew how to get there so we got on a bus and got off on our stup and were pretty sure where to go so we just set off and turned left. we walked and walked and soon realized we should have been there by now,. we asked a few people difreaction on the street and all kinda pointed us the same ish direction but a little off from each other. finally we got out the map and tried to find it ourselves and got on buses and walked awhile and more buses. finally we called the lady and she got us to her house in no time! we finished the lesson and then went to find the bus stop and low and behold we were right back where we had started! after like an hour of searching we were just RIGHT of the bus stop!!! so our problems?
1. relied on our own wisdom and knowledge- didn't ask the owner of the house or even look at a map
2. Asked the wrong people who also didn't know perfectly - trusted what they said with out question
3. finally used the map but tried with out asking for help, and after agian asked people who didn't know.
4 FINALLY we called the owner of the house and with her directions and use of the map we got there
so if you want to get to Gods Kingdom, use the fourth step :) duh
read a good talk on changing our hearts and it being seen that we changed. Is our change visable?
Gotta go! love ya! church is true!
Sister Trottier
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