Happy Russian New Year

This week was certainly a rollercoaster! So many great moments and so many challenging things as well. One of the most exciting things was right towards the beginning of this week, we had a lesson with жанна (one of our fake investigators) and she mentioned that she was reading the Book of Mormon and that she felt good. We asked her if she thought what it was saying is true and she said she wasn't sure. I had such a strong impression to tell her that it was the Holy Ghost who tells her these things, and that he testifies of all truth. I then told her that I know that if she prays about the Book of Mormon that night she would be able to know that the Book of Mormon is true through the Holy Ghost. The next lesson, she said that she believes that it's true. It just felt so incredible to be able to say those things to her and in Russian. One of the best parts about this MTC is that although the lessons might not be exactly "real", what we feel and what we learn from them is. Hopefully that experience will teach me something that I can use again in the field.

Me and Elder Jorgensen (pronounced "Yawn"-son). Our "Great Dane" of the zone. Headed out to Moscow earlier this week. Because the Russians celebrate Christmas on January 7th, he's lucky enough to have two this year!

One extremely challenging thing about Russian is that I cannot understand a thing that anybody says hahaha. Not sure how I can get more practice with that considering I'm already hearing it all the time, but hopefully my brain starts to put it together. We gave a Skype lesson to a wonderful
бабушка from some unpronounceable city in Russia which was very exciting. It went very well, but sadly every time I asked her a question I could never understand anything that she said. Every time she said something about a point that we mentioned or bore her testimony on something, all I would say is "Thanks. Good." and that's it hahaha. I'm sure that once I actually get to Ukraine I'll figure it out because at that point my brain won't have a choice.

For new year's we couldn't throw a party or anything of course, and we can't stay up until midnight cause I need those blessings from being asleep at 10:30, so instead we celebrated the Russian new year at 3 in the afternoon! It was really funny. We got almost all the elders from our zone and went a study space on the roof of one of the buildings in the MTC and celebrated a little bit. We had some Martinellis and Doritos. Honestly can't ask for more than that. My goal is to work harder this next year. That's one thing that I can always improve on - being a harder worker. As I look back at how I've spent my time so far in the MTC, I cannot help but wish that I would have worked harder. I refuse to be able to do that for the rest of my mission. At the end, I want to be able to look back and be able to honestly say that there's nothing else that I could have done.

Love you all, hopefully you set some great goals for yourselves this year! 2019 is going to be one to remember!