Time Flies

It's amazing how much faster the weeks fly by when you're busy every day!

This week I got to go to new missionary training. It was pretty interesting once again to see all the brand new missionaries gathered with the missionaries who came from Ukraine. The mission really must change people because not only the experience of the older missionaries was different, but just the entire way they carried themselves and spoke, and just everything was different. It's so amazing to see what these experiences do to people.

Being trained again was kind of humbling, but also cool - we learned a lot about how to do the work differently in these different circumstances. And we didn't have to go to all the workshops they had. (There was one on the "Adjusting to missionary life" stress guide. They pulled us out and said "you adjusted in Ukraine so we're pretty sure you'll be just fine here. haha well... I did happen to become VERY familiar with that book during my time there.. ahem.)

Working with Sister Orellana has been AWESOME. I think I mentioned this last week, but she's originally from Guatemala. She has so much to teach me, not the least of these things is Spanish! We just got permission from our mission president to do language study so I can keep up with my Russian. The only Russian study material I have right now is a copy of the Book of Mormon in Russian. So I'm hoping to pull a move like "the other side of heaven" guy, and maybe if I read through it I'll all of a sudden be completely fluent. We'll see.

 Sister Orellana and I

This week we got to meet tons of really awesome members. One of their houses is one of my favorite houses in the world! It reminds me a lot of ours, because there's tons of "junk', or excess stuff - but everything has a story. The lady who lives there is a professional clown, and will be representing Utah in "Senior Miss America' pageant. If you get the chance to tune in to that, I would do it. I think it'll be quite interesting this year. Also, her husband told me I looked like 
Gina Lollobrigida, whoever that is. Chameleon face, still going strong.

As service this week we got to plant almost an entire garden! The people even gave us pots and seeds to take home, and in a few weeks we should have our own salads growing on our front porch. That's pretty cool :) Have I mentioned yet that missionaries gain 25 pounds on average in this mission?? AHHH!

Sister Walkers family

And highlight of the week: Sister Walker's Family tracked me down and came to see me in church! I just happened to be speaking in that meeting and they were probably the only people who stayed awake through it all! It was so awesome to see them. Little connections like that help me feel like my experiences in Ukraine were actually real.

Things that only happen in Utah:

We went to get burgers this week (I missed burgers!!) and when we asked for the check, it had already been paid for. Seriously, how these people treat missionaries...

We went to the doctor because Sister Orellana had been feeling sick. The doctor talked to her in Spanish, just because he liked the practice I'm sure, and then as we were walking out told us he had felt the spirit when he walked into the room. So sweet - and so Utah.

I love this place :)

Hope you all have an awesome week!

с любовью

Sister Willerth