Letters from the Baltic

  Hello Everyone! Short Version:      The highlight of my week was getting my temporary reassignment. I have been reassigned to the Chicago Illinois Mission! I would never have expected to be called here for so many reasons, but I'm excited because they have the third highest populations of Russian-Americans in the United States. I've also heard rumors that a good portion of missionaries called to Russian speaking missions are being reassigned to Chicago, so that means I'll have a better chance being companions with someone I can practice the language with. I haven't heard at all about getting a Visa so until further notice, Chicago will be home for me. Other than that, it has been a typical Online MTC week: lots of zoom, lots of feeling the Spirit, and lots of studying.  Long Version:       Russian is coming along at a steady pace. I'm to the point where I can piece together simple sentences to convey sorta what I want to say. There have bee...

  Hello Everyone! Short Version:     This week went by quicker than I was expecting. It feels like I was writing to you guys just yesterday. Week one and two I was basically running on adrenaline since everything was new and exciting. Now it's not so new, and the excitement of learning the language is accompanied with the frustration of learning a language. On the bright side, I've gotten into a groove with my studying and class schedule. My vocabulary is still really small, especially since the words I know are all gospel related. To give an idea of where I'm at, I have a stack of beginner Russian children's books from the library. I can't read any of them yet but I do enjoy looking at the pictures and guessing what the words are. It's humbling to know that Jasmine has a higher reading level than I do. Something I've started doing to spice up my language study time is attempting to play the ukulele and sing Russian sentences or read scriptures in Russian.  ...

  Hello Everyone, Short Version:      I made it through week two of the online MTC, Hooray! I'm becoming more and more grateful for my glasses that have blue-light lenses because I'm spending upwards of 8 hours everyday on my computer. Here are the highlights of the week: Me and my companion taught our first Russian-only lesson; I memorized "Our Purpose" (a missionary mission statement) and Moroni 10:5 in Russian; This week the mental effort required for learning so much in so little time has been stressful but every night I'm excited to go to bed at 10:30. This next week will be the last week our MTC trainers speak english (for the most part) to us so I'll have to soak in all the learning I can before we are thrown in the deep end of the pool and forced to stay afloat. Long Version:       What a week it has been. Today has been the first day I've been able to take a nap and it was well needed. Waking up at 6:30 hasn't been too rough on me bu...

  Hello Everybody!     What a week it has been. Today is my P-day so if you are looking to reach out to me during the next 8 or 9 weeks, Saturday is the day when I'll be able to respond to your emails. I'm hoping to write a short version and a long version each week so those of you who are busy can still see my emails without committing a huge chunk of time to reading them. Short Version:     The MTC started on Wednesday and I've been going non-stop since then. There's always something for me to be doing but I was able to squeeze in a 30 min power nap yesterday that was well needed. So far we've only learned basic pronunciation of the Cyrillic alphabet, memorized 2 short scriptures in Russian, and learned about 50 simple words. The next week will have a lot more language learning so that's both exciting and frightening. Whenever I'm in class or studying, I've been able to feel the Spirit so strong which has been wonderful. That's testified to me that...