accountability

Note: I asked for the reason behind last week's email title ("A hedgehog and ice cream") and here is the story: "There's a less active with a huge testimony who lives forever away with her giant clan of a family. and they have 16 cats (my allergies are a nightmare when we go there) and a hedgehog. it's adorable. also they gave us ice cream and russian ice cream is delicious. Russians know their ice. in america you'd think eating white cream-flavored ice cream with jam on top would be tacky but it is so good"

On to the letter!

Another week in Samara, zone training and weird 1 and 2/2 day splits with one of the sets of Samara sisters.

It's good though. I actually seriously enjoy street contacting in Samara. Maybe because there are actually people to talk to. Not to hate on my beloved Orenburg, I love it. But sometimes it can feel a little silly contacting outside when most of the people are standing in front of places where we're not legally supposed to be contacting. That's cool, though. Every city has it's own personality.

Working with Sister Graham was the greatest. She was in my MTC group and she is dang good. At everything. We met some super cool people. And entertained some. In order to keep people engaged when you're contacting them on the street you kind of have to put on a show. (...I kind of go to extreme lengths to be funny sometimes. I threw my pocket dictionary on the ground because it didn't have "chromosome". But it turns out if you say "chromosome" trying to do a russian accent they know what you mean. And Regina talked with us for about a half hour longer than she first intended to, and wants to meet with the sisters again. worth it)

This week was really short. What else is there to say? 

The other night we were out in the middle of nowhere and our bus stopped running, so we took the bus that we knew only went to the elders' area to try to avoid a drunk man who wouldn't stop hitting on us. I thought we could take a bus to our area from the elders' area, but those stopped running too (the weather was awful. I can't blame them) so we had to take a taxi. Good things about taxi drivers falling in love with you? Free taxi rides. Bad things? They know where you live.

I took pictures! I know that's all you really want.

Sister Schwab wanted someone to take this rubber mold for cakes, so it ended up with us (although I think we left it at the bezimyanskii sisters'...that's a relief. Yes, that's an illustration of how you can use the mold to make meat jello.)

That's what Orenburg looks like right now.

And a slightly awkward picture of me and Ulijana and a map mural! 

Don't wait to do things, don't wait to reach your goals! I know sometimes I make excuses, I procrastinate working as hard as I should or being as awesome as I could be because I tell myself I just haven't reached that point yet. I think "the me that I want to be in a month or three months would do that, but I can't do that right now". Lies. Just do the thing.

I love you all!

Have a great week. Turns out Easter is next week. Just found that out. Cool! Happy Easter!

Sister Nielsen

"These boots were 650 rubles! yeee"

 "Us pretending to be babushki. A lot of them have facial hair." 

"two transfers ago when almost all the sisters in the mission stayed at the avrora apartment in samara"

"train selfie"