"I may or may not die, but that's okay. It's for a good cause" - Week 5

Family!

This week has actually gone by REALLY fast.  I feel like just yesterday was P-Day.. It's strange how that works.

So, first off, this week is SYL week (Speak Your Language) in my zone.  That means 100% Russian all week.  I may or may not die, but that's okay.  It's for a good cause.  We started yesterday and we're continuing until Saturday.  It is definitely a help, but thinking in only Russian gives me a bit of a headache.  I'm working my best on it, but of course I still slip into English every once in a while.  Or German, randomly.  But, in trying my best to speak completely in Russian, I've surprised myself at times with how much I can actually communicate.  Last night Antamanov and I were joking back and forth completely in Russian.  My thoughts always takes a lot more time to get the point across, but still!  I thought that was pretty cool.

I still have my moments where Russian fails me.  Like when we talk to the branch president, who has a heavy Ukrainian accent.  We meet with him every sunday night to teach an FHE type lesson.  Last night Antamanov had to take a call at the beginning of the lesson and left me to introduce our topic.  Unfortunately I didn't know much of the vocab that I needed, so I pantomimed a lot of what I wanted to say.  Branch President and his wife eventually got it, but they were obviously pretty happy when Antamanov came back.  And then whenever they respond to anything, they go off on random tangents that even Antamanov can't follow.  So I zoned a lot.  My life flashed before my eyes in slo-mo.  When that finished, they were still talking, so I continued to think about my future.  It was a pretty productive lesson.

We discovered at the end of August that the MSF (living money for missionaries) that they give us isn't enough.  They give us 1200 greevan, and considering a greevan is about 8 to 1 dollar, that makes it the equivalent of about.. $170.  That's for one month.  Prices here are lots lower than in America by those standards, but we still had to dip into personal money for the last week or so in order to actually have food and stuff.  I'm still very very frugal with my money, as always, but I can't help but spend some personal cash.  I just figured that I should let you know.

We teach this one old couple that I wanted to tell you about.  Their name is T.  They are technically Less Active because they can't make it to church, but they're the most amazing people.  He is blind and has been for the last 11 years or so.  They have some struggles, but they are some the happiest people I've met here.  The coolest thing about him is that after he went blind, he decided to pick up the accordian.  He plays pretty professionally!  I have some videos of him playing.  We had a lesson where at the end we switched off and I would show them an American song on the guitar, then he would perform a traditional Ukrainian song on the accordian.  Definitely my favorite people here.  They remind me a lot of grandma and grandpa Porter in their mannerisms and how their house is set up.

This last Sunday a young member family from outside the city limits visited church.  We actually had little kids running around the church!  I hadn't realized how much I missed that.  One kid reminded me a lot of Joseph at about 3 years old.  He kept running around messing with anything he could find.  When his mom went up to bear her testimony, this kid ran up and pulled himself up to the pulpit and started yelling a bit.  She shushed him, so he started just gnawing on the wood.  Crazy kids.  They're awesome.

You asked about my apartment and living conditions last time.  The apartment is pretty good.. I don't know how else to describe it.  It's a normal dom in communist housing here with everything we need except for a dryer and an oven.  As for cooking, I do definitely cook some good stuff.  Antamanov has showed me how to make some somewhat traditional Russian stuff.  College kid style.  As in, with really cheap ingredients.  It's pretty cool.

That's the main things from this week that I can think of.  How about back home?  Does school start this week?  Are you excited?  Because I'm excited for you all.  It's weird how life goes on while I'm here.  As it should, but still.  Just keep updating me and it'll all be cool.

I love you!  Talk to you next P-Day!

-Elder Brandon Porter