So, something interesting serving with a younger American companion is they know a whole lot more about what is going on in the world than i do. im usually out of the loop when it comes to pop culture, but i usually find out things eventually, but...my first paragraph today is going to be titled "ive been on the mission too long" to show you how out of the loop a mission makes you...
when the heck did Amy Winehouse die???? like last year? no one told me!
and Whitney Houston died too?? what is the world coming too?
we killed bin laden?...okay, honestly, i found out about that one last summer. but still a little behind the rest of the world
Jimmers is in the NBA? not that i really care, i remember hearing a lot about BYU basketball last spring when i was in the MTC but...i guess im not too caught up in anymore...
why is everyone here walking around with T-shirts that say "angry birds"? is that a band? a brand? my companion had to fill me in on that too.
a member yesterday was explaining to me what a 'flashmob' is....and my companion knew all about it. apparently they are popular here too....i had NO idea what they were talking about, so she had to fill me in on that too.
and, it took me way to long this morning to remember the word to describe that style of people who shop at urban outfitters, wear the plastic black and pink raybans, and wear checkered scarves...what are they again...popsters? emo? swaggers? indie? no...whats the dang word???.......ten minutes later...HIPSTERS! got it.... yeah. ive been on the mission a long time. ...and is it a good thing or a bad thing that i finally have a companion who can fill me in on the latest...i don't know....
so this week was pretty good...nice and HOT...and dropped down to slip on shoes than lost the nylons all together's in one week...down to sandals now and its awesome. this week we actually had to do a lot of legal stuff...its been a nightmare trying to get me registered with my new visa since i got back from Bulgaria. i have to do all kinds of new paperwork that the people at all the govt offices aren't even trained on yet. but...after a whole lot of time and running all over the place and paying some fines...i think, think, im legal. our mission people just usually call us an hour before we need to be somewhere and we have to drop everything and go. its rough and takes a toll on the work...but its just the difficulty we have right now with Ukraine. its awesome we got our missionaries in here finally 20 years ago, but now with the new pro-Russian president,...there are a lot more laws now about registration, even for Ukrainians. a step back toward communism, yeah, so continue to pray for missionaries everywhere in the world and for countries where there are no missionaries yet and for the countries where the missionaries are becoming less and less welcome. :) thanks
this passed week we had a few lessons, found a few new investigators off the street, and tried to fulfill our purpose. someday's it just hard to get rejected over and over and over...okay all days are hard when that happens, but we are continuing to try.
its been funny having an American companion who speaks pretty good Russian, so we can go back and forth between English and Russian pretty frequently, but some days my mouth muscles cannot take it and any words that come out of my mouth-Russian or English are just mush. i don't know if ive talked about his before but to speaking Russian requires using differently mouth muscles than English. you kinda have to talk from the back of your mouth while narrowing your cheeks-way weird which is why all us missionaries will most likes always have an accent speaking Russian-because it uses diff muscles than we are used to. Ukrainian on the other hand, while similar to Russian, to speak it you use the same muscles as in English...therefore the American missionaries who speak Ukrainian here even from the beginning can speak without an accent. members and native missionaries and even people on the street who we talk with say we have an accent in Russian-its so obvious we're not native, but then when we switch over and even say the five simple words we know in Ukrainian to them they say we don't have an accent at all.
so, basically, my mouth muscles get so tired and just stop working so even with speaking English with my companion, i, of course, know how to say what i want to say, but my mouth will just get lazy and not pronounce the first part or last part of words, so i just sound ridiculous. its embarrassing. i know its kinda a 'badge of honor' to come home from a mission with an accent in English, but i think its just going to be embarrassing and frustrating that i literally can't speak good English anymore.
sorry, nothing too exciting to report... im enjoying my companion and Odessa and the work...just plugging along :)
have a great week!
sister little
No comments:
Post a Comment