Week 20

Sorry not to warn you that my email would come late this week, we are have had/are having a pretty special series of events for yesterday and today...but lets start with last week...

it was time for exchanges again! we do exchanges as sisters every third week of the transfer. the big surprise was that i was leaving the area again-i kinda expected(but was not excited to) stay in the area and have to 'man' the area by myself since i would be the sister in the companionship who knew how to get around, who the members are, etc. like i said, im just not ready for that...and luckily didn't have to. I went to the voscresentsky area which is even more suburban than our area i think. my first exchange was in center Kiev-about 45 minutes away on the metro, and this one in voscresentsky was about 45 minutes away on a bus, kinda north of my area. it was fun. i just like these experiences to get out of my area and our habits and observe how other missionaries do the work. I am all about making the work my own (with the lords help of course) but i am still just observing all the possible ways to get everything done-who focuses on what over other things, who kneels when they pray vs not, how do other sisters do companionship study-im still collecting my data and then try to draw up a conclusion on what's best...its probably not the best thing that i think that there is a science to all of this and its all out figuring it out...i should probably just follow the spirit in everything i do while im out here....but then again i just thought of that scripture that it is not requisite to ask for every little piece of direction. so i gotta find a balance. i will say though..in my observations, something i am SO glad my companion did not start doing with me is that it is quite the tradition among sisters (maybe elders too, i don't know) but every time you are about to leave the appt, you say a pray and then give each other a hug. hm. i won't go any further with my comments about that, don't want to drive away the spirit, so i'll just say im glad my companion doesn't make me hug her 3 times a day....

so this is the week the mission has been building up to for awhile. today we will go to a meeting with president Lawrence (i think he is in a quorum of 70 pres for this area). he had a meeting with the mission a little before i got here and now is coming back. every once still talks about the amazing things he said last time about finding the 'believing blood of Israel.' in conjunction with this, this will be the last time the mission will all be together with pres steinagle, our mission president, as our new one arrives in a bout three weeks. so all the missionaries in our mission came into Kiev a day early (yesterday for p day) to spend a day in Kiev, have a mission dinner and then have family home evening "with the steinagles." so that was last night. we took a mission photo, i got to meet a lot of people (it was the first time i have seen all the missionaries from our mission together-about 90 young ones and about 14 senior missionaries). missionaries from odeca and leviv- (southern and western Ukraine) have to take a night train to get here and then they stay with other missionaries in Kiev. last night was fun. i think. i definitely had a spout of social anxiety. tooo many missionaries who were all best friends and i didn't want to get in anyone's way...but i survived, and appreciated the counsel we received and i really look forward to our meeting today. i really need some encouragement...

I had a huge breakdown on Sunday. huge. honestly, after a few weeks in the mtc and up to this point i really haven't been "intimidated" by Russian. i can kinda understand most things, and than i just respond with whatever sassy thing i can think to say within the vocabulary that i know (or spiritual thing, depending on the situation)...i really have been pretty fearless. but starting about Friday and then leading into Sunday, i just lost that ability to speak fearlessly. i think it is a john ritter song that goes, "i traded all the innocence i ever had for hesitation" and that what has happened. i used to not care if i said something grammatical wrong, but now that i know better, and really learning the grammar, i am realizing how awful i am. i am riding on some pretty low self confidence with this language right now, to the point where i can barely talk myself up to do street contacting-the easy stuff! i don't know, try not to be upset with me for being weak, i think i am going to be learning a huge lesson on faith in the next couple weeks as i try to talk myself up to speaking Russian again and having faith that the spirit will help me.

I will say i am understanding a lot a lot of what people say, but then with that comes my desire to give a more clear, honest answer which is at this point way outside my vocabulary, so i get frustrated, and then in the case of Sunday...i just gave up and starting crying. so what was this situation? it wasn't even that bad. the young women leaders invited us in on a planning meeting with them to share with them some of our favorite activities from young women's and then help them plan out how the young women can to missionary work. I had a lot to say. i wanted to tell them about my experience with the young women's program, a few activities i remember, etc. that's pretty hard vocab that i definitely haven't studied, but i figured i could get by. well before we even started talking about that stuff they had everyone in the room bare their testimonies of Jesus Christ. it came to my turn. and i have done it before. i testify daily, but halfway through i completely forgot a word that was going to pull my whole testimony together. and i just sat there trying to think of this word that was going to make everything understandable to them and i just couldn't. and i could feel all of their stares burning on my skin as they waited in silence for like 45 seconds for me to finish my thought and i couldn't...and my eyes began to fill with tears as i felt the anxiety in the room and i lost it. tears just started rushing down my face (i thought maybe if i pulled it together fast enough they would think that the reason i was crying was the spirit...but it didn't work out.) and i sat the rest of the meeting sobbing quietly until we could leave and go home and i cried for the rest of the night. the past couple days had been leading up to this breakdown. i really feel like i butchered every single thing i said in Russian since Friday. i feel so bad that i can't communicate what i want in the way i want to. so yeah, i have fasted and prayed that i can start building again that which was lost and refined my purpose here and what i can start doing now to invite others to come to Christ with the little Russian i do know.

thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, it has been the most most comforting thought when i am reminded to think of all the people at home praying for me :) thank you

have a wonderful week, good luck with finals and the start of summer vacation! I love you all!
sister kylie little