wow what a week!

Hello again my lovely family!!

Thank you for all your emails, i really enjoyed reading them as always. I am glad that everyone is doing pretty well it sounds like and keeping busy. Ange, those pictures look very exciting. I am happy for you. And hopefully everything calms down somewhat at home and at work. Don't wear yourself out and try to fit in TOO much stuff in the day!

So yes, friday night i headed up to moscow on the night train with sis. ionina and sis. zymazhonova. We had fun talking and then tried to get as much sleep as we could, haha. that didn't work out to well. We got in moscow early sat morning and then got to see the other missionaries in our mission and in the moscow mission. That was very fun and it was good to see the elders from the mtc and sis kelly. They are all just wonderful. Then we all sat down and got to hear sis and Elder Perry speak. It was great and wonderful and there was a strong spirit there. We didn't actually get to talk to elder perry, we just shook his hand and told him our names and where we were from. But it was very cool!!!!! First apostles hand that i have every shaken! So we all enjoyed that. Afterwards we took our P-day and went up to red square again. When i have time i will try to email pics again. And i think i walked down the street that matt damon had a car chase on in the borne movie. pretty cool huh?! And then sat night we got back on a night train and came back to voronezh early sunday morning for church. There is some beautiful and peaceful countryside scenery to see when you ride those night trains though. I like it. I don't know how much sleep you get but it is always a fun experience.

So we are still meeting with kacenya and nastia. I am very excited to be working with them both and they are both wonderful. The baptismal date is set for the 19th, but i think that they both might need more time to really gain a strong testimony. So i just pray that we can teach them with the spirit and that they will be ready to be baptized, whether it be the 19th or a few weeks later. We are also still working a lot with the members and with the less active members. We have been trying to do some more contacting too, but that has been difficult. oh, yesterday we went with the elders and sang in a park some russian hymns for a while. While we sang we had a few members in the ward hand out our information, etc. I enjoyed it and the elders got a few contacts from it so that was good! I like doin creative things, so maybe we can think of some more creative ideas and put those into play eventually. We will see.

So yes, my new companion arrived last night, and I am very excited to be working with her. Yes, she is a russian. As of now in our mission we have i think 8 russian sisters (cause one just came from the mtc) and 4 american sisters. So it is very likely that as a sister you will spend much of your time speaking (or attempting to speak) a lot of russian. It will be good for me to speak russian more, but to be honest i am quite nervous too. Actually, very nervous. I'll probably spend a lot of my time and brain power just tryin to think of simple sentences to say to fill the silence. Man, I haven't really studied any other languages, but i feel like russian is like the hardest ever!! I never imagined it to be so hard! I thought that i would do pretty well at it, but honestly, I think that the language is something that is very challenging for me and something that i will struggle with for a while. But what do ya do? I can tell that I have progressed a little though. I understand better. But i don't know if that is a good thing or not. When you don't understand what people are saying you don't hear all the rude things they say. I think i liked it better that way. The other day we were contacting and then this person said something and i was just thinkin ok cool. But then when i actually thought through it for a min and realized what they said i was thought like "hey, what the heck, that was kinda rude!" And you get to hear and understand all the wonderful comments when people tell you your russian is bad and that they don't understand you because your accent is horrible. Oh well, haha. It's kinda funny, but kinda different too. People here seem to be very blunt and just say whatever they feel like saying...which is very different from what i am used too i guess. The other day we contacted into a lady who started yelling at us and asking us why are we doing such a stupid thing as being on this mission. She told us that we should be married and having children, and that we are wasting our time!

So yes, i am excited to be working with my new companion sis. gorgavenka. She has been on the mission for 6 months i think and did not have the opportunity to go to the mtc in provo because of visa problems. But she just went to the temple (finland i think) last week for the first time, so that was very exciting for her! But yes, my russian is bad and my teaching is bad too, so i hope that i can be an asset to this companionship and that we can teach so that we invite the spirit together. I think it might be difficult for a while and a lot of hard work, but that's ok, because what part of a mission isn't eh? Sis. gorgavenka told me that i am her first amercian companion, so hopefully after she serves with me she will want to serve with another american, right?!!!

Well family, i love you and never forget it!! And like i always say, keep reading those scriptures and saying your prayers and doing those regular habits. I was thinking the other day how helpful habits really are. They seem so simple, but when put into practice somehow are harder than they sound to do. But they invite a spirit into your life that you will never forget. I promise. I was thinking about virtue the other day, and how satan tries so hard to fill your mind with meaningless and not so good thoughts. Whether they be thoughts of sin, bad thoughts about others, critical thoughts, prideful thoughts, scary thoughts, sad thoughts, worrysome thoughts...satan tries so hard to get you. And he will, if you let him. I always thought that virtue meant to not think about sinful things, but now i think that having virtuous thoughts means a lot more. It means taking all of those bad thoughts, whatever they may be, and just throwing them away. It's hard, but i know that reading scriptures daily, personally and as a family, and saying individual and family prayers, and having family home evening, and attending church, and attending the temple, are little acts that add up to great great amounts. Satan is working so hard in this day and age to get us, and you need to always be on your guard...CONSTANTLY. If you are not on your guard he will just creep right on in until eventually you don't even notice when he does anymore. So keep doing those good things, and filling your day with the best things. And be grateful for temples!!! I was thinking about how lovely it was to attend the temple every week in the mtc. And now i don't think ill have an opportunity to go for the rest of my mission. Which is really sad. I think that i really took for granted the fact that at home i had a temple basically in arms reach in all directions. I was able to go every week, any time i wanted. And now, on my mission, the time that i would really like to go the most, there is a slim possibility. But the members here are getting a closer temple in Kiev in August, and this is a very exciting and wonderful thing for them. I didn't even realize what a huge thing this was until I came here and saw how important it was to them. So i say, be grateful for the temple, and attend the temple regularly, and regularly with your family and with your spouses. ok, enough of my soap box again for this week!! Again i love you all and thank you for everything.

Sending hugs and kisses your way until next week!
Sister Acacia Brown