Now that you've heard all about how we've settled in, we thought you might be interested in what it means to be Member and Leader Support missionaries.
We have the same morning routine as the missionaries: an hour each of personal, companion, and language study. As a confirmed night owl, I've had to do some adjusting, and it's taken quite some time to change my sleep patterns. Some days we do better than others. Language study continues to be a challenge. Some mornings we don't get in all our studying because we have meetings, activities, or end up baking in preparation for something, and have to squeeze study time in later. In the afternoons and evenings we meet with people as much as the Elders include us. When they have an appointment with women and no adult men are present, they're supposed to have a member join them, and when no one from the branch is available they ask us to go with them. Sometimes they translate a lot of what's being said, sometimes not much, but often we're able to form a bond that transcends words. We've been pleasantly surprised at how friendly people are after such a connection is made, because on the streets the people don't smile or look at each other much. When we sit in on a discussion the Elders are more likely to translate everything and we will often be able to contribute to the lesson. Lately we've been sitting in on a discussion or visiting with an inactive an average of at least once a day. We're pleased the Elders are including us more now. Unfortunately, all too often we meet the Elders to go visit someone and the person isn't home, doesn't show up, or calls at the last minute to cancel. Fortunately we do have cell phones.
Sundays are pretty much the same as at home. We have church of course and sometimes leadership meetings or choir practice.
Mondays we have Family Home Evening for the singles. It's held at the church because that's a central location. Most of those who attend are in their early 20s and are not members (except for the missionaries, of course). We start with a song and prayer, have a short spiritual thought (usually 10-15 minutes) as they call it, and then the rest of the time is spent playing games. They LOVE to play games. Sometimes they are games with cards like Uno or with physical pieces like Jenga, and sometimes games like Duck, Duck, Goose (the Elders said that one was a big hit a couple of months ago). They also make regular use of the ping pong table in the back room. Once in a while someone brings refreshments. The whole evening lasts a little more than an hour.
Tuesday and Thursday evenings we have English Club. We aren't allowed to call it English class or claim that we're teaching English because we aren't certified, so it's called English Club. There are three groups: beginning, intermediate and advanced. We lead the advanced group because they understand pretty much everything we say and we don't have to try to explain things in Russian. In our class we pick a subject and ask everyone to talk about it. They get to practice their English, and we learn about Russia and they learn about the U.S. Much of their English is from school and is British English, so once in a while we tell them the American words--they'd rather speak American English than British English. Lately we've started the class with homophones (won/one, hear/here) and they really seem to enjoy that. Classes last about 45 minutes and then all three groups meet together. In the joint meeting someone from the third group translates and the rest of the night is in both English and Russian. They briefly discuss what has been talked about in each group and then one of the missionaries tells a short story with some sort of moral and another missionary give a 3-5 minute spiritual thought on a general gospel topic. Then we invite everyone to come to our meetings and other activities throughout the week.
Saturday is Sports Night. We go to a field close to the church and play frisbee, soccer, modified football, or whatever people are interested in and there are enough people for. In winter or bad weather we play games in the church.
Wednesdays are P-days. Since we have laptops and the iPad, the Elders like to come to our apartment rather than go to an Internet cafe--nicer environment and we don't charge! Dave also cuts their hair as needed. There's always food, whether it's cookies or pancakes or something more substantial. We've decided we're going to plan to feed them more, since they seem to enjoy hanging around and visiting and munching even after they're done with their computer time. There are six Elders in our city.
Fridays we have the District Meeting at our apartment at noon. During this time we discuss goals and how well we've done the last week, what's happening with investigators and reactivation efforts, motivation, focus on a particular missionary theme, and they even give us time for our "Senior Moment" when we share things that we think could help them, like encouraging them to be outrageously obedient to mission rules or give them a scriptural passage to commit to memory. Of course we feed them, but we try to make it something like cookies or banana bread that they can grab and run with as they head out for appointments or to go contacting. This all lasts about two hours.
We're having lots of fun!
This week's Russian Oddity: There are little shops everywhere - on every corner as well as down the blocks. Each one has its own specialty. The flower shops are the most common, and there are other shops selling fruits and veggies or magazines or beer or cigarettes and candy (explain that combination) or ice cream or watches or phones or . . . . Grocery stores simply sell groceries. Lenta is their big "Costco-type" store where you buy a membership, but it’s more like a Smith's Marketplace or Target as far as their selection. But you can get more than just groceries! However, you check out the groceries and pay, and then check out again with any electronics--things like a digital scale, iron or other small appliances. And multi packs? Forget it. After a while we were finally able to find 8-packs of toilet paper, but in general, packages are smaller here. Even the largest wastebaskets are small. I'd guess they hold about 4 gallons.
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