Week 8

Well everyone it is that time to email again. i am sitting in the laundry room waiting on a free washer which is a lost cause haha. well i have had an eventful week. I got my russian name tag. It is so cool to look at haha. Well we are three weeks and counting to my departure date. I am cramming as much russian grammar and vocab right now. it is so cool. I am pleased to say that not only can i bear my testimony in russian or say a couple of gospel frazes but i can keep a conversation going. we have syl days which is speak your language. we speak in russian for the whole day! oh my goodness it is so hard! haha but I know that i will get it down.

Also we went to the temple this morning with some russian natives getting their endowments. it was so cool to feel the spirit in the temple. Our whole zone or branch was there with the branch presidency for these two elders. One is from Novasabirsk which is where my teacher served. in fact my teacher was good friends with this new elder and it was really cool to see them meet again after my teacher's mission. My teacher was his escort in the temple this morning which is even more exciting.

I got everyone's packages and i want to say thank you so much for everything. haha heather i know you didn't want to send the package overnight but i was so glad when i got it. I hung hannah and connor's dinosaur pic up on my bulletin board in my room. (yes it still smelt like a corn dog) Thank you mom and dad for the other package that i got today! the sd cards and the flash drive are so great. now i can keep up with my  mission pics and have them all in one place. Also, I really enjoyed the shorts. I had brought an old pare with me that needed to be gotten rid of.

so Just to give insight on my day to day activities: i start the day at 6:30 of course and i either go to breakfast or go get sack breakfast and then to gym. then on any given day i will have 4 hours of mdt which is study time by myself and my companion. Also i have class time twice a day with Sister Chenina and Brother Anderson. Brother Anderson is the one mentioned above. Sister Chenina has a youtube video of her first day in the mtc called a mormon missionary from russia at the mtc. she gives her testimony and why she came on a mission. it was so cool. she is off her mission now and is teaching us to speak russian. Also i have learned a lot of spiritual knowledge from sister chenina. she talked about her parents yesterday and how they do not believe in god. Also she is worried that she will not get a chance to visit them again before they die. she says they are old  and sick. I pray that she will be reunited with her family one of these days. She is taking a job in Japan this summer which is super hard because she is from Vladivostok. she is worried that if she goes to russia she will be trapped there because of visas and what not. I hope she gets to see them. then we have lunch and dinner in between these activities. on sundays and tuesdays we have devotionals which are always super good. then we are in bed by 10:30. there are variances to each day but it is along the lines of this each day. I just wanted you all to know what is going on.

so i got to keep this short today. I had to use my email time earlier on certain things and i am out of time but i will keep you all informed on what my travel plans will be and how i will be getting to Russia. until then

elder mccallon