The Best Two Weeks!

So I thought it was time to sit down and start a blog! We're all doing so great. We've been in Voronezh for a week and four days now. We all left the USA on January 28th and got into Voronezh on the 30th. Talk about a long trip! It was super crazy. The flight to Chicago was pretty good. I met a bunch of ILP girls in the O'Hare Airport. Like 12 of them were headed to Moscow, and only 3 of them were going to Voronezh. The flight to Frankfurt was LONG. Babies were crying and there was a girl coughing on me the entire time... but the food was ok, and I got to watch some cool movies. Also, I did meet a cute Ukrainian who offered to carry my bags! Finally we had a flight from Frankfurt to Moscow. Ahh! In Moscow we met our "helper" Mila. She's super fun. She's from Voronezh and is hired to help us out around the city. From Moscow we boarded a 12 hour train ride to Voronezh. It was a night train which was such a crazy experience! They gave everyone a clean set of sheets and pillowcases and we all made our little beds and everyone took off their shoes and after a couple rounds of card games, we all slept! We got off 12 hours later in Voronezh!!! Our ILP group met our host families at the train station.

My host family is so great! My mom is Natasha. She doesn't speak any English, but she's super nice and funny. And extremely generous. My host sister is Janeya and she's 13. She plays the guitar and does Tae Kwon Do and speaks pretty good English. She's always translating for us. My host brother is Gleb and he's 11. He's so funny! He speaks ok English, but not as much as Janeya. I also live with another ILP volunteer named Brooke. It's good to have another person here to speak English to! We really like our family! Gleb's so much fun to hang out with. We live on the 8th floor of our apartment complex and this week, he made us pull pranks with him. We take hand sanitizer and a lighter down to the first floor (via the stairs) and we squirt little piles on the floor in front of other peoples doors and light it on fire and ring the doorbells. Then we run! Up the eight flights of stairs... I'm definitely getting my workout somewhere. A couple nights ago, we made paper airplanes and threw them out the window. It's actually so cool, because they stay up for longer than a minute! I really love my host family!

Russia is so great! We take busses everywhere, because many people (including my family) don't have cars. I take the "16B" bus to and from school. Sometimes it's super crazy! There must be at least 200 people trying to squish onto one bus. I'm NOT exaggerating! Usually the bus ride is about 30 minutes but can be up to an hour and twenty minutes (depending on traffic and the weather). The drivers are so nuts here! There's no real lane system and they all weave from side to side. Also, they don't stop (or even hesitate) for pedestrians. Sometimes it's scary, but we usually just follow some Russians... who seem to know what they're doing.

The snow here is great! It's all powdery and so much fun! It's cold... but I think it's a little overrated. I think Utah gets this cold sometimes. I had an excuse to buy two new coats though! One's gray and plaid, and the other is this really great black peacoat with toggles... I love it! You would not believe how fashionable everyone is here! They all wear long real fur coats, knee high black boots with spike heels, and have shiny black designer bags! It's so crazy. And they manage to tramp through miles of ice and snow. It's an acquired skill, for sure. These people know how to deal with the snow... in fashion!

The food here has been pretty good so far. Lots of bread, pasta, potatoes, and beets. We always have these cabbage salads that include some form of beets. Also, they just LOVE mayonnaise. They eat it on everything. EVERYTHING. Bread with mayo. Pasta with mayo. Mashed potatoes with mayo. Yuck. So far, I'm not that into it. We'll see. What I should be talking about is the desserts. The Russians know how to do cake! Holy cow. They have every kind of cake you could ever dream up. I can't believe I haven't gained like 20 pounds here. The other day our host mom taught us how to make a Banana Cream Chocolate cake. From scratch. Wow! The cakes tend to be a little dry, but honestly, their amazing fillings make up for it! The candies are so great here! My favorite so far (we have yet to try all the possible candies... give it some time) is this little chocolate-covered, cheesecake roll filled with strawberry jelly. You have to eat it cold; it's so good! Chocolate that melts in your mouth... Every variety of candy... Yum. Everytime we make it to the store, we end up buying candy. We can't help it! We're always working on guessing what we're actually buying though, because none of us are too good at reading Russian yet! We are trying though!

Every Monday and Wednesday we have Russian lessons with Mila. It's so difficult! My name is something like this: БРИТНИ. It's so fun to try and read Russian. My city is called ВОРОНЕЖ, but it's pronounced Vororesh (roll those R's!). The most important phrase I've learned so far is this: Я НЕ ПОНИМАЮ ПО-РҮССКИ. It's pronounced Ya NYE paNEEmy-you pa-ROOski. It means "I don't understand Russian." It comes in handy sometimes. :)

The teaching so far has been good! It's a challenge. For sure. But such a great experience. *Thanks so much to all who donated supplies! Everything has been so helpful so far!* The kids are all really super cute. We all wished that their behaviors all always matched their looks. The two rules for the kids are "No Russian" and "No Cell Phones." .... We have problems enforcing that, but it's getting better. It's nice to have a bunch of other teachers to vent with.

I'm with a group of 8 Americans. It's so fun! We have the greatest group! There's Brooke from California, Jodi and Maddie from Utah, Brian from California, Greg from Texas, Cormac from Idaho, and Eldon from Canada! We all love our group and consider ourselves so lucky to have been assigned to work together! On the weekends we get to hang out and tour... so far, the weekends are to die for! I've only been here for two weeks, but so far, it's been SO GREAT! Did I say I love Russia!?! I love it here!

The first weekend we were here we toured the city center. We all got to see the Opera House, some Puppet Theater, Lenin and Stalin statues (of course!) and basically we spent time mapping out the city and different bus routes. It's gorgeous here! There's a big river that runs right through the middle of town. Right now it's frozen over and every day on my way over the bridge I can see ice fishers out on the river! We all bought Russian cell phones... That's right! I have a Russian phone number! :) And lastly, we exchanged our dollars for rubles! Last semester we heard that the exchange rate was about $1=24 p. (rubles). We got so lucky (again!) to come at the time we did. Right now the ruble is down... which is lucky for us. Last week the exchange rate was about $1=34 p. and this week it's $1=37 p! It's so great! Bus rides are 7 rubles... which is about $0.20. It's fun!

Last weekend... On Friday night we went clubbing with some girls we met at church! (LOL.) We went to this '80s dance club, where we got a free pass through security for being Americans! We danced until 2 in the morning! We all took taxi's home. On Saturday Brooke and I went and bought coats and scarves and then we met with our group at 4 to go to a Russian Folk concert. All the traditional things you can think of (think of the dancing in Fiddler on the Roof), we saw in real life, along with an amazing live traditional choir! It was so spectacular! I loved it so much!

On Sunday's we've been able to make it to church! It's so wonderful! There's a right bank and a left bank branch (we're on the right bank). Brooke, Jodi, Maddie, Eldon, and I have been going to church. It's so fun. We met the four Elders here in Voronezh, who love to translate for us (and have some people to speak English to!). The first Sunday was fast and testimony meeting, which was fun. The 1st Counselor got up and asked us to hopefully share about our "names our families and our faith, mostly" the following Sunday. So last Sunday we all got up and bore our testimonies to our Russian ward! My favorite guy is the 1st Counselor (who's name I can never actually remember...) For Sunday school he has a special meeting for the ILP's, the Elders and he and the 2nd Counselor, so he can practice his English! He just loves us. He calls us his son and daughters and tells us to reassure our family that we are loved by our Russian Ward Family. We love him too!

The coolest thing so far is that my host mom is investigating the church! Natasha and my host brother Gleb have come with us for the past two Sundays and we've had the Elders over for FHE twice now! It's really exciting to watch them learn about the gospel. Natasha reads the Book of Mormon avidly, and always has great questions for the Elders. Gleb is so fun to watch! We had the Elders over and Gleb and Elder Wheeler were talking about Joseph Smit (they can't pronounce the "th" sound here) and Nephi and Gleb kept asking "What happens next? This is very interesting." It's really exciting to be getting such a close view of this.

Alrighty. I think this concludes this uber long first entry! I only have access to the internet via McDonalds for now... but I'll try to keep this updated! I'll add pictures as SOON as I can! I know this was long but there's seriously nothing I could have left out. Russia is so great! Love and miss you all! :)