Transfer Time!! ~ Dec. 12, 2011

Transfers are here!!
So we always get the calls on Friday evenings.  We had already had the slip that Sister Zamorina was leaving Krasnodar and I was staying but I got the huge and wonderful surprise that I will be serving with Sister Tunney who was in the MTC with me!! I'm SUPER jazzed, but way scared too!! This will be my first time not serving with a native Russian speaker... I don't know if I can be American... :)  We will have to rely on each other A LOT for understanding and speaking which will be good, and I'm just WAY excited to see her again!! :)  We had some WAY cool miracles this week so let me fill you in on them!!

We met this lady on the street who said that she wanted more joy in her life.  She was pretty excited to meet a REAL American!!  It was SO neat.  At one point of our conversation she stopped and looked at me and said that I had the most beautiful eyes and that she could see joy coming through them.  She said that she wanted that in her life too!  I called her again on the phone that week and she said that she would remember my smile and eyes for a long time!  She lives pretty far away but we are hoping we can meet with her.

We have been working to get this YSA party together.  We named our party "The Night Before Christmas."  With Sister Zamorina leaving, I have been in charge of heading everything... so I hope that my first party won't be a miserable flop... but I've tried to get all of the Active YSA in our branch to help out!

On our lesson this week with Lubov, I was reading the Ensign right when she came through the door.  Usually I would go and hug her right away, but as Sister Zamorina greeted her I stayed out of sight for a minute or two so that I could finish the article that I was reading in the Ensign.  This does not seem like it was probably the best idea, but it turned out to be such a miracle.  It wasn't really understandable why, but I just had this desire to finish reading the article!  While we were teaching our lesson, we started talking about keeping the Sabbath day Holy.  We talked with her about the need for her to come to church on Sunday and then I was prompted to share the story that I had just read.  It was about a lady who had stopped working on Sunday, even though it was her biggest selling day of fruit and vegetables, in order to keep the Sabbath Day Holy.  The following Monday she had sold ALL of her fruit by 1 o'clock in the afternoon.  She usually always brought extras home, but ever after as she kept her commitment to come to church, the Lord blessed her to sell more during the week to make up for not working on Sunday.  I was so grateful that the Lord gave me the opportunity to read exactly what she needed to here just prior to our lesson with her!  The Lord truly does look out for His children and I was SO grateful that I could be his instrument to relay the message that she needed to here... even though I had to try to translate the story in my mind from English to Russian!! haha :)

It was also really fun this week as we were riding on a Marshootka.  This little boy and his grandma sat next to me.  Immediately when his grandma sat down he pulled a dinosaur from her back and gave it to me.  So... I have this big green dinosaur in my hands and my little kid instincts can't do anything but just start playing with him!! haha  We had a good time and near the end of the ride I was able to just talk with his grandma about where she was from, schools in Russia, etc.  I invited her to learn more about the church, but she didn't give me her number.  I probably won't ever see her again, but I'm always grateful for the little opportunities to just interact on a small level with people!!

This Saturday night President Nechiporov came into town and called us up to see if we would like to come to him to the Erominka's house.   On the way we stopped at McDonald's to eat and while we were eating this girl came by and looked at our name tags.  President said, pointing to his tag, "do you want to know what this means?"  She said yes and so he pointed to us and said that these girls could explain it all to her.  He then asked if she had a phone... she said yes and then he said that we could write down her number!! it was SO fun!  I hope that we can meet with her... it would just be a REALLY great story! He said that it's not always very good in public places, but she was looking at us and was interested!! 

The Erominka's are a family that we have been working with.  They have two Young Adult sons and it was fun to see them put President through the grilling, but see how amazingly he answered the questions and handled everything!  They didn't want to come out at first from the room they were in, and president just knocks on the door, asks if he can come in and invites them in on our lesson!! It was SO great to get to know president better!!

Well!! have a FANTASTIC week!! we finally got our Christmas tree up!!

love you all!!
Cectpa Cunningham