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Sunday, April 29, 2012

Green Tea, April 29, 2012

Hello From the Summer Scorching Heat of Volgagrad!

It was such a good week this week!!  We started out the week by visiting my friend Brat Dmitri! As always he tried to feed us, but Sister Ivanova insisted that we didn't want anything to eat and that we wouldn't drink tea. She said that if he wanted any tea that he could get some though. So, he gets out a cup for himself and pours some hot water and then pours out his tea... it was green tea.  I knew that he drank green tea earlier, but we had talked to him about it before.  Sister Ivanova started freaking out a little bit!  "That's green tea! You can't drink that!"  I just watched as it was weird and I felt like i was just watching some kind of film or something! haha  He poured the tea into his hot water and took a sip.  He said, "See, it's normal!"  I started talking to him about baptism and how he had made a covenant with God to follow His commandments when he was baptized.  One of those commandments was the Word of Wisdom which said that we should not drink green tea.  He mumbled back to me (the mumbly way that he always talks, "But it's also written that if you don't have anything else (any other kind of tea) then you can drink it (green tea)."  I started to laugh and then asked, "Where is that written?" He said, "in the Bible."  I burst out laughing and couldn't stop laughing for probably a good minute!! I was the only one laughing... and then Brat Dmitri broke into one of his big grins and started laughing too and then Sister Ivanova joined in!! It was SO funny!!  I told him that God had asked us to do this and then i dumped out his green tea. He promised us that he wouldn't drink green tea again!!! I love him!!

This week we went to see Nona and since the last time we met, her husband is still really against us meeting with her... :(  She wanted to come to church but she said that she would have to lie to him to go.  We told her not to do that and that we would be praying with her that her husband's heart would be opened!  She is such and AMAZING woman and has such a strong faith in God!!

At English club we asked a man to translate the ending spiritual part of the lesson for us! We laughed about our method because we really just wanted him to listen to our spiritual thought about the Book Of Mormon and knew that if he had to translate it, he would pay attention!

Some cool miracles happened this week too!  I went to get money out on my debit card and realized that I had forgotten my pin. I had a vague idea which numbers i needed but couldnt' remember the order.  I was SO worried.  I wrote down my next best guess to try at another ATM so that my card wouldn't be eaten.  I prayed and before I tried another ATM I thought again of the order of my numbers. The numbers came into my head in the order that I thought I had written them down... my next best guess.  So I looked at what I'd written and saw that the numbers were switched.  I used the order that had come into my head and it worked!! It's SO awesome how the Lord truly hears our prayers!!  I know that he answered mine and helped me remember my pin number. Such a small thing, but He cares about what's important to us!  We also got a call from our Branch President like 30 minutes before church telling us that we were speaking that Sunday...oh no.  I sat down before church and had like 15 or 20 min to jot down some ideas and put together some thoughts! It's always a bit stressful hoping that I know how to say everything that I need to say!! I prayed that the Spirit would help me and help me be able to speak so that it was understandable and that I could say things right!  I just felt as I talked the gift of tongues!  Things came smoothly and sister Ivanova said that I said everything understandably and if she hadn't already known she would have thought that I had used a lot of time to put my talk together!

There was no one at church to be in primary so me and Natasha took over!!  It was SO fun! We had 3 of the Lesitzeni girls with us!!!  We sang primary songs! I taught them the "do as I'm doing" and did "the wise man built his house upon the rock" etc. We then did a little lesson about Nephi.  We made it through and then I realized we still had another whole hour with them!  Well, we then took the story of Nephi again and had them each draw a picture and then we talked about the story! It was SO fun!! One of the girls wrote, in Russian of course, "Tanya and Cunningham = friends :)  I love those girls!!

We're working with Sergei still.  He still has a baptismal date and are praying that he is really serious about this commitment. He's only 18 but we just are praying that he will accept all the commitments to live all the commandments!! We have an exciting week!! We did transfer planning and also weekly and have some fun things going on!! I'm going to teach the Young Women a line dance this week that we'll perform at the talent show!! It's going to be so fun!!

i love you all,

Cectpa Cunningham

 Us with our star Sergei!! haha  He's a good guy!

 Sister Ivanova and I next to the Canal

 we took a hike up the side of the bridge!! haha lazy to go around!

 Us next to the canal on the bridge!! It does really look like heaven here!! so pretty and all... the mosquitoes ruin EVERYTHING!! they're horrible!!

Sister Potter came into town and we had SUCH a good time helping decorate and she taught me the line dances I'd need for our Branch party coming up!!!

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