Ariel's Mission in Russia: Talent Night! May 14, 2012

FAMILY!!!

It was SO amazing to see all yesterday!! Skype is an amazing thing! I can't tell you how refreshing and WONDERFUL it was to see all of your faces and hear your voices!! Emmett and Emerson have gotten SO big I can't believe it!! I love you all SO much!! Thank you for lifting my spirits!

It was a bit of a tiring week considering that we didn't have a very restful p-day because we were PARTYING!! It was SO worth it though! On Thursday we went out to visit one of our members. I had talked with her the night before on the telephone and a close family friend had just passed away. She said that she didn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone. We decided to just take a card over and some cookies just so that she knew we cared. She invited us in and we talked for about an hour. She said after that she hadn't wanted to see anyone but that she was SO glad that we had come and we'd helped her a lot! That's always nice to hear!

The other big event this week was the TALENT SHOW! On our way in to center I started talking to this lady on the marshrutka. We just started talking about how hot it was and then about our families. I told her that we believed that families could be together forever and talked a bit about God's plan for us. She said that that all sounded awesome but that no one could really know that that was true. So then we talked about prophets etc. It was SO awesome! I just love being able to talk to the people here! So many of them just are SO wonderful! I know that many people we talk to we will never see again, but I'm always SO grateful when there is a chance to have a good talk with someone and hope that someday sometime they will remember what we talked about and the next time they meet the missionaries decided to listen!

The Talent Show was BOMB!! The Lesitzeni girls, Natasha, Sister Ivanova, and I all practiced long and hard for 2 line dances! The best bit was that we got to get dressed up all crazy! Elder Goodmen even consented to break dance as part of one of them! Our talent shows are really laid back so spur of the moment Elder Jacobson, Goodmen, and I performed our Book of Mormon stories missionary song we'd written for President and performed at Zone Conference for President! We also taught the whole audience the Electric Slide!

Today for P-day we went out to some kind of little forest park. Unfortunately we'd both ignored the thought to bring mosquito repellent, so we got eaten alive, but we had a fun time just walking in the forest by a stream and taking pictures. Reminded me SO much of Wisconsin!!! Have a WONDERFUL WEEK!! I SURE LOVE YOU ALL!!

love,

Cectpa Cunningham