Saturday night we didn’t really do anything, just talked to one of the guys that were staying with us.
Sunday Jamie, Sarah, and I wanted to go to the Russian branch, so Sarah and Jamie were only going to the Russian branch, but I had a calling in the international branch, so I had to go to that as well. When I went to nursery, though, I found out that more people had been called to nursery, so I only have to be in there every three weeks. The relief society lesson was good, though, about letting your light shine.
After the international branch I was set apart, then I went to join Sarah and Jamie in the Russian branch. One of the sister missionaries sat by me in sacrament meeting and translated for me. She is Russian, but she speaks English really well. I was almost kind of able to sing to one of the hymns, so that was really cool. It is easier to sing to the hymns because they are broken down into groups of just a few letters, so I am not trying to sound out an entire word. Sometimes there were still strange letter combinations that I just couldn’t get, or letters that make one sound in English and another in Russian, like H makes an N sound, and I didn’t have time to stop and think about it before I said that sound. It was really cool. I like just listening to the Russian, and in Sunday school and Relief Society I was able to pick out a few words. There was this one word that after a while I noticed that it was being said again and again. I listened and figured out how I thought that it should be spelled in Russian, because I was sure that I would never pronounce it right, even though it was really short, because it had a funny sound, so I just remembered xpam, and when we got back I spelled it out for Jamie and she told me it meant temple, which made since, because the entire Relief Society lesson was on temples, so that was why they kept repeating it over and over again. I also enjoyed the testimonies in Sacrament meeting. After I thanked the sister for translating for me, and she hugged me, which felt a little funny because I am not used to being hugged by missionaries, but that is because most of the wards I have been in have had elders, not sisters, so of course they are not going to be hugging me. She is nice, I like her.
By the time I got home it was about six, and I had left the house at about 7:20 that morning, so I have been gone nearly 11 hours that day, at church for more than six(if you count that we were there early, then there was time in between the two branches, and the time it took afterwards to actually leave, because we all had people that we needed to talk to and then bundle up and everything), then the traveling to and from. Next week, though, I don’t have to be in the international branch. I don’t know if anyone else will want to go to the Russian branch again next Sunday, but if they do I am only going to that. I love church, but six hours of it is exhausting.
On the bright side, I got peanut butter. One of the members of the branch presidency, I think, bought peanut butter for the ILP girls. His wife’s calling is to help us, so when a few of the girls started asking where to get peanut butter he went out and bought three things of it, then gave it to the groups, and told us where to go to get more. I got home and had peanut butter apples, with milk, which was so good. Those were probably the two foods that I had been missing the most, peanut butter and milk. I am so glad that the milk tastes good again.
I didn’t do hardly anything that night, I was to tired. The guys staying with us had gone back to Voronez, so we had our apartment to ourselves again.
Monday we had school again. Mark came back to preschool and passed off almost all of the stuff on his chart. I felt bad, Mark knows a lot, he pays attention and learns, but Max only had three words passed off on the chart. The chart is more for us than anything else, so that we don’t keep spending all our time on words that the kids already know, and also so that we don’t have a ton that they don’t know. We can look at the chart and think, “ok, they know the words that we are focusing on, lets add in a few new words now” or “there are 7 words up there that none of them know, lets practice those before moving on”. We also use it to kind of reward the kids. When they learn a new word(they still know it coming into preschool and can tell us what it is without us having to remind them before we have had to tell them) then they get to put a sticker on the chart. Anyways, Mark has them almost all passed off, but Max only has three now, he remembered dog this morning, so we made a big deal of that and let him put on at sticker.
Preschool yesterday did not go well. The kids made a game out of trying to escape, and the parents were sitting in a room outside. The thing was, if we don’t let them out they start crying, and keeping them in there isn’t doing any good, they were not learning anything, but we didn’t really know what to do. Finally we came up with a game. There is a shelf that they like to throw stuffed animals on. We hold out a stuffed animal, they say the name of the animal, they get it and can try to throw it up, then they come get a new one and try to throw that new one up. That was fun for them, and got them saying the names of animals. I am going to come up with some games and activities like that that we can do, because just playing with them is crazy. Sarah had an idea, we are going to put different colors of construction paper on the floor, say a color, and they have to try to jump on the paper or the right color. I am going to come up with a few more as well, so we can keep them busy and hopefully things will go better in there. Today was better, because we played the animal game most of the time, but they are going to get bored with that, and there is only so long that they are going to be learning anything from it.
The other day after preschool Max and his grandmother stayed for a little while in a different room. Max kept coming in and saying something, and we would just smile and say hello, because we didn’t know what he was saying. After a while his grandmother came in and told us that Max was so confused, because he kept coming in and asking where the trash was, and everyone kept saying hello.
Kindergarten on Monday was fine. We made a tower out of toothpicks and pom poms, and saw how tall we could get it. We had to put it together on its side, and when we stood it up it completely fell over. For drama we did Bambi, and in one of the pictures Bambi was looking at the opossums all hanging upside down, so I took each of the kids and hung them upside down over my arm(which was a little difficult with the little girl who was wearing a dress). Yesterday when Kira came in she was trying to ask me something, and her mother translated for her. Her mom was a little confused, but told me that Kira wanted a opossum. I laughed and then explained to her what had happened yesterday, then hung Kira upside down again. It was nice that she remembered and had fun with something in my lesson.
Yesterday in Shop we made flowers out of pipe cleaners, and in drama we did a story about a little boy who gets a new baby sister. We started talking about families, and I asked if they had any brothers or sisters. Sonya, little genius, tells me that she has one older sister, then her little brother Vova. I tell her that I have five brothers and three sisters, and she is just astonished by that, and realizing that the others didn’t understand what I had said she immediately translates that into Russian for the other kids, because they have to know that, it is just amazing. Over here people can’t really have big families, for a lot of reasons, and so it is even more amazing here than it is in the US. Sonya then also realized that the other kids didn’t understand the question I had asked about if they had brothers or sisters, so she translated that into Russian as well. She really isn’t supposed to do that, but I hate telling them no when they are only trying to help.
In the older class yesterday there was a birthday party, so we didn’t get started til way late, so we only had time to do one rotation, so I didn’t teach games, just arts and crafts. I am a little nervous about teaching games, today will be my first time ever teaching it. Arts and crafts wasn’t bad, because it is so much like shop, the only real differences is that with the shop you make something then take it apart again at the end, with arts and crafts they just take it home.
This morning was I walking down the hall and I turned a corner, and I smacked my hand against the wall so hard that I felt a little dizzy and my knuckles started bleeding.
They still give me casha for breakfast every morning, but they did give us yogurt to take home yesterday, a lot of it.
The older class went well. For arts and crafts we finished the chicken that we hadn’t finished yesterday. At least we finished enough that they could take it home. For games we played duck, duck, goose. Well, it was actually cat, cat, dog, because I don’t have pictures of geese, but I have stuffed cats and dogs, so we used that instead. It went pretty well. We were actually still talking about the rules when it was time for class to be over, so we are going to plat again tomorrow. They had fun, at least they seemed to be having fun.
We give out tokens depending on how well the kids speak and how well they understand, then at the end they can buy things with their tokens. I think that the highest I have ever seen a kid get was around twenty, and that was really good. Well today one girl got thirty. I knew that that couldn’t be right. She is not one of the most advanced ones, and to have that many something had to have been wrong. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do, so I told her that there had been tokens already in her bag when she got it, and that she had earned 15 today, because that was what another girl at about the same level had gotten. Really she probably didn’t get that much, I think that she usually gets around ten, but I didn’t want to give her less than she should have had.
On the bus ride home Aliona asked if I could get off at her stop instead of mine and then she would walk me home(she is on the stop after ours). Jamie and I were going to, but then her nanny picked her up at an earlier stop. It was cool because the driver saw her nanny, recognized her, pulled over, and called for Aliona by name. I love how everyone knows everyone at this school, it is so amazing.
When we got home Jamie had to go to the store, so Sarah and I went with her. I got some cookies and a chocolate ice cream log. I have decided that I just have no self control where sugar is involved.
Lunch and dinner today were both some rice dish, and it was so greasy. I ate some of it at lunch, but not much, and all I did at dinner was pick out the meat. I didn’t really eat breakfast either, just half of one of the hot dogs that they gave us and some peas, so when we got home I was starving. I fixed myself some palmnini, but as soon as I had some I was no longer hungry. I ate most of it, though, so at least I have eaten something today.
After I ate Sarah, Jamie, and I all dragged our mattress pads onto the floor in our room and watched my Pride and Prejudice movie. It was a lot of fun. I love that movie.
Samantha
