The Joy of Friends

There happen to be several members from the Novosibirsk mission that have moved to Moscow and a couple other elders I served with who have also made the trek to the big city. This means that I get the wonderful opportunity to see old friends. Some of them I served alongside in the mission for extended periods of time and one of them I even confirmed as a member of the church and gave the Holy Ghost to. All in all, it was a true blessing to see them again. Despite my very little influence in their lives, it was quite impactful for me to see how they have grown. It is so obvious to see how living the gospel brings a myriad of blessings into one's life.


It has been a blast hanging out and seeing people from the mission. I was quite surprised last Saturday night. I was expecting to meet up with a few of my friends and hang out in the park or something. Ivan, once again, was waiting for me outside the metro. We walked over to this park and while walking into this park my eyes looked up to take in one of the coolest things I have ever seen. The sky was filled with hundreds of floating lanterns. It was the movie Tangled in real life. This park was filled with Russians lighting these little фонарики and letting them float up and away. It was breathtaking. This will go down in my eye's history book as one of the coolest visuals ever; You're welcome eyes.

Then I was able to go to church in a Russian ward - which was pretty freakin sweet. It was really fun to be in that environment. I kinda went into missionary mode too haha. I would talk to all the investigators and stuff. Speaking of missionary work, it has been really neat to see how easy missionary work is for members. I seriously have just not had very real opportunities to do it at BYU because everyone is Mormon. But it has been really fun to talk about religion with the people in my group. There are 6 of us and 2 of us are from BYU. I feel like no matter who you are or what your situation is life, there are always common ground questions to ask about God and life. Especially since I am with a bunch of science guys, it is fun to talk about evolution (which I believe in), the universe, and how it all began or how it all makes sense. I am comforted to know that missionary work from a members standpoint is manageable. I have actually been very afraid that it was something out of my comfort zone. I'm sure it will still be scary with neighbors and coworkers and stuff. But, one step at a time for me. :)

Sunday night I was also invited over for dinner by some of my member friends. The night was definitely entertaining. It was pretty much a young single adults dinner. Haha, I was the only married one for sure. But anyways, I really wanted to spend some time with these guys. They have an incredibly strong group of college aged guys. We even had a spiritual thought immediately after dinner! It was impressive to see how they all seem to hang out together and provide a great support group.

The Arrival

My flight was brutal. I even had the fortune of getting in the middle of the middle of the seats on the plane from Chicago to Frankfurt. The strangest part of it all was my anxiety. Just a lot of unknown variables I guess. I also learned that I do not enjoy traveling alone. I thought being by myself would have a sense of adventure to it. This leg of the journey did prove itself so. I decided that I need friends, haha. 

So, I eventually arrive to Moscow. Waiting for me at the terminal first was my friend from Novokuznetsk, Ivan Perfileev. I was quite surprised. Then our program coordinator Tatyana was there with her spiral notebook that had my name written in large letters multiple times to give some thickness to the pen. I rode with Ivan on the public transportation to MSU and talked with him the whole time. I was shocked at how terribly I spoke Russian. I have been practicing dialogues and reviewing words to refresh my memory for quite some time before I left. However, everything was in my head. This means that I also imagined my accent to be superb and highly Russianesque. Haha, this did not happen! My mouth could not move the way I wanted it to and could not form those crisp Russian sounds I once was able to let out effortlessly. 

At last, we arrived. I rose from the metro and immediately knew where I was from studying my exit beforehand. But the distinguishing factor that calibrated my bearings stood about a mile and half away in all its Soviet glory: the beautiful building of Moscow State University. It is the oldest and largest university in Russia, boasting around 60,000 students. It is called one of the Seven Sisters built during Stalin's era and is just an incredibly beautiful building. I have been wildly impressed by how impressed Russians are that I am studying at MSU. It has happened several times where I will be talking to someone and I tell them I am a student at MSU and they always say, wow, good for you, or I have even gotten a few congratulations. Then when I tell them I am doing research in the field of molecular biology, they think I am pretty cool. More nerdy I'd say, but I still translate that to coolness. :)

The beauty of the building most definitely is on the outside. The inside is crap, haha. I am shocked how they have not done more repairs to this place. But it is Russia and they don't care about efficiency or decorum. When I first came into the building I was sent back and forth between 4 different rooms just to check in. My favorite part was when I went to get my key to the room. The babyshka that was getting me my key pulled out this super thick book with hand drawn lines and columns and added my name, in pencil, to the list of inhabitants on the 7th floor of sector B. MSU apparently has one of the most sophisticated supercomputers in the world, yet they do not want to hire a few IT guys from the thousands of computer science students to get things going in the technology field. Haha, to each their own.

The next stop in this version of Cribs is my bathroom. :) There is no toilet seat on my particular model. But they do have a handy design in this version: it is what we called on the mission, an observation deck. Your poop gently rests on a shallow deck of toilet before the flush sends a wave of water crashing the contents of the deck against the front wall of the toilet and down into fecal heaven.

Well, that concludes this episode of "Everything is Illuminated." I am having a blast and am happy to report that my language has drastically improved since the first day. I have been here almost a week and feel much more at ease. The first couple days were very difficult. They were surprisingly and painfully hard. I have definitely missed Nikki and all the comforts of our life. My mouth is now moving the way it is supposed to and I feel very confident with my language. I also really enjoy our group and am enjoying their company. A month is a good amount of time. I wouldn't want it to be any longer, but I am finding that I can get to know the people and the city very well. Life is good; life is bright.