July 7th Email

Hi everyone, It sounds like you guys are all doing really well, thanks for the emails and letters. When I read dad's letter, I hadn't heard anything about Rob's accident and all the letter said was that Rob would probably need surgery! I was a little worried for a couple days wondering what was going on but then I got Rob and Britney's letter. It's nice to know that the Lord will be taking care of you guys while I'm not around to do it, ha.

Meg, it sounds like you guys are all loving the new house, even if it comes with a big price tag and some serious stress. I loved your letter Anthony, it brightened my day a whole bunch. Thats cool that you still know some people there.

Em, you guys sure had a busy holiday weekend, it sounds like it was a lot of fun though. Are you still sick? How are the babies doing? How is work going Jason, are you still finding more new clients?

How was the 4th of July in Burley? Did you guys get to see some fireworks? I'm trying to decide if Alex would love them or be a little scared of them. I'm sure he would love them eventually. How's my dog doing? I'm sorry he has been a bit of a nuisance lately, I'm sure he just misses me thats all!

Rob, I sent you guys a letter, you should get it in a day or two. I hope everything is okay with your arm. I sent Emily and Jason a letter with some pictures in it, I was in a hurry when I was picking pictures to print out and so I didn't print them for everyone. I was going to just send them to mom and dad but who know's where they are at any given time so I just sent them to Emily so they would eventually get to Mom and Dads.

The 4th of July was pretty fun. They had a special devotional which was pretty weird actually. Then we got to watch the fireworks they had here in Provo. Everyone had been talking about how they were supposedly number 4 in the nation (more of those rumors I was telling you about) but after the show, I decided I'd just as much like to see the Soda Springs show. I'm sure the ground show was cool inside but we only saw about 10-15 minutes worth of big ones.

They are helping though and I must say I've been sleeping like a champ the last few nights. I had a really good week, nothing out of the ordinary but everything was just pretty good. There were still some times where I felt pretty frustrated with the language but for the most part I feel really good about it. The older district has left and probably got to Russia sometime this morning. There were none going to the Moscow West Mission so my group will be the first in a long time. I'm really excited to be one of the first. A couple cool things happened this week. Since the older district left, we got new zone leaders and they chose two elders from my district that I think will do awesome.

Also, if you remember me telling you about how the older elders started speaking only Russian two weeks before they left? We decided to do it now. It's been almost a week and we are still sticking with it. It's pretty hard and there have been times where we broke down and spoke english but for the most part we have been speaking 100 percent russian. It's been really fun and I'm learning a lot. I found that after a few days, my mind sort of started accepting Russian and it has been a lot easier to memorize words and concepts. Hopefully by the time we leave we will all have a pretty good handle on this thing.

Next week there will be 90 new Russian speaking missionaries coming in. It's crazy to think that I was in that position over a month ago! The crazy thing is to think that when I got here, the older district had almost 6 weeks left. Those weeks have just disappeared and next thing I know it will be my turn. I can't remember if I told you but we taught lesson 1 in russian last week and tomorrow we are teaching lesson 2. We're ahead of the other districts. I'm really glad our teachers are pushing us like this. The teacher that isn't focusing too much has his days where he does a really good job so I'm still learning from him. My other teacher is one of the coolest guys I've met. He's awesome.

Well thats pretty much all that I can think of that has happened. It is getting easier to stay in class all day, I think I'm getting used to it. If you can't find a cushion that's fine but if you do find one soon, I still would appreciate it. Thanks for everything, I'm pretty lucky to have to much support from you all. I love you all and hope everything is going good for you.

Love, Jess