Sleepover, Sun-Day, Site Seeing= Sillyness!

January 30, 2011
2 Week Checkpoint!

Wow this week has flown by so quick! What

with teaching, training, learning Russian, and going to activities I feel like I am always going somewhere to do something.  Surprisingly though I enjoy doing that a lot. On Monday we taught at our usual time from 3 to 7 and then hurried over to FHE. By the time we had cleaned up the classrooms and arrived at the metro and taken it to the FHE building it was about 8:20 and they were wrapping things up. It was still nice to hear a little spiritual message even though we were only there for about 30 minutes. It's amazing how much the gospel makes me so much happier and less worried about the trials that are occurring in my life. On Tuesdays we have our group meeting for the 5 of us that teach at Pozniky school to catch up on everything

and make sure all is going well with the morning students and afternoon and any concerns that need to be brought up. Since it had only been one week we didn't really have much to put into this meeting so we spent the majority of it learning songs that we could use in our openings. Openings are what we do when the kids first arrive.  We go over certain things like: the rules, weather, the day and month and we sing some songs to get the kids ready to be taught for the next hour.  I love how excited the kids get about singing a song! Some of our songs include: the banana song, 

princess pat, 5 little monkeys, shark song, a-toot-a-ta, and iggle wiggle. =) Wednesdays are usually pretty busy because we have Russian class from 1:30 to 2:30 and then we teach from 3 to 7 and then we go straight to institute. I was really glad we were able to make it to institute this week since we didn't last week. This was my first time at institute and I really enjoyed it! The lesson was on enjoying the journey NOW because there is nothing we can do about the past and you never know if you'll make it to the future so might as well enjoy what you have in the present. I love when I'm reminded to just enjoy the present because with how stressful and busy life gets its hard to slow down and smell the roses.  I thought it was a good lesson. =) On Thursdays we have training with Ameri, our head teacher, about how to teach the children better. It was really helpful. I like the method that ILP uses to teach these kids English and it seems to be working really well! Teaching is still tough some days but I think I am slowly getting the hang of it which is great. Friday we were so excited because #1 it meant it was our last day of teaching for the week, and #2 we were having a group sleepover at center school that night!  After teaching we headed over to the school and we forgot what stop we were supposed to get off and for some reason everyone followed me ... not sure what they were thinking because believe it or not it was NOT the right stop, but we didn't notice that until we got all the way out of the metro onto the street! We were all pretty starving and there was a little candy store right outside the metro so we decided to spoil ourselves and get some chocolate. The rumors are true the chocolate here is DELIGHTFUL! We finally made it to the sleepover and pigged out eating pizza, oreos, chips, chocolate, and crackers... yep we were hungry! We really wanted to make a music video... but sadly it just didn't happen. But don't worry we will soon!  On the plus side Rockie taught usall the hula dance to the Lilo and Stich song. Natalie, Ameri, and I were up until 5 because we weren't tired when everyone went to sleep at 3.  We turned on Taken and watched that. On Saturday we decided we
wanted to go see the Kiev, Temple.  After getting all ready and eating lunch at a Ukrainian cafe we headed over to the temple. It was such a beautiful day because the sun was finally out! You don't realize how much you miss the sun until you never see it! We even walked to the metro instead of taking the bus because it was so nice out. =) Once we got off the metro we sorta got lost and believe it or not we ran into the missionaries and asked them for directions. The temple is beautiful! It is not open right now but they said we could come help clean. By the time we got there they didn't have anything for us to do so one of the missionary couples showed us around. I can't wait until it opens so we can go do work there! You don't realize how lucky we are in the states to have churches so close to our homes! I used to complain about it taking 10 minutes to go somewhere, not anymore. Today we went to church and it takes us about 2 hours to get there!  It is definitely worth every minute! The talks were on hope;I thought that was very appropriate for u.s =) After church I got home and ate lunch and then took a nap. I love sunday naps! It is so nice to have a day to just relax and go to church and spend time talking with family. I think I am beginning to realize the reason I came here and I am so glad I chose it! Thank you for all the support. =)