Day 21, 22, 23: The Not Forgotten Weekend

Day 21, 22, 23: The Not Forgotten Weekend

Word of the day: 

мороженое [morozhenoye]: Ice Cream

I must admit, I have been a neglectful blogger lately. I will be better, I promise!

Day 21 was Friday, May 3rd. In the morning, the planes flew over our apartment to practice for Victory Day on the 9th of May. It was pretty neat. We also met up with Marcus, Oksana, and Zoe Jane to go shopping and grocery shopping. After all of our shopping adventures, we took the metro to check out the American school where Shawna is trying to get me a job. It is a pretty neat school. When we got there, we had to go through a few check points of security. It is pretty intensely guarded because most of the government official's children go to school there. The whole school consists of a elementary school, middle school, and a high school. It is pretty big! There are swimming pools, tennis courts, a food court, and during the winter time they even set up ice skating ranks for the students to learn how to ice skate. It is pretty expensive to have your child go to school there. It is about 36,000 dollars, not rubles, each kid. On top of that you pay a 5,000 application fee that is non-refundable. Pretty insane if you ask me, but hey, they have pretty awesome chocolate filled croissants in the cafeteria, so it may be worth it after all. haha After Shawna took Max and I on a tour of the school, we went back home. I still had a lot of homework to finish. I even had homework due on Saturday! Can you believe that! Homework due on Saturday! So practically I go to school six days a week. Anyway...here are some pictures from our day. :) 

Here is the Victory Day rehearsal they did:

I don't know if you can tell, but the plane on top has something hanging off of it. It is a tube of some sort to refuel the airplane below. They didn't actually refuel the plane though, it is just for show. 

When we went shopping, we went into this store that sold electronics. Kind of like a Best Buy. Look at all of the TV's! 

Day 22 was Saturday the 4th of May. Saturday we woke up and I did homework for the first part of the day until about 5:00 pm. Then, after trying to figure out what to eat for the longest time, naturally, we decided to order pizza. Max loves pizza for those of you who don't know. Whenever I ask what he wants to eat or where he wants to go, pizza always must be involved. I am not complaining, pizza is amazing, but it can get a little old after a while. Especially when they hardly put any sauce it is practically non-existent on their pizza here in Russia. Anyway, this pizza that we decided to order was from a place Max had ordered pizza from before on his mission in Ukraine, so he was pretty excited about it (more than the usual pizza excitement, ya know?). When we got on the phone to order it, the lady asked for our address. We looked at each other and just laughed because we had no idea! We have moved so many times, we stopped caring. So, we frantically searched for our address. While doing so, she also asked Max for his phone number. His phone number that he got here was fairly new, so we didn't know that either. The lady on the phone was probably wondering what was going on haha, but luckily she had patience with us. We finished the order, quickly ran over to the supermarket to buy some ice cream (I am addicted), and came back before the pizza guy came. We Face-Timed my dad and sista for a bit and then sat down and watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Not going to lie, it is kind of a dumb movie. That pretty much sums up our Saturday. Here are some pictures...

She just woke up
Take note: It was one o'clock in the afternoon by this time. I will now call her Sleeping beauty. She was probably waiting for her prince to wake her up and by the time it was 1 in the afternoon, she decided to give up and just wake up...yeah, that was probably it. Or maybe that was just a cover story for being a LAZY BUM!
  I said, "ugliest face competition" and she did this. I quickly snapped a picture. Love you Laur ;) 

Imperiya Pizza
Yummy.

Day 23 was Sunday. Sunday was a great day. We woke up and took the metro to church. I learned a lot today, especially things that I really needed to hear. I have been having a little bit of a hard time being here. I miss America at times and I miss my family and friends.  I also feel myself holding back because I am scared, unsure of the language, and nervous. At church I listened to some pretty awesome lessons that helped me gain more confidence and strength while being here. I want to share one thought with you that basically sums up everything that I learned:

"In what was am I shrinking or holding back?...Sometimes, our holding back occurs because we lack faith or we are too entangled with the cares of the wold. Other times, there is in us an understandable tremulousness which slows our yielding, because we sense what further yielding might bring.

Yet we need to break free of our old selves--the provincial, constraining, and complaining selves--and become susceptible to the shaping of the Lord. But the old self goes neither gladly nor quickly. Even so, this subjection to God is really emancipation."

-Elder Neal A. Maxwell

I just absolutely love this quote. It even explains the whole point of my blog! I need to bloom where I am planted; I can't hold myself back. I need to have faith, laugh, and enjoy my time here. I need to stop complaining and instead embrace whatever I may be complaining about. I feel like such a hypocrite that this is the title of my blog and it has taken me this long to fully understand the meaning of it, but it really hit me hard. Life here is so much better now after realizing this. I can smile more, I can laugh more, and I actually feel myself already sensing that I am really going to miss Russia when we leave. From now on, I am going to embrace every challenge, every hardship with faith and enjoy every step of the way. I hope wherever you may be in the world, that you can bloom where you are planted and not hold your self back. Have faith, be happy, let go of your old self, and let the experience and the Lord shape you and your journey. I love the gospel. It gives me hope, it gives me happiness and I love Sundays. I hope your's was as great as mine. :)