Our first weeks in Russia: Excitement, Tears and Conquering Fears

 

We have been in this amazing place for over one month now.  Its beauty is beyond my ability to describe.  Its history is so very rich.  Its people have struggled through so many hardships and have been deeply refined by them.  It is truly out of hardship that beauty is born.  I keep reminding myself of this truth remembering that 70 years of communistic rule, suppression of faith and many hardships made these amazing people who they are today.  If that's the case then doing something REALLY hard should produce similar results with my own family right?  Only I certainly don't have 70 years but closer to 70 days here.  One reason it has been hard to post is that I know that I need to be real about what we are experiencing and being real means telling about all the hardships, frustrations and difficulties associated with being taken completely away from ones comfort zone.  I can't wait to share the beauty that has been born from these hardships, but to fully appreciate what is to come for now I will share what has been hard.  Most of this list is comprised of things which I knew would happen and that I actually wanted my family to be able to experience for their own growth, I secretly love the hardship knowing that it can only bring growth .  Some of the things on the list however took me by surprise and have been for my own painful growth.  Here is our hilarious list of mishaps:

*traveling internationally with 27 bags (each child even the babies had to carry 2 carry-on bags through about 10 different airports)

*Jet lag!  Being asleep when you want to be awake and not being able to sleep at night

 *Arriving at 2:00 a.m. and needing to get off the plane with a sleeping princess in your arms, get 27 bags loaded into 2 taxis and get to our 2 rooms in an expensive hotel where we would need to check out in a matter of hours. 

*losing Adam's backpack that contained his personal treasures as well as an electronic device belonging to BYU-Idaho and his glasses.

*Owing our landlady about 6,000.00 and not being able to get Western Union to work in order to pay the landlady.

*Walking around the city for hours trying to find a way to pull out money from a foreign bank.

*Resorting to pulling out money from an ATM that will only give about $400.00 per day.

*Having to explain to a very annoyed agent waiting at our house for all those hours that we would not be able to pay the amount for several days.

*Realizing that in order to give Aunt Chrissy her own space we would need 4 kids to sleep in the same room and one child to sleep on the living room couch, (I actually did this plenty of times as a child in our tiny house growing up!).

*Getting yelled at by all sorts of people in public (we always see if we can go a whole day without being scolded by a grandma working at the subway station).

*Having strangers tell you that you need to teach your children more properly :(

*Being the only one to understand the landlady, the infuriated downstairs neighbor who can't stand our noise, and all the other people who share their strong opinions with us about how to control our children better.

*Having your credit card not work at the grocery store, or anywhere really and then having it sucked up by the ATM and not being able to get it back for many days.

*walking everywhere (I absolutely love this...only the kids aren't too keen on it:)

*Having brown water come out of the tap for the tub and wondering if it's going to make your children cleaner or dirtier to bathe them in it.

*Homeschooling 5 extremely active children (I don't think I need to elaborate on this:)

*Losing my phone

*Being completely different, standing out thoroughly and completely.

*Seeing your kids try to communicate and fail.

*Taking 2 hours to get to and find church (I LOVED this, so great right?  What a reason to rejoice that you can gather with saints after such a large effort!..the kids didn't agree and one promised he would never return to church after all the trouble, his heart did change though thankfully:)

*Coming from the most amazing Mediterranean weather to almost an entire month with out sun.

*Having your sweetest single sister tell you that she doesn't think she can ever be a mom (I promised her that she wouldn't have 5 babies at once!)

*Missing special events at home.

*Having your kids beg to stay in the apartment instead of going to some amazing sight that other people would dream of seeing.

*looking out the window and seeing a land and people you love and wanting to spend every second out exploring and embracing it but knowing that I came here not for myself but for my family:).

*feeling like you need to tiptoe and whisper every moment so that your neighbors don't yell at you.

*Fighting, teasing and arguing among siblings, finding yourself getting to the end of your rope.

*Being asked to present my Russian research to the entire Saint Petersburg Mission (Jr. and senior missionaries) and feeling super inadequate.

*Seeing your kids missing home, missing friends and missing normal.

*Searching for people I have taught as a missionary to find that they are long long gone from the church (this pain is offset by the joy of finding saints ever faithful and even stronger than before!)

*Spending hours finding a local orphanage and having trouble getting them to believe we sincerely wanted to do service for them.

*Seeing all your greatest weaknesses magnified again and again and feeling like there is no way to escape them.

Stay tuned because as I promised I will share the gems that these hardships have produced, they are priceless:).