This is my journal entry from 20 years ago.
19 August 1997
I finally arrived in Russia!
The plane ride was long! First we flew to New York. This was my first time on an airplane and I was able to see the world from a different perspective - from above the clouds. When we arrived in New York we flew over the Statue of Liberty, then landed at JFK airport. There were so many different cultures of people I had never seen in person before.
Before we left the airport I asked and was able to see the cockpit of the plane. The flight to Moscow was very long. I enjoyed a conversation with a Russian from Moscow on the flight. His name was Sergei Kartavenko. He's an anesthesiologist and his wife an ophthalmologist and his daughter, a cardiologist. I went through the fifth principal with him before we talked about my family. We shared pictures and before the flight was over he gave me his address which I passed on to the office as a referral.
When we arrived in Moscow my first impression was about how far away from home I was! My second was that most of the girls wear short skirts, tight clothes and they are not ugly! Third was about how I was feeling so overwhelmed with not knowing my way around and not knowing the language My body was telling me it was the middle of the night but the sun was up. The first thing we did was go to the mission office to drop off our luggage. Where I was told I would be serving in a city called Voronezh. Everyone kept telling me how awesome my new comp, Elder Morris is. They kept telling me how lucky I am to get him because he is so cool and that the city I am going to is really cool, too. They say it's like the disneyland of the mission. I am so excited to see for myself. To get there it will take about twelve hours on an overnight train ride.
When we left the mission office, the mission driver, (who resembles Jason Statham,) was giving us a ride to the nearest metro station where we were going to meet some other elders and make our way to my MTC companions new apartment. So we were cruising along at mach two when I can see another car coming in the opposite lane of traffic. At the same time a guy was walking along the street toward us, not on the sidewalk, but kind of in the road. With cars parked on both sides of the street I could tell it was going to be a tight fit. I was pushing the imaginary brake pedal in front of me when we heard a thud as we were passing between the oncoming vehicle and man walking. Then for a few seconds, to my astonishment, it didn’t appear as though we were even going to stop. Not even a tap on the brakes. However, after the driver looked in the rear view mirror and saw all of our tonsils, he seemed to reluctantly stop and get out to check and see if the man was alright. It was just the side view mirror that hit him. However, we were going fast enough to knock him off his feet and into one of the parked cars on the side of the road. Needless to say, I'm going to be very careful crossing roads for the next two years. (It wouldn't be about a year later I watched an old woman get hit and killed by a car that just drove away. Having had these experiences, it's always baffles me when BYU students just cross the street in Provo without even checking traffic at all.)
Very special mission:
Elder Wright (my MTC comp) and I were dropped off at his new apartment just hours after our flight arrived. The older Elder Wright had to run an errand or something and gave my MTC companion and I some Russian money and a task - go to the store and buy some bread. A simple enough task so it seemed. So we set out down the stairwell and followed his directions across the street and down to the store where we were to purchase the bread. We could sound out the words on signs and storefronts that we read. But despite our eight weeks language training we didn’t understand anything. We could, however, tell that it was the correct store because there was bread in the windows. So we went inside and discussed which bread to choose, then asked as best we could for some bread. I’m sure it sounded something like, “may… bread, please?” To which the person behind the counter responded something that might as well have been Chinese for all we knew. We looked at each other and asked if the other knew what she had said. We both drew blanks. So after doing a series of grunts and pointing we confirmed which bread we wanted. We then tried to pay her for it. She again said something neither of us understood and again we conversed with each other on whether the other had understood what she said. At this point she interrupted us and gave us a small receipt and pointed to our money and then down the counter to another person behind the counter. So looking as confused as two puppies in the middle of rush hour in traffic, we took the money and the receipt down to that person and she said something we didn’t understand then rang up something on the register in front of her. We understood by this time that we were paying for the bread but had no idea how much money to give her, or for that matter, what she was saying. So we just put the pile of money on the counter for her. She laughed, took what was needed to pay for the bread, then pushed the pile with our change back to us. She gave us another receipt and said something and pointed back toward the person with whom we had first connected. We went back to her and she said something and we just looked at each other and she pointed to the new receipt. We ended up exchanging that for the bread and by this time all the people in the shop were smiling or giggling at us. They very slowly asked us some very basic questions - then finally we understood. They were asking us where we were from and after doing our best to explain, we exchanged the few small pleasantries that we did understand and were on our way. We quickly and carefully made our way back to the apartment and marveled at what an adventure we had just had.
I will stay the night in Elders’ Wright and Wright's apartment. Then tomorrow, go to Voronezh with Elder Gray on an overnight train ride. Anyhow, it’s awesome to finally be in country and be able to interact with and try talking to actual Russians. I talked with my first Babushka on the metro; she was nice and helped give me a good first impression of Moscow. The second Babushka we talked to was drunk and we couldn’t understand her. That was probably because we don’t understand Russian very well yet. Also, she was drunk! Anyhow I need to sleep --- haven’t slept for a few days.
19 August 1997
I finally arrived in Russia!
The plane ride was long! First we flew to New York. This was my first time on an airplane and I was able to see the world from a different perspective - from above the clouds. When we arrived in New York we flew over the Statue of Liberty, then landed at JFK airport. There were so many different cultures of people I had never seen in person before.
Before we left the airport I asked and was able to see the cockpit of the plane. The flight to Moscow was very long. I enjoyed a conversation with a Russian from Moscow on the flight. His name was Sergei Kartavenko. He's an anesthesiologist and his wife an ophthalmologist and his daughter, a cardiologist. I went through the fifth principal with him before we talked about my family. We shared pictures and before the flight was over he gave me his address which I passed on to the office as a referral.
When we arrived in Moscow my first impression was about how far away from home I was! My second was that most of the girls wear short skirts, tight clothes and they are not ugly! Third was about how I was feeling so overwhelmed with not knowing my way around and not knowing the language My body was telling me it was the middle of the night but the sun was up. The first thing we did was go to the mission office to drop off our luggage. Where I was told I would be serving in a city called Voronezh. Everyone kept telling me how awesome my new comp, Elder Morris is. They kept telling me how lucky I am to get him because he is so cool and that the city I am going to is really cool, too. They say it's like the disneyland of the mission. I am so excited to see for myself. To get there it will take about twelve hours on an overnight train ride.
When we left the mission office, the mission driver, (who resembles Jason Statham,) was giving us a ride to the nearest metro station where we were going to meet some other elders and make our way to my MTC companions new apartment. So we were cruising along at mach two when I can see another car coming in the opposite lane of traffic. At the same time a guy was walking along the street toward us, not on the sidewalk, but kind of in the road. With cars parked on both sides of the street I could tell it was going to be a tight fit. I was pushing the imaginary brake pedal in front of me when we heard a thud as we were passing between the oncoming vehicle and man walking. Then for a few seconds, to my astonishment, it didn’t appear as though we were even going to stop. Not even a tap on the brakes. However, after the driver looked in the rear view mirror and saw all of our tonsils, he seemed to reluctantly stop and get out to check and see if the man was alright. It was just the side view mirror that hit him. However, we were going fast enough to knock him off his feet and into one of the parked cars on the side of the road. Needless to say, I'm going to be very careful crossing roads for the next two years. (It wouldn't be about a year later I watched an old woman get hit and killed by a car that just drove away. Having had these experiences, it's always baffles me when BYU students just cross the street in Provo without even checking traffic at all.)
Very special mission:
Elder Wright (my MTC comp) and I were dropped off at his new apartment just hours after our flight arrived. The older Elder Wright had to run an errand or something and gave my MTC companion and I some Russian money and a task - go to the store and buy some bread. A simple enough task so it seemed. So we set out down the stairwell and followed his directions across the street and down to the store where we were to purchase the bread. We could sound out the words on signs and storefronts that we read. But despite our eight weeks language training we didn’t understand anything. We could, however, tell that it was the correct store because there was bread in the windows. So we went inside and discussed which bread to choose, then asked as best we could for some bread. I’m sure it sounded something like, “may… bread, please?” To which the person behind the counter responded something that might as well have been Chinese for all we knew. We looked at each other and asked if the other knew what she had said. We both drew blanks. So after doing a series of grunts and pointing we confirmed which bread we wanted. We then tried to pay her for it. She again said something neither of us understood and again we conversed with each other on whether the other had understood what she said. At this point she interrupted us and gave us a small receipt and pointed to our money and then down the counter to another person behind the counter. So looking as confused as two puppies in the middle of rush hour in traffic, we took the money and the receipt down to that person and she said something we didn’t understand then rang up something on the register in front of her. We understood by this time that we were paying for the bread but had no idea how much money to give her, or for that matter, what she was saying. So we just put the pile of money on the counter for her. She laughed, took what was needed to pay for the bread, then pushed the pile with our change back to us. She gave us another receipt and said something and pointed back toward the person with whom we had first connected. We went back to her and she said something and we just looked at each other and she pointed to the new receipt. We ended up exchanging that for the bread and by this time all the people in the shop were smiling or giggling at us. They very slowly asked us some very basic questions - then finally we understood. They were asking us where we were from and after doing our best to explain, we exchanged the few small pleasantries that we did understand and were on our way. We quickly and carefully made our way back to the apartment and marveled at what an adventure we had just had.
I will stay the night in Elders’ Wright and Wright's apartment. Then tomorrow, go to Voronezh with Elder Gray on an overnight train ride. Anyhow, it’s awesome to finally be in country and be able to interact with and try talking to actual Russians. I talked with my first Babushka on the metro; she was nice and helped give me a good first impression of Moscow. The second Babushka we talked to was drunk and we couldn’t understand her. That was probably because we don’t understand Russian very well yet. Also, she was drunk! Anyhow I need to sleep --- haven’t slept for a few days.
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