fyi

I must make a correction. Sorry St. Petersburg, but I will not be visiting you, or finding my Demitri for that matter (such a shame).
I got placed in Kiev, Ukraine!
I leave sometime between January 7th-12th.
I WILL BE THERE FOR SIX MONTHS!!
CAN WORDS EVEN EXPRESS HOW ECSTATIC I AM?!
(Ahem, Mallory, I am still torn, despite my great enthusiasm. ;) I am going to definitely have some withdrawals without my lovely roommie. And no texting you every single random happening that I could ever even ramble about in a day?? What is that going to do to me psychologically??? *shudder..)

Anyway. I am going to live in a foreign country. For six months. During the coldest of absolute deathly bitter freezing months. Yikes. And do I speak a lick of Russian? Have I even figured out how to say "hello" yet??
Of course not.
It's 12 letters of the Cyrillic alphabet long. And also, Russian is not phonetic. It is not pronounced the way it is spelled. Intimidating? I think yes. But never fear. I am determined to learn this fantastic, beautiful language.
There is going to be a LOT of charades going on for those six months :)

Oh, and by the way, if you are wondering how to pronounce "Kiev,"
It is pronounced "keev" in Ukrainian, and "key-ev" in Russian. So no matter how you say it, you'll always be right! (I know you were stressing about that)

Досвидания!

Thank You

Thank goodness for conference. Thank goodness for institute. Thank goodness for scriptures that fill my soul with light, truth, and hope, no matter what unbearable things continue to go on around us in this world. I stumbled across this scripture when I absolutely needed it (funny how that always seems to happen, isn't it? :) Thank goodness for these truths..

Romans 5: "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor pricipalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

 

More than conquerors.  Can you imagine anything more glorious than that?  I absolutely love this; I am so grateful for these words.  I am so grateful for the constant hope and light that I can gain from them in even the most difficult of times.