Happy Thanksgiving! (sort of...)

Well hello from Krasnadar!

Man I had a lot of emails to read today-don't worry, not too much from fam, just a lot from our mission president etc. It's ok though, I'm a fast typer and I still have thirty minutes.

Well today is our "Thanksgiving" even though it's tomorrow (and the next day for you guys) because today is P-day 8) So basically we're gonna get to meet up with the other ten elders in about an hour and have a turkey bowl (even though we can't touch each other...should be interesting, not sure how we'll "stop" each other) and then we'll have our Thanksgiving feast as it were... Well, they don't have turkeys here like at home, but we'll have some sort of meat product which is always good and some different salads, maybe potatoes, bread/rolls, and drum roll please: apple pie and pumpkin pie. An elder's mom sent him pumpkin pie mix cause they don't have that here that I could find so he made that and I made two apple pies. I'm not gonna lie I was a lil' worried how it would turn out but it seems to appear and smell good which I think are good signs. So I guess we'll see how they turned out-hopefully good for the elders' sakes, I'm sure it's hard for them to think about mom's cooking back home etc.

Um....what else....we went to a store yesterday to get our weeks groceries since we didn't have time today and it's called "Ok" (spelled in Russian, but it sounds the same). I felt like I was home-it was just like Wal-mart, huge, shopping carts, appeared clean, had music playing-sigh...heaven. It was def cool. anywho...we have three investigators that look promising right now, one is taking forever but we encouraged her to pray specifically about the Book of Mormon and she said she would, the other two are getting closer.

Um...in answer to Mom's questions:
We live in an apartment building it's about 6 stories high, and there's three different stairwells, and on each landing there's three apartments. We're on the fourth? floor...haha I've never stopped to count how many floors we're climbing but it's not that tall of a building so it's not bad. I can't remember if I told you but one day we were coming home and all of these huge flower wreath things were outside the bottom stairwell and my comp said: oh...that means someone died. I was like: what?! We climbed the stairs and we could hear the orthodox priest sing/chanting like you hear in old Latin/medieval songs etc. We got to our landing and sure enough the apartment next door to us directly across from the landing where we came up-there was a priest in his robes with the tall hat etc waving that gold ball with the smoke and chanting. There was a coffin and a bunch of people standing around holding candles and they all turned and were watching us. I felt very aware of my name tag at this point 8) but felt it wasn't the best time to explain the plan of salvation. It was an old woman who had passed away but it was def interesting to see...

Anywho...I've bought a hat and scarf, but those long socks to your knees sound nice-doesn't really matter about color, maybe a blue of some kind. Anywho...the work is going good in that we're working, haha.

Yesterday we were out knocking-so far it seems the best way to find people, that and English. An old man passed by and asked us who we were and then he started yelling at us about how could we be in this sect and why we weren't in the orthodox church and how we were possessed etc. I didn't understand what he was saying of course but I understood "orthodox" and when he yelled "Satana" over and over at us....yea, pretty much got the jist of what he was saying at that point 8) Eh, it doesn't really bother me, they don't know any better...they've just had such strong tradition ingrained in them, they haven't known anything different and change is scary-especially to old people who have been through everything they have been through. For most people the orthodox church was the one constant thing through all the communism, wars, etc it's understandable that they'd feel loyal to it.

Um...yes we have a light that we use when it gets dark (which is at five/six here) Our rent has been payed for the next month or so from the last sisters so we haven't' had to deal with that yet. We get about 5600 rubles every month for groceries etc which is really all we ever use our money for.

Well it was great to hear about your new job mom-it sounds really cool/easy money/ and nice people, always a plus. I'll try not to think too much about our house done up in Christmas decorations or all the great cooking going on in the kitchen-it'll only be torture 8) But it's easy to get lost in the work. I can tell it will be a struggle to keep my mind here in the mission during the holiday season but we'll just have to keep ourselves busy.

Steve, congrats! Way to give it your all at Nationals-pretty cool competition huh? I was thinking back on our competition when we went-it was sooo fun and I loved the band that won, they were so cool and nice-our bands were friends/were staying at the same hotel etc. anywho....I think it's funny that there's controversy about the mocking flag thing- Oh well, I guess our band will always rattle the cages, haha.

I hope you all will have a great holiday, it was funny to try and explain Thanksgiving to my companion. I was like....well....really we just.....eat.....a whole lot....and there's a parade (also hard to explain floats) but it should be fun today. Anywho, I better go since I still need to write the Pres.

O yea, um... you can email Sister Harrison and ask but I think to send packages you would either do it to the mission home or the mission office-both in Rostov obviously but yea...and we'll get them soon cause the transfer is in a week or so and then we'll have another zone conference so it should work out nicely. I'll be sure to ask about the Christmas call home- not sure if we do it on the 25th (prolly, even tho it's on the 7th of Jan here)

Well, I love you all and thanks for the pics! They were soooo cute 8) Steve, you'll have to write me about your thoughts/experience at nationals etc. Eric, congrats at doing so great! You're just a lil' smarty pants. O yea! the other day we visited a potential investigator and he was a man from Afghanistan with a family and he's trying to get refugee status in America and he's been through a lot-got captured by an army (can't remember which) because he was here in Russia and his father had fought against this army so they saw him as an enemy and he was in prison and tortured for 20 years etc. Now he's married has kids and they're hoping to get to America cause the army is still looking for them-pretty wild, he's devout Islamic but really cool and open to Christianity and religion in general. I'll keep you updated but I think he speaks Farsi, anywho..

luv ya!
cectpa Richards