How do you spell Borsh?

MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL!

This will be my Christmas email since this time next week it will be long gone...that is of course until my second Christmas on the 7th-score!

Well this week has gone well and we're starting to get back into our normal routine which feels good. We had our second zone conference on Friday which was our Christmas zone conference. It was a lot of fun and always charges me up and gets me excited for the work.

We had a talent show of sorts put on by the different districts of missionaries. One district performed Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem on bottles-was very impressive, another companionship tried to do the Rubik's cube blindfolded racing against each other-one finally peeked to end it, our district which is us and the ZLs put on a skit titled appropriately: "Borscht". Where we act out a scene where I make borscht, one ZL comes in and eats it, dies, and the other comes and pronounces him dead, and my comp was the "director" and kept making us redo the scene in different ways for example: opera, ballet, and my favorite: mafia. Basically he came in talking with a new york accent, I gave him borscht, and as he stood eating it I shot him in the back, then when the other ZL came I payed him off-ta dah, mafia style! Everyone laughed pretty hard at it. Another companionship-one of which was Russian did an American rap about missionary work, it was pretty funny, and the last act (the funniest of all) a district put on a shadow puppet show explaining why there wasn't unicorns or dragons on the earth today-the unicorns left the ark, sacrificing themselves, to hold off the dragons long enough for Noah and the ark to get away. They recorded the story on a tape player and had a projector and cardboard cutouts of the ark, unicorns, dragons, etc and two elders put baking soda in their mouths and with lighters tried to breathe fire like dragons...it didn't work that great but it was sure funny to watch.

We had a white elephant gift exchange which pretty much consisted of ties for elders and us sisters got girly things of course. We got a CD of Christmas music from Sister Harrison and a jar of peanut butter and nutella-the first of these gave me much joy 8)

Sadly I didn't get any of your packages at the zone conference. If anyone comes down to Krasnodar and the packages have arrived at the office I'm sure they'll bring them with them, but it's not a sure thing so I may not get them til next transfer-that is if they make it through the postal system (yea for Russia!) haha, o well...it would have been nice to have whatever crazy decorations were in there but we found an old small Christmas tree in our apartment and put it out on the table and taped up paper snowflakes so it's all good anyway. We can just have a third Christmas whenever we get those packages. I mailed a package last week so hopefully you will get it sooner than later. Man was it a nightmare though! We had to refill out all these little forms saying exactly what was in the package-just a big envelope really, and they wouldn't let me send mom's gift 8( it was these cool looking candles, but they said that if it gets to America and when they open it to check it, if it's broken they'll send it back to Russia and not on to it's destination in America-crazy I know...oh well, and there's a letter that I had to send separately so hopefully that will get there around the same time.

Thank you for all your letters this week-it sounds like everyone is doing great and it was especially cool to read the comments from my mission blog! It's so crazy to think about what everyone is doing and the many changes that are going on in their lives-I still can't believe Heather is married, I don't think it will feel real til I go home and have a lil kid yelling "Aunt Whit" at me...haha, just kidding...or am I? 8)

I'm so excited that Eric can be there for the phone call and I'm sure it will be great to have a 9 day break and enjoy all the Christmas festivities at the house. I'm excited to read about these so-called presents that have apparently already been bought for me and are waiting at home. Though I must point out that I should be seeing them today because next Wednesday Christmas will be over-ahem.

The work is going better here, we have gotten a few investigators that the elders knocked into -met with one yesterday, who had MANY questions and was really interested in religion in general. Another seems really cool and interested but will work a lot until after the holidays but she works at the store that we buy our groceries at every week and said she'd come say hi so that was cool.

It looks like New Years eve we have to be home by dark and can stay up til 12:30 to see fire works, though they said fire works will be goin on all night-we get to sleep in til 8:00 8) So it should be fun and interesting.

Grandpa and Grandma Richards, thanks so much for the Christmas present! I bought warmer winter boots with fur inside and a turtleneck-both were really needed, so thanks for helping me stay warm out here.

The weather has really turned colder the past few days and yesterday or the day before-can't remember it snowed. It was really pretty-I want it to snow, otherwise it's just grey and boring, if I'm gonna be cold I at least want something pretty to look at 8)

I love you all and thanks for your continued support and love! be sure to give your gift to the savior for His birthday this upcoming week whether it's improving something about yourself, service to those around you, or something like that! Oh, and Eric, thanks so much for the advice-consider it noted 8)

Merry Christmas!

luv
Cectpa Richards