Ground Zero

Hello everyone!

Well my first week in my new area has been a good one. I love my new companion! She is so cute and sweet and really has a desire to work hard and is willing to pull her own weight -will talk on phones etc. if I sit by her and help her understand etc. Her name is Cectpa Fourtina and is from Quebec Canada so she speaks French and English fluently -she's gonna teach me some cool french songs (she has a great voice so it's always fun to sing at the beginning of companion study).

So I'm still learning my way around but with a map it's not too bad. We're basically walking everywhere cause neither of us really knows where -what goes to where but today on the marshootka a nice gma helped us and told the driver where to stop for us. Also the price for marshootka is 15 rubles -ouch! It's only 10 in Taganrog but used to be 8 -and I thought 10 was expensive! So we have dropped some investigators that they had that were clearly not progressing and there were some men that they were teaching -never a good idea cause it's always hard to tell what their motives are (especially since one of them sent Cectpa F. a love note our last meeting yea....bye bye! He's gonna be at FHE tonight and the elders are picking him up or he's being dropped, creepy).

What else....so yea we're sort of starting at ground zero but I dunno....lately while we've been knocking people have been more willing to talk with us. Nothing major, and normally they're not interested in talking about the gospel but they're talking with us. They're always interested when they learn where we are from and I feel cool that I can follow the conversation and basically say what I want. I am starting to show my personality/joking more which is always welcoming to the people. I guess I just need to continue to hone my skills and keep people interested in talking with us and then really open up and be bold with the gospel too and hopefully we'll see some successes. Contacting is better here which surprises me cause...I thought everyone would just keep walking by and brush us off like a big city but it doesn't happen as often as I'd thought.

Our branch seems really cool and we're having a fireside on the restoration. It will be mainly musical numbers, scriptures read by missionaries, a slide show about the savior, and the restoration video. The three branches that meet in our building are invited and hopefully they will invite 2 friends like we asked them so we'll see how it goes.

This Wednesday is Zone Conference so today (Monday) was our P-day and we played ultimate frisbee with the elders which was fun. We're hoping to see a soccer match some time since prolly the biggest/funnest games we could see would be here in Rostov. All the Russians are pretty sad about Russia dropping out of the Euro-cup last week.

I'm really loving my area, and our teeny, tiny apartment, haha! It's our room with two beds and a table that we share to study and then a bathroom (but a good shower with water pressure and instantly hot water -just have to turn it on! It's soooo easy I can't believe it!) and a small kitchen but it's ok, gets the job done -I don't mind it.

Well I love you all and am so grateful for the opportunity to be here and speak to this people about the Book of Mormon and how they can find truth: Mormon 8:32 (or somewhere near there). It made me laugh cause it totally reminded me of the orthodox church here -it's just really apparent that we have the truth to me. And Mom, for the package -mascara would be appreciated.

Luv ya'll!
Cectpa Richards

P.S. Thanks for the pictures -they were great! Everyone looked so nice and it looks like Chelsea's wedding really turned out well.