Homesickness, haircuts & rabies

Hello family! I love you oh so very much and miss you more than you will ever know! This week has been kind of hard home-sickness and family-sickness-wise, but what can you expect when you leave the most hilarious, loving, crazy, fun family in the whole world back in the best bomb diggety dom country in the whole world... what can you do? Enjoy the adventure in front of you, I suppose. So I am. :)

After I wrote to you last week, we had a really fun p-day seeing some sights in Pskov. We also scoped the Mafia housing which is really nice even for American. We got interviewed by a news camera crew when we were exploring a ruin of a castle watch tower in the rain. I of course just stood stupidly staring at the camera with Elder K while my comp talked to the interviewer. I had no clue what was going on, but that's not a new feeling at all. You want to know why that's so crazy, tho?! Today we went to an old city outside of Pskov to explore all of the old ruins and churches and at one of the stands in the bazaar a woman said she recognized all of us from TV and wanted to know about our church and took a book of Mormon! Yay! :)

I bought my new pet finally! She's BEAUTIFUL! hahaha And so soft and fluffy and I love to pet her. Of course I'm talking about my coat. She doesn't have a name yet, but when I finally wear her for real, I'm sure one will come to me. The crazy lady who sold her to me didn't know what kind of animal she is... which I wasn't down with. She and i fought. "It's natural, girl, it's natural." "Okay, but what kind of animal is it?" "It's natural, it's natur-" "What kind of NATURAL freaking ANIMAL is it lady?!" My comp wouldn't even TRY to work a deal for me even tho I begged her to because you can work everything you buy in these Renix (bazaars) everywhere. The lady said i was too fat too. Yea yea, i know I'm tolsty (fat) but everyone doesn't need to tell me. HAHA they're very open here in Russia. So yea, now all I need to buy is my seal skin hat and I'm all set.

Sosyak taught my how to pee in a hole this week... it's info i needed because we're going to zone conference again this weekend and you know what that means. So we'll see if i can do what we practiced. :)

Totally random, but I'm convinced everyone has a twin in Russia. Everyone. I've seen IDENTICAL people to movie stars or random people i know, and I kid you not, Uncle Joe was standing by me on the bus today. Sometimes i think people are playing tricks on me, it's so weird!

Okay, here i was thinking that my whole schooling for hair was going to go to waste because I just left and went on a mission, but mom, you have no clue what a blessing it has been! YES! At least there is SOMETHING I can do to help in a big way, because i for sure can't speak the language! haha! But seriously, I cut 2 or 3 people's hair a day now! And it's such a blessing! This girl who I LOVE has been coming to church forever i guess and has been waiting to turn 18 to get baptized. But her mom saw the haircut i gave her and wanted me to cut hers too. It was such an amazing experience! She warmed up so much and wants to meet with us again!


We're baptizing a girl next Sunday who we started teaching just a couple of weeks ago and whose hair i cut. Yesterday she brought her sister to get her hair cut and it she wants to come to church too! There are two twin girls who I cut too and one of them screamed when she saw herself, she loved it so so much! There's a babushka (the one who always feeds us scary things) who has a daughter but none of the missionaries had ever seen her. She was always hiding when we went over, but a couple weeks ago, sosyak snagged her when she was making a dart for the bathroom and for some reason immediately told her that i do hair and school started that week and she asked if we would do HER daughters hair. it turned out really good, a totally Hollywood princess updo, because that's what she wanted. Ever since then, every time we go over she (daughter of the bab and mother of the little girl) tries to impress us and has nice tea and treats and stuff. And she hugs us and kisses us and sits and talks... it's an AMAZING turn around! These are just a few of the incidences, i don't have time right now to write the rest, but they're all amazing and I'm so happy I have this skill I can use! So random! So weird! SUCH a blessing! :)

Saturday was an amazingly spiritual day for us. We had the most amazing lessons, and got a baptism. The girl we were teaching (Sasha, whose hair i cut and who has the sister) said after the discussion that yea, she wanted to be baptized, and i just started crying! There was such a strong spirit and i just lost it! I of course tried to play it off all cool, but really i just fell apart. I learned that day not to judge people, because i didn't think she was serious about us teaching her at all, but the spirit was so strong and the thought just came so clear to me that it's not my choice who is ready for the gospel or not. It was amazing. I'm sorry, I hate giving you short versions of all these experiences.

I was asked to go up and give my testimony on Sunday, and it was really fun. Russian is coming a TINY bit easier and I'm suddenly understanding a LOT more, which doesn't mean too much but I'm ECSTATIC about it! :)

Then my life here in Russian went right down hill. This week has been pretty horrible in a lot of ways, but I know it's only because Satan is working on me so hard right now. I had a day or two of absolute high flying happiness and Satan decided to try to make me crash and burn... hard. But at least I know his game and I'm sooooo on it! :)

But luckily, we have two MORE baptisms the week after next, so we're going strong! President called last night and wanted to know details on our investigators to see for himself if sosyak and i really have so many! :) haha i laughed at that! But obviously it's not us, we're just here at the right time learning the right lessons and talking to the right people. I love the way missionary work WORKS! :)

OMG! I have so much more to tell you but absolutely no time! Oh, but maybe I should tell you that I got attacked by a psycho cat yesterday. hahahahahhahahaha! This cat was WEIRD! We were in a ghetto produce market near our apartment and this random cat was cruising through and i was like, "that cat has psycho eyes" because they were florescent glowing green like I've never seen before. I kid you not, the cat didn't jump... it teleported from five feet away to a lock-jawed position on my right hand. I didn't even react, I was like "ow" and shook it off, and by the time i REALLY realized what had happened the cat was gone. So i was bleeding everywhere and the dumb cat slobbered all over me and i was like "sosyak, um..." hahaha she was like "normalna" when i told her what happened. So now... i have to get rabies shots... lovely. What next? We'll see. (written Sep 20, 2007)