Transfers are torture

HEEELLLOOOO!!! :) I love p-day and coming to hear from you and write to you, it's so fun!

Transfers came and once again...TORTURE! Seriously, being emergency transferred is the only way to do it. Sure, you might shed a few tears out of mere shock (I know from experience) but then you move on and into a new apt. But waiting for the call...Pure AD! I just eat and eat and eat and run around like a crazy person. Every time this happens.

This time, I was like, no big deal, I totally know I'm staying. But 9:30 hit and I knew prez was making the calls, and it was to the kitchen for me. On transfer week I always run out of food really fast....cuz I eat it all on one night! But all is well. I stayed in Shivalova with my girl (I love her.) Ganiev my DL got transferred and we got ANOTHER Ukrainian one, but this one speaks 100% zero English...scary. But my comp doesn't either, so hopefully it won't be too bad for me. Then we lost Elder J...oh so sad. He got transferred to the toolies and is TRAINING a Ukrainian! Look out. I'm so proud of him, he's so awesome. He works so hard here.

But to ease the sadness, guess who we got in his place? Elder W!!! Yah! So we're stoked to be together again. Elder S. got made DL down in Pskov!!!! ahhhh! He’s sooooo rad! He seriously works harder than any missionary here, which is so funny because everyone knows he is just a crazy fun goofball that everyone loves madly. But he's sooooo hard core dedicated. He's like the perfect missionary.

I got my hair cut today for the very first time since I left home!!! I love having form! And I went to a cute salon here in center. It felt soooooo good to have my hair done by someone again! I loved it. And my hair is cute. Nothing special, cuz I’m keeping it simple, but cute.

Do you even know how cold it got here last week? -17C...don't know what that is in F but I’m not kidding you, I thought I was going to die. I actually was wishing for death. I actually thought to myself, why could I have not died that day on the elevator? That's how cold it got. My normal room temp water bottle half froze on my 15-minute walk from my apt to the metro. That's...sick. And wrong. It's super awkward when your breath freezes to your face. Especially if you're breathing through your nose.

Finally it snowed, and although snow is super uncomfortable in every way for me, it's soooo much warmer now!!! Yay. And also, little side note. It’s so funny how now I know that scarves and beanies and such aren't just accessories. They do serve purposes. Big purposes. I mean, we HAVE to wear them everyday here. Weird.

So let me tell what the new law has done to us. They are no longer going to call American missionaries here. Yes, we are some of the last ones here, at least until something else is figured out. They are only going to call natives. Scary huh! I'm so lucky I made it in before!!! They said it's just too expensive and too much visa, traveling, and other work to do for Americans to be here. So that's the shtooz on that.

Remember I told you about the babushka who fed me fish the first night I was in this area, and my comp told her I can't eat fish cuz it makes me sick? Well, we went back and guess what she fed us? Have you ever heard of holidee-ets? I've only heard horror stories from the mtc, on. It's cold, frozen, gelled meat. Well, she gave us FISH holidee-ets...can it GET worse? I don't think so. And she did it on purpose. After my first bite, she was like, it's fish and had been watching me. I said, yea, I KNOW. So I scarfed it and downed my potatoes trying to drown the horrible taste. Ugh.

I miss you like crazy! Don’t forget me. :) I love you! (written on Jan 10, 2008)