Babushka on the lam

OMG, so today is so hectic! My computer here wouldn't work, I couldn't get into my email so I waited for an hour while my comp did her stuff and now my email works again and I can't copy and paste letters so I'm frantic to write so I can go and read the letters before I leave here because they make my life and I’m so totally losing my freaking mind. Did that sentence make sense? AH!

Guess what, I fell again today, hahahaha! Hard. But what can you do. And guess what else... I'm wearing a jumper! hahahahahahhahaha! I thought the girls in the fam would get a kick out of that. Some sisters have left clothes in our apt and today I jokingly tried some on. I understand why the girls left them. So I kept out two floor length skirts and one black jumper, which is adorning me today.

Yesterday was zone conference and I wore all black, which Sister Sandberg LOVED. All the elders loved it too because they knew why I did it and I got nun comments all day. :) I love our elders. But ZC was awesome as always! It was our Christmas one, so after the combined conference (north-my zone, and central-my old one) we had a freaking huge party! It was so fun! We did a gift exchange and W. from my last district gave me a Batman wallet! He’s so sweet! I loved it.

Tell Dad that I've been meaning to tell him, for some reason EVERYONE in Russia is obsessed with Hotel CA, the song. It's playing everywhere on the streets, in stores, in apts... weird.

I never see the sun. My first day in this area I saw the sun, but it was weird cuz it rose, but chilled at the horizon for a couple hrs before it set again. Sooooooo strange! We are CRAVING the sun! I miss it! Elder J. from Pskov is in my new district and the kid is so cool. He brought me two Dr. Peppers from Finland cuz he knew I loved them, then the other day gave me this magic chocolate bar from Finland (these things are sacred on the mish)! His comp is native and is Jim Carey to a T from Dumb and Dumber! He looks just like him in that movie! He's virtually silent but from time to time will suddenly bust out some amazing slang phrase without a Russian accent, or start singing Coldplay or something. He's really funny!

We had some mad drama with our district last week because all the elders are sister haters.... I thought we were lucky in this mission to not have any, but that wasn't true. President just put them ALL in one area... mine. But they talked to the APs about me and so I had a straight up convo and they like me now.

I bore my testimony in my new branch on Sunday. I was super nervous, I don't know why, it's just so intimidating in RUSSIAN! STILL! And I was telling about my fam and I said "strashny brot"... which means "scary brother" hahahahaha but I caught it as I was saying it and corrected myself with "starshy brot" and everyone was laughing. But it was fun and people are really nice and tell me I'm not as bad as I think I am at Russian... which is a lie.

I sat by a 5 year old kid that Sunday who drew page after page of aliens... and they were GOOD... I think he was seriously taken or something, cuz it was amazing. I felt like I was in the Ring or something.

The other night we stood outside a metro stop and handed out English invites...not much luck until I started saying, "Free English" in English. Then they went like wild fire. But while we were there a babushka who was selling things near us, which is totally normal, was for some reason taken by the police. Suddenly there were tons of policemen and cars and we were like, uhhhh, should we be here in the middle of this? The funny thing was, I watched while the bab yelled and yelled then right when the officers turned their back to talk she took off running so fast it wasn't even funny. I watched her book it all the way to a church and hide inside. It was entertaining and they didn't catch her.

let me tell you what I heard: Missionaries who serve English speaking go home knowing the gospel amazingly. Spanish speaking missionaries go home knowing the language perfectly. Russian speakers.... they go home way more humble.....haha! Somehow that doesn't feel fair.... :)

I love you all so much! (written on Dec 13, 2007)