Vicka is baptized!

K, you know how we talked about Esther and how I totally LOVED it?!   Well, I’ve been using it as my spiritual thought for like, English class and stuff, and people love it!   Like, how if we're doing what is right in our lives, God will put us in the right place at the right time.   Just like he did for Esther.   And look!   She saved a whole race of people in a city!   It’s awesome!   You can do rockin things when you're righteous.   :)   ps.   was the first chapter of Esther TOTALLY Taming of the Shrew to you?!   I loved it.

I got super sick last night, but my companion totally took care of me.   I have the flu, I think.   It’s been going around, and it hit me hard and fast.   So basically our plans for today are ruined because SOMETHING else went wrong with me.   It sucks how our bodies just FALL apart constantly on the mish!   My comp too.   And all the elders say they feel like that too, so I guess I’m not alone.   Lots of depression too, among all the missionaries, but I think that’s cuz of the long, dark winter.   I just feel like a major moron always having something wrong.   Get OVER it!   I just keep telling myself that.   :)

Cheyenne left!   Her husband got cut from the team or something, so all of a sudden they were leaving!   I don't want to write it all out.   But I’m devastated.   I will really miss them!

We’ve been told that by this time next year there will be HALF the number of missionaries here that there are now.   When I go home there will only be a couple of sisters left.
K, huge news.   Elder S. told me that my favorite girl, Vicka from Pskov got baptized!   SUCH a HUGE miracle!   She's 16 and has been investigating the church for a couple of years, waiting to turn 18 because her parents were against her getting baptized.   We literally taught her every other day when I served there and she's just AMAZING!   I love her!   Well, right before I left, we had a huge breakthrough cuz her mom came to the branch building for me to cut her hair.   Just her BEING there was huge.   She wasn't happy to be there, and wasn't very nice.   But after talking and me cutting her hair, she was just ALL about us!   She wanted a picture with us and wanted to see us again.   I think I told you all of this way back then.   Well, then I got emergency transferred!   And I hadn't heard anything since....   Vicka is baptized!   She's a member of the church!   I love it!   It’s a miracle!

Did I tell you about the service we did at the elementary school?   We went and did this big puppet show with the elders about not smoking.   Kind of funny since the teachers kept going out for smoking breaks.   Anyway, it was a horrible show.   The puppets were cool and the message is good, but the puppets die at the end and have cancer and stuff, it's just horrible.   But I wanted to tell you about the school.   You know how I told you about the hospitals?   Now imagine how schools could be.   It was the darkest, coldest, dirtiest, creepiest place I’ve ever been!   Besides the hospitals!   It was HORRIBLE!   A nightmare!   And the kids go there every day!   No wonder they automatically grow up so hard and angry in this country!   I was in shock.   And I had to go to the bathroom while I was there and of course, it was just a nasty hole, open to the world.   OBVIOUSLY I held it.   Not gonna do that.   Anyway, I thought, maybe it's just THIS school.   But my comp said all the schools are like that, hers was too.   Sad.   

I never told you about the knock down drag out fight we had with an eternal investigator girl a couple of weeks ago.   Her name is Ira, she's crazy.   Always wants to talk with me about sex and I’m always like, okay first off, no.   Second, I’ve never HAD it!   Ridiculous.   Anyway, as always, Russians are really forward and my comp was just so sick and tired of all this girl's junk.   So, in the street they had a screaming fight in which they pulled me into.   The elders (B & W) were terrified and I had to yell at them to leave so I could handle my comp and this girl. Haha it was hilarious!   And ridiculous.   She’s stalking us now with hateful text messages and stuff.   Crazy psycho girl.

My mish is so fun and interesting.   I know that we have no investigators right now, so it's hard.   But still interesting.   I love contacting and tracting.   It’s been fun.   People are just so fun to watch and listen to their different lives and everything.   I'm so thankful for this experience.   It’s really helped me know how I need to live my life.   THANK YOU so much for loving and supporting me while I’m here!   I know I’m being so cheesy, but I’m sooo thankful you don't even know.   So thankful I have YOU!   How did I get so lucky?!   And I’m so thankful I can be so proud to talk about you and our family and use your examples in what I teach all the time.   I'm thankful for the strength I learned from you mom and for dad's integrity.   I totally was giving a spiritual thought on integrity the other day and talking about Daniel and others from the scriptures, then it just came out ALL about Dad and how I'm thankful to have a father who people KNOW they can trust to be honest always and even with their lives.   I love it.   I'm so lucky.   And yes, I brag all the time.   Cuz I can.   :)   I love you so much! 

Love, princess consuella banana hammock... (written March 20, 2008)