Detained

Dearest Darlingest Momsy and Popsicle!...:) HELLO bce! That means everyone. haha

Can you believe that transfers are in two days?!?!?!?! And two new sisters are coming in. Dude, so much drama and new prez and stuff, it's TORTURE waiting to see what will happen! AH!

We just got back from a little excursion to a village called Pechory. SO RAD! We went to this monastery, and they made me and my comp put on skirts, and of course tried to push the head wrap thing on me again, but I was like, UM, the MEN don't have to wear them. All in all, I ended up putting my sweatshirt hood on my head so we could enter inconspicuously. Let me tell you our adventure. There are these tombs we wanted to get into. But you have to have a guide because they're just crazy tunnels underground. So we asked this fieldtrip group with a ton of little kids if we could go with them. The women were so cool about it and just told us not to talk with accents and just blend in with the kids...who were all up to my chest. hahaha

Anyway, we had to wait a while, don't know why, but I ended up talking to all the little girls around me. OMG, so funny! hahaha! I'm like, eh, I don't want to talk to them, and they're all speaking Russian. But they were FASCINATED by the Americans. (F clamed he was Chinese, and we went with it. He's sooooo Josh Hartnett!) So, it was super entertaining, I talked forever with this huge group of little girls about Britney Spears and Madonna and stuff, and they wanted to know everything about me.

When we got into the monastery, they gave us all these tiny candles and lit them for us and we followed a monk into the scary, dark, deep depths of the tombs. AH! So creepy! Dead bodies everywhere. All the little girls were clinging to me and it was just a total adventure. S kept checking on me to see if I was okay because he knows I hate graveyards. And this was the ULTIMATE graveyard.

It was freezing, and you could hear a heartbeat...talk about FREAKY! There were holes in the walls you could stick your candles into and see the coffins and bodies. OMG. I kept saying to the girls, one of these times a hand is just gonna grab you. haha I’m evil. But they were loving it. The older ones, like 12 and 13 years old, were totally LOVING on S and H, hahahaa! We came to a tall room, just lined with DEAD PEOPLE! And all we had were these dim little candles. Oh yea, I forgot to tell you, the monk crossed my forehead with liquid wax. So somehow I think I’ve been baptized into another church or something...um. All these little girls and I were showing off our shiny wax crosses to each other. Such an adventure.

Then....I was like, what do we do when our candle burns out? We were deep in the catacombs and I was getting a little worried. Well, guess what...they DID! All of ours went out at once. My girls and I started shrieking and running like crazy, trying to get through the suffocating darkness to the exit. We made it. ahhaha it was so fun! We said about 7 goodbyes, literally. I got a few presents from some of the girls, and also spent about 15 minutes signing their hands with my name and cell number, hahaha! I felt like such a celebrity! :) They're all from Pskov, so we're gonna get into the families thru their 10 year olds. haha We’ve gotten about 75 calls and texts already. They're so cute! We saw them pass by on their bus and they were all freaking out waving and screaming my name. I love them all!

Varigina thinks I’m boring. Everyone does. I've mellowed out so much here.

We had another lice scare this week. But we think we just have fleas. Yay. But now the elders (mainly S.) are FREAKING out about the lice thing! haha I wish I could tell you stories, but there is no time. But now they know that the girls in the branch have lice.

We got to go back to the blind cat lady again! I love her! We went buck wild on her apt, cuz it's just so dirty. She LOVES us! So cute! My comp and I are doing better right now. We've discovered we like each other a lot on Midol. Interesting. H is so rad, I love him! I hope my sons will grow up to be like him, he's just way cool. He and I talked about Harry Potter for more than an hour the other day at district lunch. Everyone else hates us, hahahaha OH! I didn't tell you. Today, when we got off the train in the village (it's on the BORDER of Estonia,) we wanted to just slip by the guards super fast and unnoticed. So S led the way...to a place off limits. Well, a bunch of military jumped on us and hauled us into a military building where they put a guard on us and took off with our passports for 45 minutes. It was super crazy, and funny that it happened like that, ahha! I have sooo much more to tell you, but zero time! I love you so much! (written June 19, 2008)