ok, this may be a little strange

Ok, yeah, I am writing from Gmail, but I am really fed up with myldsmail and I found out that there are a lot of missionaries who don't use it, so why should I when they said we don't have to? Plus, the reason we were supposed to use it was so that we wouldn't be bothered with advertisements and gmail has none, so what can I say. (Above - "Capturing" Elder Whitaker, this was a gag photo since Elder Bush had a lasso with him at Zone Conference, Саргсян and I decided to put it to good use)

Sorry about not being able to write last week, or should I say not being able to send my email. I wrote a ton and then when that happened I was just like, I don't want to type anymore. Then the Elders ended up coming in to write the program for the baptism on Saturday and we decided to go with them to a meeting they had and then to the church for the New Years Party. We ended up being there for a few minutes and leaving because they were having a dance.

Anyway, that means I have a lot to write about and not a lot of time. I was really sad to hear about Sugar. I was wondering about her a while ago. I kind of figured she wouldn't live until I got home, though I'm not sure why. (Left - Watching Harry Potter at Zone Conference) It was a little shocking because I read dad's first and heard that she had a little time to live and all of a sudden she was dead when I read the next email. That makes me sad because I wasn't able to see her again. But, I think she was used to me coming and going so I think she understood. It is probably better now, no pain.

As for me, I've been having a great time. We had a lot of time during which we weren't able to do missionary work, like teaching people and contacting on the street. Part of that is because we've been helping a blind member who has been taking advantage of us, well, of Sister Саргсян (Sargsyan) and since I am always with her, of me, too. Oh well, it is still nice to be able to serve her, even if she's not the nicest about it. (Right - Sisters at Zone Conference: Wilson, Degroff, Vernon, Gugelskaya, Sargsyan - Silva, Figel, Chelimova, Wheeler, me, Kristina, and Fomichyova) Then, we also had two days in Самара (Samara) for our conference. That means we weren't even in our area to do work. Then with the holidays and not being able to leave our apartment for New Years except for church, we've had a really relaxed few weeks. I am looking forward to getting back to work, but it doesn't look like we will be able to do that until after this next week because Sister Саргсян has to go home. She needs to get a new passport so she won't be having problems with documents anymore. She lives in Ростов (Rostov), so it's not too difficult. We just don't know what is going to happen to me while she is there, so that makes it hard to plan our week. After that, we will really get down to work. We are still working on getting our investigators to progress, but no one has been able to meet with us, so that makes it really hard.

(Left - Timor's baptism) Let's see, what about the fun times? There is one thing I will tell about next week, after it has happened. But, as for the rest of things, while we were in Самара for our conference, we watched the new Harry Potter. It seemed a little more random to me, but maybe that is because I didn't understand all that was said. It was still really interesting, and it was relaxing. After that we had a "concert" put on by the missionaries. Elder Ross and Elder Beck from my district sang a song about being a greenie. The thing that made it even better was that it was all true stories from Elder Beck's personal experience. I was to get a copy of it, it was great. Then we also saw a skit of Lord of the Rings. That was funny because it was half in Russian and half in English. Crazy. Sometimes they even conjugated Russian words with English endings. (Right - Walking after Timor's baptism. While walking, I randomly asked Elder Beck if he wanted to switch hats, to my surprise, he agreed!) Then, the next day we had our conference. That is always good.

For New Years, we actually had a lot of fun. Basically, we stayed up to see the New Year come in, why not? We had to spend the entire next day inside and we figured we could sleep then. So, we watched the fireworks that would have kept us awake anyway. Then, at midnight, we called all the Elders to sing Auld Lang Syne and wish them a Happy New Year. We woke all but one set up. Crazy! They were all trying to sleep through New Years and they weren't even sleeping well (that's what they told us later). All but the ZLs later told us that it was "the coolest!" "funny" or that they were grateful that we called. That made us feel good because they appreciated what we were trying to do.

(Left - Eating Plov the Uzbekistanian way) Oh, on New Year's Eve, we went to a baptism. That was really cool, but it took up most of our day because we had to be home by 3 and the man who was baptized invited us to eat some Uzbekistanian плов (plov). Normally they eat it with their hands, so we did too. I got a picture of that, of course. That was really fun.

Anyway, my companion is ready to leave, so I should go. You can all just write me here now, if you want. I will be writing from here for a while, but it would be ok for you to still send to both. That way I can read there and write here, but if that is too much of a hassle, I will do both here.

Love,

Сестра Атвуд