Dear family,
It seems like I just barely wrote you, but now here I am, a week later, again sitting at a computer and typing away. Some good things happened this last week. We got to see General Conference. I was really excited about that and it ended up being really good (of course). It was just really hard to pay attention. (Right - Youth Night - We played a game called Пятно (Pitno or Dot). The only requirement is to have a very visible shade of lipstick that can be used to mark people. If you look closely, you will see dots on most of the people's faces. I and my companion were the only dot free ones. The game is played with everyone sitting in a circle. One person says to the next (this is a rough translation, I don't really know how it goes in English) 1- Hi, Harry. That person replies 2-Hi, Harry. 1-Say hello to Harry. - Those exact words must be used. If someone makes a mistake or even stumbles, that person receives a dot. His or her name is not longer Harry, but is Dot. The next time he or she gets a dot, the name becomes Two Dots, and so on. So, person #2 then continues the conversation with person number three. Lets say that person #4 has 1 dot. 2-Hi, Harry. 3-Hi, Harry. 2-Say hello to Dot. If person #2 says Harry, he or she gets a dot. I hope that makes sense. It can be very fun) I have a hard time concentrating when I can sometimes hear the English, so I couldn't focus on the Russian completely. It wasn't until the second session on Sunday that I finally got a hang of it, and then I really liked Elder Ballard's talk. That is the first time that I have heard someone say that it is a GOOD thing when sisters decide to serve a mission. So that was nice to hear since I am here . . . on a mission.
I also got the package you sent. That was a nice surprise, but I was kind of hoping the tax papers would come first, but no luck. At least now I have stuffing, peanut butter, peanut butter candy, those pills, paper, and my puzzle. Thanks for that. (Left - when we first got to our apartment, it was still fairly cold outside, but we didn't have much heat. For the first few weeks until it warmed up, we warmed ourselves by our gas stove. Sometimes, we would even turn on the oven and leave the door open to keep ourselves warm. That is a fairly consistent practice during the winter months) I hope that you will soon get my package since I sent you a birthday present and a card. We shall see, of course, how long it takes to get there.
Oh yeah, mom, you can go ahead and activate my card. I will send the pin code in a separate email so I won't have to cut anything out before this can be posted on the web. Also, we kind of need to find out when you will be calling on May 14th. Though now we can't talk for as long as I would have liked. President said we should keep it to an hour. Oh well, I guess we didn't talk that much longer than that on Christmas. So, the question then is, when would be more convenient? Saturday night, or Sunday morning. Saturday night starting at 9:30 would be possible (I am now living in Moscow time which is an hour earlier than Тольятти (Togliatti)) or if that would be too late to talk for an hour, then Sunday morning starting at 5:00 am we could also talk. Let me know what time it would be if you choose Sunday morning. I will then be able to talk until 1:30 pm, but you have church, so I don't really know how that will work. I guess if
none of those times work, we could talk Sunday night starting at 9:30 but that doesn't seem to be any better. (Right - this is in one of the apartments where the Elders live. Sisters used to live there, so they have funny things all over that you wouldn't expect in and Elders' apartment. This is one of them) If that doesn't work, let me know and I will see what I can work out. It is a good thing that I thought of this earlier so we could be sure about what is going to happen.
Anyway, other than that. . . Let's see. We had a nice change during our street contacting on Monday. I stopped one man and his wife, and the husband stopped to listen because of my accent. He immediately asked where I am from. But that gave my companion the opportunity to
start speaking, too and we ended up having a really good lesson about families and even about the start of the church. We gave him the proclamation on the family and a Joseph Smith testimony booklet and in the end he gave us his number. What a surprise! The hardest thing
about the work here is that no one trusts anyone else unless they know you and so we rarely are able to get information from them. If we don't get the information then they won't do anything even when we give them our number and the address where we meet. But, it was still nice to have one person out of a hundered give us their number. We are hoping that we will be able to start working with him and his wife. That would be really nice because now our Mission President wants us to set a goal of one baptism every week. It is very hard for me to believe that that is possible right now and I don't want to set goals that aren't realistic, but I am really trying to have the faith that if that is what he is asking us to do, then the Lord will provide
the way.
We started a new activity here that I really like. It is called Школа Миссионеров (shkola missionerov - Missionary school, or MTC). We have one hour every week where members can come and learn how to become a missionary. (Left - Just walking on the street, your shoes get very dirty. We always cleaned our shoes before leaving the apartment. This was after going to the branch apartment. Most of that is on public transportation, but still our shoes were very dirty. Here, we cleaned one shoe and left the other to show the difference. Sometimes my ankles would be black when I got home at night. It was very disgusting. Пенза is a pretty, but very dirty city, that is actual dirt-dirty. Dirt is always blowing around) We are using Preach My Gospel, and we have asked everyone to pray and set a date when they can have someone ready to meet with us, just like Elder Ballard said during conference. It was really good and I am hoping that this MTC will really get the members involved. That is the key to growth here. If they want a stake and a
temple here, they need to be willing to share the gospel with those around them. If they are not willing to do that, they will not get blessings from the Lord. I think it will work because we already had a few people say that they already have a person in mind. Then, every week after, we will talk about a different section from Preach My Gospel to give them a little more help in how to do missionary work and in how to use Preach My Gospel for themselves.
Well, I guess that is really all I can think to say. Let me know about the phone call and I will send my number next week.
Oh, this weekend we are going to Саратов (Saratov) for conference. First we will be having zone conference and then we will have district conference. We will be in Саратов for three days, that will be really fun. I am excited to see some of the missionaries there.

Love,
Сестра Атвуд