How are you! i love you!!! I wanted to say congrats first to skyler and jordan on the mission calls!! YAHOO!!! I love you guys! You are both awesome and will be amazing hardworking missionaries! Are you excited? I am! When do you both head into the mtc?
I am glad that everyone enjoyed conference, and I am very excited to see it this weekend. There will be an english translation for us americans who don't speak russian well yet, so that will be wonderful! Im glad that everyones week went pretty well and it sounds like everyone is just doing well and growin up. Mom i had to laugh when you said that joe and noelle had gotten home from school and were already raiding the fridge. I can totally picture it! because we all did the same thing. funny funny. I am sure they are both just growing up like bean stalks. Sad to hear about the loss in football again. man, what's goin on?! AND...Mom, Happy birthday!!! I hope you have a wonderful wonderful one and know that I love you very much!! It is crazy to think that it is already your birthday again, because i was thinking how just a year ago on your birthday was when i decided to serve a mission. I can remember it perfectly. It is so crazy. I remember I left your little birthday party that night and drove back down to provo, and then that night I called you and probably greatly surprised you with "umm...guess what?...I think I am going to serve a mission" And here I am! in RUSSIA.
Speaking of Russia, I have to tell you the big news of the week. President called me yesterday and i am having my first transfer of the mission. I will be serving in Almaty, Kazakhstan, with another russian sister there. So, i won't be able to experience an awesome russian winter :( I heard that in Kazakhstan it is a little warmer. But, I am very excited of course about the transfer. But i think a little more nervous (as always). It will be a whole new country and new food and new geography, weather, people, culture, etc. But, it should be exciting. And, I will miss out on all of the mission conferences that our mission has in moscow, and in december there is a big christmas party and all the missionaries go there for a day and are together, and i won't be there, sad :( (but anyways i guess that's not really important) It is like we are banished to our own little island out there! not really. Everyone who serves in kazakhstan actually just loves it. The missionaries talk about how it is a paradise there compared to the rest of our mission, because they say that the city is nicer and that the people that you meet on the streets are usually nicer and talk to you a lot more than you experience here. It will be another adjustment, but it will be good. I do really love voronezh though, and I would be perfectly fine spending the rest of my mission here. I have met some wonderful amazing people, and as always it will be difficult to leave our investigators. The members here are wonderful and really just love the missionaries. It will be sad to say goodbye to them. They have so much love and such strong and big hearts. I love them alot. It still hasn't set in with me yet that im leaving voronezh. It just all feels like a weird dream or something. sister kelly who was with me in the mtc will come and be companions here in voronezh with my beloved sis. Gorkavenko. It will be hard to leave her too. She has been such a strength and amazing example to me.
This week went well. We continue to work with our progressing investigators, and strive our best to spend the rest of the time meeting with inactives and searching the streets of voronezh for those people who are looking and are ready to receive the restored gospel. One of our investigators has not come to church yet because she has been really scared and nervous. But she says that she will come to conference this weekend and so we are very excited. She has struggled to feel the love of the Lord and other people, and so we had a wonderful lesson with her yesterday with a member also, and we just really strived to convey to her the love the Lord has for her, and the love that we have for her. And the love that all the members in the ward have for her. I think she feels less nervous so that is good. It is shocking and sad how many people in the world do not know the immense love that our Father in Heaven and Savior have for them.
Also sunday was fast and testimony meeting and it was very fun and sweet to see our new convert get up and bear her sweet testimony in sacrament.
So this past week has gotten very cold very fast all of the sudden. Im already wearing boots, gloves, scarfs, winter coats, and hats. Yesterday it was 0 degrees celcius. I think that is like 32 degrees or something, right? i don't really remember. But it has not snowed yet. I am waiting for the beautiful snow. But i may not see snow until i get to kazahstan. Man! And i always wanted to see some good ol russian snow. Anyways, yes it has been cold, and I don't know when the government turns on the heating systems, so its getting pretty cold inside too. Last sunday it was freezing and I wore my coat and gloves all through the 3 church meetings. The members laughed at me and told me they are worried because if i am that cold now i might die this winter. I told them ill just bundle up really good though. So to end this crazy and spastic email of the week, i will tell you about an awesome service project we did that will give you a little peek into a part of the russian culture. I think in English you would say that we glued a members windows closed for them. So first off, here a lot of the apartments and homes are very very old, and most of the windows are made out of wood and are not plastic and insulated and close tight like the ones we are used too. During the cold cold winters here the windows let in a nice freezing draft. So every winter when it gets cold they glue their windows shut, never to be opened again until summer. Anyways. So here is the process. First, you clean the windows, and the wood surrounding it the best that you can. Then you close the window as tight as you can. And then, we took this cotton material with a knife and shoved it into the cracks and crevices all around the window. Once you have that all shoved in nice you take either masking tape, or paper and tape all the windows closed. For this members house she had us take long strips of paper, and then we smothered them with a water and flour glue paste, and then we pasted them to the cracks and openings of the window. And then you are done. pretty crazy right? That takes a lot of preparation and time, and then when you take it off in the summer, you strip off the tape and then all the paint comes off with it. Anyways, that is how they keep warm in the winter. It is amazing that they have to do that every winter. I think that plastic insulated windows are becoming a little more popular here, but with all the homes and apartments being so old it gets pretty expensive to put in all new windows. So they just make do with what they have. anyways i don't know why i went on and on with that story, but there you go, and i will stop now.
Well i love you all! I hope you all have a wonderful week and enjoy spending time with the family at the wedding!! Wow, crazy crazy. My cuz spence is just growin up. Well have fun and i bet it will be beautiful. Dress, decorations and all. Send me pics ok? I love you all. And as always, keep up the good work!!
all my love and until next week! (in kazakhstan!!)
Sister Brown
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