Barrett's email - October 24th

So last week we bought hats, a must-have we've been told (by every babushka we talk to) in the coming months.

So here I am fully russi-fied. The scarf is not mine, but soon I will have one and once I do I will have fully assimilated myself into the russian culture (All part of my diabolical plan).

 We also got souvenir shapki. And yes, it is made of wolf fur. We ended up bargaining the guy down, way down. It's a funny story, I'll have to tell you some time.

  the shapka, inside out

Elder R and I have been going on a lot of "Member Quests", trying to track down inactive members. They're a lot of fun. So on the last one we found some cool stuff. For example, this giant cube made of sticks

And this way cool park, right in the middle of the city that just sort of went down into this little pocket of forest. Here are the stairs down into it. If I had taken a picture 180 degrees from this spot you would see a busy city street and giant buildings. Very cool

Here's a door. Most of the doors look like this

Thank you so much for the answers to those questions. That will help a lot

Questions were: 

1. What is the population of Placerville? 10,000
2. How many people are in our ward?
3. How big was my highschool? approx 1300 (note kids come from a lot of towns not just Placerville, otherwise based on these number over 10% of the population would be HS students ha ha)
4. How many people were in my (would be) graduating class? 274

Well, as you have seen in the pictures, I have got a hat, 2 hats in fact. The jacket in the shapka picture is mine too. I didn't actually buy it, I "inherited" it from a previous missionary. But it is a good coat. Better than any I could have bought. And it's very Russian. I do still need to get a scarf, but that won't be too hard. In fact today, we are going to do some shopping. As you may have seen I have pulled out some more money. ... Concerning christmas: This week is the time to make requests! Well, actually last week would have been better (sorry), because I'm going to the souvenir rynok (rynok=market) today. I plan to buy everybody some cool little things, but if any one has any requests, we are going shopping again next week, and then we are sending our packages the next week. Ideas include (but are not limited to): scarves, ties, trinkets (Lenin pins, etc.), bootlegged mp3 cd's with over 100 songs on them, russian candy, etc.

So yeah, just let me know.

Sometimes it's hard to see miracles, especially when they happen through completely natural mean (this is in response to a comment I made about appreciating the miracles in life everyday). But if God is real, and He did create all, then He created the natural means as well. Maybe it was luck, or maybe God was using the very tools He created, to benefit us and keep us safe.

Have a great week. Have fun on the cruise, holy cow

Love

Elder hamp