Barrett's email - January 9th

Happy Birthday Dad!!!

District meeting at the Neuenschwanders

Cameras set on a delay timer to take the exact same picture

Museum they went to on Free Museum Day

Bear's new companion

Priceless graffiti

Well, I hate to say it again, but - Holy Cow!! What a week!
Highlights version:
Tuesday - District meeting at the Neuenschwanders. Their last one in russia before they move to Turkey to help open the country for the preaching of the gospel.
Wednesday - All day training from Elder Bennett of the Area presidency. It was incredible
Thursday - I don't remember if I told you, but our entire mission has been reading the Book of Mormon as a mission for a few months, and so we had a specialized training on the Book of Mormon to wrap it up, Including a couple rounds of "Stump the Book of Mormon" where a random number between 1 and 531 is called out and we all see if no body could find anything meaningful on that page in terms of the the two questions we had in mind as we read (1. How can I become a better missionary? and 2. How can I increase my faith in Jesus Christ?) Needless to say, we couldn't stump it.
Friday - Found out that there is a Book of Mormon version of the video game "Total War". We were visiting this family and their son loves video games, and he was telling me about 'Total War' and all the versions, and as sort of a joke I asked if he had ever heard of 'Book of Mormon Total War' (I meant it as a joke and then was going to tell him all about Moroni in the end of Alma)(I had already told him all about Ammon. We're really trying to get him to get excited about reading). Well, it backfired when he told me that he had. and i was like 'What?' and then he showed me the trailer for "Total War: The Title of Liberty". It was hilarious
Saturday - Met my new companion. He is incredible. I'm sure I'm going to have a lot of stories to tell you with him.
Sunday - My old companion flew home
Monday - And now today we spent the whole morning cleaning the filthy russian apartment. It was fun
Well, there you have it. That was my week. It sounds like yours was great. 1400 Kindle books!?! Wow. That's awesome. To answer your questions, 1. As far as wrapping presents is concerned, It really is just luck of the draw. His package made it through untampered, mine came with all the letters opened, my last companion's got sent home with half the stuff missing and his parents are filing a claim. So, it really just depends on who's working at the post office that day. I was not at all disappointed by my package. I didn't wrap any thing either. And Question 2 (from last week) "ThermaSilk" size: medium.
I am excited to hear all about this fireside.
Yes, send me all of Elder Mackey's voice recordings! I can't necessarily listen to them right away, but I will be able to at some point or other. I'm not sure how to send a voice recording, but if you'd like, I will try. I'm not sure what I would say in it. And part of me feels like it might make the phonecalls less meaningful. But I don't know. It's hard to do a recording without Seth. haha
Well, it's getting close to that time again. I support you in getting a blessing for the job search. I will pray especially for this blessing.
I love you so much.
Have a great week
Love
Elder Hamp