Barrett's Email, March 12th, 2012

 Transfers, Out with the old companion 

And in with the new 

 Sorry it's blurry, but we had a ward party for International Women's Day. Here is one of the skits, a husband and wife, it was pretty funny 

Sorry it's way blurry, take my word for it, it was the primary kids singing "Dom, nash dom, nash mili dom" AKA the do re mi song from The Sound of Music (In russian it's "home, our home, our nice little home", absolutely nothing to do with deer) 

We thought that spring was coming when the river started thawing, but we were wrong. It has since frozen over again.  

The poor ducks thought it was spring, too  

What a week. Transfers. I can't believe another one has gone by. I got a new companion, Elder "R" (enough said). He's great. Hard working and optimistic. We're already seeing miracles. For example, George, the man who called us randomly, wanted to meet, took us to the fitness center where he works, and gave us full back massages for free. Don't worry, that's not the miracle (although it was pretty miraculous, I feel like a new man). The miracle is that he is a sincerely nice guy who has done nothing but good all his life, but has lost everything multiple times, a war in tajikistan, a recession in '98, a crooked lawyer who stole his passport, etc. But every time he just kept moving forward, rebuilt his life, only to have it fall apart again. And now he doesn't know what to do. Enter missionaries, ("randomly"). He can't come to church on sunday because of work, but he wants to meet afterwards. Problem is we have a meeting about an hour and a half south and then a meeting after that, so we can't sunday. But then, after church, our meeting in the south calls to cancel. So we go home to grab something to eat. Come to find out we forgot the keys and they are locked inside. So what are we going to do for the next couple of hours before our next appointment: call George. We have a great talk with him, he tells us more about his life. We give him a copy of the Book of Mormon. He loves it. We have to go to our next meeting. Why not bring George with us. So we call the family and ask if we can bring an investigator. They love the idea. Did I mention that our next appointment was helping a member do his home teaching at the Patriarch's house? Yep, so George came over, we had a fantastic lesson with the first Stake Patriarch in the history of Russia and his family. The patriarch also happens to be a professional chef, so we had dinner (that was the real miracle, holy cow). And now George is realizing that he's not alone, that even in Moscow there are a few nice people willing to help and to listen, and we're going to meet with him again on wednesday. Wow. What a guy
Concerning the visa trip: nope, we were not affected. Last wednesday we went to Kiev. It was snowing. We almost didn't have time to do anything, but then we realized that it's a two hour difference and all our clocks were on Moscow time. I got a picture of me infront of the temple, but it's on someone else's camera, who got transferred the next day to Zelenograd (a small city a little north of Moscow), so I'm not sure exactly how I'll get it, but I will. 
Concerning day light savings: now we are back to being 11 hours apart.
Holy Cow! No Time!! 
well, have a great week, I love you all. 

 

Elder Hamp