Barrett's email, Monday, September 10th, 2012 - Picture Catch Up

Barrett caught up on the pictures for four weeks.  They follow the email...

So we had a great week. We had a specialized training with half of the mission. Elder T and I did a training with a vacuum. It's hard to explain. Ask me about it later. It went well. People loved it. We also had splits with the Elders out in Nizhny Novgorod. There was a mistake with the tickets so we had to suffer through business class seats. That was cool. We were able to be there for a baptism in Nizhny. They have an awesome building out there. It used to be a school house. 

Then on Sunday we had church back in Moscow. On the way to the building we got a call from this guy Georgie, from the country of Georgia. He's awesome. He called to ask how to get to the church building, he was on his way. The miracle was that we hadn't talked to him in 5 days. It probably doesn't sound like much, but when 95% of the people you call the night before church don't show up, a guy calling out of the blue is a miracle. We had the newest member of the area presidency, Elder M on the meeting. He is from Sweden. There were a lot of swedish people at church. Elder M, his wife, Elder S (a young missionary), Sister P (the wife of our british ex-ward mission leader). It was cool. 

Then today we had our meeting with president. It was a long one. I can't tell you about it now, but remind me later and I'll tell you about the secret mission we got assigned. Oh, I forgot to mention the highlight of the week. Elder M sent me a digital voice recorder from Honduras! It's so cool. He recorded a bunch of stuff, like a day in the life. He's awesome. I'm going to record a day in my life and then send it back. Pray that it makes it back through the Russian mail system. Elder M mentioned a number of pictures that he has sent home, is there any way I could get those? That would be awesome. And thank you for sending him my emails. He said he appreciates it. 

Well, I'm glad to hear things are going well. Thank you for the pictures. Beans is still cute. Have a great week. My week will probably be a bit unusual. Due to visa problems, my companion will have to go to Helsinki for 3 days, so I'll be on splits with someone, probably the office elders. Wish me luck

Ok. Bye. Love you

Elder Hamp

Way awesome monument at the moscow space museum

 Moscow and P-ville

"Sea Lions of California"

The train station of Tula

 and the train station in Kaluga

The first squirrel I've seen in a long time

Service project

We had to dig all the dirt out of the floor of this guy's apartment on the 11th floor

 ...and after

I think I may have a black lung

At the airport picking up the new missionaries. Look at them all

Chaos in the streets!! There were 30 missionaries, 8 of which headed to our mission

Orthodox temple straight from the lord of the rings

A park in the middle of Moscow

One of my favorite babs in all of Russia

If you look closely on the wall, the calendar is on my birthday, as in my actual birthday

Gigantic Matryoshka Dolls!!!

 More gigantic matryoshka dolls!

Me with a sword (we contacted a guy in a park who made them)

 The Church in Nizhny Novgorod

The Walk-through Window at MakDak

Someone accidentally ordered us the business class train tickets, unlimited juice

Psycho broccoli!!

 Honey Festival!