Pride and Prejudice - 200 year anniversary

I really love this book and have been reading it again over the last week or so.  Today is the 200 year anniversary of its publishing - who knew? 

Barrett's email, January 27th

The statue right outside the station

The fire next door

Our new toilet. Ain't she a beauty

We were walking along and saw this sign for a museum about Lenin's house. Did Lenin live in Podolsk? (I ask you because I don't have access to wikipedia) I did look it up and confirmed that his family did live there under his given family name Ulyanov

 A coal train that went on for probably A MILE!!! It was way long

 

Well, it's been quite a week. If you promise not to worry, I'll tell you some of the exciting parts. So, since I got to the apartment the toilet has been leaking, so we told the landlady about it, mostly just so she knew it wasn't us that broke it. She decided to get it fixed. Well, the guy came and did something but it didn't get fix it and after he left the tank stopped filling up with water, so we called the land lady back and told her the situation. They weren't able to come back for 2 days. Fortunately Russian toilets only need a bucket full of water to dump down into it and it flushes just fine, so we were still able to use it. Well, in those two days, the electricity in the entire apartment building went out, there was a gas fire in the podezd next to ours, our refrigerator didn't work obviously because of the electricity so in the morning when it still wasn't on we moved everything from the fridge and freezer to the balcony (which is colder than our freezer by the way), and then to top it all off, a lady from the gas company came to check all the apartments and she told us we have a gas leak in our kitchen! Our food is freezing on the balcony, we're using a bucket to flush our toilet, there is now power in the entire building, we're walking up and down 8 flights of stairs because the lift doesn't work either, and this lady comes and tells us we have a gas leak? It was pretty funny. But don't worry, it has all been fixed. We have a brand new toilet, the power is back on, and elevator and refrigerator work, and we have a new gas tube to our stove. Just another day in Podolsk

There is a lady in our branch who is a crazy missionary and always calls with questions about her friends and how to answer their questions about the gospel. Well, we finally met with one of these friends on saturday and he came to church on Sunday. He could only stay for the first hour because he had to go to his own church service right after, but that's alright. It's a miracle he even came! Yurii, one of our other investigators is feeling under the weather. Today is his birthday, so we're gonna do something for him.

Well, it's about time to go. Thanks again for everything. I love you.

Love

Elder Hamp

Barrett's email, January 21st

Winter wonderland in Podolsk

(sorry, it would only let me send 5 pictures this time)

We woke up and everything was covered in thick frost

For some reason it doesn't look as pretty in the picture



This little street reminded me of Placerville. Streets aren't usually lined with trees here in Russia



A Strange Phenomenon (?)

 It was aparently built by an italian architect

Holy Cow! (I sent him pictures of some Russian Hats) Those hats are awesome! As far as I can tell, the black one is size 57, sort 3, and cost 18 roubles?!?!? And the white one is also size 57, sort 1, and cost 67 roubles. Wow. Let me tell you, those hats would cost at least 1000 roubles each nowadays, and that's after quite a bit of haggling. They look really good. Wow. Tell Sis. W that I appreciate them.

The weather is getting colder again. I sent a bunch of pictures of the snow. It was beautiful. The Assistants came on splits. That was fun. I got to serve with Elder J one last time. He goes home at the end of this transfer. We did a district contacting activity a bit outside of Podolsk. We talked to some interesting people, as usual. And afterwards we stopped in at Globus, this gigantic hypermarket (yes, in russia they have hypermarkets bigger than supermarkets) and got some 10 rbl icecream. You can't beat that.

On sunday a high councilman spoke from the stake. He talked about how much he loves podolsk. The air is fresher down here, and the branch has a special spirit about it. I felt it too when I first came. I still feel it, but there was a definite contrast when I first came.

Well, the electricity went out here while I was emailing, so I lost a bit of time waiting for it to come back on, but it's back, but I gotta go. Have a great week. Love you

Love Elder Hamp

Barrett's email, January 14th

What a week. My companion had a visa trip to Riga. While he was gone I got to stay at the office. It was kinda nice to be back for a bit. I know I probably sound crazy.

The miracle of the week was when we forgot our phone at the Assistants' apartment and so we went to the Central Building to wait for them to bring it to us, and then, out of the blue, who should walk up but K! Yep, the K. It was so good to see him. I haven't seen him since I left that ward. He's doing great. He stopped by the building to wish the security guard happy birthday. He could have come at anytime of the day, he was off work (which he won't tell me what it is. He says it's super boring and all paperwork, but he said the same thing about being a stuntman, so who knows), but he came right when we were there. We had some time before the Assistants got there, and my companion has only been to Red Square once (now twice), and K knows everything about this city, so we went to Red Square and caught up on old times. I can't really describe the feeling I have talking to him about his callings and stuff, to know that he's still active, and solid at that, almost a year after his baptism. It's way cool. How grateful I am to have been a part of that. Get this, K has a dacha (little cottage garden thing that everybody here has) out by Podolsk! He told me I have to stay in podolsk until summer, but either way, when you all come to pick me up, we're gonna go have shashliki (russian shishkabobs) at K's dacha. It's gonna be awesome. I love that guy. It really was a miracle.

Okay, well, I'm sorry but I gotta go. Have a great week.

Love

Elder Hamp

Owen's birthday

Owen's birthday was Friday.  He came home on Friday and Grandma Kay took us out to dinner.  Of course I made Sunnday dinner for him.  Every year, his favorite, fried chicken :) Carrie and the Mackey's joined us. 

FYI  the cake was a hit: Hershey's Cocoa Traditional Chocolate Cake with chocolate whipped cream. Yum.

Ladies Night at Carrie's

I love this night.  Its a highlight in the month :)

Such sweet ladies...of course Carrie took the picture and wouldn't take another one with her in it:(  

Barrett's email, January 7th

 

Christmas dinner table

Skype

This one's for Spencer

There's no way the eerie beauty of this forest could be captured in a picture, but it was cool

 Street in Podolsk

Happy Birthday to Dad and Ana!

PODOLSK!

The city of Factories (that's a factory behind that wall)

 Mission Christmas party, former companion playing the violin. Who knew

Elder Potter (from England, no joke) reading some of Dickens' Christmas Carol "the right way as only a true englishman could"

 Usually I delete names but there is no way this is funny unless you know the name :)

Quartet, and no, the one on the left is not standing on a couple boxes, he is really that tall

I risked looking like a creeper to get this picture of some random kid. I thought Mike might like to see it. And don't worry, I didn't look like a creeper

Holy cow! Be sure to tell Bishop A thank you from me. And tell him I love him. wow.

Well, it's been quite a week. Last time we spoke it was New years eve. Well, that night we got to watch a couple movies. We watched all three Toy Stories....I cry at the end of the third one everytime. And we watched the Lion King. From midnight to about 3 in the morning there were fireworks going off right outside our window. And I mean RIGHT outside our window. And not little bottle rockets. We're talking fourth of July fireworks close enough to almost hit our building. It was crazy. I love Russia

And on friday we had our mission christmas party. The mission has changed a lot since last year. Last year each disrict did a skit, but now there's too many people, so every zone did a big skit. Our zone did the 12 days of christmas missionary style. We got the 11th day and threw 11 kontiki (those awesome ukranian cookies) out into the audience. I also was asked to help another distcrict with their skit. They did contacting situations but set them up like Pokemon battles, so they got the sheet music for the pokemon videogame fight song and asked me to play it. It was funny.

Okay gotta go. Thank you mom for everything. Tell everyone hi and I love them. Congratulate the new bishopric for me.

Have a great day. Love you

Elder Hamp