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