What a wonderful week!

What a wonderful week it was in Russia! There's officially snow on the ground, and it's freezing. I'm trying to picture it about 35 degrees colder than it currently is, and I really can't. This whole week all I was thinking about was how NEVER am I EVER living somewhere cold/snowy/windy ever again. There is no way. Ever. Which basically narrows down my future to either Hawaii or California....maybe Lake Arrowhead? Then I can ski. 

Sometimes, I wonder if sending missionaries to Russia was some kind of cruel joke

but THEN..........

duh duh duh duh duh DUHHHHHHH

Our investigator was baptized. It was the first baptism in this branch since June. She was an hour late to the service (her phone was off....) so it was a HUGE relief when she showed up. It's just awkward when the members and investigators who wanted to watch the baptism are waiting around for an hour...haha. Well, she finally showed up and the service went great. The font had malfunctioned earlier in the day (and by that I mean the Elders forgot to put in the plug) so it ended up being a blessing because up 'til about 20 min before the baptism was supposed to start, we were filling up the font with water from the kitchen sink in the church. Her only request had been "make sure the water isn't cold!!" We tried boiling water and using the electric kettles, but there wasn't really anything we could do. The water was freezing and when she got into it....well, she wasn't the most reverent person. :) I did a musical number (pre-recorded the piano part) on the flute with one of the Sisters singing. It was "Beautiful Savior". A great song which I thought was a fitting song for a fitting occasion. 

Well, the next day at church (I guess this was just yesterday...) we had told her that she HAD to be on time or else it was practically a sin. She joked "like coffee!" and agreed to be on time. Well, she was almost an hour late to sacrament meeting (Sister Galli and I were just sitting there sweating the whole time because her phone had been off). She got confirmed though! That was great. She's a solid person and right after church she even jumped in and actually ran the last half of the branch Christmas activity committee meeting. She's a great lady. 

One sad/funny thing happened this week. Another investigator met with us and told us that she can't go to church anymore. The reason why? She's madly in love with one of the Elders here and she knows that it's forbidden (she's assuming he likes her back....he doesn't) so she thinks it's best for both of them if she doesn't come to church. But she's willing to keep meeting with us! That was a good thing. 

Another cool thing happened this week. We went over to this 65 yr-old lady's apartment because we received a referral about her a couple months ago. We've taught her a couple lessons, but she's never seemed too interested. Well, Sister Galli said "we'll teach her the plan of salvation! that'll get her interested!!" And boy it did. We used the little wooden display of the plan of salvation (they sell it at the BYU bookstore...) and that is fascinating because she could visually see how much comes after death without us even putting those pieces down yet (they were just blank spots). And then! Her friend walks in who apparently is decently religious and so we retaught the whole lesson and her friend asked all kinds of questions and wants to meet with us again! She didn't want to take the Book of Mormon because she has "too much literature" already, but we know she'll take it when we have a chance to explain the importance of it. It was cool because our zone made a goal this week to get more referrals from people and we didn't even have to ask for this referral for it to happen!

There's snow on the ground in Ufa and so far....that hasn't been fun. I think this may be the first time ever I haven't been excited to see snow. Maybe it's because I know that 1. I'll be outside doing missionary work in it and 2. it's not going to melt for another six months. I love Russia but sometimes I wonder why people would want to live here....it's beautiful but freezing.

I hope everyone has a good and super safe week! I pray for you all the time (probably like 14 times a day on average....). I'm excited to Skype you in just a few short weeks. I'm also really excited for my Christmas package ;)

LOVE!!!
Catie
Sister Brown