Wahoo!

Dear Family,

How can it be P-day again? I don't understand how time flies so quickly here. I'm going to type as quickly as possible so please excuse my grammar and spelling and whatnot.

This week was crazy!! It was the last week of the transfer, so that was the cause of celebration. I scratch each transfer off of my calendar. It's a motivational countdown until I'm home. Sister Galli and Sister Whitney fly out tomorrow, so that was kind of sad saying goodbye to them. Sister Fedas and I will be the only sisters in our zone next transfer.

We were supposed to have zone meeting earlier this week and right before that my winter boots kind of exploded as we were going out the door. The whole sole came off of one of the shoes. So I took it into a shoe fixing place. I was wearing my Nordstrom boots and the zipper totally broke really bad to the point that I couldn't even get the boot off my foot. I was freaking out because we had to work but right at that moment, the repair guy called and said my other boots were fixed. So I just went in and traded boots essentially. He had to stab the zipper attachment thing off with a screwdriver and a hammer. But at the end of it all, I now have two pairs of functional boots again. Huzzah!!!

The Sister Trainers came this week, and I really love when they come because it's always a nice mental break. It was kind of weird timing though because they came right before English Group so my splits just ended up being English Group teaching. The next day was zone conference, and I've never been so happy to see other missionaries! I feel like I've been in this zone forever (oh wait... I have!!) that it's really refreshing to meet and talk to different people. The Chelyabinsk zone came as well as the Assistants and President Christensen and his wife. We had a really great zone conference on Friday, and it was super spiritual. It's been a while since President has been down to Ufa so he was super busy with interviews. He didn't actually have enough time to interview my whole zone because of his tight schedule. I was able to get an interview with him though. It was great! He is the smartest, kindest, most generous person that I have ever met in my entire life. 

We had a really great lesson this week with our new investigator. She's 50-something, and super involved with the Orthodox church and all that here. But she recognizes that it's not 100% correct in all that it does. Our last lesson with her (a couple of weeks ago) didn't go as well as we planned because she didn't really understand why we think our church has "permission" from God and why that's important to do ordinances and stuff. Well, we decided to focus our lesson just on that, and it was the most beautiful lesson! She really listened to us and seemed to agree with everything we said. Even the opening prayer she asked to know if the Book of Mormon is true (and we didn't even ask/remind her to). We read 3 Nephi 11 with her and talked about it (she thought it was taken from the Bible originally) and we talked about what the word "Gospel" means and why it was important that Jesus gave specific people the power or "permission" to baptize and bless the sacrament. That's when she really started to understand. We then shared with her John 10:16 and talked about what it means to be the "other sheep" (we also explained that other churches explain it to mean the Gentiles) and we showed her 3 Nephi 15:21 and talked with her about how it clarifies what's written in the Bible. By the end of the lesson, she totally understood our lesson, and said that she believes that Jesus came to the American continent. I was so happy to hear that! Teaching that lesson, I had such clarity of mind. That lesson was led by the spirit. 

We actually had another really cool lesson this week. Another investigator told us she was going to be out of town for three months on an internship, but apparently it's not as far away as she led us to believe because we had a meeting with her! We answered some of her questions from the Bible (how was Jesus born of the Spirit, etc.) and turned it into a really good lesson about how prayers are answered in different ways than we expect sometimes but that they're always answered. I shared about how even though I always prayed for Steve's cancer to go away, and I was so mad when it didn't, the experience was able to bring our family together and helped us rely and appreciate each other a lot more. 

Being a missionary is probably the coolest thing in the world. Sometimes I feel like a mailman (mailwoman?) dropping off Liahona's to less actives, sometimes I feel like the police when we demand why people don't come to church, sometimes I feel like a chef when we drop off cookies to someone, sometimes I feel like a professional eater when every meeting that day people prepared a meal for us (it happened this week!), and sometimes I feel like a scaredy cat who lives in Russia and hands out information about a church. My courage definitely has grown on my mission. It's scary talking to people about religion, but it's really rewarding when it's something they want to talk to you about. 

Anyway, I'm glad to hear that life is all going splendid for you. I have confidence that by the time I'm home from my mission maybe dad will have finished building his solar collectors on our roof. Those stories make me laugh like crazy. And yes mom, I brush my teeth with the prescription toothpaste. I have nightmares about all my teeth gradually getting crooked and falling out and then I look like everyone else here. Those nightmares encourage me to brush, brush, brush and wear my retainers!!

Have a great week and know that I love you!

Always your favorite missionary,

Sister Brown