Finland!

Hey, so I totally forgot to send my email to y'all last week, but things are peachy keen over here in Russia. This last week the lowest temperature here was -34 C, and it really wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it was pretty dang bad! You go outside and you turn into a human Popsicle in about 10 min.

Of course I had a visa trip on Monday, and that was crazy! We took a plane to Ekat on Sunday night, and I had an awful sleep that night on an air mattress. I woke up at 4:30 am to catch my plane to Helsinki and it was an awesome reunion with Sister Smith and the Elders from my MTC district who are serving in this mission. We hung around in the Helsinki airport awaiting our flight to St. Petersburg. 

Finland is awesome! Everyone is tall, blonde, blue-eyed, skinny, and beautiful! (at least the ones in the airport!) We got an airport breakfast that was really delicious, and I ate a Caesar salad. They don't have "lettuce" salads in Russia, so that was my first one in about six months! We met the whole Finnish Olympic Ski team, so that was super duper cool (they were on our flight to Russia of course!). I bought some delicious Karl Fazer chocolate (well-known amongst the missionaries here thanks to the abundance of visa trips to Finland). Unfortunately by the time we got to St. Petersburg, due to the unfortunate lay-out of the airport there (3 terminals only accessible by bus), we missed our flight to Ekat by 20 minutes, so we got to bum around that airport for nine hours! We all went to Starbucks and ordered hot chocolate. I was first and the name I had them put on it was "Brown". Then was Elder White, so he had them put "White" and then the rest of the missionaries just chose random colors and had that be their names and the staff at Starbucks thought it was pretty dang hilarious. Also, we ran into a couple members of the Canadian Ski Team and talked to them about the Church as well (look out for Amanda and Brittney!) In the end of it all, we flew into Ekat at 3:00 am on Tuesday morning, slept three hours then left on our flight to Ufa. I'm running on three hours of sleep, and I feel surprisingly well (it might be because of the Finnish chocolate helping me....but who knows!) 

Things have been going great here in Ufa, and it's so awesome to have served here so long and know all the members super well. There's a good chance that if I (ever) receive a transfer call that I may never return to this city. It's sad because I really do love it here, and coming back from my visa trip really felt like coming home. I can't wait to sleep in "my" bed tonight!

At our zone meeting this week we talked about some of the problems that all of our companionships are facing, and we decided that all of our investigators need a makeover....or we just need new investigators! We talked about what to do, and we all really felt that a zone goal was needed to talk on transport more effectively and frequently. So we made a goal to at least attempt a conversation that will segue into the gospel on every transport, and so far, I'm at 100%, including the transport (airplanes) on my visa trip! We made that goal Saturday afternoon and that evening within about five minutes of each other, Sister Fedas and I each had a street lesson each (taught two Gospel principles, gave out a Book of Mormon, and received a number) and also one more Sunday morning before church. If we hadn't opened our mouths, we would not have received three more numbers of people that are interested in learning about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ! How cool is that. I really felt like that was a huge boost and motivator to keep us at 100% as a companionship even though we weren't in Ufa for a couple of days. Who knows how many more street lessons we'll be able to have this week because of that inspired goal! I'm excited for all the new investigators we're going to get!

One of the big miracles of the week was at church on Sunday. After fast and testimony meeting, I was able to look around at who had been in the congregation-- whoa! A less-active that we have been working with for SIX WHOLE MONTHS came to church all by herself. We invite her every time we meet with her, but this is the first time she's come in almost an entire year. She stayed for all three hours and even brought her child with her. Sister Fedas and I were in total shock because who would've known that she would come? It was a miracle!

I don't have much more to say, but I love you all! I'm still a happy, sappy missionary, and I still really love Russia. My health is fine, so don't worry about me :)

Have a great week!

Sister Brown