Katoosha

Dear Family,

What a week! As you know, transfer calls came and woot woot, I am STILL in Ufa. I feel like any day I'm going to get a transfer, but as for now, I'm happy where I am. I was trained here, I trained here, and....I am training again here! An American this time. After having two native companions, it will be weird to have an American companion. I'm so used to speaking Russian immediately at 6:30 in the morning that it now takes more energy to speak in English in the mornings. :) Also, speaking English in the apartment is now weird to me, and I find myself speaking in Russian when I really mean to be speaking in English!

My new companion is Sister Williams. She's fresh from the MTC, so this is going to be a fun transfer. It's been pretty nostalgic for me because it brings to memory MY first week in Russia. Life was a little overwhelming and it took some time getting used to it all. Being a missionary is hard. :)

This week was great. I flew to Ekat on Wednesday (the office elders bought my ticket for the wrong time, so I missed all of the training for trainers training), and I arrived Wednesday night. We dropped Sister K (my mini-missionary) off at her apartment on the way to President's (I was alone in the car with three elders and the mission driver....kinda scary!). The new missionaries had already landed and somehow were all still awake (it was 10 pm), so I was impressed by them a lot. Sister Williams is delightful, determined, and fearless. I'm so excited to be with her!

Thursday we had training all day at the mission office. I got my package from mom! The dress fit beautifully (and was much appreciated) and the candy was much appreciated by my zone. :) We were in the office all day doing training, and they ordered pizza for lunch. The pizza had pickles on it-- only in Russia! The pizza was good, but it really makes me miss American pizza....Little Caesar's especially! 

We flew back to Ufa on Friday morning and had a crazy day because we had to do winter shopping for Sister Williams. We hit up the sales, so she got her things pretty cheap. It's turning into spring here, but it's still cold enough (and enough snow/ice!) that a winter coat and heavy-duty boots are still needed for missionary work. We did weekly planning, and I introduced her to our area and how to weekly plan!

The weather is warming up here, and things are starting to melt. The only problem with the melting is that when it freezes back up at night, then there's ice everywhere until it thaws mid-afternoon. It's a little dangerous to walk around here. Also, snow is melting off the rooftops, and randomly falls on people as they walk. People have put caution tape around the sides of the building to warn people of falling snow and ice.

There are now six Elders in Ufa and only two sisters, so as a companionship, we'll now be swamped working with practically every woman in the branch and also our area. I'm training, another Elder is training an American, and then another Elder is training a Russian, and then there's the zone leader and his companion. We have a really smart and talented zone. With the exception of me and Elder Borget, everyone's new. Ufa has essentially been whitewashed! Sacrament meeting was comical because the brother in charge of announcements said, "Well, we received a bunch of new missionaries....you can come introduce yourselves and bear your testimonies" and pretty much our whole zone got up. The congregation was in awe at all the new missionaries. 

Also, miracle-- two investigators came to church on Sunday! That was awesome and totally unexpected. I attribute it to the fact that as a zone, we decided to fast for specific things every Sunday together. 

Other than those things, life is still going great! I really don't have a whole lot else to say other than, I love you, and I'm so glad to know all of you! I'm really grateful for your support, and it's crazy that my nine month mark was this last week. Nine months on a mission? That's crazy! I'm going to be home before I know it :)

The church is true, and the Book is blue. Most of all, I LOVE YOU!

All the best,

Sister Brown