Dear Parents and so forth,

It's Monday again, which means it's Sunday for you and P Day for me. I'm sitting here in an internet cafe in what my silly Russian compatriots charmingly think of as a "mall." There's a sign on the computer that, politely put, demands that I not converse by telephone! (!!!!), and per usual I've only got a limited amount of time to get things written.

We finally got to see conference yesterday and Saturday, and what made it even better was that they had it in English (well, all sessions except the General Relief Society broadcast, but I figured that was okay because I listened to it in the MTC before I left), which meant that I could understand! Hooray! Admittedly the room we watched it in was freezing, because of course they haven't turned on the heat in the church building and there's only one portable heater, which of course the branch had in their room because there are many more of them than there are missionaries and other native English speakers, but it was still amazing. We even had investigators show up for both sessions on Sunday. Hooray! These particular two we met up with on the street our first couple days in, and they're actually progressing amazingly well.

As far as finding other investigators though, we can't really do much tracting, because everybody lives in your typical Soviet-era housing, complete with an outside-locking door. So unless you know somebody inside or you have a key, there isn't much in the way of getting in. Most of the people we teach we meet on the street usually by means of the pass-along card (which of course are always a good conversation-starter). Occasionally the members will introduce us to their friends and family, and of course when they do it's always amazing. There are only six of us missionaries on the island, so of course we can't contact everybody.

The mission itself is so small that we don't have districts, only zones. Sister Ivanova and I are in the center of the city (we live on what in English I think would be World Avenue, in case you want to look it up. See also Prospect Mira, in Russian) in an apartment, which, aside from the occasional drift of smoke from the neighbors, is actually not too bad. Well. It's habitable, which I think is more than can be said for the Elders' apartments, though of course I haven't seen any of theirs. Only heard stories. For some reason that I can't quite figure out though, somehow we only have a very limited supply of cold water, which lasts about 2 minutes in the shower, and then it gets boiling hot. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure that this is something to complain about, because of course hot water is lovely, but I've discovered that it's just as difficult to shower in water that burns as it is in water that freezes. At any rate my shower time has definitely decreased.

Sister Ivanova is also amazing. She comes from somewhere in the Nova Sibirsk mission, though I can't remember which city, exactly. She joined the church 5 years ago, and served 4 mini-missions before she actually put in her papers to serve. She's a missionary machine of course, and is one of those people that every loves, which makes our work that much easier.

In any case, I'm out of time again, and per usual I still need to write to President Pratt.

I love you all, stay safe, have fun, and please fell free to enjoy delicious foods like snickerdoodles other things I won't see for a while.

-Sister Read