So, business first: Happy Almost-New-Year, everyone! Haha, yes, there is in fact another holiday coming up on the Russian calendar. I'm not entirely sure why they celebrate New Year on the 14th of January, but I'm glad it's only a semi-official Russian holiday. People are hard to talk to when they aren't on the street.

Secondly: Thank you thank you thank you Grandma Read for the package. It was basically everything I needed and almost everything I miss. Since this weekend was Zone Conference again, Sister Ivanova also got a package from home, but hers was entirely filled with chocolate. Needless to say we've got lots of goodies floating around our apartment right now. Russian chocolate just doesn't do it for me like American does though (especially when the American chocolate is macadamia turtles... heh), so once again thank you. :)

Thirdly... I think. Thank you, mom, for fasting for my success this week. I'd say it worked. We found 4 new investigators this week (FOUR!), and 3 of those are a family... with another 3 people we haven't even met yet. Oh man. We're excited. Their story is a pretty amusing one in and of itself, actually, but I dunno if I've got enough time to relate it. I'll see what I can do.

About a month ago we were contacting as usual when we ran into an elderly couple taking a walk down the street. We stopped and started talking to them, but the wife immediately declared, "We're Russian Orthodox! We aren't interested!" Then she started to walk away, pulling her husband along with her. He stood his ground though, and said, "Hang on, I'M interested! I'm an atheist. What have you got for me?" Well. If only you knew, sir. So we talked for a few minutes more while his wife waited impatiently on the side. Then I guess she'd decided she'd had enough, because she forcefully pulled him away and told him that they were going HOME.

Well, okay, bummer. Maybe in the future, we thought to ourselves. We continued on down the road for another 10 minutes or so, when, to our surprise, Vladimir Vladimirevich (nice and easy to remember, that name) came running up after us. He told us he'd walked his wife back to their doorstep and then ditched her so he could come back and talk to us. During the course of that conversation it became fairly obvious to us that he wasn't nearly as atheistic as he'd like people to believe, and we tried our hardest to get an appointment set up with him. Apparently they've had all sorts of church-type representatives over before (Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, you name it, they've seen 'em), and his wife (Angelina) had had enough of them. So he took our number and told us he'd call when he could get her to soften her heart a little (his words, not mine). Unfortunately I can't say that we were all that hopeful for it at that point.

Then about a week ago we were contacting again on the other side of our area, and we ran in to Vladimir again. According to him, our appearance was obviously a sign from God that he needed to meet with us, and he'd try to convince his wife that she needed to invite us over. So he took our photo with his shiny new cell phone ("Silly Young People gadgets!") and told us that he'd show it to her, and she'd be bound to invite us over. Mmmkay. Well if it works...

Then the next day he called and told us to come by on Friday. What?! It worked? Crazy! Apparently all she needed was a picture of us smiling. Well okay. So we went by on Friday and ended up spending 2 hours over there talking with him, her, and their amazingly open and receptive eldest daughter, who joined us after she got home from work. Wow. And we have a return appointment this week. They refuse to refer to us by our titles though, and instead insist on calling us Sofia and Calista (or, more accurately, Kaleesta. Ha), which I think makes Sister Ivanova just a little bit uncomfortable. It's defnitely weird to hear my first name again, but I figure it's really no great secret, and if it helps us make good contact with them I'm all for it.

Anyway, we'll see what happens in the future with them, although of course we're going for the most optimistic route here. I'm all out of time though, so feel free to enjoy yourselves until next week, and try to stay out of harm's way for a while.

I love you all,

Sister Read. Russia. 2010. 3:04 PM.
(Ed. Received 10 January 2010, 9:06 pm, eighteen hours before Russia time.)