Fully half of my time spent reading emails...

But that doesn't mean I don't like it. Please to be feeling free to keep on sending them.

Last week I meant to wish Geoff an early happy birthday. And Actually now that I think about it, I did. Fully written and everything. But then it erased itself. Or something. In any case, happy belated birthday Geoff!

Oh and dad, I also forgot to tell you about the memory card. It's an SD pq1 High-Speed 60 2GB. I'd give you the serial number on the back, but somehow I don't think it's really all that necessary.

Transfers are coming up this week, and I'm really hoping to get off Sakhalin. Don't get me wrong, I love it here. Members, crazy investigators, random more-than-comfortably-friendly people on the street, it's great. I just need a change of scenery. Of course, now that I've said that, I'll be here another transfer, and I guess that's okay too, because we've got some pretty hilarious people we're working with.

We taught the Word of Wisdom to one of our investigators this week, and we ended it by demanding her entire supply of black tea. Ha. Then to our surprise, she actually handed it over. Well, most of it, anyway. She kept the one last open box. So we took the other two and ran to the nearest grocery store (for the record, they look NOTHING like they do in the states. More like glorified tobacco shops.), where we bought two boxes of herbal tea and ran back to give them to her. And since we'd given her two, we demanded (well ish. She's about 65 ish, and you just don't demand things from 65 ish old ladies in Russia) the last open box. So for the record, I am officially a Russian Tea Bandit.

Also for the record, if you ever actually get the chance to talk to Sister Ivanova, well, I guess you'll just know that we've served together. She's picked up all of my phrases, including "for the record", "lame", and "it's just that..." HA. Even better is the way she says them all with a Very Russian Accent. Good days.

I figured out this week why my coat cost me an arm and a leg. Because it's warm. Not because it's extremely high quality. The zipper, which has been sort of limping along the last few weeks, finally gave up and died, and I couldn't get it to zip at all. Lame. And while I wouldn't say the zipper is the most important part of any coat, it's still what you might call necessary, especially when you're walking around in cold weather with lots of wind. Sister Ivanova worked as a wedding dress designer/maker before her mission, and if she'd had a sewing machine she could've fixed it herself, but given that sewing machines don't come with missionary apartments, we had to go find somewhere where we could hand in my coat and they could fix it quickly. We found a place, and they did it in just over an hour, but it still cost a ridiculous amount of money. Still. I have a coat, it's warm, and it works. I am officially grateful.

That's all for now, folks. Feel free to enjoy yourselves this week, thank you for the illness, whoever sent it to me, stay safe, and I love you.

-Sister Read