So I'm sitting here in Vladivostok with the strangest feeling of deja vu ever. I'm back in Vlad, firstly, having just returned from Korea a couple days ago, secondly, and in the EXACT same internet cafe I was in back in October when I flew in. It's like the last 7 months of my life never happened. The only thing that's changed is my companion. Like I said last week, this transfer (and possibly the one upcoming as well, seeing as how it'll be her last) I'm serving with Sister Kovalevskaya. She's also pretty much awesome. And hilarious. Basically what I'm saying here is that native sisters rock my socks off.
Our area here in Vlad is much bigger than the one on Sakhalin (which I guess isn't all that surprising given that Sakhalin center is one of the smallest (if not THE smallest) areas in the mission), and in my vast 3-days' experience thus far I've gathered that that means we're on the bus a lot. I get the feeling that some time in the future we're going to have to look into getting a bus pass of some sort, because there's only so much I can spend on bus fees... even if it is cheaper than on Sakhalin. Did I mention that everything there is obscenely expensive? Well it is.
Korea was fun, as usual I guess. Not really my thing, but fun. Maybe if they'd let us proselyte a little more (or at all, really. Pass-along cards, even. I'm not picky. It's just that there's only so much you can do as a missionary in a foreign country where you don't speak the language and aren't even allowed to preach even if you did) I'd be happy to stick around longer, but for now I'm okay with the time they give us. Once again I have to wonder what on earth they did there back in the days when missionaries had to stick around there for 18 days. No thank you. I'm good.
On the plus side though, the temple was open all three days we were there this time. We did a session on Thursday morning with other English-speaking missionaries (who were actually serving in Korea), and I guess since there were so many of us in the room, they did the session all in English. Talk about awesome. Then on Friday we as Russian-speaking missionaries did baptisms, and since Sister Lewis and I were the only sisters in the room at the time, we were both baptized about 75 times each. I think I've just about got the baptismal prayer memorized in Korean now. A few more times and I'm sure I'll have it.
I may have also purchased myself a new coat in Korea, but not to be worrying... it didn't cost nearly as much as I pulled out. We had to use personal funds to pay for lodging and bus tickets because none of our MSF cards worked. Oops. Somebody forgot to give us permission to be out of the country, I guess.
Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Good to know you all seemed to enjoy yourselves thoroughly while in Mexico or Honduras or whatever equatorly country you spent your time in the last few days. I still haven't got my package yet, but I did get a whole bunch of letters (including a birthday card from Grandma Read (thank you!) that looked like it had been soaked at least twice and an Absolutely Normal Christmas Card from Chris, which he actually sent around Christmas time. I'm still looking for the secretly stashed bugs on that one). Maybe next week. Or the week after.
Okay, enough. Have a good week, enjoy yourselves, and of course I love you all.
-Sister Read.
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