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Something tells me that Cyn's got a birthday coming up tomorrow. I'm not really sure what. Maybe it was the email she sent me with 50000000000000 exclamation marks. I dunno. In any case, pass along a happy birthday pleaseandthankyou.

 

In any case, and just in case you're wondering, we had a Finding Week this week. Hooray! It's a good thing the weather's warmed up somewhat. People hate talking to us in the rain. Incidentally, that reminds me of one of my favorite "I Can't Meet" excuses that people give us when we try to set up appointments with them. This one was used by a potential investigator with whom we've been trying to meet for the last ten centuries at least: "Meet? Today? It's raining! I can't! It's bad news to go out in the rain!" Mind you, this is a people who, when the weather has dropped to about 30 below and there's a blizzard going at full blast, will bundle up their 2- and 3-month-old children and go out walking. Just for the heck of it. And they stay outside for HOURS. Of course. That's just snow. But once the rain gets started... oh no. No. Rain is dangerous. Ha. Oh Russia. I love these people. Needless to say, we didn't meet with her that day. But we did go out in the rain (against all sound advice) and we seemed to have survived... ish. I dunno. Maybe all our hair will fall out in 50 years as a result of this. Ha.

 

So we've got this investigator from one of the -Stans (that's another one of those amusing things about serving here on Sakhalin - the vast majority of our investigators aren't actually from Russia. A few are from the -Stans, one is from China, and we found another one this week from North Korea. He doesn't speak any Russian, and his English is so-so. Teaching is a lot of fun with him. And my charades are getting better.) who is really excited about our message. He came to church a couple of weeks ago and heard a talk about eternal families. Obviously this is a topic he likes, because he spent a lot of time telling us about it when we met with him again. He's also good at doing missionary work, at least in his own way. Almost every lesson we've had with him he's invited somebody else along. I don't know what he tells them to get them to come, though, because every time we ask if they've heard anything about us they respond with something like, "no, not really. I was just invited along." Welp. Works for me. We do a lot of first lessons with this investigator. And I'm okay with that.

 

In any case, apparently that's all you get this week... ish. Try to enjoy yourselves back at home (or wherever you happen to be) and remember that I love you.

 

-Sister Read (I've forgotten how to write that, apparently. It kept coming out 'Red.' Basically the same thing, right?)