Now it's REALLY Fall. Hooray!

Parental units, beloved mine, I think now would be a good time to tell you that you don't exactly have the softest method for delivering what, if not exactly BAD, isn't exactly what I'd call GOOD news.  So I thought I'd give a little bit of advice here: if you're going to tell a missionary about some big event (generally of the negative variety) you might want to give a little bit more before you do so. Or do it in a less Blow-to-the-Face kind of way. Just a thought. Incidentally, how is Steven doing? No wait, he's actually included in the circle of Close Family. I'm allowed to ask him myself. How are you doing, Steven?

 

In any case, there was no sign of illness amongst the sisters in Vladivostok this week, but it is officially Fall and the leaves have turned colors to prove it. Hooray! We spent lots of time with people of the elderly variety this week, and of course that meant lots of food. I can't really say I'm complaining, obviously, because a meal with a member/investigator is generally much more tasty than the kind we make ourselves (well, sometimes at any rate), and much more exciting too. Especially when they pour you wine (investigators generally, but we do also have a few confused members living in our area. Ha) and insist that you drink it or they'll be terribly offended. We didn't, for the record, and thankfully they weren't, but I still had to laugh just a bit. One of our investigators made us fish soup (have I mentioned that we aren't allowed to eat fish here? Well we aren't. Too much pollution) and we spent the entire evening sneaking bits of fish to his cats under the table. We figured it was a win-win situation. He insisted that the soup be eaten entirely before we left, and the cats got a good meal out of it. It was actually good soup though, and I would've eaten the fish if we'd been at home.

 

We also found two new investigators this week thanks to the fact that one of our members opened her mouth and decided to share the Gospel. Actually, that's not technically true. We found ONE new investigator because her roommate decided to open her mouth and share the Gospel, and we found the second new investigator because his girlfriend mentioned to him that her roommate had introduced her to this interesting new church and he wasn't happy with that. At least not until we convinced him to meet with us. Then he was all for it. Ha. Life is funny sometimes.

 

Yesterday I was asked to give a talk in church (which, incidentally, I'd actually been given prior warning about. This is extremely unusual here), but I could've gotten out of it if I'd wanted to because the branch president began the meeting by saying, "I can't find the paper that says who's supposed to be speaking today. So. All those who prepared a talk, please be so kind as to let me know now by raising your hand." HA. I would've kept my hand down, but that would've meant that the only other person who raised her hand would've had the whole meeting for herself... and I didn't think I could do that to her. Plus I'd already prepared. I figured it would be better to give my talk now than next week (okay, two weeks. Next week is General Conference. Hooray!). Or some other time when I'd be completely unprepared. I guess it went off okay though. Nobody threw anything at me, anyway.

 

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. I love you all, I expect that you're all enjoying the Fall (yay! Fall!), and don't worry, this doesn't mean that I don't want to know what's going on. On the contrary, actually. I'm always interested in hearing the latest. See also: please to be enjoying yourselves this week.

 

-Sister Read