Happy Early Thanksgiving

I will be celebrating in true Russian style... ish. Actually, it's going to be more American-Missionaries-in-

Russia style. Basically the same thing, right? We, as a district (six missionaries and one Senior Couple) will be gathering at the Senior Couple's apartment and eating things like chicken (I'm pretty sure there is turkey in Russia somewhere, because at the very least they know what it is and have a name for it, but I have yet to see or hear about any sign of it. Chicken's pretty much the same, anyway) and potatoes and gravy and rolls and other things that can actually be found here and actually taste fairly decent. I'm going to attempt to make a pie in a baking dish that isn't round, and we may or may not have Real Live Jello from the states. Should be interesting. I told Sister Volkova about Black Friday, incidentally (which reminds me... socks are always a good thing), and she immediately added that to the list of Why Americans Are The Most Insane People On The Planet. "You get up before 6:00 to go shopping? WHY? What's the point of getting a discount before 11:00 AM? Does the product somehow magically change after that? And people enjoy these practices?" Ha. I figured it wasn't worth it to tell her about Boxing Day (which of course doesn't exist for them anyway. As far as the Russians are concerned, Christmas happens on the 7th of January... and it's nowhere near as exciting as New Year's), because then I'd have to explain that when you buy things in America, you can actually take them back if they don't work or if you decide you don't want them. That sort of thing doesn't happen here. They may not want you to buy their merchandise, but they sure as heck don't want it back if you do. But (and this seems to be a usual thing at the beginning of my letters), I seem to have digressed. So. Moving On.

This week was a strange one, that's for sure. At the begining of the week we set a baptismal date with an investigator who wasn't progressing at all. I'm still not entirely sure how that happened, seeing as how I was all for not meeting with her again, but apparently the Spirit works in mysterious ways... just like the Lord.

Later on in the week as we were heading home for the night, I got a phone call from a number that didn't look like the usual Russian phone numbers. I figured out why when I answered. It was a guy in America who wanted to talk to us about "one of your potential investigators there in Khabarovsk." He told us about a friend of his who had recently been asking him about religion, and about ours in particular. I have no idea how he got our phone number, but he told us that he'd already talked with his friend and she was waiting for our phone call to meet. Well, okay then. If you really insist. We met with her on Thursday, and she seems to be pretty awesome. We'll see where things go from here...

We also put on a branch activity this week, and we had an amazing turnout of 17 people (Considering that the usual Sunday turnout is 3 or 4, that's absolutely miraculous). We did a live-action version of Lehi's Dream where people were blindfolded and told to follow the Iron Rod to the Tree of Life. Along the way we had various temptations like English practice and delicious-looking/smelling food that wasn't, and we had people in the Great and Spacious Building who laughed and tried to get everybody else off the path. It took forever to plan and set up, but apparently it was enjoyable, and that's good enough for me.

In any case, that's basically all that I've got for you this week. Enjoy your turkey, think of me when you're in the stores at 5:00AM on Friday, and remember that  I love you.

-Sister Read