Mom's Reasurance

Hey everyone,

The church has switched to a google powered email and so President has asked us all to switch to these new addresses. Let anyone know who doesn't get a weekly email from me. First of all, I got Aunt Shauna's package, it was awesome, I ate it pretty fast though so I didn't have to share as much with my companion! Mom, don't worry about my apartment being too cold, we have the old radiator things on the walls, it's just that when it's really really cold outside, it's pretty cold inside as well. Right now, our apartment is around 68 degrees. The weather has been warming up here, it seems like we might be coming to an end of my first Russian winter. The wind has been blowing a lot lately so it's still pretty cold outside but the sun has been shining a lot and the river is actually starting to melt as well. That's neat that the Lowry's emailed you, they asked for your email address a while ago so I figured they would. They are pretty great people, I really enjoy serving with them. They just recently had a visa trip as well. They go to Finland for their visa trips because they like to go to the temple there. On the way to the airport in Moscow, Elder Lowry got pick pocketed and lost his wallet. He had around 37000 rubles in there that he was planning on switching to Euros in Finland. Also, he had his temple recommend and drivers license in there. I have taken my drivers license out since it doesn't do me any good here anyway, that way if I lose my wallet I will just lose my temple recommend, some money and a credit card, all kind of easy to replace. But don't worry, I don't plan on losing my wallet. I will be in Moscow on the metro by myself this weekend though. I'm not too scared of anything other than getting to the airport on time. I hope everything goes well. There was some really bad communication between us and the office so I didn't buy my tickets until today which means there were no good timed trains for me to get on. I get on a train tomorrow at 4:21 in the afternoon and get to Moscow at 5 in the morning. Don't ask me what I'm going to do from 4:30 until it's time to go to sleep. I hope nobody else is in my room but I'm sure their will be. I hope they are all either quiet business men or just a nice family or something. I don't feel like spending the night with 3 old bobushkas sleeping around me. Either way, I'm sure it will be hot and stuffy and smelly after being in a small compartment for 13 hours straight. So I will meet my group at the airport and go to Ukraine with them. I have a train that leaves at 10:30 that night and it doesn't get back to Veronezh until 11:30 or so the next morning. By that point I will be more than ready to be back in my own apartment in my own city. I'm pretty excited about the whole thing though since I haven't seen anyone from my mtc group in a long time. I can't wait to see them all and hear how they have been doing.

We had a pretty boring week this week, not a whole lot happened. We got to go to Lipitsk yesterday and go on splits with the sisters there. All four of us elders from Veronezh had to go. The main reason for the trip was so that Elder Traasdahl could give a baptismal interview to a girl there. It was a fun trip. On the way back, we had a pretty crowded bus so we just had to find a seat where we could. The very back of the bus had a bench seat all the way across that the other elders ended up sitting on. Elder Traasdahl and I got normal seats in the row in front of them. Once we got going, we looked back and noticed that a very loud guy (holding an empty bottle of what must have been some pretty strong alcohol) ended up sitting in between Elder Waite and Elder Khusainof. He quickly found out that Elder Waite was American and wanted to talk to him the whole ride. At one point I looked back and saw them in the middle of a good ol' fashioned thumb war for some reason. Obviously Elder Waite wasn't understanding all the stuff this guy was saying but he looked like he was concentrating pretty good on the thumb war. The drunk guy had a friend that had obviously been babysitting the guy all day and had had enough of him. The drunk guy started annoying the friend so much that the friend stood up and they started fighting! The friend landed some punches then sat down. I was laughing so hard watching Elder Waite in the middle of this drunken fist fight. Eventually the elders moved to some different seats. We had about a half hour left on the trip when the drunk guy started getting pretty bored. Do you remember the scene from Shrek 2 when Donkey is making that clicking noise with his tongue on the road trip and they tell him to stop then you see the donkey's head slowly come forward right between Shrek and Fionna's head? That's what this reminded me of. Elder Traasdahl was asleep and I was just sitting there when all of a sudden there was a head right inbetween ours. We told him to sit down and he did but then he started coming up again. His phone was ringing and he put his face about 2 inches from mine and said a few times "MAMA... MAMA..." he pointed to me that it was his mom calling. I said Answer it, and he obediently answered the phone and talked to his mom for a few minutes. At one point, he must have felt that the ride was too quiet so he let out a loud whistle. His friend came back and said some stuff to him and he stopped. The guy was harmless, thank goodness, so it ended up just being pretty funny. I was just worried he was going to throw up or something.

Anyway, that seems to be all that has been going on for me. It sounds like you guys are all doing pretty good. That's great that the babies were blessed, I'm sure that was a lot of fun. I was laughing pretty hard at the stories mom told me from the dinner afterward, nothing like a good dog poop story to lift one's spirits. I'm excited to get the pictures when my package comes. I will get to go to Moscow again for Zone Conference on the 24th so maybe it will be there by then. With all this stuff going on, February is going to be gone before I know it. Today is the second Thursday of the month, or, the ultimate p-day as I like to call it. Every month on the second Thursday, the priesthood bretheren get together and have a small lesson followed by a big dinner. For some reason, our branch president thinks it is good for the missionaries to be there. I won't lie, I look forward to it all month. Speaking of food though, I have eaten some pretty nasty stuff lately. This one lady keeps feeding us when we meet with her and it is just not good. The first time it was something called Hollodetz. I remember reading about it before the mission but I kind of thought it was a myth. They take something like the knees and ears of a pig and just boil them for a really long time, like 5 hours or something. They take the bones out and then cool down the junk thats left. What it ends up being is pork jello. You know what grease drippings look like the day after? Or that film stuff on top of homemade soup the next morning? Take that, add some shredded meat, and eat it! It's not good at all. The last time we ate there, she gave us stuff called greshka, which is like a kind of cracked wheat or barley or something. It's not that good but it's tolerable. Along with it she gave us fried eggs, which by fried I mean white on the bottom. She probably cracked the egg and left it in the pan for a total of 10 seconds. It was super runny and gooey. I choked it down though. Sometimes it's not all that fun to be fed.

Well, I'm glad everyone is doing good and having fun. Have fun with all the upcoming activities you have. Thanks for everything, I love you guys.

Love, Elder Geddes