Good Morning everyone!!!
I can't explain to you what a beautiful day it is today. We woke up in our new apartment with the sun shinning in our windows! I almost forgot that you could see the sun that early! Thank you for all the emails! It sounds like all is well with the Larsen crew this week. And I want you all to know that I am starting the count down to my birthday in my journal on the 20th day of February. I think it is the latest I have ever started on my count downs haha.
Mom, I am proud of you for getting things moving. So many sisters here want to see some of the ideas that you all come up with. I know you guys will do an amazing job! I know that I am looking forward to being your Guinea pig. If I can, I would make one suggestion. Pockets on skirts would be one of the greatest things because we have cell phones and it is annoying to always have it in your bag. Just a thought. I am glad that you have enjoyed the Book of Mormon facts! I love getting that kind of stuff. It is so interesting to think about all of the things that are in the Book of Mormon from different perspectives. That is funny about the dinner. I wish I could have seen the counter with just hamburgers haha. I love it! That is also way cool about all of the LDS athletes! I love that they are showing a good side of the church!
Dad, thank you for not getting hurt this week. It brings peace to my soul haha. It sounds like you have a stressful next few weeks coming up. I hope that everything goes okay and that you remember that you are super dad so you can do anything! I hope that you find some time to go down to Powell and get some fishing in before things get to crazy. It seems like that season should be coming up soon!
Brynnie! I am glad that you had a good week. I sounds like you are less stressed and that makes me happy. I can tell a lot about how you are feeling from your letters, I like it because I feel like we are really talking too. I am excited for you to go on splits sometime with the missionaries. You will have to let me know how that goes. I know that they would love it if you just offered to go one night. Also why was johnny wearing a corset? Is that really needed? haha I laughed so hard when I read that... And really long nails... foo.
Chase and Ashley, I can't believe you are getting ready to be a little graduate! Remember when you told me that when I got my license we would have flying cars. I don't know why I just remembered that but it made me laugh because that was a few years ago and we still don't have flying cars. But I can't believe that you are graduating! I wish we could all graduate together. I think you should both just stay there for another 1 1/2... just a thought. Well I hope that school is going well and that married life is treating you well. Oh I just got an email from Alyse and she got engaged on V-day! you will have to give her a hug and tell her congrats for me!
So it has been a crazy week. On Monday we spent all day looking at apartments with our poor Zone leaders. The mission has a rule that our leaders have to approve apartments before we can give a final word. So they agreed to come and look with us so that we could just sign when we found one. Around lunch time we were in a mall sort of a thing making phone calls and Elder Bowen said, hey that guy has a nice watch he has to know someone... he went up to about 3 people like that asking if they had any connections. Well to make a long story short, by the end on Monday we hadn't found one, we were soaking wet and freezing because it had snowed all day, and our agent's car broke down and he had to take a marshutka home. We ran home to hurry and pack a bag and change to go to the train station. We broke our tub the day before so we couldn't shower and we didn't have time to eat dinner. We met the other sisters at the station and we ate McDonald's on the train. The ride wasn't bad and I think that was the best I have slept on a train.
Sisters conference was great! President and Sister Steinagel talked to us about how virtue is power. It was really interesting. We also learned a lot about the culture of Ukraine and we even got to try and play one of their traditional instruments :D. We finished up and had lunch and we went to Romeo and Juliet, the ballet! It was great! After the play we hurried to the train station and caught an old Soviet train back. It was a little creepy because the train was really old but it was also really fun. I felt like I was really in Ukraine ha. I loved it. Also throughout the day we were calling agents and still struggling with the apartment thing. The poor Elders looked at apartments for us all day.
We got back in the morning and the Elders had some good news for us at district meeting. We were going to meet our landlord that we really really wanted to sign on Monday. She had convinced her husband to work with our contract! We signed and got all moved in on Wednesday! The Elders also had an opportunity to work with our agent a little bit and teach him some doctrine.
Thursday we met with Ulya. She is the girl that came to church last week. She told us that she started reading the Book of Mormon and she said that she felt so much light and so many good feelings! She said that she went with on of her friends to an Orthodox church and she felt that light leave. She feels so good and church and we were really excited that we had found someone that the Lord had so well prepared. Then she told us that she was moving the next day back to her village 5 hours away. The church isn't in her area yet and our hearts broke. She started crying and she explained that she was living with people that she just could not stand to live with anymore. They were so rude to her and they were drunk a lot of the time and she just couldn't deal with it anymore. She said that she is going to try and move back and find a job but we all agreed that this was probably the best thing for her right now. We are just going to try and talk to her over the phone and stay in touch with her.
These last few days we have spent teaching less actives and trying to find new people to teach. We also spent a lot of time getting lost. It is a smaller city but it is still really, really big. It is a really beautiful city. Center is really pretty and the areas that I am working in are close. I am really close to the sea and you can actually see it from our window I heard... We still haven't seen it because it is foggy (we hear a fog horn every morning, It's cool!) There are more brothers here then there were in Kiev, but there aren't very many.
There were also 2 baptisms and our agent that helped us find our apartment came!!! It was really cool. Yesterday we sang at the baptism and the man told how the elders knocked on his door and his entire life changed from that day on! It was a really cool baptism.
My companion is great. She is from Tacoma, Washington. She lived here teaching English before she decided to come on a mission. She will go home in August so she will probably finish here. She is super nice and we get along very, very well. We laugh a lot while we are on the street. She is just a very loving, tender hearted girl. I have already learned a lot from her.
Well I think this is the longest letter I have ever written and my stomach is eating itself. We are going to try and make it to the beach sometime today... I don't know it might have to wait until next week. But I love you all! I am glad things are going well and I am praying for you all the time! Good luck this week!
Love
Sister Larsen
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