10th Transfer

мормонам привет! this old dude yelled that at us the other day, i thought it was pretty funny.

so i forgot my old planner, which is what i always use to remember the week. lets see how much i can remember without it. it just might be a more scatterbrained email than usual. lets start with the questions, shall we? my mission has gotten more expensive, yes. for example, 100 grams of pastry used to cost 1.50 grivin. now, it is up to 4.00 grivin. and public transport used to be all 1.50, and now it's at the least 2.50. its pretty crazy. they are trying to raise our msf, but they've been trying for like a year now.

I live in a city of about half a million people. not too big, but... i mean, that's like a fourth of Utah. i don't know if president does a blog. probably not, maybe they will later. My new companion is legit, he is just one transfer younger than me, and knows Russian well. we are probably about on the same level. he studied Russian for a while in college, too. we are getting along great, I'm really happy. his name is elder scovil- my third companion from Utah.

as for the eggs/ dolls, I'll try to get you some prices, just tell me the specifics and i will order it. for a big egg, its going to be around, i don't know 350 grivin, which is like 40 bucks. pricey, but i mean, its hand made.

anyways, we had a good week. transfer week is always pretty exciting. Monday night we had a family night with mama bigoon, Tuesday night we had family night with the gushins (the branch president). lots of goodbye lessons with everybody, for Elder smith's sake. Wednesday morning i woke up at like 5:30, i felt awful. i was all clogged up, and started vomiting pretty intensely. yeah, i was pretty bad. but it was smiths last day, so after i emptied, we went to the church to have district meeting. i felt really weak and very qweazy, so i went and laid down on this carpeted area. i told the district to do the meeting without me. mama bigoon came in and took good care of me, she went and bought me some water and lemon and some coal pills. she used to be a nurse. yeah, coal pills. i took ten of them. apparently they suck in all the bad stuff and then you clear them out, and you get better faster. i just laid there for a while, i just felt sick for a long time. i tried to do a lesson with sasha later, but he told me to go lay down, because apparently i looked like death. smith had the lesson alone with him, haha. mama bigoon was sure i had hepatitis, because my eyes turned yellow, but i don't. i went home and went to sleep.

woke up, and felt pretty much 100%. apparently i looked like death still, because the other elders came over in the morning, and said i looked...bad. yeah, but i felt good, so i went to the bus stop and saw the two elders leaving mariupol off. then went back home and just kinda sat around, studied and stuff. i felt better, but i didn't really trust myself to do much. later, the four new elders came down, and i got my new companion, scovil. i love my district, its a good group of kids.

Friday we pretty much contacted around the city, showed the comp around mariupol, the sea, all the big places. no one could really meet, because we met with everyone pretty recently for smith to say goodbye. but its OK. Saturday we met with sasha again, with a member present. we had a good lesson- he said he watched that one south park episode, and realized that he doesn't care if our church is true, he knows it is good, makes him happy, gives him peace, he loves the people. he still doesn't want to be baptised, because he doesn't know why it is necessary, but he said he is open to talk about it, so our next lesson is going to be all about baptism, and hopefully we can get him on date. he is such a great guy, i would love to see him get baptized. also, Saturday was mariupol day! which meant there were a whole bunch of drunk people partying. we saw a cool parade going down the main street, and a bunch of interesting stuff. like these knife throwers, who weren't very good. and this ten year old kid with a beer can. and these guys were beepboxing, it was pretty legit. they were talented. i like beepbox.

Sunday like usual, we had a good amount of people come, 43. two extra missionaries, and a family visiting came. after church we brought the sacrament to this lady. and gave her husband, a nonmember, who is very sick, a blessing. it was a good day.

this week is going to be really fun. the zone leaders are coming down for a day or two, we are going to do some service, then we go up to Donetsk for zone conference for two days. busy, but i haven't seen many missionaries in a long time. it is necessary.

anyways, I'm having a really good time, this is going to be a great transfer. we are going to get a lot done, we are going to work hard. good to hear from all of you! love you! the church is true!

have a great week, love

Derek