01-16-12

January 16, 2012
"I like you cool hat, Tanya!" "Really, Peterson? Why do you say that everyday?" "Because your hat is always cool!"
Hey there friends and family!

Gosh, it's been a pretty good week, with some interesting twists among it all. I wanted to start out by saying thank you to all of you for reading my e-mails and letters and for sending me letters. I got a letter from Elder JT Williams in Uruguay yesterday and it made me the happiest guy on earth. I've gotten a good bit of mail, and it's the most wonderful thing hearing from everyone. So...thanks! :)

Well, a couple days of go was the grand Russian holiday of... Old New Year! Not enough time to get all of you New Year shenanigans in on one day? Never fear, there's and Old New Year! I was talking to a guy named Dima on the bus who asked me what I did for Old New Year, and I told him that I didn't know what Old New Year was. He looked at me like I was crazy and said "wait...don't they have Old New Year in America?" "Nope!" "Woah...and Christmas is in something, like, December, right?" "Yep!" "You Americans are kinda odd." Good times!

We've got a couple of progressing investigators, which is pretty dang cool! We've been working with [...] (that still just looks so odd spelled out in English) who's been reading the Book of Mormon a good bit (and marking it too!). She likes the Book of Mormon a lot and says that the writings in there are beautiful and of God, so that's some way good progress! Unfortunately she has work everyday until Noon, making it so that she can't really come to Church. We've been praying for her though, so we hope she can find some new work soon!

Speaking of work, that's a question that's been on my mind for a bit. In Russia the general work schedule is not a 5 day work week with a 2 day weekend, but rather you work 2-3 day and then you get 2-3 days off. The problem being that 1/2 the Sundays in the month are taken up by the schedule. Makes it hard for people to come to Church every Sunday because of the work schedule. Wonder if there's anything that can be done about that.

Speaking of Russia, it's been snowing like crazy lately! Good to see that my boots are holding up great and that not even blowing wind and snow and freezing weather doesn't stop people from stopping and talking to us! Albeit sometimes they stop just to tell us we're crazy cultists for walking out in the snow, but sometimes they're genuinely interesting, like [...]! [...] is an older guy we met on the street that loves reading books and has made some very good progress in reading the Book of Mormon. We stood on the street talking to him for almost 45 minutes. Good thing I had bought new gloves earlier that day or else I'd be a little Elder Popsicle!

Well, that's what I got I think :) Ya'll have a good one, alright? Thank you again for your letters, support and prayers :)

With much love, as always
--
Elder Peterson