04-15-13

Brian really wants to hear from his friends!!  Please send him an email at peterson.brian@myldsmail.net  and let him know how you're doing!!  =-)

April 15, 2013

"Man Elder Peterson...you're pretty old!" "Quiet you! I'm still a young whippersnapper!" "When was your first train ride?" "Well...back in September of last year going to Zavodskoi!" "Elder Peterson..." "Yeah?" "You're old." "Dang!"

Hey there everyone!

Man, I know I say this every week, but this week really was a crazy one. Based on your e-mails I don't think you've seen it yet but if you go and check out my bank account you'll see a healthy sum taken out for medical bills. That's right, Elder Peterson surivived Russian hospital!!!! Nothing too crazy, really. I had some serious stomach pains and nothing was helping pill wise so while I was there in Saratov Elder Davidov and I (not me and Elder Davidov!) went to essentially an urgent care who promptly sent us to the hospital to get an ultrasound and some blood work. They didn't find anything drastic and they gave me some pills that have helped a lot. The Church will refund everything and so no worries on that, just waiting for the refund now. But if you're wondering why there's a healthy chunk of money gone from my account, that's why.

That was pretty cool miracle though, by the way. Ever since a week and a half ago I've had this stomach pain and when we came up to Saratov to do exchanges I felt pretty awful, and I was lucky enough to be in a good town with good medical care with a Ukranian helping me all along the way! It's pretty funny though, because we (as missionaries) need to stay together at all times, a rule that pretty much nobody else ever understands. To make sure that we stayed together throughout the whole process I had to make Elder Davidov my translator (he speaks perfect English, so no problem). It was funny though, especially at the hospital, when the doctors were talking to each other "Yeah, that Peterson guy doesn't know a lick of Russian! He just uses his friend as a translator!". They were preparing a nurse to give me a shot, which had to be done alone, and while she was giving me my shot I honestly forgot that I was supposed to fake not knowing Russian. We striked up a great conversation and after the shot she said "wow, the others said that you didn't speak Russian, but you speak excellently!" I told her thanks, and at that point it didn't matter since we were leaving if she told the doctors or not, but it was a pretty funny experience.

I could talk a lot about Russian hospitals and all the stuff that goes on there, but you don't want to hear about that! You want to hear about my crazy cool transfer news, don't you?! That's right, there was a change in our little Balakovian district...I'm training again!!!! Crazy, right? Elder Warkentin got transfered to Kazan (the area where he started his mission even, which is cool) and the Sisters are staying the same. I'm here in Samara right now with a good keyboeard and a non-sketchy internet cafe, which is a really nice change. The new guys should be coming in tomorrow night and so Wednesday I'll meet the new one! There's 14 new missionaries coming in this cycle with a ton more coming in over the next few months. What's even weirder is that the group of missionaries right above me just went home which means...my group is the oldest in the mission. 

Weird, right? That's messed up! During a break at Conference Sister Kiestler and Sister Crane came up to me and said "Elder Peterson...we thought about it, and you've only got 12 weeks left! That's crazy!" And it is crazy, which is why were not gonna talk about it anymore. In short, I'm gonna be making this last bit of time my best here in Russia. And how could it not, because I'm still in Balakova! Yay!

I wish I had more news in reference to the work, but honestly it's prety much just been the hospital and conference. Conference, by the way, was so dang cool! This conference just seemed to personal and had some really good stories. Way to go Elder Holland, as usual. His talks always make me cry. President Beck in the Priesthood session also had a really good talk.

So, real quick. That's dang cool that Mary is leaving on her mission soon, but...which mission is she going to? All I know is that she's going to Kiev somewhere. If it's hard to remember, it's probably the Dnepopetrovsk mission (heh, that's fun to spell in English). In any event, that'd be cool to know where she's going! If you could grab me her e-mail address too that'd be spiffy.

Speaking of e-mail addresses, have we been able to get ahold of anyone elses? I know I bug you a lot about it, but I really do, if possible, want to contact those people as soon as possible and they haven't written yet. Thanks for your help! :)

Well, that just about wraps it up for now! I hope you have a splendid week and that everything goes great! Enjoy the spring weather, it's super nice and sunny outside today.

With love

--

Elder Peterson