Letter #12 from Russia

HELLO!

I emailed Mary, let her know how Lucky she is! That really is soo cool that she gets all that in the MTC!

So! There's a rumor in St. Petersburg that Sarah Brunsdale is engaged!!! No way! I would like confirmation on that one please. Also, I got five baptisms this week!!! They were all dead though... haha! Yeah, I went to the KIEV TEMPLE! So awesome!! I can't even describe how great it feels to go to the temple again, not to mention the KIEV TEMPLE! So COOL! Also, so members from Penza happened to be at the temple that week too! I got baptized for the dead by Andrei Panin, one of my favorite members! He is great! We didn't get to do a session, but it was a blessing nonetheless! A really cool experience happened while we were there. An elder had a headache after we were done with everything, so we went to a building on the temple grounds to get something for him to feel better and this lady came up to us and asked us if we could give her a blessing. We all hesitated because we were all new missionaries, and we asked a man if he could help us, but the woman said she wanted us to do it because she prayed that some Elders would come and give her a blessing. There happened to be four of us Elders, (there needs to be at least three men to be in room with a woman) so we followed her to a room and sat her down. I didn't give the blessing, just helped put my hands on her head. It was a sweet blessing, choppy language, totally powerful. Afterwards, we met some sisters from Rostov and they told us that Elder Pehrson, an Elder I loved in the MTC went home after two weeks in the Field. Sad. But I also met a lady who said she remembered Christy from Rostov. She had a crazy eye. She saw Christy's picture and said she definitely remembered that smile.

So I really want to know the name of Heather Christiansen's (Perry's daughter) Husband! The one who served here in Samara! I want to know which cities he was in, when he served, mission president, everything! Also, fun fact: When you're at a stop light and the little green man lights up to signal it's okay to walk, he starts out walking. But instead of it turning into a red hand, the little man starts running to show that the time is almost up! So funny!

My companions their transfer call last night. Anderson is going to be a zone leader!! So cool! I'll miss him! Glad is with a native! And I'm with a second cycler... I have to go! I love you all so much!!

Loves, elder swartz!