Letter #4 - Arrived in Rostov!

HEY GUYS!  

So, my P-day is Monday.  I'm sure you are all dying a little that it took so long! Haha I was dying that it was on Monday too.  Thanks for your letters!  I am going to try to print them.  It's not really our printer though, we send letters from the church, from the branch president's office. 

So, here's just a giant letter.  By the way, I was asked to keep blogs private, for the safety of members in Russia.  You can post from my facebook and ask for emails and make a permission list.  It makes me so sad that a bunch of people probably won't be able to read it anymore.  

Soooo from where we last left off..I was in Paris struggling to actually get here!  Well, I got here!  I landed in Rostov at 1:30 am and my cute little mission president was there waiting!  He is SO NICE! He and his wife are the cutest people in the world.  He took me home, well, his driver/first counselor took us home, fed me homemade chicken noodle soup and sent me to bed.  

Anyway, I woke up in the morning (they said not to set an alarm, and just to get a good sleep but I set an alarm anyways) and went down and met everyone!  I met my companion, Sister Houseman who is the BEST!  She's a really good person to have as a trainer, because she's like the nicest person in the world. :)  And she makes even the work part fun.  It's crazy because she got trained, immediately trained someone, then immediately is training me!  Elder Mironov from Moscow was there too!  So crazy!  I met the elders who were supposed to meet me in Moscow, and they were apparently worried when I didn't show up.  Haha.  And they said the Cranneys said hi, so hi Cranneys!  We had an orientation thing, then they sent us off!  I am in Volzhsky, which is a smaller city near Volgograd.  It's cold.  But not too cold.  We took a bus for 8 freaking hours (apparently I should get used to bus rides that long -__-) but then we got here and it was great.  I got to know some of the other missionaries in my zone on the way up, there were 6 of us going from Rostov to Volgograd.     

The first day here was fun, but it was kind of a different schedule because we had our district meeting and also English "conversation group".  Our apartment is nice!  A lot of the stuff is really old, but luckily the kitchen is new-ish and it doesn't smell like smoke or anything.  We take marshrutkas everywhere!  All the time.  To get to our church building we have to take one for like 40 minutes.  To get to center Volgograd it takes us 2 hours, 2 marshrutkas and a tramvai!  Holy cow is all I can say, we spend a lot of time traveling places. 

My second day, Sister Houseman had to go BACK on the 8 hour bus to go on a visa trip, poor girl.  So, I went with Sister Olsen for 2 days.  She was in Krasnomeisky or something, I can't even remember the name!  She was so fun, she reminded me exactly of Lauren Snow!  She only got here 6 weeks ago, so it was totally crazy because neither one of us really knew what we were doing...haha.  We made a goal to teach 12 street lessons in our 3 hours of street contacting, which is actually a really high goal, even if it doesn't sound like it.  Because most people really do not feel like stopping and talking when it is freezing cold/rainy/icy outside..but we taught 10!  Which was really awesome.  The awkward part came later.  We had given out invitations to English and to church to anyone who said they were interested, and on our way home we got a call.  The man on the phone said he met us that day and he wanted to get together, over dinner the next night...I thought he wanted us to teach him so I asked Sister Olsen if she was free the next night (since I would already be back in Volzhsky) and she said yes.  As soon as he heard me ask that, he was like, "no, only you".  I explained to him like what a missionary was and stuff but he just kept asking if I would go to dinner with him, and was making it super awkward by saying things like, "when I met you, I just felt something so special"......arghhhh.  He sent some very...flattering texts that we just deleted and we stopped answering his calls haha.  The rest of the people we met were all very nice and normal, oh wait except there was this one lady who looked at Sister Olsen (who was wearing rainboots because of all the slush) and asked if everything was alright in our heads (vsyo v paryadki?) and when I said yes, she said she could see that it wasn't.  Haha.  Gotta love those reactions!  Another interesting comment we got was from a cute old man who told us to go home and be good wives.  Oh my.  You meet all kinds of people.  Its just a really good feeling to be able to share something that is so important to me with these people here! 

I went to English club again in Krasno-something and met the nicest man named Anatoli!  He is a beekeeper and is obsessed with bees.  He studies English because he goes to Moscow every year to sell honey.  He told me so many times how happy he was he met the missionaries because they teach English for free!  Haha.  He isn't a member of the church, but I asked him if he'd like to read the Book of Mormon and he said yes, which was cool!  So I gave him one, and told him if he ever wanted to know more to ask the missionaries there. 

Going to our branch here for the first time was so fun.  It's small, but the people are so amazing!  There are some girls near my age, so its fun to get to know them.  Two elders come to our branch as well, so that's fun.  The members are so nice, after church they fed us these cookies and candy and stuff because we were going out to teach lessons after church, and they didn't want us to starve. :) Which we totally don't by the way--we had homemade pizza for lunch, and we have plans for lots of super delicious things in the future!  But I do already miss peanut butter a lot.  Thank goodness they sell cow candies here, those carmely sweetened condensed milk ones are so goood!

Overall, I am doing just awesome!  I hope you are all too!  SHOUT OUT to Amy!  I got your letter as soon as I got to Russia, perfect timing!!  I love you, thank you so much!!  I just wrote you back so hopefully it gets there eventually!  Oh also--Grandma! I met an elder in the airport in Moscow, Elder Brown, from Alpine!  He said to tell you and Grandpa hi. :)  Love you all, thanks for reading!  I can't believe I'm here, but I'm so glad I am!

Lots of love,

Seestra McGhie

Photos!

I promise my hair usually looks better than in that picture just so you know! The others are of our apartment bulding, and our preferred method of transport, aka marshrutka.  Somehow I always get the seat up at the front that has to pass everybody's 13 rubles to the driver.