Letter #34

Hey Family! Hopefully this gets to you..the internet is having problems haha.  it might be the pictures I'm trying to send, so hopefullly they make it too!

Happy to hear the week went well!  First I want to give a BIG thank you I missed last week to Grandma, grandpa and maybe aunt kristen?  The essential oils and treats are super!!  A little ranch or rolos goes a long way over here!! Haha I love it, thank you!

Yeah, I totally didn't see the cat at first either.

So there were some pretty great adventures this week....I better get going.  So.  The week began with splits, which was the BEST because DOUBLE the work got done in our area!  Sister Hoffman and I headed out to do some service with a family whose daughter is an investigator.  All we knew is that we would be canning something for winter.  We get there and find out we are making this salad called "анкл бенц" (we thought that was pretty funny) and so we start chopping.  We chop tomatoes (Sister Hoffman hates them and she had to chop literally like 45 tomatoes), carrots, bell peppers, eggplant, garlic...etc.  And then comes the ostri peretz.  Hot pepper.  The daughter and I get the job of peppers...the dad warns us not to touch our eyes or face or anything, so we were super super careful.  Everything's all good until after like 10 minutes or so my finger starts to burn a little.  Just the tip--I ran it under some cold water and keep chopping garlic.  Then my whole finger burns.  Then all my fingers.  Then my whole hand.  Then my other hand.  I was just like "eta kak ogon!" or "its like fire!" because it hurt SO BAD!!  The parents are getting very very worried so I'm running my hand under water but it isn't really helping.  I was just kind of trying to ignore it.  Soon it was not very ignorable.  We needed to give them our spiritual thought though, so the mom had the good idea of bringing in a cup of water that I just stuck my hands in.  It helped for during the thought, but it kind of was getting hotter and hotter.  Pretty soon I was having to wave my hands all around to try and cool them off.  The thought went really well though! We talked about family scripture study and sang that really great children's hymn everyone loves that has two parts.
Meanwhile my hand has now gone from stovetop to campfire.  And getting progressively hotter.

Sister Hoffman and Sister McGhie

The daughter and dad start frantically googling what to do.  We try honey.  We try some dairy thing.  We try this paste.  We try this cream.  It hurts SO BAD!! I'm just like, Ogon, ogon, ogon, or fire fire fire.  Honey kind of helped though, so we pile on the honey then we pile into the car because Sister Hoffman needed to get to a first lesson with Sister Lundberg.  I feel bad--honey was everywhere!  I had to keep waving my hands around because it was so hot, and honey was literally flying.  It was in the daughter's hair and on their son's shirt and everyone was just kind of in a panic!  Luckily when we got in the car, I could stick my hands out the window.  After a minute there were quite a few little buggers stuck on the honey but I really could not care less.  It was a very traumatic experience.  And luckily for everyone except me, Sister Hoffman got it all documented, so photos coming soon (or never).  They drove me to the aptyeka and the dad is so fatherly, he just ran on in there and bought some crazy white foam stuff that is supposed to help burns.  It didn't really, but they did a really good job of making me feel taken care of!! Best family to be with in an emergency!

Sisters Lundberg, McGhie, Bradley, Jolley, Fairbanks, Hoffman, Coulsen and Marsh

As for the rest of the week, it's been splendid!  We have been showered with a ton of really awesome potentials!! We have a new investigator, Olia who is SO COOL!! She's 25, we've met twice now, and she came to church Sunday and liked it.  She's already started reading and praying on her own, and she is seriously one of the happiest people I've ever met--she is smiling probably 97% of the time.  She's so cute.  We also got two new investigators this morning--they're friends, and have been thinking a lot about religion for the last 6 months or so.  They're really sincere, and it was really good to be able to teach them.  It's really great--we've met 3 sets of friends who are interested in the last 2 days or so.  So we get to teach two people together, which is really different but pretty great.  Sister Lundberg is so great--I would never believe she's only on her 3rd transfer.  I love her!  We have some pretty good times.
We saw miracles this week!  One especially miraculous was when we went to search for a lady named Valentina who we met a few weeks ago.  We knew she lived in this one area, but there were like 7 or 8 buildings around, and so we just started knocking.  After a minute, we saw a few ladies over on a bench.  It was raining, so it was super weird they were out--they were like the only people in sight.  Sister L is like, hey let's ask them!  So we went over and WHOA it was Valentina! She was just like, moi devushki!  I am continuously amazed at all the incredible experiences we are blessed with.
Another miracle--I left my camera at the internet club..whoops!  Miracle: The center sisters went to go get it, doubtfully because they had had so many things lost and never returned there, they said a prayer before they went in and the man just handed it over, no big deal!!  I was, AM, so grateful!!
Man there are a ton of other great things that happened but as always I have no time.  Main things: I love it here.  I love the people.  I love the Book of Mormon!  I love the gospel and our Savior. I love feeling our Heavenly Father's hand in my life.
And I love you all!
Wow what a love-y message.

Today's quote: (thanks mom)
"In a very real sense, all we need to know is that God knows all."
Neal A. Maxwell

Isn't that kind of reassuring? I think so.

Love love love
Sister McGhie

PS: We helped a babushka carry a bag the other day and guess where it was from!? ALBERT HEIJN (or however you spell it).  Cool huh!!? Who would have thought an AH bag would have made it all the way to Volzhsky, Russia?  So random.