Sunrise, sunset

Well, another week and passed and Thanksgiving is now gone and it is hard to believe that November is almost over. This week Sister Rasmussen hits her year mark. 

Now for our investigators: Maria, our Filipino, passed her baptism interview and will be baptized on December 11! I am pretty excited for her. Her baptism will be on a Sunday so we will see how many people will come just because we only have one baptismal fount and it is a little ways away.

Valeria is doing great and wants to be baptized. We set a date for the 24th of December (News Years is a bigger holiday than Christmas. There are giant Christmas trees but they are New Year's trees) but that might get changed due to other mission plans. But Valeria is great and the more I teach her the more excited I am for her and the more I grow to love her. In our area we have been blessed with some investigators who had been prepared by their member friends. I am lucky that I get to be apart of their preparation for baptism. 

Thanksgiving was great. Sister Rasmussen and I went over earlier in the morning to help Sister Hatch get cooking. I'll admit I had a lot of fun just preparing the food and spending time preparing a big dinner. Since we only have an hour for lunch and dinner I need to think up quick meals that are also nutrious. At noon we were all gathered together and ate. It was good. The star was the stuffing (but I'm biased because that's my favorite part). After eating we had dessert and then cleared the table and pulled out the pool table. The Hatch's dinner table is actually a pool table. We played while the elders rearranged some furniture and everyone weighed themselves. Then we got permission from President to watch Cars 2. Since it was the first movie I have seen in almost 8 months it was great. It also reminded me a lot of Elliott and his love for Cars. 

Thanksgiving was great but I'll admit that I did not like the days leading up to it because everyone kept talking about it and getting so excited. Anytime we talked to other missionaries all they could talk about was Thanksgiving. It was fine but I did not want to focus so much on Thanksgiving that I got distracted. And of course, Thanksgiving went so fast and then it was back to work as normal. It was very nice

As for other things that have happened this week... we had a zone conference. It was good and I felt more committed to doing better. Afterwards my companion had a slight breakdown so we worked through that and there were a few rough days but things are better now. We are also working on finding and making contact with less active members. One answered the door and let us in and she ended up talking to us for 40 minutes by her door. Thankfully, we know a lot more about her and all in all it was one of the most successful finding less actives has been. 

Oh! I almost forgot! I have a nickname. There is an old lady in our ward who is wheelchair bound. She is known for giving everyone nicknames and we went by with the elders and took her shopping. She saw my hair and immediately deemed me "Goldilocks". Then she kept asking where things were and I helped her find them so she changed my name to "Goldibrains". Later on she looked at my companion and decided her name would be "Huck Finn" and then wondered if she should change it to Tom Sawyer but then decided that I would be Tom Sawyer and Sister Rasmussen would be Huck Finn. Later on during our trip Sister Rasmussen became Jane Eyre. 

It has snowed a few times but it hasn't stuck for more than a day. It is pretty dark in the morning and we don't see light until about 9 or 10am. But we have pulled out our winter boots, mainly because it is muddy and you get strange looks from the Russians. But the metro is pretty hot and all the Russians keep their coats on even in the sweltering metro. 

That has been about it for the past week. It is hard to describe everything. Time is flying by. I am loving my time here and still trying to make every minute count. Time goes by so quickly and is so precious. We also got the General Conference Liahona issues yesterday and Elder Holland's talk was very interesting and made me want to recommit to being better and opening my mouth more. 

Thank you for all the emails, letters, and packages. They mean a lot and always have a special place in my heart. Thank you for all your support and prayers. I am grateful for the opportunity to be here but more importantly I am so thankful for Jesus Christ and his Atonement. Without Him none of this would be possible.