Last Week in Nakhodka

My week was good! We had a big meeting for all the missionaries in a city about 300 miles away on Tuesday. We had planned to take a train Monday night after our preparation day. While we were writing home, we received a call saying the trains weren't working from Nakhodka and that we wouldn’t make it to the meeting the next day on time. We came up with a plan to take a bus to a smaller city about an hour away, and in that city there should be a train to take us the rest of the way. We cut our emailing time in half, and ran on over to the bus stop to make that bus. We rode for an hour and got to the smaller town. There we took another bus from the bus station to the train station. When we got to the train station we learned that our information was wrong and no trains were running at all that night. Oh great! Haha

 So we had two options. Take a train back to Nakhodka or take a taxi the rest of the way. We decided to take a taxi the rest of the way. We called every taxi company we knew, and about 5 of them said they would pick us up, but none of them showed up. As soon as the train headed to Nakhodka showed up, and we were going to get on it to go home, the taxi showed up!  We sat in a taxi for the next 3 hours and slept over in the other city:) Everything worked out eventually, but that is why I didn't have any time to write last week!  Sorry:)

It is so weird to think that the last quarter of school is starting soon! Time flies really. I am proud of Cameron on straight A's! I don’t think I have done that in a while! Very impressive :)

The wonderful sister missionaries here in Nakhodka made some pie for Pi day! Very tasty:) I have only quoted Pi 2 or 3 times on the mission thus far. Not many people seem to care... haha I need to learn it in Russian!

This is Holodets. Meat jello! I had it for the first time this week:) Very much what I expected. It has meat chunks in it. If you take a bite and there are meat chunks in your bite, then all is well. If you just get empty jello, then it tastes very odd and not good.  Meaty jello... gross.. hahaa

This week we didn't have a whole lot happen. We saw that group of preachers and church-goers from last week again. They were asking me a ton of questions about what I was doing here, who paid, how I like Russia, and what we believe. I told them, and gave every single one of them a pamphlet with our information on it. I even gave a couple of them some Articles of Faith. My plan was to baptize this whole church but it turns out I won’t have time to do that. I have to do more work in Angarsk.
 

I am excited to go to Angarsk;  it is as far away as I can get from Nakhodka.  Everybody says it is the best. I heard our mission is the most expensive mission because travel costs are extremely high. I should be able to send some Korean pictures next P-day.  I will be going to South Korea before my transfer and right after Korea is a 6 hour plane ride to Angarsk. I am excited.   Everybody says they love serving there. I have no clue what to expect. It is Siberia. Hopefully I stay warm! I still haven't used any of the thermals I brought :) Nakhodka is super warm. 

Snowwwwwwwwww!

I don’t exactly know what else is new! We are trying to help one of our investigators quit smoking. He wants to go to MIT but we aren't too sure if he knows everything that entails. But that isn't our problem. We are telling him that MIT is expensive and if he wants to go to school there he will have to save up his money. He needs to quit smoking and use that money to pay for MIT instead of smoking... I think it is a good plan :) Check back in a month or so!

This week was a bit of a boring week, but this upcoming week will be a bunch of traveling. CRAZY. Wish me luck:)

I love you all! The next time you hear from me, I will be in SIBERIA.

Stay Frosty,

Elder Gardner