Hello Again! (March 7, 2007)

Well, I hope everyone had a good week; ours was all right here. Our investigators are slowly flaking out on us, which isn't good, and it doesn't help that Elder Hanson's going home in approximately 11 days and is working with both feet in the grave (so to speak). However, I'm still plugging away, and I definitely see improvement with my Ukrainian, which is nice to be able to see.

My birthday was pretty good, as it turns out. The day before, as it turns out, was Elder Hanson's birthday, and that night we had an English class where, at the end, they threw a surprise birthday party for both of us. It was a lot of fun. Then, on my actual birthday, we went to the family whose house we're helping to build, and they made actual American-style brownies, which were EXCELLENT. Most people here don't like brownies; they say that they taste like burnt cake. I say, maybe they do, but it's a GOOD taste.

A week or so ago, Sister Davis--our mission president's wife--told us that today we'd be having an apartment inspection, which sounds like a nerve-wracking/generally not fun thing, but as it turned out, it involved us going to the mission home in Center ("Center" meaning "downtown"), eating an actual home-cooked breakfast by Sister Davis, getting a ride in their car (it's amazing how nice riding in a car feels after months of trolley buses and metros), and a five minute inspection that we passed quite well (except for our fridge...we had a power outage for a couple days recently in our building, and someone--ie, Elder Hanson--left the fridge partly open, which led to a little bit of a mess).

Other than that, everything's going well. We're actually getting some warmer weather, which is really nice, except that in Ukraine, everyone dresses for the season instead of for the weather, so we still have to wear big, heavy coats or else we'll get yelled at by babushki (which, by the way, happens a LOT).

Well, I love you all, and I'll write you again next week!
Love,
--Elder Brett

PS--We've been asked to start using only our myldsmail email addresses, at least for the time being, so if it's all right, please write me at that one. Thanks!