Will miss my old comps who are going home.

My watch was stolen when I fell asleep, back when I was companions with Elder Anthony coming back from Vyborg. I just kept forgetting to tell you until now. Elder Anthony was sitting on the seat behind me, and it was a 3 hour bus ride, so he dozed off too. Our belongings were safe, except for my watch...that I was wearing.

Thank you for the birthday gift! Also tell Grandma and Grandpa thank you too! That was really nice of them! You all didn't have to do anything for me! Thank you, I appreciate it.

We live about 25-30 minutes away from the other Elders, but our apartment building looks pretty nice on the outside, as we live above a business. You also can't tell how the apartment is inside from the outside, here in Russia.

 

I didn't know that Grisha's wife was expecting a baby! That's really cool! He called me after his temple trip to tell me that he bought me root beer and peanut butter from Finland and he wants to give it to me the next time he sees me. I will have to congratulate him on that! Grisha is the best. ha ha.

 

We will be having General Conference in 2 weeks, as they have to translate it into Russian.

 

Not alot has happened since Thursday... We did have a shocking experience that I didn't have time to tell about last week. We were walking down a street contacting, and we went around a building and immediately saw a group of people standing around a lady who you could tell was dead. There were a lot of policemen there, and they were looking for some sort of identification on her while all these people were standing around watching. We didn't go over too close, so we just walked around and we were both very quiet for a while and kind of shocked. We just thought about it for a little bit and knew that she was in a better place now, and then we felt peaceful about the whole thing. We are fine with it now, but at the time it was pretty shocking. I have been to funerals and had a lot of medical classes that helped prepare me for it. The biggest shock was just not expecting to see something like that. Elder Ash is okay too he says. He handled it really well.

 

Today we will be looking at some of the sights in St. Petersburg, with a lot of Elders who are going home at the end of the transfer. It will be weird to see them go! Will really miss my old companions, Elders Berven and Anthony; Broadhead, and Nelson... Weird.

 

Well, I'm out of time. I love you! God be with you unitl we meet again!

Love,

Blake