3.28.10

Hello everyone -

I hope that you are having a wonderful week. I am and things are great here in Russia!! First I will answer all of your questions mom. Yeah you can add Ganbat Mandu on facebook. She is a member here in Irkutsk. She in an amazing girl!!! She was baptized a couple months ago and so now we are working with her on her after baptism lessons. For the school stuff that you have to take care of. Um my mission officially ends at the beginning of next January. I had told the nursing program that i would be back though to start that winter summer. If i stay until the end of my mission and go home when i am supposed to than i think the semester will have already started. I talked to president Trejo about it when i first got to russia, and he said I could home early to be there for school, but i dont think i want to do that. I want to stay until the end. So I probably wont start until the summer semester. Thats good too because it gives me time to study and remember what i had learned before and to get ready to start again. So thats what i think i will do.

My companion is Sister Reed. She is from Washington state and she is great. We are each others first american companions, so we like that. We understand american jokes and stuff haha!!!! She is a transfer younger than me. She is great and really loves this work and understands why she is a missionary. It has been great being with her.

So i finally got your Valentines package!!! HAHA i love getting the packages late, it makes things more fun. So i get to have holidays twice!!! I loved the package and all the valentines from everyone and i loved the american candy!! I miss american candy :) In russia they have sneakers and twix and thats about it, there is other good candy here though. By the way Amy and Katie Wilson you both asked if i got your letters, yes I did and I LOVED them. Thanks for sending them. I only get mail when someone comes to Irkutsk from Novosibirsk which only happens like twice a transfer. So i love getting mail, cuz it doesnt happen much :)

Things are going great here in Irkutsk, time is flying by though. This transfer is almost half over already!!!! i cant believe it. Well here is Irkutsk there is 6 missionaries. My companion and I and 4 elders. There is also a senior couple, the Southam, who are from Colorado. The Southams are great and help us out alot. My russian is coming along. It is a very hard language so it does take time. I understand better than i can speak, but it is coming along. I know as i continue to study it the Lord will bless. The Lord has already helped me alot to do this work in the Russian language.

So that investigator that i told you about last well has kind of gone weird on us. She has a friend that is a member of our church, but she is not a very strong member and she still goes to other churches and had a lot of strange ideas. Well we think this member is talking to our investigator and scaring her about our church. We dont know forsure but this investigator went all of a sudden from being way excited to meet with us a talk to us about the gospel to not showing up to meetings and making things alot harder. We are hoping things will work out and that we can meet with her again and help her feel the spirit and the truthfulness of our message. So keep Nadia in your prayers please. We have a couple other investigators that are great but really busy and we cant meet with them enough, so their progression is very slow right now. We are trying to find new investigators, we have some great contacts that we are hoping will turn into new investigator.

Next week we have zone conference again! Yup already! I am excited, they are always great. President will be in town for a few weeks!!! YAY im so excited.

Well im sorry i cant really think of much more to say. Sorry if this letter is a little boring!! I have to go though because we have a meeting with a lady that will hopefully be a new investigator for us!! Thanks for all you love, support, and prayers. They are well needed.

I love you all,

Sister Gneiting