Transfers!

hello!
I've been in Russia for a full cycle now! 6 weeks.... that’s hard to believe it’s been that long. And yet, it seems much longer. Time is a funny thing, SO..... End of the cycle... transfers. I am staying here in bezimonski. However, my trainer elder crookston is not. I'm a little excited about this. I like elder crookston, but I’m a little tired of feeling like a trainee. He also likes to carry the load of the work, which doesn’t allow for me to work out my missionary muscles and grow. let alone my weak language muscles. But he's going and I'm going to be required to do a lot more of the work since my new comp won’t know the area, BUT I DO! sorta. I'm excited for it. and what’s more, I'm getting elder Swainston!!!! That means nothing to pretty much everyone but me and him... but he was my companion in the mtc 3 days! I'm excited to work with him and i feel like the Lord has a reason He wants us together.
So this morning was a little crazy with transfers. right now I’m with elder kazikov until swainston gets here in a day or two (he's coming from a pretty far away city) I like elder kazikov a ton too... on our 2 exchanges we've had we eat banana pancakes and it makes me happy :) I’m a little sad he's going to another city.... no more banana pancakes at his apartment.
Other good news, Our really good investigator came to church and set a baptismal date! His goal is to get baptized in 4 weeks, but we're thinking that that date will move up he is preparing well. He needs to find a new apartment and stop smoking before he'll be ready, but he seems like he'll do it. Our other 2 investigators we cant seem to get to church... sigh... so we're working on them.
story from this week.... on Friday we had to go out of our area to teach a man at his work. we left at 4 and traveled to his work. it took us forever to get there because of traffic and weird bus routes, but we finally got there. But.... he wasn't there and no one knew anything about him. dang. so we started heading home. Waited at a bus stop for a good 30-40 minutes without seeing a single bus. Finally we decided we would just take a trolley car about 3/4 of the way and just walk the rest. so we got on the trolley car and went about 2 blocks before it stopped. the conductor came out of her booth and told us all to get off. Something was weird and all the trolley cars were stopped in one spot. there were about 30 trolley cars lined up, with all the conductors standing around talking and a few policemen... not sure what that was about but then we just had to give up and walk. so finally we get back (4 hours all together) and we get a call from some other elders with a member from another town that is working in our area and wanted to introduce us to his friends. They're all construction workers building a huge apartment building and living in it while the build it. so we walked up 13 flights with him and came to this small square concrete room with a table built out of scraps and everyone sitting on bags of concrete mix. felt like a treehouse club meeting. in the room were 2 americans, 2 russians, and 4 uzbekistans. religions were 3 mormons, 1 Jehovah's wittness, 1 russian orthodox, and 3 muslims. ages ranging from 20 to 60. strange little group. we had a good discussion with all of them and 3 of them seemed rather interested. they want us to come back and teach them, and they want to feed us plov. i'm a little scared... sanitary issues. I'm thinking we wont.
well, time is up i just realized. theres finally snow on the ground... its slippery. time to break out the thermals.
sorry this letter was a little scattered brained... i didnt take notes this week.
love you all!
love elder ellis.