Petting Lions...

If you’re expecting to read anything spiritual or about Russia in this letter, you might as well stop reading now.
WE WENT TO THE ZOO THIS WEEK!!!!
I'm pretty sure I was the MOST excited person on that half-acre lot. Most of the kids got bored after about 40 minutes, but I for one was sad to leave after being there for 2 hours. The highlights of the small zoo included a HUGE brown bear, a big ol' lion, a black panther, a biting fox, and the squirrel cage. I’ve never seen a squirrel cage in a zoo. The zoo itself wasn't much of a zoo... it had more the feeling of a petting zoo than anything else. In fact, I’ve been to better petting zoos. The biggest draw-back was that you couldn't actually pet any of the animals. I did attempt to pet the fox... and he did attempt to bite me. But i was too fast. I tried to get a good picture with the lion... but couldn't get close enough. At one point he knocked his tray of meat out of his cage and let out quite the load roar for such a little room. I was half convinced there was a dinosaur in there. The most entertaining was the big fat bear. Pretty much the size of the big bear that sits in the gift shop at silver dollar city. If you threw him food he would catch it in his mouth. I was interested to see if he would eat other things if we gave them a good toss... but i decided that probably wasn't the best idea.
I do want a pet squirrel when i get home after seeing the squirrel exhibit. Owen and i can catch a skunk pretty well... i think we're going to have to go squirrel trappin'.
This next week Elder Zwick from the 1st quorum of the 70 is coming to zone conference, and President Schweitzer from the eastern European region will be along with him. excited to learn some stuff from them. We should also be finding out about transfers sometime this week as well. I'm interested to see if I’ll be getting transferred. My companion has started making no bake cookies several times a week. I'll be a little sad when one of us goes.
Yesterday was a hay-day at church. 5 investigators showed up, and we had a really good fast and testimony meeting. The rest of church was... well... I’m just glad a few investigators could only stay for the first hour. I'm counting down the Sundays until i get to take an after church nap. Not really... but i am looking forward to that day.
Well, that's my time. ('hit the road jack' just started playing on the guy's computer next to me.)
love you!
love,
Elder Ellis