Monday, February 27, 2012

Legendary Red Lada....

Typing up all the essays took up all my time to write home this week, (working on an application for BYU), but I'll try to be a little less brief than a few weeks ago.We are finally seeing a little success after having a special fast to help us find people to teach. So it's been a pretty good week. It's been warming up and snowing a lot lately. I think the legendary red lada outside of our apartment will finally get completely buried. I've come to realize how much the members here could benefit from studying the scriptures to learn their doctrine ("some" just like to make their own up...)
Transfers are coming up the end of this week... we're getting nervous.
If I'm here another cycle I'm going to try to learn a good amount of tatar. I wanted so badly to check this language on the application.
I found it funny that i couldn't find Russian in the P languages... (P is the equivalent of R is Pycckuu)
well, that's the time i got
love you!
love elder Ellis

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Chirping Crows!

Hey family!
I'm glad you finally got a little bit of snow in Missouri! Ours here is starting to go away a little bit.. But it's not melting yet. They’ve just been chipping the ice of the sidewalks to reveal that we've been walking a good 14 inches off the ground the last month or so. It is getting warmer as well. The sun has been shining through the smoggy air, (we come in every night with our coats smelling like campfire) and the crows are chirping at the pigeons more. We're not having very much success in the work lately. Really not much at all, but hopefully that'll get changing soon.
When all you do is missionary work, and you don't have any one to teach, there's not a whole lot to talk about.I guess on the bright side... i have more time to read your emails. So I’ll just start replying to those more. or maybe we'll start having some success!
Well, gotta go
love, Elder Ellis

Monday, February 13, 2012

Mexican...

Sorry about last week's lack of a letter. I didn't have any time because i was trying to help my companion figure out how to send some pictures and then realized i had less than a minute left for my e-mail. Sorry.
Fortunately i didn't have much to say anyway! I guess that's not too fortunate, but at least you weren't left out.It's actually not been too terribly cold lately. it has been sunny and -12 over the weekend and it was pretty nice. Today jumped down to -24, but tomorrow should be back up to -14. This is a really mild winter for Russia. I think it’s because all the cold escaped over to the other European countries. They're suffering... but the Russians are enjoying the lovely spring weather. (Russian spring = normal Missouri winter) Last year at this time i remember it being around -30, with -36 being the lowest.
We haven't really had anyone to teach lately. We haven't been finding (even at -12 no one wants to stand around talking on the street) and all of our investigators we had high hopes for are just kinda busy. "Nothing happens in missionary work until you find someone to teach"... this has been holding through pretty well. I have the feeling i might be getting the ax at the end of this cycle. I’m ok with that i guess. I have to get cut off sometime, better when it's numb!
I was so excited to hear that our neighbor is from Kazan! And she knows tartan?! I'm so excited to talk to her! I only know a handful of tartan words (mostly from the announcements on the bus) but everyone says tartan is an easy language, and Americans can have good accents because we have the c'A't sound that not many languages do.
I had a visa trip this last week to Kiev. We didn't get to go to the temple, but i did work it out where i sat next to Elder Bearden on most the flights, so i was happy. And president bought us all TGI Fridays in the airport. i had some Spppiicccy wings. They were ok. i can tolerate spicy now. On the last flight i was sitting between 2 people speaking French to each other. Couldn’t understand a word! It’s weird to think that's what Russian used to be like for me.
This week the branch is having Mexican night... should be interesting. I'm not expecting any good Mexican food. but we're going to make enchiladas the day after to help our disappointed stomachs.
Well, that's they time i have this week!
Love you!
Love Elder Ellis!

Monday, February 6, 2012

Not much this week...

Hello family!
So my internet time kinda got taken up this week so I will have to write next week!
All is going well though :)
love you!