BE RUSSIAN

Hello dear family and friends. Here is a saying we saw at the Elders apart. in Sochi, 'DON'T BE AFRAID TO FORGET ABOUT AMERICA, AND BE RUSSIAN FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS'! Soooo, on our train ride back in the dark, Lee had a little piece of waste paper and threw it out the window!!!! But, these people throw bottles, and bags of trash out the windows, really. I have even thrown my gum into a trash pile alongside the walks. Wow!! We went to a marriage reception for Lera and Denis Friday night. They had a few friends and his family over, and boy was her food delicious. We wanted to take something and was told that flowers were the only thing appropriate, so the sister miss. and I went and bought a pretty bouquet and i bought a vase too. the elders said after i bought them, "How many roses?" 5 I said were in it. Whew! they said, because you have to give odd count of roses to anything but a funeral and have to give even then. Did we luck out!!!
We went to Sochi this weekend and had reservations at a hotel we stayed at last time. we only had copies of our passports and visas, as the originals were up at the office in Rostov being organized so we can get visas renewed in a 3 day trip, later. long story how it is being done. anyway they had to have our orignials. so we get there, and they won't let us check in without the original, cause our copy was too lite, and they said no even if we had a better one faxed down. so we stayed with the 2 elders, another experience. but it was nice, and i was able to make them a couple of meals as they are so busy. made us really appreciate more, what the missionaries have to put up with, it's amazing!!!!
We met a lady on the train, and had fun trying to talk with her, and she lives here in Krasnodar, gave us her phone # and we will get the missionaries to translate for us. She seemed kind of sad when she was telling us abt. her son and wife, and 1 grandson. then she told us her husband died 9 years ago, so she works 2 jobs to keep busy. It will be great to visit with her and a translator.

We came in abt. 10:30 last night and wanted to catch a tramvi to get back to our place. we were on the way to a stop for it, and one was coming behind us, so grandpa starts running and pulling it, and i had a large purse on one shoulder, and a heavy bag with computer on the other. We RAN, and my sandals kept slipping and the bag was heavy so i unloaded the water bottles, threw them in a trash can, but missed, and kept running, and we jumped on as the doors were closing. THAT probably didn't look like a refined missionary couple!!!!!!! Ya, who ever said we were.
English Club went well, and we met some really neat people. Will have it on Thurs. evenings. We are supposed to LISTEN to the advanced students, and just have them talk about any subject they want too, and help them. But, when they found out we didn't speak Russian, they all voted to be in the medium class, wonder why????? 2 were there who are just learning and they have a class. so will be fun to be in with the missionaries, not so scarry!!

This is from grandpa . Grandma didn't tell you that she wouldn't let me get a taxi to come home in the middle of the night and it would have taken us right to our aprt. steps. But we have monthly tramvi passes and we only had to carry bags and pull luggage in the dark passed drunk homeless people for about four blocks to get to the tramvi and about the same from the tramvi to our aprt. and we thought it was the last tramvi running for the night . If we missed it we had about A five mile walk . so I didnt want to miss it. so when I seen it comeing I told her we had to run . We still had a block or so to go when she said she couldn't run any more .I told her to give me her bag but when I would slow down to get it so would she so I ran faster. I though if she knew she had to make the walk by her self she woulden't give up and she didn't. But I thought she was going to for awhile . I though to myself I have got to feed her something beside lettuce so she has more go power. Any way we made it home and we saved eight dollers. I guess that is one of the reasons I love her so much .
From grandma now, HA HA HA! isn't grandpa funny? Love all of you and have a great week. I get my package Wed. YAAAA. Grandma and funny grandpa