Made it to Russia

How's it going all! Right now it's a little hard to type because my hands are still super cold haha today it's been like -10  -15 ish C. pretty cold! I still haven't gotten a coat or hat or anything I am borrowing a coat from an elder that is in Kazakhstan right now where it is warm and just that scarf you gave me and one of my comp's gloves. We are going shopping right after we get done with this! So that will be nice. All the babushkas here get mad at me because I'm not wearing a shapka and I'm going to get sick. oh and p.s. yesterday was the Russian mother's day! So Happy Mother's day! So my first area is Omsk! Wednesday night we took a nine hour night train to Omsk. My trainer's name is Elder M! He is from Kaysville. He is the best! He is awesome. This is only his third transfer too which is crazy. He first served in Novokuznetsk. I still am not sure how to spell most things in English from Russian haha so bear with me if it's different every email or something. That's the area that Elder N got shipped off to. So we got here at 8 I think in the morning on Thursday and then we took a little nap until 1 then went to Thanksgiving. We went to the apartment of one of the sister's here and it was SUPER nice. haha it was crazy. We were all blown away that it was under 20,000 rubles a month and their bathtub looked like a time machine. Crazy stuff anyway, Thanksgiving was way good! We all brought a few things and made some things. It was awesome. There are two districts here in Omsk so we combined for that. There are two sets of elders and a set of sisters in each district then after Thanksgiving we went out and did some work! We do a lot of contacting. We did a little knocking on Thursday but that's about it. not so much of that. We set up a lot of meetings with people but they rarely work out. So that's kind of frustrating but it's awesome when it works out! We met a guy Saturday at a bus stop and he didn't have a phone number for us to call him and remind him or set up an appointment so we just had him show up at the branch Sunday at two, right after church got over. And he showed up! It was awesome! So we taugt the first lesson and we have another meeting tonight so hopeful he remembers and shows up again. He is awesome. His name is sergei. Just about everyone here has the same name. Like five are super common. So it's crazy. You can meet like 5 Antons in one day haha it's hard to keep them apart. Church on Sunday was awesome! It was the primary program. It was awesome. The kids here are the best! All the members are super nice too. It's just a nice little community here. Even on the streets you can meet some really nice people. A lot of sketchy ones too. We have had some near confrontation moments here already haha it's always a little sketchy but usually one of their friends hold them back. so it's all good. No attacks yet. Grocery shopping we will do next. We are like out of food at our appartment so we have had pasta and cereal every day but it's good! We throw in some chicken or beef, cheese, tomato sauce, it's always good stuff. The food here is pretty good. On Wednesday at the restaurant they took us all to a Ukrainian elder who is new with all of us. He had this dish that he made us try that's like pig fat jello. It was interesting. Super chewy haha and there was like a spicy horseradish mayo sauce you could put it in. So I tried all that and I turned out alright. So I think I will be good haha. The food here isn't too bad. Glad Thanksgiving was good back home! Ya I bet you have seen on the webcams but it's basically snowed everyday since we have been here haha it's crazy. and yesterday it was like -2 or something and all the Russians would just go off about how warm it was haha the people here are funny. Very talkative if you engage in a convo with them. Some guy talked my ear off for a good five or so minutes when we were English contacting on Saturday and talked about Russia Germany and the U.S. like their economy, politics, education system, language haha it was weird. I kept trying to like sneak away because he said he wasn't interested in our English practice and meanwhile all these people were passing buy if my comp was getting someone else's number, it was funny. English contacting was fun haha we just asked if people knew English and if they said yes we would just say  hi, how are you, where are you from, what's your name, all that stuff. It was funny to hear them and all that. Now I know what I look like to them haha they ask how I am and I sit there for like a minute to try and remember the answer haha. They speak sooooo fast here. and super slurry so it's hard to get stuff. I can pick out a lot of words but there are still a lot that I don't know/can't understand that they are using. but it's all good! My comp always bails me out but I get super nervous if he is doing something else or talking with someone else but it all works out usually. Sometimes they get mad at us and tell us to go back to America haha like yesterday we met a guy and he knew English super good so he would speak back to us in English when we spoke Russian and all the people on the bus got super mad at him and told him to speak Russian and not betray his country and to stop talking to us and all that haha it was crazy and then that night we saw him again at the same bus stop! Small world and he was with his girlfriend who spoke English way good too. He is super nice. He believes there's a God but just not that we need to really do anything about it like read the bible or go to church or anything. We tried to convince him otherwise but he wasn't having it. He was still super nice and fun to talk to though. Our appartment is pretty small and ghetto. Glenwood status probably a little more ghetto though haha but it's called the madhouse because it's just super weirdly designed and has weird decor and all that but it's sweet. I guess the landlord wants 4000 more rubles a month for it so we have to find a new place sometime soon. So we are working on that too. Haven't fallen on the ice yet! (knock on wood) had some close calls though haha and we haven't gotten too lost yet. We still make it home on time or to our appointment on time haha. I'm trying to think what all else there is. The tea here is pretty good. Me and M had some for dinner the other night. Super good but ya yesterday for priesthood I had no idea what was going on haha it was bad. The teacher spoke super super fast. I think he was talking about the still small voice but I'm still not sure. He was reading someone's talk but I don't know whose it was haha it was nuts and I thought Gospel Doctrine in English was hard from time to time. Class was crazy! We were talking about judgement day and the degress of glory haha it was nuts. I did raise my hand though and tried to summarize outer darkness not sure how much was understandable but I tried anyway haha. So our travels here were a little crazy. So our plane in New York got delayed. We got on it but on the runway they had something wrong with the pressurization thing or something so like two hours later after trying to fix it they kicked us off in this little bus thing and back to the terminal. I'm pretty sure that everyone spoke Russian as their first language but us so that was a little wild. We definitely started to realize we were going to be foreigners. So we waited like three more hours for our plane. We called the travel office and they said they would call Moscow and let them know when to pick us up. We get there and no one is there. So we wait like an hour and no one shows up. So we set out to find a calling card and that takes like an hour because well none of us know Russian haha so we call Gibbons and I guess because we have a three year passport we didn't need to go to the embassy and just no one told us that. so the Samaran elder missed his flight already at this point because it was super early and then we still had a couple hours until ours came. So it was crazy and then somehow in Moscow after security we lost one of the sisters so we tried to find her forever and her ticket told her a different gate and she was waiting there and so we had to figure that out too with our limited Russian. It was madness. but we made it haha that's all that matters. Well I think that's all I have time for. Talk to you all next week!

Love Elder Nielsen