The "First" Day of Spring

2 Pairs of Winters Boots
3 pairs of EXTREMELY warm wool socks (thanks mom and Sarah and Devin)
4 Pairs of gloves lost, dirty, or covered in holes
2 FULL boxes of Herbal Tea
23 Falls on the ice and snow
1 Missionary "Christmas" tree
2 packets of HOTTIES hand warmers
Countless number of times sitting in the snow when things just didn't go our way
6 pairs of tights with HOLES everywhere
Innumerable number of stairwells we stood in to get warm
One Full Winter in Russia---- PRICELESS

So the first day of Spring in Russia is officially March 1. I'm a little skeptical that "Spring has Sprung" but we'll see. The temperatures have been warmer (-4 avg.) and so we are excited to welcome in Spring. We are also very excited that "officially" winter is over. I hear that Russia will be beautiful in the Spring and so am very excited to see it!

Well all I can say this is week is "OH!!!" THis week! So much to write and not very much time but we will try!
1. TAYLOR! Congrats on BYU-- I am SOOOOOO excited that we will be there together and that we will be able to party at least one semester before you go on the adventure of your life- a mission. BYU is a special place, as cheesy as it sounds, and I am so happy we will get to be there together.
Well like I say this week has been interesting. We have seen a couple missionary miracles and had some of the missionary blues. As dad said in his talk "Oh there will be days" and I would like to expound on that by saying "oh there will be weeks". If something could go wrong, it did this week but we are still laughing, happy and seeing miracles. We had 5 lessons set up for this week with our investigators and new investigators and ALL 5 fell through. Awesome! But nevertheless, we were able to have some really good lessons this week and see some miracles with our investigators. We also were able to feed the squirrels in the park. In know this sounds strange but Russians are IN LOVE with squirrels and so it was pretty funny to watch my companion who was SO excited to feed the squirrels. They even sat on our hands which I thought was a little much but again, "when in Russia". The birds also realized we had sunflower seeds and so also landed on my hand and ate.

We were able to meet Natalya in the park this week for a "date". She has been living here for over 15 years and has never been Gradskoy Park a beautiful park in the middle of Saratov and in our area. So she called us this week on her way home from work and said "devchunki, let's meet in the park." We met and had a great time talking to her.
Thursday night we were able to meet with a new investigator Lidia Timofeevna. I have been calling her almost since I started working in this area. I met her on the street with Sister Pike (yeah, in October) and have called her almost every week to either meet or come to church and everytime she has had something to do, didn't want to or just wasn't intersted. BUT... she randomly came to church last Sunday! I was able to talk to her there and we set up a lesson for Thursday night (which actually worked). It was a great lesson with LUBA and we were able to talk about Joseph Smith adn give her a Book of Mormon. She said that she was unable to pray because God had enough to worry about without her concerns. I testified that he WANTS us to pray and listens and answers. We then tried to commit her to pray but she changed the subject immediately. I called her on Sunday to remind her about church and see how she was doing and... she had read the Book of Mormon EVERYDAY AND had PRAYED!!! I was so happy! We are so excited to keep working with her this week. I remember the first week I was here Valentina was explaining about the water in our house. In the mornings there isn't HOT water but you need to let the water run for a few minutes. She siad she usually gets up, turns on the water, does other things and then the water is hot. Being from the house of Tom, leaving the water is a big no-no but "when in Russia, do as the Russians do". So I learned how to have hot water on Sunday morning. Well, sometimes in life we also just need to "let the water run". After 3 months of calling I had all but given hope on my good friend Lidia but Heavenly Father knows and like the parable of the lost coin, will search and search and search, even if it takes 3 months. SO for everyone struggling with something or frustrated with life as it is right now remember the words of advice from Valentina. "MORRIS, you have to let the water run."
So everything is well and we are looking forward to a new week of MIRACLES and faith-filled finding and teaching. i love you all!
Sister Morris