RUSSIA WEEK 6

(No letter last week.  We got a phone call instead!)

Happy new years! с новым годом! Christmas was great and it is still being celebrated here in Russia. It was so awesome to talk to you guys although the camera we have is garbage so I had to be a foot away from it so you could hear me.. Oh well. And of course as soon as I hung up I thought of more things that I wanted to tell you! Maybe on Mother's day. I am glad you all had a great Christmas and I didn't know that all the the Allens would be there, that is so awesome. And it is weird because the last memory I have with you guys is the Grand Canyon so that is what is fresh in my mind and when dad said something about it being last summer that seemed weird to me. Because it seems like just yesterday that we were there.
 
 It was a good week here in Volzsky, and it warmed up a ton! Then it started snowing again on saturday so I guess winter isn't over yet? I figured I will be just fine in the shoes I have so you don't need to worry, I'll be fine. And mom I'll answer the questions you had: the branch building is only a 5 min. walk from our dome and it is in a two story office type building. The church owns or rents the second floor. There is no branch mission leader that I know of, because the branch is so small. There isn't even a full Branch presidency.

 And Elder Reed is cool, he is from Logan Utah and plays basketball and has been on his mission for a year and a half. The elders in center Volgograd are also super cool, elder miller from my mtc group and elder Sprouse. They are both dang funny and it was fun being over there for Christmas. We were planning on going there tonight for new years but that isn't going to work out.
 
The branch is doing a Christmas party on Wednesday so that will be fun. The missionaries are in a choir type thing with some of the younger members of the branch. It should be pretty fun, we are singing some Christmas songs and there may be costumes involved-- I'm not sure haha. But it's cool because I feel like every christmas season I don't understand why we really celebrate Christmas and then it always hits me right in an instant, and I kind of feel the true meaning behind the holiday. ha that sounds kind of strange when I write it down, but anyway when we were practicing our songs we sang Silent Night in Russian, and just while we sang it felt so awesome and I thought about Christ's birth and what a blessing that was to the world. It reminded me of a really long time ago, like when I was a little kid when we sang Silent Night in German at a Christmas party. I don't even remember why we sang that back then, especially in German but that has been a cool memory ever since we did that years ago.
 
Also happy birthday to Hunter and Taylor! Go make it a new years to remember.
 
We are still doing missionary work here during the holidays, although it is getting cold so nobody wants to talk to us. So we planned to contact all of the less active members in the branch and reach out to them, and also see if they might know anyone who would be interested in the gospel. Hopefully it is successful, I feel like it will be more so than talking to people on the streets, but we will see.

  Sorry for such a long and boring letter. I still enjoy doing this, it helps me feel Christ's love for people and see people in a light that I never have before. I love you all and hope you have a fun new years!

Scott
PS Oh also I will get dearelders on Wednesday or Thursday so tell people to write! (go to dearelder.com, click on write a letter, choose Rostov-na-dona Russian Mission, and write him a letter!  It will be  printed and delivered to the mission home and then to him! no stamp or address necessary!)