Dear family and friends,

Hello from Voronezh, Russia! We've been here now for three weeks and it feels like it's been a year. I don't know if the time is flying by or dragging. We have done so much and been so busy and it's only been three weeks. It's amazing.

This week started out with the Mission Christmas party in Moscow. It was a wonderful time for us and I sent a letter to all the missionary moms whose sons are serving in the Russia Moscow West Mission telling them about the party and how much we loved meeting their sons. I've added that letter as an attachment to this email, you're welcome to read it if you'd like.

We flew there on Sunday night, spent the night with our new friends the Hatch's, who we met at the MTC. Dr. Hatch is the new Dr. for the Europe East area. They are very fun people, live in a beautiful apartment in Moscow and went with us to the Mission Party. We spent all day at the party and then flew home that night. The one hour flight is so nice compared to the 11 hour drive and 9 hour train ride.

Tuesday and Wednesday we shopped and decorated our new apartment. We are feeling very comfortable here in our tiny little home and are quite happy. The biggest adjustment for me has been getting used to the quiet. I don't know why that's so hard, but I don't like too much quiet. I need noise, or music, or someone talking to not feel lonely. Luckily we downloaded a few songs on our computer before we left. We've listened to the same songs a hundred times, but it's still pretty music. Our Russian tutor has been on vacation for the last two weeks, so we haven't been able to get our phone hooked up or add wifi to our computer. She does all that for us in her name, so when she gets back this week, we'll get that done and be able to download more things. I'm sure all you computer people can tell that I don't know what I'm talking about, but that's my understanding of why nothing works here yet. And. . .we've been too busy for me to try and learn how to put pictures on again, so you'll have to be patient with me for a while. Sorry! But I will tell you that the buildings in this country are amazing! The Stalin era was a time of billions of dollars and man power to build absolutely gorgeous buildings (while all the people suffered and starved). The architecture and designs are so beautiful and ornate. I love it! And everything that people say about the subways in Moscow are true. They are beautiful. They are filled with ornate architecture, statues, carvings, pictures and beautiful walkways. There's a lot of them and it's easy to get mixed up and lost, but there's a lot of beautiful things to look at while you're lost.

Wednesday the new Sister Missionaries arrived and we welcomed them here and helped them get settled. Sister Oakes is from Salt Lake and has been here for 18 months. She asked to extend for another transfer (6 weeks) so she is training the new missionary, Sister Owens, who just arrived from the MTC. Sister Owens is from St. George. Both girls are darling, excited and love missionary work. It's fun to see both extremes and see the commitment from both of them. Their first day they went out knocking on doors and singing Christmas Carols to people. Neither of them knew their way around but just went out and did it. I'm amazed.

On Thursday we spent the day with two of the Elders and one of their investigators (Max) at a Winter Camp that Max works at. The kids here are on vacation from school, so these kids were spending a week at this camp to practice their English. Max comes to our English Club on Friday nights, so he asked us if we would come and talk to the kids about life in America. It reminded me of an EFY or a youth conference. They lived in a dorm, had activities planned all day every day, ate in the dining hall and looked like they were having a great time. We talked about our "big"
family and they wanted to know why so many Americans have big families and how we raise them and afford them. We showed them our family pictures and talked about some of our family traditions and said we couldn't afford them, but our family is the most important thing to us and we wouldn't trade our children for a better job, house or car (some days). They were all amazed and thought it was pretty neat.

Friday night the Woolleys arrived for the weekend. Our apartment isn't big enough to house people, so they stayed in a hotel, but we spent the weekend together.

Saturday we had a Zone Conference with our 6 missionaries, 2 missionaries from another town about an hour and a half away (who are in our zone) us and the Woolleys. It was about three hours, I fixed lunch for all of us and then we had a choir practice with the Branch members. I play the piano for the choir, all of the missionaries make up most of the choir, and the Woolleys sang with us. We practiced for about an hour and then helped set up the Church for our Branch Christmas party. (Our second Branch Christmas Party). They had a nice Christmas program, dinner and lots of visiting. We had about 60 people there - which was a great turnout. It was nice to have President and Sister Woolley there. They love the Branch members and know almost all of them. The Woolleys really are wonderful people and we had a great weekend with them. They took us out to dinner Saturday night and told us more about our responsibilities here. They have big expectations for us here and there is a lot that they want us to do. They know we have humanitarian responsibilities too, so we'll have to figure out how to juggle both jobs. Should be interesting and a LOT of work.

Today is Sunday. The Woolley's came over for dinner after Church before their long 6-8 hour drive back to Moscow. I realized quickly that all the traveling and training and business that we have had the last three weeks is NOTHING compared to what they do every week. Their mission is so big that they are traveling almost every week. They don't have a home ward because they are somewhere different every weekend. I will take our job over theirs any time. Sundays are a nice relaxing day for us. Our young missionaries are out contacting and teaching all day, but we get to rest up for the coming week.

We're loving it here. I don't feel like we've really started yet, but we're getting into the groove a little more.

We love all of you and love hearing from you. Keep sending your emails and facebook updates. It's fun to see and hear about everything back home. Have a wonderful week, stay warm, and share the Gospel with someone you know.

Love,
Elder and Sister Frost