May 16, 2011

Dear Family,

Wow now this email is already no fun to write because you know everything that happened. Darn that makes me sad I was excited to surprise you but oh well I'll still tell you a few things. Tallinn is very very beautiful. And probably the cleanest of all the cities I've been in (which is all of them except Narva). At the same time it's kind of depressing to be out of Daugavpils because I really really liked it there. I have so many new friends there that now I don't know if I'll ever see them again. And less people than anywhere else speak Russian here which is depressing. I've spoken more English to people in the last 3 days than I did in my whole 4 months in Daugavpils. Estonian is just a way crazy fairy language. I don't even know how to explain it. It's a lot like finish so it's one of the hardest languages in the world. It's not really anything like Latvian, Lithuanian, or Russian at all. But at the same time I'm way happy because I'm serving with Elder Koegler again!!! woohoo. I'm way happy, now I can finish my transfer with him that got cut short when I got sent down to Vilnius.
This week we've already had a few really cool adventures. We have an investigator that's going to be baptized in a couple weeks which is really cool. We also found a guy that we found on the street the day after I got here and he's also preparing for baptism and doing really well. He's already quit drinking, and he came to church yesterday so we're really happy. A cool miracle that happened with him was the second time we taught him and we wanted to talk about the Word of Wisdom. So as we were waiting for him on the street he came out and the first thing he said to us was "you know what I've been thinking about it, I really hate drinking I'm never going to drink again". I was also able to have my first baptismal interview as a district leader with a lady that's getting baptized this Saturday. It was really cool to talk to her and see how much the gospel has changed her life for the better. The Gospel really is happiness people just have to accept it.
Ok now I'll get to answering your other questions cause I don't have anything to say since you already know I'm here...
1. Is Estonian like Latvian or Lithuanian? I already answered this one... not at all haha.
2. Who is your new companion and where is he from? Elder Koegler! you already know about him haha.
3. How long has he been in the Baltics? he only has about 3 months left. I'm only one month behind where he was when he trained me... Isn't that crazy everything is going by so fast.
4. Where has your companion served before now? He's only served in Riga his whole mission until last transfer he moved up here.
5. How big is your district, and are there a lot of russians in Tallin? There are 6 missionaries in our District. Me, Elder Koegler, Elder Waddups, Elder Mock, Sister Grenavachutie, and Sister Uibel. It's already a lot of fun.
6. Is the food and culture the same as the other countries or is it a little different? Everything is quite a bit different here and I don't really know how to explain it. You'd just have to come here and see.
I also have some really bad news that you might get kind of upset over but it's all ok cause you lost my ski. I accidently broke my camera the other day and it only had a 6 month warranty so I'll have to get a new one. I'll probably get a new one today just so you know. I didn't mean to it was an accident. I'll make sure the next one lasts for the rest of the time. Thank you so much for all the support. I'm really really excited to hear from you next week.

-Elder Pack