P-Day, Sort of

Today we had our first P-Day.  P-Day - or Preparation Day - is the one day of the week that LDS missionaries get "off".  The purpose of P-Day is to do all the things you don't normally have time for - like washing your clothes, writing letters, checking your email, etc.  P-Day is normally Monday but Monday is a busy day for us.  

The younger missionaries in our district - we have four companionships in our district - two Sisters and six Elders - come to our apartment in shifts to do their emailing.  They have one hour a week to email and we have two computers so they can use valuable P-Day time more efficiently.  

We just had transfers in the mission - every six weeks missionary companionships may be split up and moved around to various cities in the mission as the mission president feels inspired to do so as he prayerfully considers such matters.  This last transfer saw most of our district transferred elsewhere and a new District Leader assigned.  A District Leader is a young missionary assigned to be the missionary leader of that district.  Districts are assigned to Zones - and Zones have two Zone Leaders - and various zones make up the mission.  The mission president has two assistants who are the young missionaries who assist him in overseeing the entire mission.

Today we spent a few hours with our Zone Leaders (ZLs) who were on a train yesterday for P-Day and had it today instead.  After taking them to KFC (okay, I know I never go to KFC, or McDonalds, but it's amazing how good those two places suddenly sound!) and feeding them we went to the Metro.  The Metro is a cross between Costco and Cash and Carry.  You need a membership card since they cater to businesses and we qualify through the church organization.  We spent a fun couple of hours there and the ZLs were in heaven - they had never been there.  We bought, among other things, a new electronic bathroom scale.  I am very happy to report I have lost over half my body weight.  Of course, the new scale weighs in kilograms...

I've attached a picture of my favorite room in the Metro.  A whole room devoted entirely to sausages.  Russia is awesome.

We also visited the local outdoor market where they sell everything you can think of.  I've enclosed pictures of the statues in the fountain, the cool train and the very cool horse and buggy ride.  The buggy is driven by three tiny ponies.  I've also attached pics of the market.

After we got home - by taxi (which is one thing I will probably do again.  No, that I will certainly do again!) - we walked to the branch for institute class.  We met our institute council president and set an appointment with him for Sunday to start figuring out what's going on.  Institute council is made up of five or six students and they plan and implement activities for the YSA.  We also met briefly with our CES Coordinator and he asked us to email questions to him.  He speaks English as well as we speak Russian so he can translate and answer our questions via email better.  He informed us that we will be taking a week long trip with him in mid-October to visit some institute classes and some branches around the mission.  We are going to Kazan!  That ought to be very interesting.  It will also be interesting being with him for a week...not much talking is going to be happening!

Tomorrow we are visiting another store called Real which is sort of like a WalMart, Russian style.  Our first adventure unescorted on a bus.  This ought to be fun...