(as if I didn’t know how to handle a crazy)

Hey Enlarging Family,

Greetings from the internet café of Revda. Know, that as I write you I am usually surrounded by young Russian boys yelling at each other as they kill one another in a massive multiplayer shooting game. They have significantly lowered my affection for video games.
It’s been a good week, the biggest item of note being that our phone has been cut off. I got the bill a few weeks ago and it was for 7 rubbles and 33 kopecks ( 29 cents) and due to the infinitesimally small total it just didn’t register in my brain as important. But as of the 26th we’ve been unable to call contacts and had to knock on our neighbor’s door every night to do our nightly call-in. It’s embarrassing, but fun. They are an old couple and I love old Russian couples. The husband is kinda crazy and the wife spends most of her breath yelling at him for talking to us (as if I didn’t know how to handle a crazy).
We’ve been contacting a lot this week due to the lack of investigators, which Elder Taylor is really good at and keeps me on my rote toes. Best story of the week: Drunk incident number 319. We were walking briskly to the phone place to find out what happened with our line when we passed possibly my least favorite thing in Russia, a bench. Benches are bad things, they are where drunk people are. And this happened to be a bench with a bad history, and the reputation held as a large man got up and started a conversation. It’s always worse to ignore drunk people when they call you out at a close distance (long distance you and just wave and look like you're in a hurry). So started another conversation between me and a drunk guy who wanted to know if he was a sinner and if I know Michael Jackson. Trying to wrap up drunk talk is real art. It usually involves 4 to 6 goodbyes and they always hold on as you try to shake their hand and leave. But what was special with this one is that I only had to mention that we were in a hurry once (which usually doesn’t even do anything). As I was partially listening to his jabber I thought how I’m sure this could end without problem, but that could take a while to do properly and that I just really wanted something to happen to end this quickly, and all of the sudden he ended his rant mid-subject and put out his hand to shake good bye. He very formally gave us a each a firm handshake and then turned, took three steps away, calmly bent over, and hurled his guts out, three times. I couldn’t believe it, drunk confrontations usually take at least ten minutes and this was over in three! And my first thought was, “I think an angel just spiritually punched that drunk in the gut!” And I was very grateful.
I’m excited for all that’s going on in Provo right now, give Crown Burger my best.

Love,

The one and only Elder Magleby

P.S. He did throw up three times, so maybe it was all three of the Three Nephites. I’m just saying…