Visa Renewal trip 3

Hey Family,

I’m in a nice internet café called “Omega Sector”. It sounds like something out of a Godzilla movie, which makes sense because half of the people here look like people out of a Godzilla movie. I like Godzilla. I like the people here. They are very respectful; all the youth get up for old people on the buses. This city is called Almaty, it means father of Apples or something, what really surprised me was that there are huge mountains here. I’m used to the little Urals, but I think these guys might be bigger than the Wasatch front. And on the other side is Kyrgyzstan, which I’ve never heard of and is cool. This country is part of the Moscow West mission, there are crazy religious visa rules that are very hard to get so for our time here we are on business visas while we wait for our Russia Religious visa’s to go through.
Being here on business visa’s means a business had to sponsor us, we're here under a company that we make a lot jokes about because we’re pretty sure it doesn’t exist, because it has a very generic name and the only info we have on it is that it’s centered in Provo UT. How convenient. I’ve been designated CFO though I requested Chairman of Keeping it Real. While we’re here we are not allowed to wear tags, bring up the church with anyone or even answer people who ask about it. We can not even tell people we’re here trying to get religious visa’s to Russia. The Elders (only four) that serve here have the same rules until they get their official visa’s and so they just follow their companion around for a transfer or two without a tag not being allowed to talk or teach at all, even on lessons. All they can do is say hi or talk about worldly stuff. Pretty crazy.
We thought we’d have a lot of free study time but we’ve been pretty busy with this or that regarding our visa’s. It’s tedious, I hate forms now. I did bring General Conference in English so we’ve been watching a session when we can. It’s very good. Our apartment is nicer than any apartment in our mission. All in all from what I’ve seen Kazakhstan is nicer than Russia so I don’t know what Borat is talking about.
It’s way fun to be with my old MTC companion Elder Pulsipher, and the rest of my group Elders Jensen and Sorensen. MTC represent! It’s nice to just chill out, go on a walk and talk about our missions so far and swap good stories. I hope all is well in Revda now that both of its missionaries are in Kazakhstan. We should only be here 3 more days because they haven’t messed up our invitations like they did the last group. So we’ll all probably go back to Russia together. There are some nice pointy slippers everyone’s buying that if nothing else would make a good Wise Man costume back home, come to think of it all the traditional dress here looks like the wise men.
I love it here and there and wherever I may be. Next visa trip: Bangkok.

Respectfully,

CFO Magleby