EMAIL RECEIVED OCTOBER 10, 2012

Hello family!! I'll start off by saying this was an AWESOME week. Seriously, I don't think I can use enough exclamation points to emphasize how fabulous it was. 

Anyway, I shall start by saying, this Friday was the best ever!!! Thanks for the prayers everyone! I'm being serious when I say it was such a good day and we were in the best mood and I know the prayers help! Something that added to the awesomeness..we got an unexpected visit from Sister Brinton, my mission presidents wife! All 5 of us going to Vlad literally ran out the door to meet her so if anyone wants to google Sally Brinton's blog there may be a picture of me:) Prideful I know. So the first news for the world about Vlad is that the just had the APEX conference and of course Russia wanted to impress other countries so they just redid the airport and built 3 new bridges and filled all the potholes. Im sure no one cares but us, but we were excited to here about it. She said miracles happen everyday and we need to work so hard on the language so we can hit the ground running! Talk about motivation! We had the goal to memorize 100 words over the weekend and I ended at about 60. THere wasn't as much time as I thought but it was still nice to know I worked super hard and wouldn't have gotten that much without a high goal.

Now for conference weekend...I wasn't going to go on and on about the announcement but people have asked how I feel so I'll tell you! First off all, imagine a room full of 2000 missionaries watching general conference. The prophet starts talking and the way he set it up you could kind of tell what was coming with all young men being able to go on missions at 18 now. But regardless everyone is silent leaning forward in their seats and then he says it and there are a few cheers and lots of whispers of "thats awesome" stuff like that. Then he starts talking about sisters. Silence. And then he says they can go now at 19, seriously loud gasps, everyone is going crazy, girls especially, wide eyed, "are you serious" etc. So while I'm sad I wasn't home to see Bradley's reaction to it (which Brad you better give me some first hand info as to what you were thinking!) I think I was in the coolest place ever to hear it, even compared to being in Russia. Thats all we could talk about all day. Do I think more sisters will go on missions now, of course. Its easy for me to think especially in terms of Russia and other countries that literally we just need more missionaries to go into more countries and I think this will help. I thought of the quote, Mom I think I showed it to you, about women desiring to go on missions so that they can raise the next generation kind of thing. I think this will help strengthen families now and in the future, will help marriages, will help youth with the new youth program, which from what I've heard so far is straight up awesome, Dad, Brett, and Liz I'm curious on your thoughts about that. I think it changes the culture/stigma of "sister missionaries", changes singles wards basically everything. While women still are not required to go and neither have to go this young, I still think it makes it real to have the option to go right after high school, like don't wait til after to prepare yourself. While I might be blowing this out of proportion, its just awesome to see continuing revelation from the prophet. 

Monday morning we had to go to BYU health services and the receptionist said the phone rang for an hour straight with girls wanting physicals and one of our teachers is the secretary in his ward and the bishops whole night of interviews besides one was girls, a lot of whom probably want to talk about this. I realize I'm in a SUPER concentrated area of Mormons but its fun. I ran into one of the girls who works here who is a freshman and she has asked us how we decided to go etc, so when I saw her today I ran up to her and the first thing she said was, "guess what, I'm going on a mission!" Its cool to think that I'll be in Russia training these missionaries!

And to make this all more awesome, last night Elder Bednar spoke at our devotional!!! He said it was fun to hear everyone speculate as to why this was happening when he was actually in the council that decided it. Apostolic humor he called it:) He said the 2 reasons are "The Lord can do His work and He can hasten His work in His time". Bam. It was neat to know that this was revelation when I first heard it but also to hear an apostle of the Lord testify of it was so special. The rest of the devotional he talked about how he goes through the conference issue and looks at doctrine, invitations, and promised blessing and then types it all up on a chart. To know that an apostle studies them this much is really humbling and we know how much the rest of us need to study them! Also, can I just say I loved Elder Nelson's talk about missionaries. If anyone ever wants to know why I decided to serve a mission, there you go. LDS.org it-thats all we say here so we don't really have access to google. We're ridiculous I know. 

Anyway I'm sorry for the super long rant about all of this but needless to say I'm excited to work hard. I think we all have a sense of urgency now which is good so I'll try to make you all proud! Love you all!

Sister Allison