Hello famille!

Well, it is freezing today and it feels like it could snow, but January is finally over and February brings hope of spriiiiing time and other good things. Don't you worry, spring will come soon in Utah too. By the end of this transfer, it will be the middle of March and it will be sunny and flowery and happy. Speaking of transfers, of course, I will let you know that I am staying in Geneva for another 6 weeks with Sister Cutler, and I am soo happy about it. I absolutely love it here, and I would have been really sad to leave all the people here. The members in both wards are great, my companion in super, we are going to find awesome people to teach, and the other missionaries here are great as well. I just love it. And I am just starting to feel a little comfortable with Spanish, so I am excited to learn more and get even better. So yeah! Geneva it is at least until March. Honestly, I could stay here for 6 more months and be happy. Also, I didn't realize that President Murdock was emailing you about the mission change, but isn't that crazy? It will be the France, Lyon Mission, and I could potentially serve in southern France... beautiful, no? The only two downsides are these: Luxembourg is going to become part of the Paris mission, so I only have until July if I want (get?) to serve there... and I definitely want to serve there! That is only a few transfers away, so I better start petitioning President to send me up there. Also, the mission headquarters will be moved eventually to Lyon, which means that the Chambésy address won't be the mission home anymore! I love that house and wanted to be a mission president's wife there at some point. Darn! But I'm really excited about the change. It will be neat to see where I can go and with whom I can serve. It is kind of sad at the same time, that it won't be the Switzerland, Geneva mission anymore though. But I will forever get to say that I served there!

So Dad, you asked about whether or not I have done the shoulder laugh...good news is that I absolutely have haha. Sister Cutler loves it. We are super sarcastic and weird together, and it is so fun. I am sending you a picture of one of our nightly activities: superman. Actually, we stopped doing it after only a couple of nights because it hurt my stomach haha. But we got lots of ridiculously unflatter pictures from doing that, so I would say it was a success. I sent you the least unflattering.

On Sunday, we got to attend a quadruple baptism... it was awesome. I love love love baptisms and this one was incredbile. Four men (3 from Africa and one from Iran) had made the best decision of their lives and were baptized. Three missionaries baptized three of them, and the fourth was baptized by a man who was baptized only a month or two ago...I love that! The priesthood is an incredible blessing that we have. It was amazing to see the front row of the chapel lined in white. I sent you a picture of them. Not in the chapel of course haha. But it is kind of a lousy picture because their eyes are all animal-in-headlights-like. But a good picture nonetheless. Also, we had a woman that we are teaching come! She has an interesting situation. She has been taught a lot before and had been coming to Church regularly for a long time, and now we are teaching her again, but she is unable to get baptized because she is from Iranian Muslim background. So, for her own safety, she can't get baptized at the moment. But she is full of miracles, this one. She is great. And she was able to talk to the Iranian man that was baptized, so that was cool. Persian is a crazy language, let me tell you what.

In other news for this week: an ugly mean dog bit my left hand clean off! I am just kidding, it was merely a flesh wound, but I really did get bitten by a dog. I am embarassed to tell the story, because it was just a dumb decision on my part, but I will tell you anyways haha. So we were in the local Migros grocery store, just buying some blood oranges (foreshadowing, maybe?), and as we were exiting, we saw this little dog tied up. He was just standing there, looking lonely and sad, so Sister Cutler said "should we try and pet him?" Being the intelligent almost-23-year-old adult that I am, I said "yeah!" and walked towards the dog. He looked at me but didn't do anything. So I stuck my hand out towards him and he sniffed it a bit and looked at me, so I went a little closer to try and pet him. And then he went ballistic. He barked and got my thumb in his mouth all at the same time. If I wasn't so shocked, I probably would have kicked him, so it is probably good that I just pulled my hand away, saw a bit of blood, and ran to the bathroom. It wasn't super deep, but he bruised my thumb and under my nail too. Ugly. I painted my fingernails to cover it up haha. You live and learn, I guess, right? It makes for a good story.

How are you all doing? It sounds like you are hanging in there, even with the cold weather. You are awesome. I am always so excited to hear from you and hear how things are going at home. I am excited to hear if Daniel got into the marching band! I hope everyone is happy and healthy... it sounds like that is the case, and I am really really glad. I love you a LOT and pray for you a LOT too. Have a fantastic week! I LOVE YOU!

Love,
ALLIE