This week....was crazy.

So this week was a weird one. We had zone conference in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. Didn't take the night train again, we took a bus that left in the afternoon. So we took about 37 hours away from Pskov for a 3 hour meeting... yay. I don't like how our mission is so big, but I like it at the same time. We only taught about four lessons. That's not too good for us, but it's not bad. On Thursday, after we got back, we had our weekly planning, so we didn't go out until 6. That was a long day. Then we tracted for 3 hours. Tracting here is kinda scary, but if I can do that, I can do anything. That 's what I tell myself. People are generally really nice though, at least they reject us nicely. Same kinda thing on Friday. Lots of contacting and tracting. We had a meeting as a district and we decided to start focusing on reactivating members, there are about fifty in Pskov with only 2 or 3 active. So that'll be our push for a while. Saturday... lots of tracting. People say some funny things here. The mayor in Novgorod got on the TV and said that our church was a cult. The missionaries there have had some struggles with that, and they might have to move out of their newly finished branch building because of it. In the past few days, we've seen that attitude towards us creep into Pskov. Last night tracting especially, "CULT CULT" was heard often. There was a very nice lady that was talking to us at her door, then her daughter came in and started to yell at us because we are a sect (russian for cult) and all this stuff about how we were bad people. To leave them alone. "We don't need it". Rough few days. Some people are mean, just like in the US. Most just don't want to listen. But they don't punch and shove us and things. The worst I've had was a guy open the door, look at us, then laugh and close it. Also, a drunk man talked to me on Friday night. I gave him a handshake when our bus came, and he pulled me in for a hug and kissed my cheek. Hooray for drunk people!  Nothing too much happened besides that... we're having a branch activity for Thanksgiving, and I'm in charge of mashed potatoes. Last night I did a test run, and I think Grandma Bryan would be proud of me. I have the potato touch I guess. Also, for Christmas, we heard a rumor that half of the mission will go to Peter on the 24th and the other half on Christmas for a party. Fun stuff. Well, this keyboard is awful, sorry I didn't type too much this week. Not too much happened. Love you all.

Andrew

Pictures--Finally!

Andrew has to be careful about sending pictures so there aren't many but we will take what we can get! This week we get some old mixed with the new!

Our Teachers and District from the MTC

Our Branch Presidency (Sister Peer ( in front of the tall guy next to me) wanted me to tell you that I'm a good kid, and that you did a good job.)

Traveling in Style  (In Germany)

Our Toilet

Bathroom Selfie (Editor's Note: you gotta love Andrew for sending this--he loves to make fun of people who post these kinds of pictures on IG)

Elder K at the Kremil

Mr. Lenin

Hunger Games Poster (for Emily)

Week Number 3 in Russia!

Hello Y'all! I'm here in Russia still, it's great here. So.. to answer a few questions first. The days and weeks here fly by! It's really crazy, what happens to you while you're on a mission. Things get better and better every day, and the time just fles. Church is usually the same, with about 9-12 people there every week. It's hard to help people to understand that our church is weekly, not just on Easter and Christmas, like the Russian Orthodox church. I gave a sacrament talk last week, and the first week I bore my testimony. That was awesome. My companion and I usually speak English, but if we know the Russian words, we'll speak in Russian. Same goes with our branch president. Sometimes he has to come to lessons with us to translate, especially when people have lots of questions. Elder Kartchner's Russian is really good, I hope I can be close to him in at the end of my first two transfers. He was trained here, so he knows the places to go. We have district meetings with the sisters every week, but other than that we don't do much with them. We aren't supposed to be with any other missionaries in public, so they did not come with us on the train to St. Pete. They took a bus the day before, we just had lots of lessons so we took a train at night. We are going to take a train up to St. Pete tomorrow for zone conference. So many trips. I try to send some pictures every week... sometimes the computers that I'm on don't work with the USB thing. I'll try again today. To go through our week: Tuesday, lots and lots of meetings. We were meeting almost all day, skipped some meals to get it done. They were all really good. Wednesday we didn't have too many meetings, we started tracting buildings here. That was really scary. It was at night, in Russia, knocking on apartment doors. Dang. We met a very nice family there though, they let us in and we went back yesterday for another meeting, with President to translate for us. We also taught english, with about 15 people showing up. That's actually how our branch President met the missionaries, when he was 14ish. He waited four years to get baptized becuase his parents wouldn't allow it. Thursday, meetings. Lots of Restoration lessons. We're trying to kinda rekindle some interest in our investigators that have been meeting with us for too long. Trying to help them understand that we are here to teach them and to help them come to Christ through baptism, not by chatting about any old thing. Friday we went on splits with our zone leaders. Elder Gatrell and I had a lot of lessons planned, but a lot of them fell through. We spent lots of time on the street. On Saturday we had district meeting, talked about our investigators, and taught some more lessons. Yesterday we had a lesson/hang out with some American girls here who are teaching english at the Pskov University. So that was weird, talking to them in english. Our sisters came so we could hand them off to the sisters for teaching, I don't think they're too interested in our message though. One of them got a degree in college in bible studies, and she had to choose four religions to study deeply. She chose us, and needless to say, she knew our approaches to introducing the gospel. She shut us down pretty good a few times. It was interesting. Then we went back to that family that we tracted into, and we talked about our families and asked if they would be interested in our message, and they said yes. So we have high hopes for them to be the rock-solid family here in Pskov. Today we went to the Kremlin here, went inside the Cathedral. It's very beautiful, I'll send some pictures but I don't want to spoil all the surprises :) Love you all! You're the best ever! See you soon! 
Elder Gwilliam

Everything You Wanted to Know and More (But Not Much More)!

So after Andrew's teensy-weensy e-mail last week, I (Sarah) wrote him and asked him a bunch of questions to try to get more deets (that's short for details, mom!). Anyway, here are the questions I asked and his answers--plus a little extra info from this past week:

Where do you live? What kind of place is it? Is it just you and your comp or are there 4 of you? 

I can't tell anybody my address.. But we live on the outskirts of town. It's just my comp and me.

Does your apartment have a fully equipped kitchen? By that I mean does it have a real oven and stove? Or just a microwave and hot plate? Also, do you have a clothes washer? Or do you have to go to a laundromat?

We have a microwave a stove, an oven, and a fridge. And a washer. We hang dry our clothes.

What do you eat? Do you ever eat at members' homes or just at your apartment? What did you buy at the grocery store? Have you eaten anything strange or new yet?

We always eat at our apartment, we go to this store called Lenta which is like Costco and Walmart mixed. I buy things there that I know how to deal with like potatoes, pasta, apples, eggs, yogurt, juice, ham, bacon, things like that. The meat here is a little different. I had some bacon for breakfast with eggs and the bacon was strange. But it's good. Just a little strange. Same with the other meats. Also, the bread goes bad really fast here. They don't use preservatives like we do in America. I had some bad bread on Friday night (the back half of the loaf was moldy, I didn't check the part that I ate) and so I had some nice pains on Friday night. But nothing too bad. 

Is your branch that tiny or was no one there? Were the other two missionaries sisters or elders? What did you do for your church meetings last Sunday? 

Our branch is pretty small, I think there are around 35-40 members in the city, but there are 2 active. There are supposed to be 6 missionaries here (us, then two companionships of sisters) but the sister that had trouble with her visa can't leave Peter until they get that all figured out. So it just us and some sisters for now. We had fast and testimony meeting last week, and then sunday school. Not enough for priesthood or relief society. Plus, everybody just left after sunday school. So we just talked to our branch president. He's been a member for a while, he went on a mission to Samara. I don't think he ever left his mission, he helps us all the time. Either in lessons or by setting up meetings with less actives. He's the man.

What type of building do you attend church in? Is it an apartment? A storefront?

We go to church in an apartment turned ward building. I'll take some pics.


What did you teach your investigators? How do you contact people? 

We have in our area a bunch of eternal investigators that have been meeting with the missionaries for years now, so we have gone on a restoration run to help them rekindle original interest in the church and try to get baptisms. We have around 26 investigators, all but two have had all the lessons before. We mostly contact on the streets or in domes (tracting). Tracting is super scary, especially because we do it after dark usually. We've seen some crazy things.

How long has your comp been out? (I don't know what it means that he's on his 3rd transfer) and how often are transfers? What is he like? Do you get along pretty well?

Elder Kartchner his on his third transfer (so month number four in the field) and he's awesome. We get along really well, we have lots of fun together. 

How do you get around? Walking? Bus? Train? 

We usually ride the bus places, but we have to walk a lot too. There aren't too many convenient stops for the places that we have to go.

What do you do during the day when you aren't contacting people? Are there places you go to do service or anything? 

We don't have any service structure here in Pskov, we just try to help out less active members whenever we can.

Since it gets dark really early, what do you do after dark? 

It gets dark pretty early, but we still stay out and do things. Not too much crazyness. Usually contacting, unless we have lessons.

Have you seen anyone you know?

I saw Sister Boud (Laura Boud's sister). She came up to me right after our first meeting together. I saw Sister Eyring, the granddaughter of President Eyring that Elder Jaynes told me about. That's about it. 

Where did Elder Jaynes get assigned? 

Not sure about where Elder Jaynes is. Maybe Gatchina?

How is the language? Do you feel like you understand much of anything at all? 

I can understand a lot of what people say, but It's hard to talk back. Sometimes our investigators go crazy into some things like the economy or politics that neither of us know anything about. We like to have President with us there, becuase he speaks english really well. We think he wants to go to BYU. 

You have had a lot of rain I see! Is it just rain rain rain all the time? Or off and on? 

Rain is off and on. Not all the time, and it's always different. Sometimes intense, sometimes just a sprinkle.

Does Pskov seem big? Small? Does it seem pretty well off? Poor? What are your impressions of the people there?

Pskov is big compared to what I'm used to, but it's really small for our mission. It's like thirty minute bus rides to everywhere. I'd say it's more ghetto than other parts of our misson, but it's not that bad compared to what I've heard about Samara and other places. The people here are nice. Really nice. I'd say it's middle class here.

What will you be doing on P-days? Where do you do your e-mailing from? 

We Email from a library right across from where we live, and we just kinda do what we want to on P-day. I think we're going to the Kremlin today, that looks really cool. Here (at this library) they also give away all of their old books for free. I've gotten and old copy of Crime and Punishment in Russian and a book by Tolstoy. We'll look for more today.

What do you miss from home that we can send? 

I don't miss too much from home, other than the people there. And you can't send them :)


And now for the bonus material: 

So about this week. We got six new investigators, which is sweet. We found 4 of them tracting and two by going to an investigator's house to teach, and they were there and listened. We also did a ton of less-active member lessons, those are always fun. On Friday we had a zone training meeting in Peter, so we crammed a ton of lessons into the evening and then at 8:45 ish got on a night train to go to the city. It was so Russian. That was the first time where I was like "Heck, I'm in Russia". It was total stereotypical Soviet style train. It was sweet. I didn't get a picture of it, but I will next time. It took ten hours. We got to the city at 6 A.M., buses only take 4. But it was so cool we want to do it again. And we don't have to waste a whole day outside of our area. So we did that, came back on a bus on friday, then lessons again right away. Whew. Not too much else. Spent five hours at the church yesterday in meetings, tracted all night. Fun week. Busy week. Love you all, the church is true, and listen to the Messiah! We love the one song of it that we have on my Ipod. Love ya. See ya soon. 

First Week in Russia

Russia is super great. I love it here. Oh man. It's just so cool. 

So traveling was boring... people were strait up rude to us in Germany. People will at least talk to us here. Haha. Good ole Germany. So, after we landed here there was a little bit of mayhem. A sister that was traveling with us got stuck in the airport because her visa said that she was a man. Whoops. So she was stuck by herself in the airport for a while, but it all worked out. President Clark was there to greet us with his wife and the assistants, that was awesome. Elder Jaynes and I went with one of the assistants to go to the mission home, while the others waited for the sister to get out of the airport. We rode the bus and the metro to get there. We were forced to talk to people. Haha it was fun though. Then we got a little orientation, then we slept over with the assistants after dinner with President and Sister Clark. The next morning we went to President's apartment again (which is really nice) and had breakfast. Then we met our trainers and found out where we would be serving. I'm with Elder Kartchner (from Virginia, on his third transfer) and we're in Pskov. It's awesome here. Our branch president is the man. We got settled in and went to work. Pskov is about 2 hours from Peter by bus. We had a few lessons last week, the investigators here are sweet. On Sunday, there were 10 of us at church (4 missionaries, 3 investigators, 2 members). It's very small here, but it's awesome. I felt the spirit pretty good during testimony meeting. The days here are already getting shorter. Shopping is crazy. I don't know what anybody is saying. We went to a supermarket today, it's like the Russian version of Wal-mart. It's awesome. I'm glad to finally be out in the field like my buds. This is the real deal here! Russia is the bomb, I'm coming back for sure! Love you all so much!

Andrew