Another Great Week!

Hey Y'all! It's been another great week here in Russia. We had snow for the first time this week! Don't remember the exact day, but there was snow! Snow here is like nothing I've ever seen... the flakes are so big. I took a few pictures, I'll send them next week. The computer doesn't like my card reader this week. The snow here is so big and wet and heavy. So it snowed really good one day, then melted the next, then it came back last night. Today is also really windy. We've hit the negative temperatures after the sun goes down. Fun fun. Still wearing my Mr. Mac coat, so I think I'll be good with the one I got later on. Kinda another slow week. We didn't have too many meetings, lots of tracting. So the scary thing about tracting is just that we're talking to lots of crazy people.. and Russian domes are really freaky when it's dark. Yesterday, a lady yelled at us and said she was coming down to talk to us, but she just watched us from a window. So a Russian 'Dome' is what everybody lives in here. It's like a big apartment, with anywhere from 2-10ish floors. There's a little phone on the front of every one, and we have to call people to let us in. Usually we get let in when somebody is expecting a guest, and they just unlock the door. But hey, we get in. One man yesterday asked us how we got in, that people there weren't supposed to let us in. Needless to say, a rough night of tracting last night. But hey, people have agency and can choose what they want. We had our Branch Thanksgiving Party on friday night, it was awesome. We couldn't find a turkey at the store.. so we used a goose and didn't tell anyone until after they ate it. Sweet. The Russians loved it. There were a few investigators there, a member, and a less active and 6 missionaries. My potatoes were all right. There were rolls and cornbread, some veggies, and some great desserts from the member lady. Our Branch President is visiting his mission (Samara) so he's been gone for a few weeks. So that was our week.
We had a lesson last night with an investigator who is a seventh day adventist who loves the bible. It's amazing how well he knows it. Anyway, we taught him about the restoration and it went pretty well. We defended some of our doctrines (baptisms for the dead, etc.) using the bible and he seemed to accept it. We also these last few days have had an investigator call us and say that he's been reading every day but needs help to understand it. He's been calling us a lot and wanting to meet, he called at 6:20 this morning. We'll probably stop by tonight, he's got some good potential. So that family that we tracted into that was really nice, we were going to meet with them yesterday, but when we called the man said that he doesn't see a point in us meeting anymore. Darn it.
Our #1 guy right now, who we gave a blessing to, is doing great. Shooting for a baptism before the new year. He's done great with the smoking, he's not smoking anymore. He just wants to make sure that he's kicked the habit and prepared for baptism before he does it. Another investigator just needs to read the whole thing, that's what he says, and he'll be ready. He's already helping us try and share about the Book of Mormon.
Good week here, getting chilly. It's great, I love it here! Love ya mutchers!

Andrew