Whazzup

Hey family! It was another good, cold week here in Russia. I like it here... different things happen every day. It's no routine, I like that. To start the week it was kinda boring, just watching Elder Kartchner pack and get ready to go. That was almost all of Tuesday during the day. On Wednesday we went to St. Pete to get our new companions, it was a good time. Started the day real early... real early. I saw Elder Jaynes again for the first time since we got here, it was fun to talk to him and see how he's doing. Then after our meeting we went back to Pskov. I spent 8 hours on a bus the whole day. Elder Kennedy... he's 6'5", he rowed for Michigan before he came here, and he's got 6 months left. He was an assistant for 6 transfers... that's a long time for our mission. He's been really good to help me out with Russian, and just giving me some good guidance. He's an experienced guy. On Thursday, I realized that Elder Kennedy is bringing some good changes here to Pskov.. a lot of em, too. It's going to be a great time. I'm excited. On Friday we met with a new investigator, who called us first, which is insane.. that doesn't happen here. Good meeting, he wants help to quit drinking, and we're glad to help. He also said that he'd get baptized after he learns more. So sweet! We had a lady on the street talk to us for a while, and she was really nice. Some drunk guys started talking to me in english, wanting some rubles, and she grabbed me and walked away from them with me. She was really nice. Saturday was a fun day... we got the police called on us when we were tracting a dome. People came out and told us to leave, nobody was nice. Usually a few people will talk to us, but not this time. We got out before the police came. Even though they couldn't do anything to us. We got permission to be in the apartment building, we have visas, we have ministerial certificates, we just thought it would be better not to get mixed up with that. Lots of people here think we don't have the right paperwork to be here, it's kinda funny. They say they'll call the police, and we'll get sent back. I want the police to actually come once, that would be exciting. Yesterday we had a nice chat with an Estonian guy. He spoke perfect english and had a colorful vocabulary. It was pretty amusing. He's interested, he already has a Book of Mormon, and he says "it's normal Christian stuff, man". As in, not weird or cultish like everybody here thinks. Anyways, that's about my week. Good stuff happening here in Pskov. 

I've been studying a lot of Alma lately, if any of you want a good reminder about your mission, read through Alma. Great missionary book, sweet war stories in between.

Love you lots!

Andrew

P-day fun with Alexander Nevsky

And Then There Were 2....

It was another good week here in Pskov. Colder, but good. This was an exciting week. A roller coaster week. The roller coaster started out on Tuesday with a low. We had family home evening at the branch, and only our branch president and the missionaries showed up. It was a sad moment when he told us to cancel and go do something else. It was a bummer. It was maybe the low point in my time in Pskov, just seeing the sad look on his face was awful. Then on Wednesday we did a lot of walking and a lot of talking. Thursday we spent a lot of time inside and did our weekly planning, then we went to an investigator that we're helping out. He wants to quit smoking. He's a little loco, he's 40 and he's already on pension because he was labeled an invalid by the government, but he's not that crazy. He really likes the idea of anarchy, and he has a big flag with a big red A for anarchy, and during this lesson he was wearing it as a cape. That was really funny. It was a good lesson too, we made some good progress and he gave us all his cigarettes. On Friday crazy things happened. It is transfer week, so we were expecting our transfer calls on Saturday morning, like usual. We got a call from the Assistants on Friday around 11 (if the assistants call, it means you are staying where you are) and so we were confused. They talked to us and then handed the phone over to President Clark to tell us where we were going. Those sneaky assistants! They got us good. Anyways... TRANSFER NEWS: Elder Kartchner will be heading to Novgorod. He'll be a zone leader there, of my zone, so I'll see him a lot. I'm staying in Pskov, and the oldest of the assistants will be coming down here to little ole Pskov to be my companion. I'm excited about that. He's from Pennsylvania, went to Michigan before his mission. He's Elder Kennedy. So one Elder K for the other Elder K. Sweet. So yeah, our whole district is basically leaving... there are only going to be two survivors. One of the other sisters is staying, but other than that, the others are all outta here. Last night we walked and talked a lot, and we climbed up onto the old wall here that runs through our area, and it's a sweet view of Pskov. Our cameras died, so we're going to go back today and take some sweet pics. That's about it from here in Pskov, there's been more energy in the branch since President Clark came, and we had a good service activity on Saturday night with the members. We made little sandwiches and gave them to homeless people. It was fun. Anyways, that's about it. Love ya all!

Andrew

Elder Kennedy (new companion)  is the tall one in the back

The Cathedral down the street from where we live

 

Hello Family (& Friends)

Hey y'all, it's been a good week here. It got pretty cold towards the end of the week, but I'm sure the worst is yet to come! It's really not that bad so far. So Monday was a good day. We had FHE at a member's apartment, an investigator and two other members were there with the missionaries. It was great. We played Mafia and it was just a fun time had by all. On Tuesday morning we went to Novgorod to do splits with our zone leaders. I was with Elder Callens from Texas, played QB in High School and is totally ripped and a really cool guy. Really calm and laid back. We had a few less actives to stop by but none were home. We went tracting the rest of the night, had some interesting conversations. Wednesday Morning in Novgorod we had another round of zone training, that was fun. Talked about some new rules, we can't sit by other missionaries on the long bus rides to other cities, and mission-wide Russian 24-7 rule. It's been good for my Russian, bad for my brain. Wednesday night back to Pskov, got home and went to bed. Thursday was a long day inside. We went from being on the bus for four hours right to bed then in almost all day Thursday. It was a long day filled with weekly planning. On Friday we headed over to the branch after studies to take care of some of the MLS duties that have been given to us, and we found a problem... we have a balance of unreported funds of about 76,000 rubles... 2,735 dollars. We don't know why it's there, but I think I'll be making a call to SLC to figure that one out. The assistants came that night and we went on splits with them too. I went with Elder Woodhead from Sandy, he went to Jordan and played lacrosse. Graduated in 2012. He's pretty cool too. On Saturday we had a special training meeting with President and Sister Clark where they talked to us about Pskov and how we can improve. Then we had a little time for lunch, then we came back to the branch and we went crazy all over Pskov. We had set up meetings all over the city. We had lots of groups running around to members and investigators. I was with a Bishop from one of the St. Petersburg wards. We had 5 meetings in a four hour period... 2 with less actives and 3 with investigators. It was awesome, he helped out a lot and gave me some good advice about meeting with less active members. On Sunday President and Sister Clark spoke in Sacrament Meeting, we had a whopping 19 people total there. That's my mission record so far. Sweet. Then we had a third hour meeting also with President Clark about how we could strengthen the branch and be better working together. That was good. We had a meeting with a less active who was baptized in August for right after church, but he came a little early with his girlfriend and they just sat in on the meeting about how to get less actives back to church... a little awkward at first, but it was cool. We met with him, found out his girlfriend isn't a member, but she said she was interested and that once she found out for herself that this was all true, she'd be baptized. We were so excited, like a family could be here in the branch (the less active is 24, we figured she was around there) and it would be a great strong couple. We found out a few minutes after the meeting, she's 16... haha it was a little awkward. Well, it'll still be good. They're coming to church. That's about my week.

Keep doing great things! Keep being great! Do more great things!

Andrew

Novgorod (1000 Years of Russia monument)

Us with the APs (Assistants to the Mission President)

Kremlin wall Novgorod

Happy New Year!

Hey y'all, I hope you all had a great time with Christmas break. It's a great time to rest up and think about the things that really matter. It was a tough week. We had more meetings than the last few weeks, but we have a new rule... only Russian all the time, P-days excluded. It's great for practicing and realizing how much I've learned, but the level of communication between my companion and me took a nose dive. Communication about everything from just talking to what we were going to do that day. That's frustrating for me. It was good though, I learned that when I'm just quiet and don't say much I get frustrated and discouraged. Or if I'm just being quiet, it seems like I am. So it was good lesson to learn that communication is important, especially in missionary work, and that communication is what the listener does (thanks Dad). Companionship unity is key. 

Anyways, my week. Monday I won our district ping-pong tournament. Tuesday was New Year's, we had a district meeting from 1:30 till 3:00 then we did some contacting home. We had to be in by six. So we walked home, and we stayed in. We didn't do too much, just kinda hung out. Read some books. We wanted to sleep through all the fireworks that would go off (that's a funny thing to me, New Year's here is all about the fireworks) but we failed. There were so many. They sell the huge ones that shoot up into the sky and are just loud bangs. There were about 2,000 that went off for what felt like hours. It was a bummer to say the least. On Wednesday the fireworks went on all day. There were bangs like at least every 30 minutes. It was really warm on Tuesday, really cold on Wednesday. We thought maybe it was the beginning of the end of our nice weather, but it warmed right back up by the evening. It was also the day when the all-in-Russian rule took effect. Thursday we had 3 lessons fall through. We went tracting all night, and the people just said "Hey guys, we're all hungover. We were sleeping, you woke us up. What do you want?" So that was rought night. Then some people wouldn't let us come into their whole apartment complex. They just kept saying we're all Russian Orthodox, we don't need you or your Jesus, the Lord is with us. Friday meetings all fell through. Saturday we had a really good lesson with an investigator who we feel is really close to being ready for baptism. He just changes his mind all the time, he has a hard time recognizing the spirit. So we are just going to talk to him about that for a while. Sunday was good, we went out to the boonies to visit some less-active members... who moved. Fun. That about sums up my week.

Going back to what I was saying earlier about the people telling us that we had our own Christ, they had theirs... I want everybody to know that Christ is with all of us, whether a member of our church or not. There was a great talk given about that while I was in the MTC by Elder Baxter of the Seventy. He told us that we have to respect the religions of others or they won't respect us and feel our love for them. I've noticed that a lot too, when we ask questions about their religion they seem to be happy to share, sometimes even ask us a question or two. Anyways, just remember that. He's always with us, all of us. I feel the spirit here, but in my life I've noticed that whenever I get the opportunity to think or testify about Christ the spirit is instantly with me, and very intensely. It's a great testimony builder for me to feel that every time, without fail. I've been studying from the four gospels in the New Testament, I love those. There are so many great verses in those books. Anyways, love you all. Keep on keepin on.

Andrew