Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?

It was a good week here in this area. I'll get right down to it. Tuesday we had an interesting lesson. Last Sunday after church, there were some random girls that came into the church and my pal from Pskov was there talking. So he showed them around the church, taught them about the Book of Mormon, and set up a meeting for us. SWEET. So we came to the meeting... nobody was there. The member was 45 minutes late. The investigators came, but 30 minutes late. And they're girls, so we can't be alone with them. So they just come walk past us (we were standing at the door) and so that was strange. They just walked around the church and looked at all the pictures. When the member came, we sat down in a room and showed some pictures and things like that. Then, the member got a phone call.. and answered it.. and left the room. Which is totally against the rules. The girls stood up and followed him. They really didn't like talking to us. Elder Saxton's russian scared them away, I think. I joke of course. Anyways, the member kept telling us to talk to them and try to teach a lesson while they were standing up walking around, and it just didn't work. Then we sat them down and just put on the restoration film for them to watch then asked them questions about it after. One of them said about 10 words for the 45 minutes and the other said 0. It was so strange. Strange, old looking, young in age, socially awkward girls. So that was Tuesday. Wednesday was fun. We had district meeting, and our beloved district leader called us three hours before and said "hey, you're teaching district meeting. Ok?" so that was fun. Then after that President Clark came and gave us a little meeting about leadership. He compared us to Joshua and Caleb compared to the other 10 'spies'. Apparently there has been some bad attitude creeping into our zone, and he wanted to smush it. Thursday we had our last interviews with President Clark, and there he eased my troubled soul by telling me that I was a Joshua and that meeting wasn't for me, but he needed to invite some other people to make the others not feel so bad. So that was good to hear. It was a good interview, not the normal kind just a chat basically. It was fun. We had a great lesson with our good investigator, he's close he just needs to know that he can't be perfect and know all of it before baptism. On Friday we were interrupted during companionship study by TRANSFER NEWS. So here we go. I was feeling pretty safe about this one, but President Clark is shaking up the whole mission I guess. Only one or two companionships survived this massacre of a transfer. In fact, we're both leaving. Getting white washed out. Elder Karchner and Elder Doxey (from SOJO, a hockey player) are taking over in Avtovo. Elder Saxton is going to Sistraretzk or something, don't know how to spell it in Russian or English. It's on the north of the city, really pretty, the nice touristy beachy sunny part of the city. I'm on my way to PETROZAVODSK or ПЕТРОЗАВОДСК for the benefit of google maps. It's the furthest north in our mission, and man am I happy to be headed there. The humidity and heat here make me want to die. It was 18 celsius there last week... heaven. I'll be with Elder Holman (don't know him) and a Russian. Tripanionship. The Russian, I can't tell you his name, but I can tell you that his name is Marlin without the l. I'll be district leader. So that just about rocked our world that day. Wow. We weren't really expecting that. So the past few days have been insane. Saturday we had a sweet leadership meeting with Elder Bednar, Elder Rasband, and Bishop Causse (they were all in Moscow. We do have a special meeting on Thursday this week, and the rumor is that some of them will be there). It was sweet. They just addressed concerns from the members in the Europe-East area. Man, Elder Bednar has some fire in him. Lots of questions had to to with the temple and when they could get one, and I thought he was going to shrug them away. I'll tell you about what he said there to silence the room in a sec. After that meeting we went straight to the Hermitage for three hours of service. It was the day of cats there, strange day. Really busy. We did a lot of service, not just standing at the doors. There are cats that live under the hermitage, and so once a year they open up the basement and let people go down there. Strange. Then we had english right after that. Left home at 8 AM, didn't get back till 9 PM. Tiring day. Yesterday was good, we had a baptism at our building for the Gatchina elders. The one who did the baptizing wasn't too big or strong, so he had to do it three times. The first try, he almost hit this old lady's head on the tile behind him. Second time, he thought he did it and so let go while she was under the water and she freaked out. Then, he did a perfect job on the third try. Good week.

So the temple thing. He told them that when temples are announced, the people in those places cry and shout for joy. Then they want to know where the site will be, they wait for the announcement. Then they will go take pictures at the site once a week until the groundbreaking, then will take daily pictures of the progress of the building. Then will invite all their friends to the open house, and go themselves multiple times. Then the week after the dedication the temple will be soo busy, too many people to fit. Then it will stand unused and under apprecitated. Then he smacked them all in the face "When the Lord knows you are not that kind of person, collectively as members you will not do that, THEN the Lord will give you a temple. The question about how many priesthood holders are needed for a temple. There is no number. It's about your hearts." So, in Utah we know that there are lots of temples. In America especially there are tons. I invite you to GO. Worship there. It'll be good for you, and good for others who have died. I miss the temple. Go for me, ok? Love you all! Thanks for the emails, you're all the best.

Andrew Gwilliam

A cool flag an english-group comer gave to me. It's from the USSR, it says ALWAYS READY and yes, that is Lenin on there. It's from what could be called the Soviet boy scouts, they are called the pioneers. 

I woke up... got out of bed... dragged a comb across my head...

Hello!!!! It was a good, crazy week here. I'll just jump right into it: Tuesday: We had a good lesson with a less active kid, 16 years old, and his non member mother. She is not a member because she has a problem with drinking. Bummer. Anyways, we had a good meeting, invited him to the kinda youth conference for the youth here. They all go to Moscow, it looks really fun. We also had to save the lives of the sisters here, they were on their way to Kaliningrad, and needed to put their mail back in their mailbox, they took it out on accident. So we did that too. Wednesday we talked to a lots of people. My gosh. All day dedicated to it. We talked to this guy who was an Assyrian (like from ancient times...) and his family was converted to Christianity not too long after Christ's death. They got persecuted in the 1940s and moved to Russia. He was really cool. Then this older man who, after I told him that I wanted to maybe look into engineering when I start to study, threw down his cane and told me about how I looked like and engineer and how I needed to become one. It was funny. Thursday we had Hermitage, pretty uneventful. Friday we did some "street teaching" (contacting) and so yeah. Fun. Saturday, we taught our number one investigator the Word of Wisdom. A biggy. It went super duper well, almost too picture perfect. He said he didn't have any problems. Sweet. He's close to a baptismal date, there's just a few things that we need to get out of his brain and work out. Like with everyone. After our lesson I beat him at chess, I still got it... kinda. Russians are really good at chess. Then we had english group. that was really fun. On Sunday we had some good talks about something that I had been studying this week. I'll talk about that in a sec. We got some pretty hardcore rejections on the street. We were just talking to this guy, and another one came up to us randomly and said "Don't talk to these people. They're bad people. They're from America, only evil comes from there." Then he turned to us and said "get outta here" and my blood began to boil.... what had I ever done? What had any missionary ever to him to make him say that? I sure didn't do anything. If he didn't want to hear our message, cool. Don't listen. But don't tell us to get when we're just having a good conversation. If all that is from America is evil, your car is evil. All those planes are evil. The lightbulbs you use are evil. Of course I didn't say anything, which leads me to the more spiritual part of this. I've been trying to work on that... I just get upset right away. I haven't seen much progress. But, I read in D+C 64:33 that the little things that we do, they might not seem like a lot when you measure in hours and days and even sometimes weeks. When you look at months, and years, and decades you see huge progress in yourself. In others. In things that you are trying to improve. It's cool, that's how Russian is. You just feel the same as six months ago then realize that you're so much better. It's awesome. That's how it is with all. And, it's important to make the path a good path, because the same will happen in the opposite direction. I also read that the Savior didn't become the Savior when he was born. It took years. D+C 93. Cool. Anyways, thanks for the emails! Love you all. 

Elder G

Look up the song Файна for my favorite Russian song.

Cool Tower

My Favorite Chair

Go Away Sun...

Привет друзья! (Hello friends!)

Hello y'all. How are you doing. It's good here. Here's the weekly recap. Tuesday was a good day. The Sisters in the center area lost their cell phone and it ended up in a hotel in our area, so we picked it up and brought it back to the office elders. Lots of time on the hot, sweaty metro. My gosh. It's not even that hot here yet... but the humidity just kills you. My gosh. It's crazy. Wednesday we talked to this older man on the street, he was nice to us at first then got really mad when he found out where we were from. He kept asking us why we wanted a war. I kept saying 'I live here, in Russia! I'm talking to you!' and he finally just said "Fine! If you want a war, let's go! Let's do it!" Then we saw him today in our apartment building again. He was really nice to us this time. Hmmm... Also, my companion got a pinecone thrown at him while we were in the park. It was funny, just a little girl in a stroller next to us threw it at him. Thursday we had the Hermitage. That was fun. It was busy. They had to keep making this announcement that the museum's wardrobe was closed and they wanted me to say it in English. So I got to make announcements over the speaker at the Hermitage. Cool. On Friday it was victory day. Friday is our weekly planning day, so we didn't spend much time outside. We were also told not to go to the parades and concerts (that weren't even in our area) and so it was a pretty quiet day. We did see a few crazy guys driving cars with big ole Russian flags on them. Saturday was a good day. We had a baptism in our ward! The Sisters had an investigator that got baptized. We went early and set up the font, it took FOREVER to fill up, man oh man. We almost didn't fill it up in time. All went well, and it was a great service. It was fun to talk to the members and others that came to see. President and Sister Clark were there. We also had english class that night. It was fun. Sunday we had church. The Clarks came, it was their last time they were going to be in our ward before they leave Russia. They gave good talks, and the new member was confirmed. He recieved the Aaronic Priesthood right afterwards, and it was great. An awesome few days. Then, also I got to talk to ya'll on Skype! That was super fun! I loved it! It was fun to see you guys and how you've changed... kinda. Well, some of you. Caroline and Sam especially. That was awesome! Thanks for all of you being great. Love you all! Пока!

Tulips for momma

Cool park in our area

A typical meal of mine

I Saw a Film Today, Oh Boy...

Hey hey hey... it's a great day to be a missionary! It was a really good week. Things are starting to get real good here. Things are moving. I like it. So here was my week: Tuesday we had district meeting. After that we had splits with the district leader and I got reunited with my Papa! Elder Kartchner and Elder Holloway and me. Elder Holloway is a sweet soul. A sweet, sweet soul. Anyways, we were in Avtovo. It was fun. We had a meeting with a less active member and the Bishop that was good. We just talked to him about life and all that good stuff. He needs to fix his teeth because they are really bad, but the quote from the dentist was 3 times his annual salary. So that probably won't be happening soon. Anyways, on Wednesday morning we woke up early to play some soccer which was fun. It felt good to be out in the open air and to just feel good. I forgot how good feeling sore is. We met back up with our real companions and then Elder Saxton and I hit the pavement. Thursday we had service at the Hermitage. It was also Labor Day here, and so there was a cool concert going on outside that was cool. This week is the biggest, most crazy, most alcohol filled week in Russia. Victory Day is on Friday. That'll be fun to see. So yeah, Hermitage then we came home and hit the pavement. Talked to this lady who asked me if God exists. We got to have a good conversation and then she told me that her whole life she has been looking for something more. She is currently a member of a Hindu-type religion. She told me she thought about it and that something more is missing. So that was exciting to me. I gave her a Book of Mormon and our phone number because she wouldn't give us hers. So, let's hope and pray that she calls. Friday we did studies then weekly planning then hit the pavement. Then Saturday was good. We had a lesson with an investigator that has been struggling to come to church. He'll do everything else, but church is hard for him. So we taught him a lesson about the tripod for a strong testimony: prayer, Book of Mormon, Church. It's this new thing that we're trying in our mission, so he's been an investigator for a while but we thought we'd give it a shot. So we did, and it was a great lesson. We commited him to read 30 minutes a day, to pray at least once a day, and to come to church the next day. He said ok and he came! It was the first real investigator at church I've had here in Avtovo, after almost 2 months. It was great. Then we had english group that's always a hoot. Sunday was good. We got to go to church, then we had a good night of talking to people. Got some phone numbers, but all for different areas... darn it. So that was the week. 

I've been thinking a lot about the Hymns this week. I love to just read them like poems. It's really cool, and some of them are really powerful. I've started memorizing them in English. I really love "Jesus, the very thought of Thee". It's a good one. So I also wish that I still played piano so that I could just sit down and play hymns and cool classical music. And so siblings and those learning to play: DON'T STOP! You'll regret it if you do. I said that I wouldn't care if I stopped, and now I do care. Don't stop! Anyways, that's it for now. Love you all! Here are some pictures!

Elder Gwilliam

13 stories... this one is for Mom

(SILLY BOY!! He knows heights make me break out in a cold sweat!)

Elder Saxton's meal... twice this week. Noodles filled with meat with some undrained ground beef and some peppers. He likes meat. 

(He also knows that undrained ground beef gives me the same reaction as heights! HAHA)

For Dad