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.
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