Hey Hey Hey

How is everybody doing? I'm going to shake things up a bit and we'll start on Monday night... we had a FHE with our branch president and his fam-bam, it was pretty fun. I did the whole spiritual thought while my companions ate all the candy that we brought. Hooray. Then on Tuesday, our companion who was leaving had to pack up his stuff, so he packed and I cleaned and our other companion slept. That was great. We met some interesting people on the street the same day. We talked to some guys who didn't believe that our Russian companion is from Russia because he has a strange accent. I kept saying "show him your passport, prove him wrong" and he didn't want to. So this guy ended the conversation by looking us all in the eye and saying "satan is the father of lies. Think about that." What a goof. That night we got on the night train and went to the city. Wednesday morning we had transfer meeting, that was fun. There were 12 missionaries leaving (9 sisters) and the Elders were all pals of mine. Elder Kennedy, Elder Brooks (from Seattle, his parents are not members, he's a convert of 2 years. Also my political conversation buddy. We're going to watch the next Presidential election together at BYU) and the Russian elder from Pskov while I was there. It was even crazier than usual, becuase we had to stay in the city for one more day for a visa trip for my companion, so we got to see their last night in Russia and how they were feeling. The departing missionaries stayed with the assistants, and the visa trip people stayed with the office elders. So that was a bummer, but then the Russian elder came over and slept in the same room as me to talk with me. He's actually not done with his mission, he just got reassigned to a new mission... one that is now part of Russia but wasn't when I left... so he was nervous and wanted to talk. It was really fun, I'l miss those guys. Thursday was pretty boring, I just went on splits during the visa trip and we walked up and down Nevsky prospect for hours. Got some good burgers from a place we ran into. Friday we had district meeting, that was good. It was our turn to clean the chruch building, so we did that then had Talent night. I played the piano while my comp sang what I will call a "Neon trees" version of Imagine. It wasn't so bad, but wasn't close to the original. The members really liked it though, and there was a movie going around at church yesterday of us. We're using that as leverage to get lots of meetings. On Sunday we had church then in the evening got a call from one of our members asking to give a member of her family a blessing. So we went and gave her 2 year old, (maybe 3), grandson a blessing. He was sick. When we walked into the room he started crying because he thought we were doctors and were going to stick him with needles. It was a good experience, and her less-active daughter and husband invited us over for FHE after their kid gets better. So it was fun. Good week. 

I read Jacob 6:5 this week, and I thought it was cool that it's written there that the hand of God is always outstretched to us in the light of the day. So, if we open up our eyes and look for blessings in our lives, we will see them! The trick is to look. In the light of the day, if you open your eyes, you will see things... and God's hand is always there, so just open your eyes. I feel like a child when I read things like that and FINALLY get it. I'm 19! What the heck. So my advice: look for the blessings, because they are there. That helped me this week. Number two, read the scriptures more in detail NOW and you'll learn these important things NOW. Love you all! You're the best!

Andrew