Monday, August 25, 2014

IS THIS REAL LIFE


Hello all, I was happy to hear from you. Thank you so much for the emails. Here is what has been going on in my life for the last week. On Monday, I had a great time on the beautiful island of Kizhi. I was so glad that we had the chance to go there, I learned a lot and had a great time. It was fun because the tours were in Russian and I understood a lot of the info! It was a good confidence builder. That took up all of Monday. Tuesday we went and got haircuts so that we didn't look like hobos at the transfer meeting, we spent most of the day finishing up packing and writing notes for the new missionaries who are now in our area. That night we got on the train and said goodbye to Petro. On Wednesday we had transfer meeting and 10 missionaries were leaving, so we were there for about 2 hours. Usually we shoot for one hour, but these missionaries shared long, good testimonies. After the meeting, we took a mission picture because it was the first time the whole mission was together  with President and Sister Childs. We then went to our new apartment, and hit the pavement. We have the work and investigators and less-active members of 3 companionships, so we never have down time. It was an amazing few days, maybe the fastest and most satisfying so far. Thursday we had to go grab a key because we are in a new apartment and didn't have a key to get in the building... it was great and a tender mercy that every time we needed to get in a person was leaving and opened the door. That night we had a good lesson with a potential investigator who became a new investigator. It was a good time and the first real lesson I've taught in a long time. On Friday we had to go clean out the old apartment that the other elders were living in and so that took up most of the day. Back and forth. A really really cool thing happened that night. We were on our way to a less active's house, and we didn't exactly know where to go. We got on the wrong bus first. Then on the right bus, I was trapped by a horde of people and couldn't get off at the right stop, so I missed the stop. Then, after all that, we were running down the metro escalator and this guy looked at us and said ELDERS! and so we stopped to talk to him. His name is Johan. He is from Peru, got baptized with his sister and some friends when he was 13. Went strong until he was 15, then chose to stop attending. Now he's here in Russia learning and I'll talk more about this later. The next night we had a meeting with a guy we contacted on the street on friday, and now he's a new investigator. Cool guy. On Sunday, we took the new senior couple to chruch (The Glausers from Draper.. they said they knew Uncle Bruce) because they don't know what's going on. It was fun to be with them for the first time on the metro. We had church... the ward is great. Full of return missionaries and they all want to help and have fun! I was so glad to be in a big fun functioning ward again. So, that guy Johan said that he might be able to come to church.. but not this week, he had other plans. THEN HE CAME! HE CANCELLED HIS PLANS! He remembered the missionaries he had met and the feelings and how much he missed the church so he came! We're going to try and get his records moved here. He even defended us and the church during Gospel Principles! He said that we should always come to church because life without it is empty and boring. He said he didn't think the church was here, he wanted to come back he could just never find it. I'm so glad to be here with a companion who is obedient and wants to work and is great! Elder Butters and I are a lot alike. And so yeah. It's good.
Throughout this transfer, I'll be traveling to some other areas to do splits and zone trainings. We'll go down to Novgorod and Pskov, and that's all for our zone. There's 8 companionships. 4 Sister missionaries, and 12 elders. We this week have a Mission Leadership Council at the mission home, where the assistants and zone leaders and sister training leaders get together and discuss things. I'll tell you what things next week. I'm really excited to be here! NOw it's picture time. Love you all!
Elder Gwilliam



It's Me!


Petro from on top of a hill


That's a tank


It's a double rainbow!!!


Wooden church at Kizhi


Welcome to the Shire


A cool windmill


Broccoli & Swiss casserole
(That one's for you, Grandma Bryan! Nice to see he's able to cook some of his favorites from home!)

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