Let me just start out by saying that travel really really wears me out. I've never felt so tired before... I'm sure that I have been, but being in new places all the time just really does it to me. Anyways, that's just how I'm feeling right now. The week: Tuesday was good. We were made aware of a showing of the Nutcracker at Mariinsky Theater on January 5 and we immediately bought tickets... later in the week when word got out so did all the missionaries in St. Petersburg. We were very excited about this because it's on a Monday afternoon, and that's our P day. In other missions they are allowed every once in a while as a mission to go to a cultural event at night because they are rarely during the day. So that's why it was so cool for us. Anyways, we got our tickets for that and then had district meeting. It was good, one of the sisters in our district is getting transferred so it was our last one together. Then we were supposed to have a stake missionary coordination meeting but the stake guys didn't show up because the meeting was moved to Wednesday. So, we just met with President for a few hours and talked out our mission. Wednesday was another day of meetings. We had a meeting with the office staff to go over the logistics of transfers on wednesday, then we had a short meeting with president and sister childs to go over a few things for the upcoming christmas zone conferences, and then didn't actually ever talk about them. They're going to be next week, so we'll have to really get going on them this week. So that night we had the stake meeting with the stake leaders. It was a good meeing, and they were asking for a lot of suggestions and President Childs was giving them. He mostly tried to help them know how to run a meeting and how to make it more worthwhile for people to come, because in general here it's hard to get people to come to meetings. Thursday morning was really really fun. We made transfer calls, so we called all the companionships in the mission, and President told them their transfers. After that we went to the office and just did some organizing for the upcoming month of craziness. We planned out the dates of when we will do what and where we will be and all that jazz. That night we walked out to see the Mariinsky Theater, it is really cool. It will be really fun. Friday was really cool as well. It was the international day of volunteers at the Hermitage, so we got to go have a little celebration there. It wasn't anything super huge, we just went and got a letter of thanks. The cool part was that yesterday was the 250th anniversary of the Hermitage! We got some really cool gifts from that. We didn't get to go because we were in Kaliningrad, but I feel like I was a part of it. I helped set up chairs. That night we had another great english group. I think I said this already, but we switched the english groups so that we are teaching the lessons in english and I really love it. It's so much better than the other group was. I love it. Saturday morning we flew to Kaliningrad. During the day we had a great little activity put on by the missionaries there, a mini MTC for the youth. There were about 8 that came, 2 of them are not members (yet). So it was really cool to see the youth getting excited there. I don't know what it is, Kaliningrad is just the best. That night I went out with Elder Saxton for a while and we talked to this cool lady selling flowers. He bought a cactus. The next day we went to church. It was great, it's probably the biggest branch in the mission. After that we set up for the Christmas Fireside that we came to put on. I was the Emcee. It was fun to have a go at it this first time and see how the people liked the songs and displays. I think it went well. We'll be going to all the mission branches and doing one devotional for the stake. It's going to be an every weekend sort of deal. Anyways, this morning we flew back and now we're here.
I realized this week why Kaliningrad is such a magical, mystical place that everybody loves. It's because the members smile! They are nice and don't treat newcomers as rejects! Sadly, that seems to happen here a lot. People are just ok with their ward the way it is and don't want more people they have to take care of. Obviously this is a small amount of people, but when there are none of them it's just so much better! Be nice to everyone at church or anywhere for that matter. Just smile and say hello, it seems dumb and small but it makes a difference and will rub off. Anyways, cool stuff.
Love ya all! Have a good week.
Andrew
coolest sunset EVER
the post fast meal put on by the members and missionaries
Time flies
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