What week wow

It was great to talk to you all on Christmas! That was really fun. It'll only be a few short months until Mother's day! Fun fun! Here's the week. So on Monday night we went to a new convert's house and just got to know him. He's a 21 year old guy from Ajerbayjan (I don't know how to spell that one) and he's planning on BYU I or BYU Provo. He knows english perfectly, he's just saving money. Plans on starting August 2015. Anyways, we just met him and had a good chat. He's got a lot of family problems and just wants to get away from this place. His dad died when he was younger and ever since he's lived here and not liked it at all. He's a really fun immaturish boy. We talked to him about church and how he felt about it all, he's starting to not come to church and that's bad. So we're trying to help him out there. Tuesday we had district meeting, the first one with our new district. Went and got some contact solution, I ran out. Then we went to a few addresses that night and there was a drunk man blocking the door of one of the apartments with his unconsious body. That was interesting to see so early in the season. We'll see more of those on Thursday. Wednesday was really fun. We had our staff meeting with the office missionaries, we had a lot of issues. President Childs has kinda been out of the loop on a lot of problems and we let him know of a few that had boiled over, so he did some digging and we have lots of problems with the area workers in our office that we're going to be working out. We had a meeting with a return missionary that night, he served in our mission then moved here. He's married and has a kid now but there are lots of problems, or there seem to be, but he won't talk about them. It was really really fun to just talk with him though. He asked about people from all over the mission. He got on his computer and showed us lots of his pictures. It was fun. Thursday was Christmas! We had that cool experience in the Hermitage that morning for service. We went and were grabbed by the head of the volunteers and he took us to a kind of chapel inside the hermitage that was restored a few weeks ago. Inside they were having a prayer service and kinda dedicating the room or something. It was really cool to hear them sing. We got a treat. Then we were leaving and we got taken into another room where we heard a military band and got to see some marching and old artifacts from the Napoleonic wars here in Russia. A museum in Paris was giving the Hermitage some old flags that were taken by the French as they left Russia (on Dec. 25, 200 years ago). It was great to see. We came home and had lunch with the Childs at their apartment, it was great to have a fun celebration with them. We had some goose and potato goodness and sugary cake... as close to America as I've gotten. Then we took a gift box with some food from the Childs to a new convert in our ward and doorbell ditched them. It was great. Then we hustled back and got to talk to you! That was great! Friday was pretty quiet. We had to translate some documents into russian, so we were in the office for a lot of the day. Then we went on splits with a few of the zone leaders. I was with Elder Kartchner and it was really fun. We taught a lesson to a cool guy I knew in Nevsky who is going to be baptized in January. He's just having a hard time quitting smoking. We answered his questions about tithing and why we don't use the bible so much... haha that was a funny question. Saturday was nuts... there was a visa trip of people that hadn't gotten their second passports yet, so they were told that they were going to drive to Talin and get their passports and come back. Turns out.. the passports were in Moscow... so they're been in Talin ever since and will be there at least until tuesday. So I just went into my OCD mode that I discovered on my mission and made plans for the EIGHT MISSIONARIES who were left in our apartment without companions to go meet up with other missionaries and do splits and so they've been there for a few days now, and they'll be there for a few days. That took the whole day, people just need to listen and do what I say and go to where I say. It should've taken an hour, but people were gong crazy. Yesterday was good. We had ward council, the bishop told us the area goals for this year and we didn't say one word about how we would accomplish them in our ward, we'll talk about that next year. We don't need to worry about that now... silly ward council. Anyways, then I was in my ward for the second time in 2 months and it was good. I really like our ward, we have lots of really nice, open, and strong members. Lots of youth too which is cool. Then we went by a few addresses to no avail. It was a great week.

Dad, thanks for sending me that quote about leaders leading by example and how there's no other way to go! I've been noticing a lot of that going on here ever since you sent me that email, and I've been trying to do a better job of it myself. Be good examples! Even if you aren't a leader, somebody out there is watching you. Love ya!

Have a good week!

Andrew

Skype with the Fam!!

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