Hyello

It was a good, crazy week. Here is a little update. SOOOO Monday was a good day. We got haircuts. Got groceries. Then had a lesson with our new convert friend Eric about how to feel the spirit and how to study the scriptures. It was really great, he started to cry which is unusual for him but it was great. I shared with him about the things that have helped me love to read the scriptures, and we showed him the index and topical guide, they were unknown to him before this. Tuesday we had an interesting district meeting. I don't know why, but it was just interesting and not too exciting. It was the Smith's last day in Russia, they left Wednesday morning. It was sad, but all is well. We then were snagged by President because we were in the office and we had a good long chat about the mission. A few problems were resolved (I hope) and all went well. WEdnesday we had another meeting with President, and he gave us the transfer. I won't say anything here about that because secrets can be leaked. You'll have to wait another week. So we spent that time organizing the transfer and getting travel all set up. We had an appointment with a new investigator of ours, but he didn't show up. So we hit up some less active houses, to no avail. Thursday we went to the Hermitage and I had a really cool experience on the way there. The doors on the metro were closing, and a little old lady was going to run and try and make it. The doors close really fast and hard, and she was going to be smushed. She was in the doorway and the little bell rang, so I stuck out my hand and saved her from being beheaded. She looked at me and gave me one of the most sincere thank yous I have ever received. It was just a really cool experience for me and it boosted my "LOVE FOR RUSSIANS" meter. Service was boring. Nothing crazy. We got hosed by another one of our investigators again that night. Friday was fun. We did our weekly planning and then it was off to the airport to Kaliningrad again! So we got to Kaliningrad at about 6 pm and it was so nice and warm. I could've walked around in my suit and been totally fine. It felt so good. We went to their english group, it was really good. They had a lot of people there and it was fun to talk to some of the people that Elder Doxey always talks about (he served there for 10 months). So that was fun. Then we went home. Saturday was a cold cold day in Kaliningrad and I was totally caught off guard by that. I actually got a cold because we were just contacting for 5 hours. That was awful. We did end off the day with a lesson with a fun family from Armenia, they fed us some good food. I may or may not have had a fish that contained traces of mercury... time will tell. We had bream. It was really fun. I don't know how interested they will be in the gospel, but they had never heard of us before and liked the fact that we were simple people paying our way here to help people. That was really fun. Sunday we went to church there, President met with a lot of the members there so we did some waiting around at the church building, then gathered at the senior couple's apartment for a nice dinner to end off the night. The sisters that are there cooked everything and it was really good. We stayed afterwards and helped them clean up. It was a good day, other than the fact that I caught a cold. Today so far we've flown home, met some problems in the office and now we are finally emailing. So that's the week.

It was a great week. Something that I understood this week was that we are supposed to make mistakes. Don't take that too far though, I'm about to reign it back it. It is through the mistakes that we become better (or worse). It's all up to us and all thanks to our freedom to choose. The tough times are to make us stronger. It may seem silly for me to be saying that I just got that, but it's really funny how much you think you know then you realize you know nothing and that all the lessons and talks and scriptures and conversations made sense much much later than you thought they did. When the gospel becomes real and not just something that we talk about. It's really interesting. Have a great week!

Andrew

Another one in the books

It was a great week! Here's the quick update. Monday was good. We had a great FHE with our Elders Quorum president and his wife and son. It was really fun, they're both young and served on missions. We talked a little about family history, and it was mostly a lesson from them to us. They really want us to go home and do family history work, they said they've had a lot of really cool experiences with it and have had family members accept their membership more openly because of family history projects. It was really cool to hear about that from them. I'll do it! Tuesday was good, We had district meeting. After that, we had some office business to take care of. Some silly visa problems that we had to take care of. Nothing too big, it just took time. That night we met with our new convert friend Eric and read from 3 Nephi 27 with him. He's a great young man who is planning on moving to America at about the same time that I'll be going home. He didn't get accepted very well by the ward because he's not a native russian, but he's great and he'll do fine in America. Wednesday was probably the craziest, most tiring day of the week. We spent literally the whole day cleaning out our mission office library. We ordered pizza and everything for it because we were there from 10 AM until 5 PM. It was so so so so messy and unorganized that we were all sick of it and finally just cleaned it. Oh man there were so many old church manuals in there it was pretty insane. We found a lot of cool things in there. Books that were printed in Russian years before the church was here... hmm... That night we had the stake missionary coordination meeting, it was a lot better than the last few that I have been too. We actually did something and there was a great turnout! We even did a role play. I was so happy. Thursday was really fun. We went to the office and had a quick staff meeting to prepare for the next week, and then talked a little bit about transfers. We then jumped on a bus headed for the little town of Kolpino, about 1 hour away from the city. I was with my main man Elder Butters! We taught a lesson to a deaf man! In sign language! It was really cool to see how much of it Elder Butters has picked up in his few transfers. We read a few scriptures with him and he taught me a few words in sign language. He's a member there who they've reactivated. Friday was fun too. We were still in Kolpino and we went to a few less active addresses before district meeting. We went to their district meeting and just kinda observed I guess. It was fun. We then came home and went straight to our English group. I was feeling better than I ever have on my mission this day for some reason! I don't know why. I was teaching about the Book of Mormon in english and it was fun even though the people didn't really understand a lot of what I said. Uncle Scott's Russian friend's father and little sister were there, they are in our ward and they are awesome. We then came home. Unfortunately, we found out that the office couple here is going home this next week. They just have too many medical problems. So that's a bummer. Saturday was good too. We went to Petergof, the small town also an hour away from the city. I went to the english group there as well, but it wasn't as fun as ours on Friday. There were two very interesting guys there who were older and loved that I could play piano. They kept saying that it was sad nobody wants to play anymore, they all play guitar "because of the negro influence". I think that was on their mind because a stencil of Jimi Hendrix is painted on the church door. It was fun to play part of a song and have them try to guess what and by who. Sunday was good. We stayed in Petergof and President came from the city to attend church there. Nothing too crazy other than that. It was a really fun week.

If we are doing all we can to be good boys and girls, all will be great! You'll feel the spirit and you'll be great! Love you all.

Andrew

JIMI

Kolpino

Petergof

Another week, another ____________

It was a great week! Here we go: On Monday we went to the Nutcracker. It was sooo great. It was the classiest experience of my life. I was really almost crying because it was so cool. The live music, the live dancers, the theater, everything. The cultured people that surrounded me were great too. Oh it was so fun. I've made it a goal to attend 3 cultural performances every year for the rest of my life. After that we went to a little antique store (you know I love those things) and got some fun soviet items. We had FHE at the Child's apartment that night, we were there because the other family that came didn't know english that well, so we just translated. We also got to participate, that was really really fun. Tuesday morning we went over to President's apartment again to plan for the Mission Leadership Conference. WE just assigned topics and had a good chat about the next year and goals and things like that. That took up a good chunk of the day. Wednesday was another day of meetings, we first had staff meeting then we had another meeting about transfers with President. This is going to be a big one. I'm going to stay for sure though, and my companion will probably stay too. That means I'm most likely in it for the long haul here, maybe until summer starts. It'll be interesting to see. We had a choir practice of the missionaries in the stake in preparation for the Christmas devotional that we put on that night. Right after the devotional ended, a member grabbed president and sister Childs and Elder Doxey to translate and just wanted to have a talk. So that left me in charge. They talked for close to an hour. I was pretty proud, we were all packed up and ready to go by the time they were done thanks to help from other missionaries. Thursday was another meeting day. We had MLC, that lasted pretty much the whole day. That night for dinner we met with a new convert, Eric (I can tell first names now, hooray!), who is not Russian. We had dinner at and had a chat about life. He's 21 and just a kid who wants to have fun. We talked a lot about him getting a Patriarchal Blessing. He's willing and we hope ready. Friday we had another day of meetings. We had Zone training, basically a copy of MLC to the members of the zone. That night we had a great english group about the restoration. I really enjoyed it and felt the spirit pretty good. Saturday we spent the whole day in Novgorod. Drove there in the morning, had a great lunch, set up for the last devotional, had the last devotional, then cleaned up and came home. There were a lot of people in Novgorod and a great feel there, the branch president has really kicked it up a notch. that was fun. Sunday was good. We had a totally uneffective ward council before church, then a great time at church with our few member friends. I really like our ward and wish we were here more often. I found out some interesting information. While I was in Nevsky, I would often wake up with some bites on me or scratchy places. They never went away until I left. Elder Kartchner is there now and had the same itches. He did some searching and found BIG OLE BEDBUGS! THEY'RE REAL AND THEY'LL EAT YOU ALIVE! So be careful. That was about the week. As you see, lots of meetings.

A cool lesson I learned this week was that as we all work together and listen to the one in charge who knows what to do, it will all go well and we'll all be happy. It doesn't make any sense to argue and complain. If it can be done better, make a suggestion. If things don't change, just go with it! Ok now time for pictures.

Andrew

The cast of the Ballet

Me at the ballet

Nevsky Prospect at night

This week in an email

Hey! It was a great week. I'll get right into it as usual. Last p-day was cool, I went shopping for Christmas for myself and a few other people :) and it's safe to say that I'll have the coolest camera in America when I get back. And I'll be labeled as a hipster. Anyways, we just did some shopping before the price hikes hit. We don't know when that will be. We had 2 meetings set up for that night, but the less active member showed up a little late and the investigator showed up a little early, so we just had the meeting together. Wow. That was maybe the biggest fail of my mission. This less active was just this crazy guy who can't see out of one eye and can't really hear, he had just come to church randomly and wanted to start meeting with us weekly. He may be one of the biggest liars I have ever met in my life. He told us so many lies I can't even list them all. Here's a short one: He says that he's the captiain of the handicapped basketball team of St. Petersburg and that he was asked to play for the Russian National Team with able bodied players, but he said no because he is humble. He can imitate any singing voice, including Susan Boyle (or whatever her last name is). He has died and been resurrected, not revived, twice. In his dreams every night he visits heaven and he's on a first name basis with the angels there. He has a schedule for world famous doctors of the brain to talk to him that requires someone to wait a year and a half because he has so many requests. He has been clinically dead for 6 hours. He has had BBC come to his door to get interviews, but he rejects them. I'll finish with this one: He's been resurrected, therefore, he is not bound by the gospel laws that we mortals are. He lives an even higher law. Our poor investigator. Tuesday we had district meeting and lots of coordination for those missionaries who were in Estonia. We spent all day and all night on that. They came back that night and we had to get copies of their passports and things like that. Wednesday was also good, we had a ton of missionaries at our apartment. We spent the day shooing them out so that they'd get home before six. As you remember from last year, we didn't go out on this night. This year we just listened to our music and wrote in our journals and watched fireworks and things like that. It was a good night. The next day the city was absolutely dead. I mean dead. We had Hermitage service in the morning, we didn't know that it was closed so we walked around a little and took pictures of the empty streets. That night we met with a young member couple, both return missionaries, one active. The wife works on Sundays but I expect more than just work. It was maybe one of the best member meetings of my mission. We talked to them about how putting God first in our lives will bring blessings without number. I shared the example of learning Russian, and how most missionaries learn really quickly. Then I told them that they were the pioneers of this country and that in 20 years people will look to them for an example of having faith in all circumstances. And I tried 3 new foods! Salmon eggs (salty), this thing called Sala (frozen pig fat. Yes. Really really salty), and a black tomato. It's a different variety and it's a little sweeter than normal tomatoes. It was a great day. Friday we did weekly planning. A real weekly planning, the first one in a long while. Then english group that night. It was good, not as many people as usual because of the holidays, but it was good. Saturday afternoon we headed to Pskov and went on splits that night. I was with Elder Williams, a new missionary. I was so proud of Elder Wilkins who is training this new missionary. It is really a night and day contrast from Avtovo. He's so confident now and is doing a great job. Sunday we did the devotional again after church and then drove home. That was the week in a nutshell.

At english group I had the chance to defend the Savior and His divine mission to a man who has a very "modern" interpretation of the scriptures and said that Christ was just a great leader who got lots of people to follow him. I was able to quote lots of Bible scriptures and suprised myself with my testimony of the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. It was a great experience for me. Christ is the Savior. He knows us. He loves us. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Now get ready for a bombing of pictures.

Andrew

My Christmas present. 1990 Smena camera, working.

Fireworks from our window

The gang on new years night

Nobody on the metro

my favorite nativity

Downtown, nobody.