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