Elder Andrew Gwilliam: 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