Always and forever

Hello y'all! It was a good day! And a good week! Here goes! On Monday night we met up with our new convert friend and made some Root beer floats. He's having a tough time at home and he sometimes just needs to talk. So we just had a good chat and drank some american goodness. Tuesday we had our district meeting, meeting with the office visa guy, and then stopped by some addresses. We got some people to answer, but the person we were looking for wasn't home or they didn't want to talk to us. It's really hard here to have just an address and a name, because if you aren't expecting guests you generally don't answer the dom-a-phone. It's kinda a bummer, but we do get lucky sometimes. Wednesday we had more meetings in the afternoon with President, we actually started going over the next transfer which is nuts! I feel like the last one just happened. I then went on a split with Elder Saxton in Nevsky that night, we went to their English group and that was about it for the day. We met up with our normal companions the next morning, and Elder Butters and I went to the Hermitage to do our service. From there I went on another split in Shuvalovo (North part of the city) and had a great lesson with a less active man who's very physically worn down. He's very skinny, but he's a funny guy. He loves America and has jet black hair slicked back. He looks good! Both of those splits were Zone Leader splits because the coming weeks are going to be pretty crazy. We'll have 2 MLC's, some zone trainings, and zone conferences with Elder Bennett from the Area Presidency. So the next day we met up again, and while I was gone we got a new investigator! A man I had called that was on a sheet actually showed up for the meeting! He's an artist and we're going to go to his house thursday. We had our own English group Friday night. It was good, we had our crazy investigator who wants to become king come and we met with him and president. He asked President Childs for money to help him prove that he is the heir to the throne, but of course didn't get anything other than moral support. Saturday was good. We did some much needed weekly planning to get ready for the upcoming weeks. We had a meeting with a guy set up, but he didn't answer the phone and we didn't want to waste time waiting around for him. So that was a bummer. He hasn't answered since. Sunday was good. We had a talk from one of the Ukrainian members that has moved here and let me tell you that is a strength to the church in Russia as a whole. They are so spiritual and are just great members. The stake priesthood meeting was last night and we got the new convert to go with us. We had one of the area seventy guys who lives in Moscow with us. It was a good meeting, our Stake President is awesome. Today we're going to go to St. Isaac's cathedral with the same new convert pal. He is awesome and making some good progress. He is going to get his patriarchal blessing pretty soon here. Hopefully within the next two weeks.

The gospel has really just come alive for me in the past few weeks! I'm starting to see that there are some things in life that need to come first and have more attention than others. It requires sacrifice. As we sacrifice, we feel true joy! It's a weird thing but it's true. I feel like I'm happier than I've ever been on my mission in the craziest assignment, with a relatively dead area, and it's because I am starting to get a grip on this whole thing. I wish I would have done this sooner and I know that I have a long long ways to go. Thank you all for being such great examples for me. Love ya!

Andrew

Hi

So it was a good week. Here goes. Tuesday we had a good district meeting with our new district, I think this one will be better than the last. We have a Russian sister in our district and she's a really hard worker who really doesn't like complaining, so we should all get some really good work done here in the next 5 weeks. We then had a meeting with one of the members who works in the office and gets visas and things like that organized for us. We had a long meeting and talked about a lot of the problems that we've been having, and he mostly just wanted to get information clear in our minds but he took a long time doing it. We got dogged by one of our investigators that night. Wednesday was perhaps the best day of the week. I went to the dentist (MEDem clinic, if mom wants to look it up) and showed them my tooth. They laughed and laughed that I had come in for a small cavity. By the way, I noticed the cavity while I was FLOSSING my teeth and there was a little tiny hole up by my gum. It didn't hurt, it wasn't discolored, just the beginnings of a cavity. So I got it taken care of. The ladies there were really nice. They asked me a ton of questions for about 15 minutes just to find about about dentistry and teeth cleaning in America, and they said it was a pleasure to work with a mouth with no problems but a small cavity. So then they gave me some stuff in my mouth and 15 minutes later I was out. I doubt that my dentist at home will notice it. The filling is perfect. I was amazed. The only bummer was, she waited until my mouth was numb to ask who I was and why I was here. So she didn't understand most of what I said I'm sure. We got dogged again by another investigator, and had an address of a new referral that we tried to find, but the apartment didn't exist. -________- Thursday we had Hermitage service, which was good as always. This time we got to help clean up chairs in the winter palace and there was a cool British girl there. We had a lesson with a former investigator that night, and he showed up! He still wasn't too interested. He believes that to get close to God, you need to break away from organizations. That's what Jesus did, right? Well, kinda... but anyways, he was really stuck in his ways and it won't be a good use of time to meet with him. We then translated a letter from a disgruntled member who feels that all the single women are being neglected in the stake and wants President Childs to tell the stake leadership what's up. Friday was kinda a crazy day. Really crazy. So we got new couches in our apartment because our old ones were vile, so it took a good chunk of the day to wait at home for the guys who were coming "in five minutes" that came in 1 hour. We called some people during that time. We had a situation arise with a few missionaries that weren't getting along and that had been in separate rooms from 10 AM to about 2 PM, so we had that in the back of our minds. We said that at 5 if they hadn't made up that we would tell President. He was in Turkey for a mission president seminar, so his phone was off. He was actually on his way home at this point. So we saw president at 5 in the office, told him what was up, he called them and said "We're going to Vyborg! " So that was a fun little detour that took a while. We went up there and just had some small talk with the elder that president was not interviewing. That was our role. We left there at about 11, got home at 2 AM. Then, the words "Elders, get some sleep. You can sleep in" came out of president's mouth and I was so so happy! Just for the record, we didn't go past our allotted 8 hours of sleep. I won't lie though, it felt good to wake up with the sun shining. Saturday after waking up we had our normal schedule. Did some weekly planning then went to some addresses of former investigators. Sunday was great, we went to Gatchina's sacrament meeting and it was really fun! There were maybe 20 of us there, but it was so great. There is one active family there, and they are so awesome! After church, President did some interviews with the missionaries and it was so fun just to sit and talk with this family. Oh it was great! We got dogged again by a different investigator. It was tough as far as meetings go, but it was a good week as a whole.

This week the scriptures really came alive to me. I have been studying the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how the 5 parts work together, I tried to figure out why this had to come before this etc. and it was so so great! I've come to really love the scriptures on my mission for the spiritual knowledge that we get when we read. It's fun to just ask questions then find all the answers. I love the scriptures! Read them every day! Have a good week!

Andrew

cool sunset

yes, we are hipsters

so tired

Hello how are you?

Hey let's get right into the week: Tuesday was good. Elder Allison was leaving the office and was in a fun mood all day. He actually wrestled with one of the office workers right after district meeting. That night we had a meeting with the first counselor in the young men's presidency and he invited a few of the deacons over. It was a really fun meeting. That was the end of my time with Elder Doxey. It was sad to see him go, but it had to be done. It wasn't so hard because my companion now is AWESOME. That leads us into Wednesday which was full of crazies. We had first a new leadership meeting, then straight to a subway lunch for all the missionaries. That was crazy to organize because every companionship had a change but one, so we had 55ish missionaries in the city. In our new apartment contracts, we have to sign out and sign in to all apartments so we were running around like mad to find the right people for the right apartments. Then right to transfer meeting. Man. Crazies. We didn't even have all the papers signed by that time, so after the meeting we had to run around like madmen again. That night we had a meeting with the stake leadership and it went well I think. It was one of the best ones yet. I like working with the stake leaders. Thursday was also fun. We ended up having our usual wednesday meetings on thursday this week. Had some fun get to know you time with elder butters and the Childs. That night we had a meeting with the Stake President! It was good. It was so good for the spirit! Oh man, he told us the story about when he got called to be stake president. I'll tell you that story later. Friday was good too. We did our weekly planning. Good time. Then we had english group. I taught this time, about the first half of the Plan of Salvation. There were so many people this time, it was fun. There were a few people that didn't really participate but most of it was good. We watched a fun video too. Saturday was great! There was a baptism in our ward. The office elders got this referral from a member family and had a baptism in a few weeks. It was a really good service, we made brownies for them. We tried to go to some referrals, but to no avail. Sunday was about the same. Good church (in our own ward! Wow!) then some more addresses. It was a good week.


So the stake president was on his way out of Russia. He is a brain surgeon (who receives the same amount of money as a teacher) and was going to go to germany. Elder Nelson called him in for an interview and called him to be stake president. This man who lives day to day now as far as finances is one of the strongest members I've ever met and a real priesthood man. He has great faith and I love to talk to him!

Love ya all, have a good week!

Andrew

Temple of Lennon

Kaliningrad

cool writing

Here's the Week

Here's the update: Monday was good. We got home really late from the airport. Later than usual I guess. It was about 3 when we got back to our apartment, the rest of the day was p-day stuff. Tuesday was really fun. It was the day that the Blockade of Leningrad ended, so there were lots of cool fireworks that night. We had the honor to go to the cemetery where those who died during the blockade are buried. The Church was invited this year to leave some flowers at the monument there, so we got to go with President and see it all. It was really cold. It was hard to imagine that people lived through that time. They started to run out of flour, so they used sawdust as a substitute! There are so many crazy things that went on. I was glad to have that little boost for charity to Russians. Great experience. We then went up to President's apartment and had lunch and discussed the upcoming MLC. District meeting was after that. Nothing else too interesting on Tuesday. We had more meetings on Wednesday afternoon and finalized transfers. We had another meeting with our new convert friend Eric and gave him the scriptures that he requested. Another really spiritual meeting. He is coming over to the Childs tonight for FHE with us, so we hope that will be great too. He came to 4 hours of church yesterday. He stayed for the next ward's Sunday School. Sweet. Thursday was another day of meetings. MLC was good. We spent the whole time just talking about how we can improve our teaching skills as missionaries. Great stuff. We then helped an older woman who works in the office (and is the wife to the first native russian mission president who has since passed away) on the computer learn how to work a spreadsheet. We then got dogged by one of our investigators. That night also a few of the missionaries snuck into the mission office to find out their transfers a day early. Then they called me to say that they knew their transfer already. That was bad. I called President and told him and there were some changes made to the transfer. Friday morning we made transfer calls. All went normally. Funny reactions to new areas and new companions. Then we went to the institute building and had our Zone Training. That was interesting. Just some interesting interpretations of what we were trying to teach at MLC that weren't quite spot on. That night was english, but only one person came. We watched a few mormon messages in english thanks to the senior couple that was there and called it a night.Saturday was a boring day for me, it was spent packing by my comp. We then got dogged again that night by a different investigator. We decided that we would go exploring. I had heard of this place where there was some Beatles artwork on a building a knew the general area, so we headed that way. We eventually found it, and it was better than I expected. We found a temple of Peace, Love, and Music in the name of John Lennon. That was interesting to see. We headed to Avtovo ward on sunday to check out the ward. President mostly just needed some help getting there. It was really fun to see the avtovo gang! I really liked serving there and things have just gotten better since I left. The Carters, the new/old office couple, invited us over for dinner so we went over there at 5. It was really really good! Oh man! I loved it. We just got to chat with them. We then went to meet this man from Gambia named Sainey. He's really nice and really muslim. We realized that trying to teach would be hard, so we made friends with him and his 3 roommates. They're all muslim and all the nicest people I've met here. That was pretty much the week.


Have a great week!
Love ya

Andrew