Elder Andrew Gwilliam: It was a good one!

Hello y'all! As always, it was a good week here and as always i'll get right to to it! Tuesday was great. We spent a lot of time in the ofice at the branch building cleaning the ward list and calling all the members. It wasn't very long because most of the numbers are really old and don't work anymore. So that's that. Administrative work in the church is is really tiring. I was so exhausted and all I really did was call some people and change some numbers in MLS that we found out were wrong or added new numbers. We had tennis that night, oh not tennis ping pong, and it was good. Not too many people came, only one member and one investigator. The investigator is reallyy good and my comp kinda isn't so he got really mad when this other guy played him at full force and tried to teach him what to do better. WEdnesday we went to the first councilor's house and made some lunch with him, talked about his mission, and talked about the ward. He and my companion had this idea to travel to Sst. Pete for the stake conference taht will be there in a few weeks, but after calling Presient childs that got shut down because it would cost too much money. . That kinda upset them and they started being kinda rude and so I just ended the conversation for them before they said something really awful. He lives about 20 minutes away on bus and after we met with him we went strait to a less active's house. HE's a really smart guy, he's just lazy. He plays video games and doesn't ever come to church. We were pretty firm with him. We askeed him some questions, he answered correctly and we found out that he knew what he needed to do, he just doesnt really want to do it. He's a tough one. Thursday the crazy part of the weeek started. We met with a new convert from St. Petersburg that my companion knows. He just came down here to see a few things and to help the missionaries. He's kinda a strange guy and when he goes contacting and tracting with the missionaries he does strange things. He commands people to open the door in the name of Heavenly Father. Things like that. Knowing this, I wasnt too thrilled about teh week. But it turned out ok. He actually stayed with one of our investigators out in the woods. So wee on Thrusday night took him there and had a lesson with them. Friday he decided to go to Pechory, so he was there all day without us. We had a branch presidnecy meeting at noon where we made some decisions abou tnew callings in the branch. Then we went and did some service for the babushka that we usually go to. Then we met with a less active woman and herdaughter. It was the less active's birthday! It was a really good meeting. The carters were with us and we got to know each other, had some laughs, then talked abou t the church. She's had a pretty tought life, her husband died not too long ago. She wants to take on all of her problems one at a time and all by herself, she won't accept any help. It's obvious that she needs it, but she won't accept. Saturday we spent most of the day on the dacha of wone of our members. WE did some digging, I assembled a greenhouse, some more digging then ended with digging. Sunday was great. We had dinner at the carters after church with the member from St. Petersburg and with the investigator who took him in. It was a really good chicken and potatoes meal, I like the sunday dinners. We then sent off the member to st. petersburg! THat was the week. I think I took something like 200 pictures this week. It was a good one.

Thank you for all your help on the scripture study ideas! This past weeek has been the best so far of my mission as far as studying the scriptures. As I was reading an old general conference talk, I thin from President Eyring, I had this sad feeling that I hadn't really written down many of my spiritual experiences before my mission. The first time I felt that the Book of Mormon was true, the first time I really prayed, things like that. I've now been writing in my journal for a year and a half and it's cool to go back and read those cool spiritual mission experiences. I would suggest taht you all write down your experiences somewhere, preferably in a journal! You'll remember those events more clearly and you'll be able to draw from that for years to come. Have a good week.

Andrew

p.s. forgive my spelling, this scomputer is real slow.