Elder Andrew Gwilliam: The hardest part of emailing is choosing a good subject line.

Hello! It was a fantastic week here in the concrete jungle of Pskov! Here's an update for you. Tuesday was an especially good day. We had a good district meeting over skype (which sometimes turns into us making up what the other people are saying when the connection is bad) and after that headed over to the branch building with the Carters to set up for the devotional that night. In Moscow there was a devotional with Elder Nelson, Elder Hallstrom of the Presidency of the 70, and Elder Porter, our Area President. They broadcast this meeting by sattelite to all the stakes and branches on the European side of the area. The Asian side got the devotional a few days earlier. The meeting was 2 hours long and there were some great talks. Sister Nelson talked about how to improve relationships and used Paul's epistles as examples. Almost all of them were written as a letter of correction, but he always starts and ends with kind, loving, encouraging words. That was a really interesting topic. Then Elder Nelson shared the 10 most important things that he has learned in his 90 years of life. He shared basic truths that he has learned as his top 10. It was a very good devotional and we had a great turnout. Wednesday the Elders from Novgorod came to do splits (they are now the district leader companionship for us) and we went out with the first councilor and hit some addresses of less-actives. I went with our District Leader, and my companion went with the others. That night we had our sports night of ping pong. It turns out that the Ukrainian kid that we met last week didn't leave and he's still going to be here for about a week. Thursday the Novgorod Elders left and we had some branch business to take care of. We had to look through some financial records and member records to make corrections because there will soon be an audit. We had a lesson set up with a less active who has been off the map for years, but she didn't show up. Friday was a fun day. We did some hunting for a less active and an investigator who has been MIA for about a week now. The less-active always answers and agrees to meet but never shows up. So we tried to call and just ask where he was, what he was doing, etc. and try to find him that way. It didn't work. That night we had another meeting set up with a less-active and he didn't show up. It was kinda strange because he called us to meet, and usually when they call us they're really wanting to meet. But I guess not. He hasn't answered since. Saturday we did a cleaning of the church. This was kinda a deep clean this time, we did more than we usually do. That night we had a lesson with a less-active! Hooray! He is just kinda a lazy guy and plays lots of computer games. Last time we met with him, we wanted him to read one chapter from the Book of Mormon before the next time that we came. We knew that we didn't, so we decided to use this lesson to help him fulfil that commitment. It was one of the coolest, best, most spirit filled lessons of my mission... and he didn't really respond. What made it so great was the fact that even though we hadn't planned a real lesson, we both walked in and felt like we needed to talk about the same thing. We didn't say this to each other, but as we read we just kinda stopped and started talking about the same thing. I would have an idea of a verse to share, and my companion would beat me to it. We both had felt like we needed to talk to him about keeping the commandments and the blessings that we recieve from them. It was a great lesson. We shared Mosiah 2:41 and testified about the importance and the blessings that come from obedience to the commandments. The Spirit was very strong. What made it even more sweet is that my companion and I have in 12 weeks gone from arguements and not much spirit to that. I'll talk about that in a sec. Sunday was great. We came to the building and the Carters gave us the news about Elder Perry. That was sad, and my companion (who had the lesson for the second hour) decided to watch and discuss his last general conference talk. It was a great day.

So the progress in my relationship with my companion came from following one simple rule that I made up: In ANY situation, be it an arguement, the silent treatment, good times, bad times, basically no matter what, SERVICE is always the answer. Always. To come to know the Lord, SERVICE (Mosiah 5:2). To recieve charity, SERVICE (and prayer). To show love, SERVICE. It's been a great journey and I have learned so much. It's so weird that with the hardest companions I learn the most and I dread the end of the time together. We'll get transfer calls this week and I feel that I'm leaving. But we'll see.

Have a great week!

Andrew