Hello! It was a good week. Here's your update: Tuesday had another skype district meeting, this one went better than the last one. We had a change in district leader and the new one really pushes us to do our best and checks up on us regularly. He taught a lesson about weaknesses and had us make a plan to overcome our weaknesses. It was a good, refreshing district meeting. After that we hit the streets and did some contacting. This week was pretty rainy so there weren't masses of people on the streets and in the parks like there are sometimes. My companion and I made a tasty soup (I mostly just contributed an onion and watched what he did, he likes to cook). We had a meeting with a less active that missionaries had lost contact with about six months ago, so it was good to see him again and talk to him. We're planning for a temple trip in the branch for the end of the year, and we're trying to get him to prepare for it. He has never been before. He doesn't come to church because he sleeps... so we'll obviously have to tackle that one before we move on to the temple. But he's a really fun guy and I like him. Wednesday was a branch day, but in a different way than usual... we went out with the new branch president and tried to locate less active members. He has the feeling that our branch won't grown until we know what's going on with the members that we already do have, so that's going to be our focus for a while here. We've already had some success, with a few people opening up and willing to meet. We really spent literally the whole day with him doing that. Thursday we had branch presidency meeting in the early afternoon, then after that we did some weekly planning. I'm really excited for what's going to happen here with our new branch president. I was honestly hesitant at first when president Childs wanted to call him, but it will be awesome! That night we stopped by another less active and found another one that's been off the map for at least 3 or 4 months. He's doing well but just like the other one is sleeping instead of church. Friday we had the dreaded branch audit. It took three hours to do, but it went pretty well. A few things that we'll have to fix, but it won't be too bad. My companion had to get some new pictures for his new visas, so that was the next thing we did. This weekend was a holiday weekend, Paratrooper day, and we recieved a command from up high in the mission (President Childs) to not be out after 6 on Friday-Sunday. So that's what we did next. Went home. I won't repeat that for all the days, but that was it for the evenings this week. We did some language study and moved some of our other day time activities to after that time. Saturday we cleaned the branch, had a lesson with an investigator who has depression. The lesson was not so good at the beginning, but by the end we had him smiling and kinda laughing so I think it was a success. It kinda went from a lesson to a chat about why he was depressed, and we finally got down to it. He quit drinking and without that his life is boring. He really likes to paint, so I showed a lot of interest in his paintings and he got happier. He said he's going to paint a lot this week, so I hope he's feeling better next time we can meet. Before we went home, we had a skype training with President Childs and the councilors in the mission presidency and the other branch presidencies in the mission. It went well, but we've got to get the technology working better. There was a miracle that day... so as we were walking to the branch, we ran into a less active (the one who got baptized right after I left the first time... the one person I've taught that has been baptized! That I know of) on the street. It was his birthday. I was praying for the chance to wish him a happy birthday and for the words I could say to him so that he could feel of our love for him and how we'd like him to return. I was planning on calling him, then I SAW HIM. He said "I'm free, where are you going right now?" And he got a cake, changed into some nice clothes, and came to the branch and ate it with us and the branch president! They have a good relationship! I will leave more happy just because I know he at least likes the branch president. He has a hard time with missionaries he doesn't know. Yesterday was good. We really just had church, did ward council (which was great), finances, then sent the money off to the church. Then it was time to come in.
It was a good week! This next week will be busy with splits and exchanges. We're going to Novgorod again for zone training on Friday.
It's really cool to see how things just fall in place when you do what you should be doing and you work hard. That's one of the biggest things I've seen here, is that the Lord takes care of us if we do what we should. It's often very hard to see how a bad situation or trial can turn us for good, but as we just work through it and have faith in Him everything turns out. I'm grateful for the many small miracles that I saw this week. Have a good week!
Elder Gwilliam
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