Hello all!!!! It has been a really good week down here in Gatchina! As you know by now, had transfers this past week.. My new companion is from Layton, Utah - Elder Read and he is so awesome!! Super nice guy. Just absolutely fantastic. He also hasn't officially said anything, but I think this is his last transfer..
But anyways, now to one of the best weeks of my mission so far! A week of miracles! As I mentioned last week, we have been in contact with some referrals from the sisters in Avtovo and they are wonderful. Last time we met with them was right after we returned from transfer meeting on Wednesday. We began our spiritual thought with a prayer and right afterwards, the mother said that there was a really good "aura" around and that she really liked it. That was so exciting to hear! Then after that the spiritual thought went really well. They were excited for us to come back again. We invited them to our branch's Easter activity this past Friday night and they came! I think they really enjoyed it. although we have this one member who is like half less active that neither Elder Read or I are very fond of. She just talks and talks and talks and never shuts up. (Sweet lady, but honestly I think she's a little crazy. She was baptized I think 3 years ago and the Elder who baptized her I think got transfered, because she seemed to think they were dating.. and she seems to always have a crush on the missionaries. Honestly I think she had one on Elder Eady too). But she came to the activity this week too and at the end when Оля и Юлия were leaving she started talking to them... telling them how they really need to get baptized and how much better things will be and blah blah blah. It was so awkward! Especially since we haven't even officially started the lessons with them. I had no I idea what to do. I tried to start talking and giving this woman the death glare so she would be quiet, but she kept interrupting me. So terrible - I was so angry. But we walked our two guests out and they still wanted us to come over and stuff so hopefully its all good.
Another miracle took place at that Easter activity. The night before we went over and met with Юрий Храмцов, who has recently come back into activity -(the whole family are members but not been active for years - when the kids were younger, Юрий would take them every week by himself, but then they got old enough and decided that wasn't cool and they got into other things and Юрий became inactive as well with occasional spurts of activity). We had a really good spiritual thought with him. And for the first time since I've been there, his wife also sat in on it. She just sat there and listened. I guess she never really liked the church at all and was "forced" into baptism a long time ago by the missionaries, but she is always very nice to us when we come over. At the end of the lesson Юрий took the initiative and introduced us to his youngest son (watching TV in a different room) and told us to invite him to the activity as well. Honestly I was shocked cause that is really out of the ordinary for him, but we did and he didn't seem to excited about it, but still, now he knows who we are. Then we are at the Branch at the beginning of the activity waiting for everyone to come and in walks Юрий AND Ирина, his wife! I was so surprised but excited! Turns out she is friends with one of the other less-actives (crazy lady mentioned above oddly enough) who was also there and they hadn't seen eachother for years and neither of them knew the other was going to be there (the way I understand it). I think she really enjoyed it. A huge blessing.
Now for the best part of the entire week that I am just so exctatic about I can hardly handle it. As we were greeting people coming into church yesterday, Юрий walks in as usual and after a second, guess who is behind him??... HIS WIFE!!!! I was just over the top so excited about this I could hardly contain myself all day! It was so awesome!! Not only that, but yesterday we had 17 people at church - more than we've had the whole time I've been here. Юрий and his wife also stayed for all 3 hours and it was so great to watch him - he just seemed to be on cloud 9 the whole time, just so happy. It was such a huge miracle. I guess it was the first time she had come to church in 16 years (since she was baptized). She seemed to enjoy herself there as well.
Now for some other random things. Saturday while we were out contacting, this group of people stopped us and asked if they could take a picture with us - kinda funny. We agreed and as we were standing there talking to them, some old guy comes up and tells these people that we are and american sect and that they shouldn't talk to us (a rather popular idea here). The guy who was talking to me mostly actually stood up for us and talked back to the guy, until he went away. Then we continued to talk until their bus came. He told me that he really enjoyed talking to me because I was very honest and direct about things and apparently some of my "brothers" (everyone who here who has comein contact with the missionaries calls them our "brothers". kinda amusing) that he's talked to in the past haven't been?.. I'm not really sure what he meant.
Then when we were at transfer meeting (which was made kinda awkward by president and sister Clark) apparently transfer meetings had never looked like they did this time. There were 2 rows of sisters and 2 rows of Elders and a whole row of senior couples. We had 8 sisters come in this transfer. The reason it was awkward was because both president and sister Clark got up and talked to us like we were kindergardeners about "locking our hearts" and giving them they key and we can have it back when we leave to go home. It was so ridiculous. I was a little disappointed that apparently that even needed to be talked about. They said we are going to have a lot more sisters coming is so you guys really have to be careful and stay focused on your work. They said it a little differently than that - in more of a way that almost made me feel awkward to be having this unofficial "talk" with sisters in the room. Anyways - I was just a little baffled by the whole situation. Apparently we have some missionaries here who don't acutally comprehend that the purpose of them being here is not to find a spouse. I don't know... It was weird. BUT next transfer (middle of May) we will be getting 14 new missionaries, 10 of them being sisters and then in the June transfer we will also be getting even more sisters, by that transfer giving us an equal number of sisters and elders in our mission! So cool!! Who would have thought that the day would come when there would be that many sisters who want to serve missions. Truly awesome!!
Well, thats about all for this week. Hope you all had a great week as well!
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But anyways, now to one of the best weeks of my mission so far! A week of miracles! As I mentioned last week, we have been in contact with some referrals from the sisters in Avtovo and they are wonderful. Last time we met with them was right after we returned from transfer meeting on Wednesday. We began our spiritual thought with a prayer and right afterwards, the mother said that there was a really good "aura" around and that she really liked it. That was so exciting to hear! Then after that the spiritual thought went really well. They were excited for us to come back again. We invited them to our branch's Easter activity this past Friday night and they came! I think they really enjoyed it. although we have this one member who is like half less active that neither Elder Read or I are very fond of. She just talks and talks and talks and never shuts up. (Sweet lady, but honestly I think she's a little crazy. She was baptized I think 3 years ago and the Elder who baptized her I think got transfered, because she seemed to think they were dating.. and she seems to always have a crush on the missionaries. Honestly I think she had one on Elder Eady too). But she came to the activity this week too and at the end when Оля и Юлия were leaving she started talking to them... telling them how they really need to get baptized and how much better things will be and blah blah blah. It was so awkward! Especially since we haven't even officially started the lessons with them. I had no I idea what to do. I tried to start talking and giving this woman the death glare so she would be quiet, but she kept interrupting me. So terrible - I was so angry. But we walked our two guests out and they still wanted us to come over and stuff so hopefully its all good.
Another miracle took place at that Easter activity. The night before we went over and met with Юрий Храмцов, who has recently come back into activity -(the whole family are members but not been active for years - when the kids were younger, Юрий would take them every week by himself, but then they got old enough and decided that wasn't cool and they got into other things and Юрий became inactive as well with occasional spurts of activity). We had a really good spiritual thought with him. And for the first time since I've been there, his wife also sat in on it. She just sat there and listened. I guess she never really liked the church at all and was "forced" into baptism a long time ago by the missionaries, but she is always very nice to us when we come over. At the end of the lesson Юрий took the initiative and introduced us to his youngest son (watching TV in a different room) and told us to invite him to the activity as well. Honestly I was shocked cause that is really out of the ordinary for him, but we did and he didn't seem to excited about it, but still, now he knows who we are. Then we are at the Branch at the beginning of the activity waiting for everyone to come and in walks Юрий AND Ирина, his wife! I was so surprised but excited! Turns out she is friends with one of the other less-actives (crazy lady mentioned above oddly enough) who was also there and they hadn't seen eachother for years and neither of them knew the other was going to be there (the way I understand it). I think she really enjoyed it. A huge blessing.
Now for the best part of the entire week that I am just so exctatic about I can hardly handle it. As we were greeting people coming into church yesterday, Юрий walks in as usual and after a second, guess who is behind him??... HIS WIFE!!!! I was just over the top so excited about this I could hardly contain myself all day! It was so awesome!! Not only that, but yesterday we had 17 people at church - more than we've had the whole time I've been here. Юрий and his wife also stayed for all 3 hours and it was so great to watch him - he just seemed to be on cloud 9 the whole time, just so happy. It was such a huge miracle. I guess it was the first time she had come to church in 16 years (since she was baptized). She seemed to enjoy herself there as well.
Now for some other random things. Saturday while we were out contacting, this group of people stopped us and asked if they could take a picture with us - kinda funny. We agreed and as we were standing there talking to them, some old guy comes up and tells these people that we are and american sect and that they shouldn't talk to us (a rather popular idea here). The guy who was talking to me mostly actually stood up for us and talked back to the guy, until he went away. Then we continued to talk until their bus came. He told me that he really enjoyed talking to me because I was very honest and direct about things and apparently some of my "brothers" (everyone who here who has comein contact with the missionaries calls them our "brothers". kinda amusing) that he's talked to in the past haven't been?.. I'm not really sure what he meant.
Then when we were at transfer meeting (which was made kinda awkward by president and sister Clark) apparently transfer meetings had never looked like they did this time. There were 2 rows of sisters and 2 rows of Elders and a whole row of senior couples. We had 8 sisters come in this transfer. The reason it was awkward was because both president and sister Clark got up and talked to us like we were kindergardeners about "locking our hearts" and giving them they key and we can have it back when we leave to go home. It was so ridiculous. I was a little disappointed that apparently that even needed to be talked about. They said we are going to have a lot more sisters coming is so you guys really have to be careful and stay focused on your work. They said it a little differently than that - in more of a way that almost made me feel awkward to be having this unofficial "talk" with sisters in the room. Anyways - I was just a little baffled by the whole situation. Apparently we have some missionaries here who don't acutally comprehend that the purpose of them being here is not to find a spouse. I don't know... It was weird. BUT next transfer (middle of May) we will be getting 14 new missionaries, 10 of them being sisters and then in the June transfer we will also be getting even more sisters, by that transfer giving us an equal number of sisters and elders in our mission! So cool!! Who would have thought that the day would come when there would be that many sisters who want to serve missions. Truly awesome!!
Well, thats about all for this week. Hope you all had a great week as well!
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| On Austin's walk to his apartment |
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