June, 17, 2013 Another week gone by

Holy cow its already email day again!  This week went by so fast!  Probably the fastest week yet, but probably only because there was one less day in between p-days and we went to the city every day except for yesterday...  crazy stuff.  Elder Abbott had a visa trip Wednesday so I was there in the city on a split for a little bit then we had a split with the zone leaders on Thursday and ended Friday.  Then Saturday we went up again to see another baptism!! We took our investigator Margarita with us as well!  That was pretty cool.

Yesterday President and Sister Clark came down to Gatchina to visit the branch there.  That was pretty awesome!  They helped Elder Abbott and I teach the Gospel Principles class.  Kinda entertaining.  Actually it couldn't have been weirder.  It was me and my companion with President and Sister Clark.  Our investigator.  A member who is pretty much apostosizing (spelling?) and a member who has some severe mental/psychological disabilities.  For example, during the lesson he totally seriously asked "who is Heavenly Father?" and then said he didn't know that we existed as spirits... this poor guy doesn't understand or remember anything... at all.  So that was litterally the most hilarious and stressful class I have ever attended.  Trying to make sure our crazy members weren't corrupting and spreading false doctrine to our investigator (honestly a tad bit crazy herself - but in a good way.  She's awesome.) on top of having to translate most of it for Sister Clark and then translate her answers to questions and input for our wonderful Russians.  That was insane, but so fun at the same time.  We met with Margarita again last night (per her request) and there doesn't seem to have been much damage done.  Phew.  President even called us while they were driving back to wherever they were going next to talk to us about what had happened and what we could do to fix it, I suppose, for lack of a better word. 

During the course of that phone conversation with him (I'm the one who talked to him the whole time), he hinted twice at the fact that I may be transferred sooner than later.  First of all by asking how I thought the branch would function if there were no Elders but only sisters.  This was after being nagged for a few minutes by one of the members wanting to know when we would be getting sisters in Gatchina.  He doesn't like the fact that the missionaries basically run the branch (especially since it's part of the stake).  We do everything for the sacrament every week and we also are the ones who count and put tithing and fast offerings into the computer and then take all the money to the post office and have it sent to Moscow every week.  He wasn't happy about that at all.  I think the branch would die (or at least have to shape up and start doing things right) without Elders to do everything for them.  President agrees which is why he seemed to express to me that he is toying with the idea of taking Elders out and putting only sisters in.  Probably not this transfer, but maybe sometime in the relatively near future (especially since our mission is going to be short on Elders for a transfer I think).

The other thing he said to me was that he thinks our investigator is a little too fond of me and he thinks he'll have to get me out of that.  I don't think it's me necessarily, but missionaries in general.  She calls us all the time and texts us and whatnot.  This morning she texted us just to wish all of god's blessings upon us today and forever... hmm.  I guess we'll find out what happens to me.  Transfer calls are on Saturday.  I actually really love Gatchina now.  I didn't always, but its really grown on me.

Funny thing happened this week.  Since we had been travelling so much this week and had been at meetings with people more often than normal this week, we haven't really had time to like actually go out contacting.  We got a chance to actually do that on Saturday night and I found that I actually kinda missed doing that.  It was pretty fun.  I never thought I'd miss contacting, but apparently I did a little bit.  In that, I learned a lesson.  I just love how God is always so wanting to bless us if we'll just do what he wants us to.  I had been contacting really poorly all week, just always being on the run to appointments and stuff (a first for us here in Gatchina) and I had been feeling bad about it.  So  I decided when we had this hour and a half left on Saturday night, that I was going to try and do the best I could to talk to everyone.  The first 2 people I tried to hold a conversation with, I was actually pretty successful.  It not as easy as you would think, but I know that the Lord saw that I was really trying to talk to people and the next 3 people I talked to were all people that stopped me (a very rare thing here).  I felt so blessed.  After talking with themI thought about it and realized that The Lord had seen me trying my best to stop and talk with people and was willing to help me out by having people stop me.  A really cool thing that just kinda hit me this week.  Another awesome thing like that happened yesterday, but I don't have time to write about it right now so find me in about 2 years when I'm home if you really want to hear about it haha.

Well, it was a pretty awesome week for me!  Hope you all had one too!!

я вас всех люблю!

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